The Next Phase

 

 

Marg helped me strip off all the paint with paint stripper. She quickly discovered that you don't wear shorts when doing this job. Get that stuff on bare skin and it stings like bull ants on steroids. This took many days and many litres of stripper. No mechanical helpers. I had to do all the sanding by hand. You might also get a glimpse of the colour. By this time I had sprayed the engine bay and fitted the engine back in after I swapped the cam for something a bit milder. I aslo fitted a weber carb like the first Daddo.

The rear only had a small crease which is just visible on the right above the number plate area. The second picture is the "T" bar and console out of a Datsun 200B that I picked up from the wreckers along with a pair of Bluebird bucket seats and rear seat.

The colour was chosen by Marg. I asked her to point to a car that she liked the colour of. She happened to pick a 1990 Pulsar coming the other way while we were out driving. I had to play the part of an interested buyer at a Nissan car yard so I could get a peek at the paint code. The salesman thought he was onto a sure sale. He kept hovering around telling me all the virtues of the Pulsar I was showing an interest in. Finally I popped the bonnet and got the code. I then made a bee line to the paint supplier where the colour was mixed for me. Oh yeah, for those that are wondering, its called Blue Light. I didn't have a lot of room in the garage to spray the body so I had to pick a good time of the day to spray it outside. This was in summer so the days got hot very early. Lucky I sprayed it in Acrylic and not in 2 Pack. 

The Bluebird bucket seats bolted right up to the 1600s runners. I tried to figure out how to get the Bluebird rear seats in but that would require major surgery and time was running out. This was February 1992. One month till the rego runs out on the Celica. So all I did was take the coverings off the swabs and wrapped them over the 1600s swabs. I then used zip ties and tied the covers to the seat frame. A bit baggy on the bottom swab but it only took me 30 minutes and most people didn't even notice.

The automatic box I used was rescued from the rear of a factory work shop that had been vacated. The original occupants had a business of converting Morris Minors into something with a bit more go. They had a  Datsun 1800 engine and auto gearbox ready to plonk into some Morris but just left it there. It looks like it may have been there for over a year. I took it home with the intention of swapping the  Borg Warner 35 out of the first Daddo but didn't get the time, Experts told me it would be useless cause the seals would have gone hard. I wasn't phased and just removed a couple of moths that had dropped into the torque converter at some time and put it in..

You may have worked out that I was on a tight budget and carpet was not high on my list of necessities in the boot. Still, it looked OK to me with this felt stuff.

You may have noticed that it now has rego plates. I got it registered the day the Celica ran out. 13th March 1992.

There is a still a bit of work to finish it off. Like wheel caps and a re padded dash. I also put retractable seat belts in the rear out of the same Bluebird the seats were lifted from. I wanted to drop it down a few inches but Marg wanted it like this.

All in all, I was pleased with the job. It took me 5 months working on weekends after my commitments with the boys sports and domestic duties. I did take 2 weeks leave from work in the last month. And how did I go with my budget. Well after selling of the parts from the donor car and cashing in its rego, the new Daddo cost me $800 with 12 months rego. That included the initial purchase price of both Daddos.

So Marg was happy again with a Daddo. She was the envy of all the young guys when she dropped the oldest son off at high school. They would ask our son if we wanted to sell it all the time. Marg would go shopping and come back to find notes on the windscreen asking do we want to sell it. Or course she refused.

 

 

So what happened to the Daddo? Well when our oldest son turned 17, we presented it as a present. We thought he knew what a special little car it was. Not only because I spent many hours building it up, but just a true Japanese classic that was desired by many. Well we were wrong. He treated it like transportation. In the 3 years he owned it, he smashed it twice ( both front enders ) and I rebuilt it again. He didn't lift the bonnet unless it stopped. Finally he boiled it and cracked the head. He also tore one strut out after hitting the gutter very hard. I had no more desire to work on it any more, The last thing I saw was the poor little Daddo being winched onto a trailer and taken away by a young guy that wanted a parts car. Strange how life goes in circles I guess. At least I still have the pictures and fond memories.

 

 

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