Greetings from Australia

[Holdmybeerandwatchthis]

Hello All,
My name is Stuart, I live in Brisbane, Australia.
Ok, about myself, at the impressionable age of 15, the bloke down the road introduced me to Off Road Racing, Rallying and Datsun 1600s, known as 510s or Bluebirds in other parts of the World, this has set the tone for my life and the reason I wanted to be a Mechanic, to sponsor my way through racing.
I wanted a Career in the Automotive field but my TAFE (Pre-Employment Trade School) Teacher told my Parents that I should be an Electrician, so that was that, the end of my dreams, well not quite, the Trade has served me well and I have seen a fair bit of Australia and some other interesting parts of the World.
So Cars and Bikes became my Hobby, every cent I have earned has been invested on Tools and Equipment or wasted on Cars, Bikes, 4WDs and any other project that had wheels and/or a motor.
My beloved 1600's are nearly 50 years old and are becoming quite rare, you don't just look in the paper on Saturday morning, decide on 3 or 4 cars to look at and have one in good condition in the drive way by that Afternoon, all for a couple of hundred dollars.
Hence my reason for being here, to learn how to preserve the cars I have, there are some replacement panels out there but most need a fair amount of fettling to get a good fit and finish.
This site comes highly recommended by the good people at Garage Journal and I hope to learn heaps from the Crafts Men and Women from within this site.
I thank you for letting me join this site and apologise in advance for any silly questions I may ask :-)
Stuart.

[Peter Tommasini]

Hi Stuart welcome to the forum
Peter

[skintkarter]

Go the five one oh's Stuart. Good enough I think for Paul Newman to drive with BRE. I've owned several over the years. First of which was acquired when we bought our first home. The vendor turned out to be a car dealer and took a shine to our near new E21 BMW (this was 1982) and my wife went from a $28k BMW to a quite rotten $600 510 with two bits of rope holding the bonnet shut . Made new sills and a boot floor, second-hand guards from Japan and a respray back to it's original metallic green. Went down the road for $4k to a very happy owner. Also put a 510 engine into a Marina Ute (best bit of it). It bolted straight in and the gearlever even went through the same hole. Datsun rally mags ex Sheka Mheta's car bolted straight on too.

Some great people on this forum, very skilled and giving. I'm neither...

[Oldnek]

Hi Stuart and Welcome.
Those little 1600's were a good car, and with mods can become a great little car, fun for the circuit and the bush. Depending on which way you choose to build it. I had one for a club car and threw a 13B Rotary, fun car to drive.

Cheers John