Hi NicoClub!

I'm new here, and I'm looking for some advice. I'm the proud owner of a 1984 Turbo, and I love it to death. Bought it a few years ago, and I've done my best to keep it in good mechanical condition. It's my Sunday fun car. It's up to 154k miles, of which I've put on 30k in the last 4 years. I've done timing belt, water pump, all new suspension components, new ECU, alternator, and a bunch of other miscellaneous things over the last couple years. Mechanically, it's a great car. Interior is even in great shape.

My problem is that the body is a victim of living it's entire life in the Midwest. Rust is in the wheel wells, throughout the under body, spare wheel area, and the floorboards. The car was a really good bondo job when I bought it for $2300. Someone put a lot of work into filling holes with foam and filler and coating the underside, and within a year of buying it bubbling was starting.

I recently removed the interior to do a deep clean on the carpets, and I found that the floorboards had been filled in with fiberglass mats and bondo too. It's obviously not safe in an accident, and the rust is too far progressed to fix.

Here's my plan: pull the engine, transmission, and diff, get all rebuilt and put them in a clean body. I'll throw the interior and suspension on my current car on the new body. Might have intake plenum bored out too.

First: is this a good plan? I have a friend with a full garage that I can use, and he's willing to help me with the installation of the engine and transmission. He also does aircraft painting professionally, so he'll repaint the donor body for free!

Second: I don't know where to begin with getting the drive train components on old Nissans rebuilt. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Third: Where are good places to find clean, rust free donor bodies? I haven't had a ton of luck finding them on Craigslist, though I'm willing to travel nationwide to find one because I get free travel through work.

Finally, any other improvements that I should make while engine is pulled out? I'm not looking to build a racecar, and I look to keep a stock look, but I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

I always say on these cars to buy the best chassis you can afford, it's generally cheaper to repair mechanicals than to dig into rust which on these chassis tends to get very involved. Might be able to find a deal on a flood car in texas given recent events, otherwise, southwest states, from Texas to CA. Might want to hold off and rebuilding any of your drivetrain bits until you locate another chassis, might find not need some, all or any of the work you have planned. If you do get into rebuilding the drivetrain, Your local sources that doe GM and Honda should be fully capable of dealing with your Nissan, nothing that special, obviously if you find one in your area specializing in Nissan's even better. You said midwest, that's a large area, there is or was a shop located in IL, can't recall their name.

The issue with these is that mother rust is always lurking. I am an original owner of a 84' and the car lived 99% of its life in a garage and after getting rear ended in 2000 my shop found that the spare tire area and much of the back was rusted. Thanksfully no major body panels or the floor boards. There are lots of them around but finding a rust free or lower rust example will be tougher to find. Web Search on Craigslist nad the such this is where they mostly show up. Getting stuff rebuilt should be simple.

Remember you need to find a Turbo or you will have to do more work on the install