New 720 owner checking in.

[aarivers]

Hey guys/gals just wanted say hello and show off my new purchase. I've always wanted one of these trucks ever since I had a Stomper 4x4 version as a kid and today I got the truck home. It's definitely going to need some work, but I'll get it sorted out. I didn't want to get it on the interstate yet coming home so I just took back roads never getting above 55. It's got a nice vibration at around 40mph then faded away once I got to 50. It also has a pretty decent wallow in the front end, you can turn the wheel, wait.. then the truck turns, any mid corner adjustments or bumps send the front end wallowing around, so it' probably needs ball joints and assorted other suspension bushings and joints.

 

The body is in very good shape for it's age, no rust around the wheel arches like I was expecting, there is some rust up near the floorpan/firewall area, but that's why I have a welder. It will need new taillights, corner lights, couple of dents removed and a tailgate if I can find one.

 

On to the pictures.

 

 

 

Some body damage here along with needing new corner lenses.

 

 

Drivers seat is pretty worn out, I'm going to try and find some seats from a late model Frontier to replace these with

 

Need to get a new rear window clasp

 

I have no clue whats going on here. This whole exhaust has gotta come out as it's leaking like a sieve and who uses RTV as an exhaust gasket :confused:

 

Leaky steering gear, not sure how I'll proceed here, maybe a rebuilt unit or might try new seals.

 

Truck is dirty all over, definitely saw a lot of offroad or at least muddy roads

 

Outer CV boots are no where to be seen. I'm not hearing popping from them though so they may be salvageable with new boots and grease, we will see if the balls are scored or nicked.

 

Minor oil leak around the pan. That's going to a PIA to fix I'm guessing. Oh well.

[bilzbobaggins]

Love the black and silver interior...looks good in all 720's...Have fun with that. Im working on my 4x4s brakes and trans in the morn. Then, next weekend is cabin time. Have fun and good luck.

 

Jeff

[max2004]

VERY nice truck. Front end looks quite high. I'm thinking there must have been

a "HighBoy" option or version for these trucks as I have seen this before.

The camber looks true vertical. Be nice to get a better look at the front

suspension bottom a-frames. Yup, that's a good height.

Should be a nice project, congrats.

[datzenmike]

I would degrease the front end and power wash it, let dry and watch to see where the oil leak is. Could be the valve cover even. Nice 720.

 

Clock and tach option ... http://community.rat...clock-and-tach/

 

39741-50W25 Nissan outer boot replacement kit, ain't cheap at $50 a side.

[wayno]

Welcome to Ratsun

[izzo]

wow. 1800 is a bit steep, guess it depends on where you are located.. I sold one a lot cleaner for 1250... Cool truck tho!

[aarivers]

wow. 1800 is a bit steep, guess it depends on where you are located.. I sold one a lot cleaner for 1250... Cool truck tho!

 

Yeah I'm in the Nashville area in TN and anything that is 4x4 is always over priced. In the add he wanted $2250 for it, no way it was worth that so I talked him down to the 18. I'm going to shoot Raxles an email and see how much and if they can build some front axles for the truck. As far as ride height, it sits level, the front is not higher than the back and sits like all the other 4x4 720's I've seen up close.

 

Thanks for the comments

 

 

 

[aarivers]

Update on the project:

 

Got the truck back on the road this weekend. Parts replaced so far include. Upper/Lower Ball Joints, and Inner/Outer Tie Rods & adjusters. I had the front axles rebuilt at a local place, $85 an axle, kinda steep I thought but he's supposed to do good work and at least I stay with the Nissan OEM parts instead of some cheap Chinese axles. I also cleaned and repacked the front bearings since I had it all apart and that old grease was looking a little thin. I replaced the rear tail light housings with aftermarket units, they definitely look better than the old broken ones. lol

 

Now that I have it in a driveable state I get to find all the other faults. The truck does not like the cold for sure, I've never been a big fan of carburetors and this auto choke is kinda flaky stuff, the truck wants to stall out unless I slip the clutch a lot and run the motor above 2k rpms till it gets warm. Still likes to spit and sputter under 2k even once it is. I haven't had a chance to check the plugs or rotor yet so I imagine all the ignition stuff is wore out. I eventually would love to replace the motor with a KA24de down the road. I loved that motor in my 240SX.

 

Good thing is, now that it is driveable I can drive it down to the junk yard and get some new seats, a tailgate and any other parts that I need a truck to be able to get. I'll post pics once a snap a few of the new parts on the truck.

 

Also needed some assistance, if anyone knows whether other model Nissan torsion bars will fit my truck, the left one apparently broke or something and has been welded back together and boxed around the weld, so I really don't feel comfortable with it like this and 720 torsion bars that aren't worn out are hard to come by.

[Skulptr]

reason your not hearing clicking from those cv's, you have auto free hubs, if theyre disengaged, they wont spin, saving you gas, and no clicking.

 

 

the suspension to this one is not the same as the hardbody, i wish it was, parts are cheaper. you can find torsion bars at 4x4parts.com

 

 

seats that will fit without any modification, 97+ rodeo seats. we have a thread a little ways down the list here that has pictures i posted of them

 

 

you might consider getting a weber carb to replace that old worn out hitachi, youd be surpised the difference it will make in the z24. also check the fitting where the brake booster gets its vacuum on the intake manifold. mine ran like crap when i first got it, and all it was was that hose was loose.

 

 

there is an adjustment nut in the top of the steering gear housing, will take up some of that slack your getting. dont take too much though or it can cause problems.

 

 

if you want to put a clock in your guage cluster, its plug n play, i can see your tach so your already set there.

 

 

the vibration, check the bolts and nuts in the axle, at the transfer case AND at the differential. mine was missing one and would vibrate once i hit 45-50. really easy fix

 

 

over all great looking rig. welcome.

[Lockleaf]

Very nice looking truck. I am jealous of the flares on your truck. I seriously want a set of those. You do have a pretty good time ahead of you if you do have to change the oil pan gasket. The oil pan is nearly perfectly molded around the front diff. I'm not sure that there is any other option beyond pulling the engine at least part of the way up, perhaps all the way out. Datzenmike is right though. Power wash the whole thing and watch for the leak to start again.

 

Have fun with it. 720's are my favorite trucks. I love mine.

[ggzilla]

$85 per axle is not a bad price.

 

Don't bother to replace the cap & rotor. They don't wear out, so only replace them if they are damaged. Instead, look at the plugs. Usually you can re-gap them to spec and it will run perfect. If they are severely worn, heat-blisted or oil-fouled, then replace them. If you do buy new plugs, gap them before you put them in. Don't trust them to be gapped to the 720 spec.

 

Then adjust the choke so that it closes 100% when the engine is cold. It will start right up and idle perfectly.

[aarivers]

reason your not hearing clicking from those cv's, you have auto free hubs, if theyre disengaged, they wont spin, saving you gas, and no clicking.

 

 

Yeah I thought about that after I took them off. I was thinking how they could be in such good shape with the boots gone and then it clicked that they wouldn't be rotating under regular 2wd mode.

 

the suspension to this one is not the same as the hardbody, i wish it was, parts are cheaper. you can find torsion bars at 4x4parts.com

 

Thanks I'll check them out and that's what I was afraid of. Such is the price of having the nicer looking body style. :D

 

seats that will fit without any modification, 97+ rodeo seats. we have a thread a little ways down the list here that has pictures i posted of them

 

Yeah I saw that post and it made me want to go right out and grab a set, hopefully I can find a set that's in decent shape for cheap.

 

you might consider getting a weber carb to replace that old worn out hitachi, youd be surpised the difference it will make in the z24. also check the fitting where the brake booster gets its vacuum on the intake manifold. mine ran like crap when i first got it, and all it was was that hose was loose.

 

I had thought about doing the Weber swap and was also thinking of just replacing all the vacuum hoses under the hood, 20+ years and 250k miles, it could probably use a few new ones all over the place.

 

there is an adjustment nut in the top of the steering gear housing, will take up some of that slack your getting. dont take too much though or it can cause problems.

 

I'll have to check that out, these new suspension parts took a fair amount of the slop out, it still wallows in the corners but that's due more to dampening than steering. I really would like to get some Bilsteins under it but they only make them for the rear, I'm wondering if Pathfinder dampers might work for the fronts.

 

if you want to put a clock in your guage cluster, its plug n play, i can see your tach so your already set there.

 

The radio in the truck has a clock in it so I'll probably reserve that space for another gauge later.

 

the vibration, check the bolts and nuts in the axle, at the transfer case AND at the differential. mine was missing one and would vibrate once i hit 45-50. really easy fix

 

I'll be sure to check them all over next time I pull the truck into the garage.

 

over all great looking rig. welcome.

 

THANKS!

 

 

 

[aarivers]

Very nice looking truck. I am jealous of the flares on your truck. I seriously want a set of those. You do have a pretty good time ahead of you if you do have to change the oil pan gasket. The oil pan is nearly perfectly molded around the front diff. I'm not sure that there is any other option beyond pulling the engine at least part of the way up, perhaps all the way out. Datzenmike is right though. Power wash the whole thing and watch for the leak to start again.

 

Have fun with it. 720's are my favorite trucks. I love mine.

 

I was thinking I would just have to drop the front pumpkin and the steering components to get it at. If I have to remove the engine then it's not going back in, lol. Something in the KA range would be going in it's place, I loves me some fuel injection.

 

Yeah those flairs always got me as a kid and I still love em. Needs some bigger shoes to fill them out properly though.

 

I also forgot to mention that I also removed the headlight switch and cleaned all the old gunky grease and rebuilt it so now I can actually have all the lights working on the truck instead of just the high beams. I went ahead and found some screws to replace all the the missing screws in the column cover when I put it back together. While I had it apart I also had to grind the bolt that locks the column in place as it was slipping and wouldn't allow the adjuster to fully tighten down on the column to keep it in the right position for me.

 

it's always the little things. lol

 

 

 

[elfirebeasto]

I really like the truck in black. I was considering doing mine in satin black with a red pin-stripe. Overall I love it. Do good work and show it off. I think I'm going to watch what you are doing because I was thinkin about doing a lot of what you are planning.

[Skulptr]

How did you get the head light switch apart? When I turn one of my donald on they tweak and all of my headlights come on really dim and crap. Somethings shorting and id love to find it

 

 

Nothing pathfinder will fit. I used to have one right before the 720. You can get a steering dampner at schucks for ten bucks, better than the old worn out one

[aarivers]

How did you get the head light switch apart? When I turn one of my donald on they tweak and all of my headlights come on really dim and crap. Somethings shorting and id love to find it

 

 

You'll need to pull the steering wheel to get the switch off. Once off you can remove the plastic cover over the contacts and remove the stalk assembly to clean all the old dried gunky grease out and regrease. Also clean the contact pads with some Scotchbrite to make sure they are not corroded. Here's a large picture to show what it will look like. Picture The contacts to clean are on the right side. I also ended up having to bend some of the contacts to give them more resistance force to push the contacts back better especially for the highbeams. There is also a plastic follower that "clicks" at each point of the light switch setting, I put a spacer behind the spring in it to make the switch have more resistance to turning on to make sure it stayed in the position I wanted it in.

 

 

 

[aarivers]

Alright so the 720 got some lovin' this week. I ordered a carb kit from Rockauto and decided to tear into the rebuild, I followed the directions on the NICO forums and it was actually a lot less painful than I thought it would be. Took about 6 hours from start to finish, I took my time as I have never rebuilt one before (loves me some fuel injection) While I had the carb off I went ahead and took the valve cover off and adjusted the valves. I went with the cold adjustment of .010 inch. most where fine but I had a couple that where actually too tight and some that were loose as expected. Got the carb back on and and it started right up, no more racing idle or sputtering on throttle, this little baby can run now!

 

While I had the truck in the garage I figured I might was well take the time to get rid of those unsightly rust holes in the cab floor.

 

Started by removing the seats and front carpet to get a better look at what I had to deal with.

 

 

As you can see the drivers side has the worst of it. There was a nice hole and even the cab mount was eaten through with rust, I had to think about what I was going to do to get it back together.

 

 

Passenger side was not too bad. At least the cab mount area is intact.

 

 

Getting the rust carved out to make way for the patch panels.

 

 

[aarivers]

Next up was getting the panels in place and getting them burned in. Thankfully the Nissan sheet metal is a little thicker than GM's and was easier to weld. I know it's not pretty but I'm using a flux core gasless welder. As you can see here I decided to use some 1/4 thick steel to reinforce and rebuild the cab mounts. They aren't going to be rusting through any time soon.

 

 

 

The passenger side was much easier, not a lot of curves to bend.

 

 

Now that it's all welded up I shot some etching primer and flat block over them to seal them up. After I got that done I figured it would be a good time to give it

a good cleaning since I haven't done that after buying it. As you can see the carpets where a mess. The front had dirt all in the jute padding from being exposed where the holes where.

 

 

 

 

 

While I was in the back vacuuming, i saw I really needed to get that old purple tint of the back glass, so I grabbed a blade from my carpet knife and a pair of vise grips to make probably one of the the most dangerous tools in my tool box. lol. Be extremely careful when using something like this!

 

 

 

After I got done with the rear window I moved on to fixing one of the rear seats that was rattling when it was in the up position. There's nothing worse than an annoying rattle in a vehicle. So after looking at the problem i could see that the spring holding the metal stand up was just worn out from use and wasn't holding tension when at rest. So I drilled some extra holes up higher on the brace to put more tension on the spring. Hopefully it will last another 20 something years before I have to move it again.

 

 

 

I added the missing seatbelt retainer back to keep that from flapping around in the back.

 

 

Ahh this is looking better by the minute! Rear carpets all cleaned up.

 

 

Front carpet is in and cleaned up.

 

 

[aarivers]

Center console all cleaned up and the shift boot clipped back into it. There was about 5 dollars in change under this thing when I took this thing out, time to get some Taco Bell! I still need to get a leather strip to tie up the top of the boot.

 

 

Last to go in where MY NEW SEATS!!! WOOO. Pulled these out of an Isuzu Rodeo, I wish they had been a from a 2 door instead of a 4 door as the slide mechanism doesn't get tripped when you flip the seat forward. I'll have to see if I can make them do this at some point. These seats where incredibly dirty when i got them. so I stripped them down to the bare frame and threw the covers into the washing machine, I had to buy some hog rings and pliers to get the covers back on but it was worth it, they look so much better.

 

 

 

 

 

So I still need to get some new speakers to replace the blown passenger side, and I also need to figure out what to do about these crappy cardboard kick panels, the passenger side panel is in real bad shape. I need to get some goo-gone to get that glue residue off the dash from the funky carpet dash cover that was velcro-ed on.

[aarivers]

Next steps are to take the doors apart and get all the rattles out of them, those lock rods and handle rods are making quite a racket. The windows are rattling against the stops also, so they will need to be adjusted. I need to find some window sweeps to replace the old dry rotted ones. An alignment is in order to since I replaced all those front end parts the steering wheel is way off center and it pulls to the right. Finally I'll wash teh outside and get after the old paint with my buffer an some polish. then wax it up.

[elfirebeasto]

That truck is looking pretty good. Puts mine to shame!

[aarivers]

That truck is looking pretty good. Puts mine to shame!

 

Thanks man, it's starting to come together. I fixed the dome light today, the switches plastic rivet had broken, so I drilled it out and put some small screws in it to get it to stay in place, replaced the bulb and cleaned the door strikers and I now have a nice working dome light, even the timer works on it. I also washed it, then broke out my rotary buffer and hit this old black paint with some Meguiars 105 cutting compound on a red foam pad, then followed that up with some 205 polish and a black foam pad, washed it once more to get the excess compound off and waxed her up. It's amazing how much it shines,

 

I took it for a drive and I have to say it's a whole different truck now. It idles nice and has nice power without sputtering like it used to. Fixing that cab mount helped with the shake I was getting at 40-45mph it's almost non-existent now. I picked up a window crank remover so i can get those door panels off and get those annoying windows and lock rods to stop rattling.

 

I'll get some nice shots of her when the sun gets lower either today or tomorrow (black doesn't photograph well in lots of sunlight).

[OneFreakyMF]

Very nice rig and those seats look great!! If ya haven't done so already, them corner marker lights up front are on eBay for less than $20 shipped to your place. I ordered up a set for mine a few weeks ago. They come out of Mexico and the craftsmanship isn't the greatest, but they are better than what I had. Which was a completely busted drivers side and the passenger side was being held in by one screw.

[aarivers]

Alright I managed to get some shots of the truck before the rains came today.

 

Here's a before shot to show just how bad the paint had become. There was no shine to it at all.

 

 

And here's the after shots.

 

 

 

 

 

[poor-mans-720]

is It bad, that I saved one of the photos for the background of my phone??? :)