nismo24096 Posted October 8, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 8, 2013 Thanks guys. shes a work in progress for sure..I have some new plans for it since I got the new wheels...next is to start the body work and get all the little dings out of the bed and fix some small rust holes. then primer it...And a quick question..who has ordered a redline weber carb before...it seems you have to call them to place an order..as I didnt see anywhere to order directly online, am i missing something or is that right. Thanks Lee Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted October 12, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 12, 2013 ok so after a lot of debate I think I have found the direction I want to take my little truck...so here it is I will keep you all posted as I start this transition... Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted October 15, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2013 Thinking I might do it up for my work and deliver doughnuts with it..lol 1 Quote Link to comment
Jose720 Posted October 16, 2013 Report Share Posted October 16, 2013 damn, I dig those wheels keep it up Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted October 16, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 16, 2013 Ok so the real fun begins...off with the bed to see how bad things look underneath the beast...actually looks ok. the worst of the rust is on the cab side of the bed. and the rear light buckets. there are a few dime sized rust holes in the rear bottom of the cab also but should be an easy patch.. one with the pics.. Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted October 16, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 16, 2013 one can of satin black later..lol just to see what it would look like.. if nothing else its a guide coat for when i start sanding..lol Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted October 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2013 ok well i got a little more work done to the truck today, mostly just sanding off the primer and trying to see what its gonna take to fix the not so great bondo work done to the passanger side . as you can see the hood is not from this original truck as it is red. same for the tailgate. but otherwise the truck is really straight. hood does kinda look cool like this though..lol Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted October 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 Finally broke down and ordered my redline weber 32/36 DGEV carb... so now I might be able to get this thing running proper...lol 1 Quote Link to comment
DaveZilla Posted October 22, 2013 Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 Nice truck and you got some really cool ideas where you want to go with it... I hope things work out for you and you'll love these trucks once you start messing around with them. Mine is an 86 4x4 so I went with a 3" body lift and 32" tires on 16x7" rims. The rims are the same bolt pattern as the Chevy 6 lug truck rims so you have a really good selection out there. i really liked those Hurricane rims you posted, but you did the right thing giving them back since 1 was slightly different, but the other rims you posted will look great as well since these were very popular for the age of the truck. I'm not a big fan of the Hitachi carbs either and went with a Holley 2300 series carb that was meant for a '72 Ford Pinto, it's the same carb as the Weber 32/36 DFAV, which is a perfect mirror image of the 32/36 DGEV so I had to make my own linkage, but once it was jetted properly it starts without the choke with ease and no need to pump the accelerator and it idles dead smooth all the way down to about 450 rpm, of course, I don't set my idle that low, but wanted to see if it would after I tuned it properly. I'd strongly recommend the 32/36 Weber or the Holley copycay versions of this carb since they're easy to tune and they perform really good. being that you have a 2 wheel drive that weighs a lot less than mine you could run the 38/38 Weber for even more power and about the same milage as the stock Hitachi, the 32/36 will give a little more power over the Hitachi, but it'll also give you a few miles per gallon better milage. I prefer the smaller 32/36 carb for the 4x4 simply because it has better bottom end torque with the progressive than with the larger synchronous 38/38 carb, if mine was a 2wd, I'd definitely be using the 38/38. The Hitachi I had in mine before I did the swap did work quite well once I rebuilt it, I just preferred to go with the Holley Weber copycat because I got it for next to nothing... brand new rebuilt for $20 on ebay... then another $20 for the right jets and I also had to buy the Weber adapter plate, so basically I had it running right for under $100. Here's a pic of the Holley/Weber installed... you can hardly see it's different... other than it looks like it's on backward... Another thing that's cool about these is that a lot of the other Nissan stuff will bolt right on in most cases, I took the seats out of my '90 300zx and they bolted right in... I've replaced the dash since this was taken and had to fix some leaks before ordering a carpet, but that's next for mine... This is mine shortly after I got it driveable... this one was parked in a field on a ranch for about 10 years so it only had 90k miles on it when I picked it up, I've done a few improvements since then... but still hadn't had time to paint it... Not trying to hijack your post, but just showing the carb and the seats... I'm also new to the forum, but not to Nissan/Datsuns... But yeah, I like the ideas you got for yours and you definitely got a good one to start out with. Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted October 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 22, 2013 Hey DaveZilla thanks for posting in my thread. I was beginning to think no one cared about my little build thread. I love those 300zx seats, was looking for some manual ones myself that were in good shape. hard to find...I got the rodeo seats in mine..question do the 300zx seats sit lower..cause the rodeo ones sit a tad high for my liking but they are a ton better than the stock ones that were in the truck when I got it. I am still looking for z seats to swap out one day... as far as the weber. i went with the 32/36 for overall driveablity ...this aint no hot rod so Im not expecting it to be lightning fast...lol once i get mine in I plan on reducing all the vac lines to a bare min...to both clean up the bay.... I might have to get with you on what needs to stay and what can go.. Quote Link to comment
DaveZilla Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 For the 300zx seats, they sit just a tad higher than the truck seat did but you can adjust the height on the driver's seat both at the front of the seat and the back so you can raise, lower, or tilt it forward or rearward to fit your needs, in the pic I have the back of the seat as low as it'll adjust and the front set just a little high. They bolted right on but I noticed the sliders were a bit sticking so I opened up the bolt hole just a little bigger with a die grinder so the seats wouldn't bind on the track. The electric power seats also have the same controls on them but with a set of buttons instead of the knobs on the side of the seat. What I like about the 300zx seats most is that they're very comfortable and give really good side to side support to keep you in one place when driving hard, not that I'd drive a 4x4 the same way I do the 300zx... but you can control how wide the side supports are, the botom supports are also adjustable as well as the height front and back independantly, they also recline all the way back and fold forward by releasing a small latch on the side, and the passenger seat has another control to slide it all the way forward which would be useful in a king cab. Other seats to consider would be the 240sx seats since they're alsothe same size as the 300zx, then the Altima/Maxima seats also bolt right in but they sit a little higher, i had a set of '92 Stanza seats in my 280zx and they were too high so I had to cut sections out of the mount bracket and weld the brackets back together at a much lower height, they were like 2" higher than the stock 280zx seats. The 2nd generation RX7 seats are also really nice but they take some fab work on the brackets to fit Nissans, I had a set of RX7 seats in my '75 Blazer and I had to weld the seat sliders to the blazer brackets to make them work, but I really liked the way those seats looked and they were very comfortable with support in all the right places for hard driving. also the 79 thru 83 280zx seats are nice but not as nice as the 300zx seats, they should bolt right in as well and they sit really low too. OF course, if you have access to a welder and some cutting tools, you can make just about any small sports car seat work... For the vacuum line cleanup, I removed everything from mine except for the distributor advance, pcv valve, and power brakes, and I bought a set of those stainless steel pipe plugs to remove all the un needed vacuum nipples from the manifold and plug the manifold holes up for a better cleaner appearance. Use the vacuum advance port on the Weber carb instead of taking it straight off the manifold for proper distributer advance. Also if you have a wideband to check your air fuel ratio, the engine likes it best right at 14.7:1 for idle and cruise, then around 12:1 for wide open throttle. The factory Weber jetting tends to run these engines really really lean, mainly to remain emissions compliant. I set mine with their recommended jetting for the Z24 engine and the idle AFR was almost 17:1 and the cruise was way lean like around 16.5:1 and only coming close to 14:1 at full throttle, it'll run at those ratios, but it's probably as lean as they can get away with before detonation starts, and there's no real gas milage advantage to running that lean since the engine has to work harder to maintain it's speed, not to mention the idle quality wasn't really that great either. You can also set up the idle mix with a vacuum gauge and set it to the highest vacuum reading and get excellent results if you don't have a wideband or want to spend the money on one. Setting the mains to the highest vacuum reading at a steady cruise speed will also help cruising performance too, and your gas milage may be even better than running it lean as well as your engine running cooler too. The 32/36 is an excellent carb and it does give you a lot of tunability, you can make your engine run just as well as (if not better than) EFI with one of these carbs set up right. If you need any help or advice on jetting etc to get yours to run dead smooth, just let me know and I'll find where I wrote down what jets I got in mine for idle, mains, and high speed air bleeds... I ended up changing all of them out to get mine to run so well. I got it all written down somewhere but not right here in front of me tho.. Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted October 25, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 Thanks man, sounds like you got it all figured out with the carbs. I know very little when it comes to carbs. since I have always had fuel injected cars like the 240sx and supras etc. actually come to think about it this is only the second car i have owned that had a carb. the last was a 4 bbl z28 that I had for a month..lol so yeah I might be asking you some questions about the carbs. Quote Link to comment
DaveZilla Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 I am pretty fluent on Weber and Holley carbs as well as Harley carbs so if you got questions I can help, I also have all the weber tuning guides etc for the 32/36 and the 38/38 and I can email them upon request... unless there's a way to upload attachments to the posts, they're all PDF files. 1 Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted October 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 30, 2013 small update....Shes running again..got the weber 32/36 installed and halfway tuned..I will fiddle with it more later but I have a smooth idle at 980 rpm with no breakup or shake..so Im happy, And just for shits and giggles..I can tell ya that she will burn through first and second gear in all her peg legged glory...lol now back to focusing on cleaning up the engine bay and doing the body work..I will post some pics later on. Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted October 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 30, 2013 The pic. I started to sand down the mounts on the valve cover also. soon I will take it off and prep it for paint. but for now just glad to have it running. going to sort out some more stuff under the hood and then I will worry about tearing it down and making it pretty.. Quote Link to comment
DaveZilla Posted October 31, 2013 Report Share Posted October 31, 2013 Looks good with that Weber sitting on there, you'll like that carb a lot better once you get it fine tuned, but they do come out of the box pretty close to where they need to be. You also got lucky with the cast aluminum valve cover instead of the stamped steel one, that one can be polished to look great or you can have it powder coated, or even a wrinkle finish paint job really looks cool on these too. Masking off the firewall and adding a coat or 2 of paint really helps the engine bay out as well as cleaning and repainting the accessories. I got the stamped steel valve cover on mine so I took it off and put another coat of black Rustoleum paint, then while I had the carb off I cleaned the intake manifold and shot on a coat of metallic silver rustoleum which made a huge difference in how clean things looked under the hood. Then after everything is repainted, you can just spray on some of that itre shine stuff to brighten up all the plastic and rubber parts under the hood after you get everything as clean as possible. Here's my before and after pics... Before... After.... 1 Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted October 31, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2013 YEAH thats the plan, bought a gasket kit today to be able to put the valve cover back on after im done. I need to remove everything off the back wall and clean what ever it is thats on that thing..its not paint its something else all over it.. then I can paint everything..most likely do the bay in a satin black..to hide everything....but main focus at this point is to get it running solid. Quote Link to comment
DaveZilla Posted October 31, 2013 Report Share Posted October 31, 2013 Same as mine... the firewall looked all rusted etc, but it was all on top of the original paint and a few passes with a pressure washer took it right off. The Rustoleum metallic silver is a close match to the original silver on these trucks if you do need to do a touch up. The reason it matches so well is because it has very little pigment in it and gets most it's color from the fine flakes so the original paint can poke thru if you use one coat and then blend it towards the area that needs to be touched up. It's not a perfect match, but if you blend it from the original silver and add more coats just where the touch up needs to be done it can be blended out smooth enough to take the attention away from the slight mismatch. I've done this to the top part of the inner fenders where the water has dripped off from the hood for the last 25 years, and on the vent cowl panel and it's very hard to tell it's not the same silver as the rest of the truck. When I do finally paint the truck I'll leave the under hood stuff silver, but something keeps telling me to paint this thing a bright lime green with a hint of gold pearl on top of the green, then go with black racing stripes and get rid of any and all chrome on the exterior. The interior will be dark gray. I've also put a few coats of black rustoleum on the frame at every place where it can be seen which really made a difference... a lot more of a difference than I expected. Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted October 31, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2013 yeah before my bed goes back on..I will wire wheel and paint all the frame and axle..and all the suspension parts back there. and I agree its the little details that make the difference with any vehicle. I cant wait to tackle the inside of this thing. I have about 2 grand stereo that I have had in my closet for damn near 5 years now...just waiting for something to put it in...this truck will be that something...lol Quote Link to comment
DaveZilla Posted November 1, 2013 Report Share Posted November 1, 2013 Sounds like you're definitely on the right track about getting yours running solid etc and restoring it before you put it on the road... i got mine and began driving it to work but I've been buying a lot of goodies for it and got a pile of parts in the garage just waiting for me to have the time to take the truck apart. Right now I need to replace the clutch on it so I got an aluminum flywheel and a stage 4 disk and pressure plate setup for a 280zx that I'm going to put in there, that way I won't have to go back in there for a really long time... but the reason I'm going with such a beefy setup there is beacuse I'm getting ready to do the turbo upgrade and I know from past experience that a stock clutch won't last very long, I think my 280zx I had back in the early 90's made it less than 100 miles before I was replacing the clutch after I turbo'd it... and I was only running about 8 psi boost when it started slipping on me in the higher gears. The truck I plan on keeping the boost around 5 to 7 psi, mainly to keep from breaking drivetrain parts, but just enough to make it fun and able to get thru traffic better etc. My interior is also close to being done just lacking a carpet and I need to redo the door panels, I got a console for it off ebay and used vinyl paint to paint all my interior plastics charcoal gray, but I'm leaving the new dash cap black. Right now I have the opportunity to do a lot of the stuff I couldn't do while I was driving it because I put myself on graveyard shift at work so I only have to work 6 hours for the same pay, and I can drive the wife's car since I can get it home before she has to leave in the morning so hopefully I'll make a new post soon with new pictures... Quote Link to comment
Demian720 Posted November 6, 2013 Report Share Posted November 6, 2013 ok so after a lot of debate I think I have found the direction I want to take my little truck...so here it is I will keep you all posted as I start this transition... Ok that looks like a BMW bumper, is that what u used for this man? Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted November 6, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2013 Yep thats the plan...from what i can tell the older bmw e30 aftermarket one piece fiberglass bumpers you find on ebay should fit.i plan to build a framework out of metal to mount it to. I think the style works nicely with the truck. Quote Link to comment
Demian720 Posted November 8, 2013 Report Share Posted November 8, 2013 Yep thats the plan...from what i can tell the older bmw e30 aftermarket one piece fiberglass bumpers you find on ebay should fit.i plan to build a framework out of metal to mount it to. I think the style works nicely with the truck. Hell yea I love it too! Quote Link to comment
nismo24096 Posted November 9, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 9, 2013 Well Im getting pretty good with this hammer and dolly working out all the dents and dings in the bed of the truck...For sure the number one reason to want a double walled truck bed...well i guess that is until you get a dent in one and cant access the backside..so it goes both ways i guess. 1 Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted November 9, 2013 Report Share Posted November 9, 2013 You also got lucky with the cast aluminum valve cover instead of the stamped steel one, that one can be polished to look great or you can have it powder coated, or even a wrinkle finish paint job really looks cool on these too. All Z22s got the cast rocker covers even the ones in the S110. (200sx) The Z20 and Z24s in the 720 got the stamped steel covers. Interchangeable but the bolts are specific to the cover used. Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.