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1980 720 2WD (AZJones' Build Thread)


arizonajones

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Howdy Ratsun. Been a while. Up until recently, the only Datsun-ing I've been doing has been driving to work everyday. But now I have an update-

 

Thanks to Wayno, I have rare, not-sold-in-the-US round headlight grill. I bought it from him about a year and half ago, and it was going to take me a couple of weeks to modify some headlight brackets to fit my truck (I'm waaay too cheap to buy the OEM brackets for this truck/headlight combo.) But, it turns out my two week project took about a year and a half... 

 

So I got some old 720 brackets (the retangular ones) and some round buckets from an old BMW at the yard.

I made a jig from the old housing to make sure the 4 bolt holes for the truck matched up and made a template from the new & old grills to line up where the new headlights would relate to the old ones.

37427744992_ca49205af9.jpg

 

Sliced it up, re-welded em up. Painted em. Spent a ton of time getting the spring tension/placement right so they would focus in the right spot (couldn't use the rectangular-light springs cause they were too long, so I bought new ones from the hardware store).

37458637941_9e53c8aa26.jpg

Took out the old ones, and made wiring pigtails for the different layout (Thanks for the guidance on that Wayno)

 

36749526074_3e902f89db.jpg

 

Boom!

36749524544_f382202cc7.jpg

 

Facelift complete.

23606976258_f9ef6cd9af.jpg

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Yea, it is really a strange distance between the headlights, not quite 175mm, I was thinking that one might be able to use the original 720 buckets modified, but they were 180mm apart, so if they were narrowed the mount holes wouldn't line up anymore.

The 521 buckets are 165mm apart, and I forget what the 620 buckets measured out at, but they didn't work either, so instead of just ordering the grills I paid for a set of buckets also, they were expensive, and I got the only 1 he had of one side, but after they arrived I decided that 2 lefts/rights would work as when I first installed mine I had them backwards. :lol:

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Looks awesome. My wishlist just grew lol

 

Does anyone know where to get a round grill and housings? Wife said birthday gift if I can find haha. Mine is an 1981 so no sheet metal change :)

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Nicely done on that bucket retrofit

Thanks! - Yeah, like Wayno said, the sizing on them is real weird. I kinda feel like mine are nice prototypes, since I learned a bunch from cutting and re-welding. If I was to do it again and I had to retro-fit, I might just buy the 521 brackets and add a spacer to get them centered right. 

 

Does anyone know where to get a round grill and housings? Wife said birthday gift if I can find haha. Mine is an 1981 so no sheet metal change :)

I've seen the grille on eBay for an okay price here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Front-Grill-for-Datsun-Truck-720-1980-1981-/371523407068?fits=Make%3ADatsun%7CModel%3A720&hash=item5680854cdc:g:UZMAAOSwDNdVle~s&vxp=mtr

 

I don't know anybody who's ordered from this seller, but I've seen him around for a while.

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