Jump to content

My Truck.


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 15
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Thanks! I bought it last November, for $200. It had a blown head gasket and only 60k on the odometer, so I HAD to buy it. She is a runner again, after I slapped a head gasket and timing chain on there and did a bunch of other neglect-oriented repair work. I just love driving it.

Link to comment

Just trying to burn in the photo upload process here. This is our cat, Madge. She is 18 years old and she don’t nap under any leaky old trucks! I am thinking about going back to stock mirrors, but I haven’t found any so far. It seems like every 720 delivered in WA state had elephant ears, back in the day.

MADGIESTRUCK_zps67508430.jpg    MADGEKNOWS_zpse24cabde.jpg

Link to comment

Like you, perhaps, my truck rolled into the driveway and right onto lift blocks, where she spent the winter getting an engine overhaul and a new exhaust system, among other things.

 

SIDEVIEW_zpsdd823d90.jpg

 

And, like you, I shit canned my Hitachi in favor of a Weber.

 

MRHITACHISFAREWELL_zps3c7e2eeb.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Among the more interesting and rewarding aspects of saving a perfectly usable vehicle from the bone pile is performing the ‘archeology’ on it. By archeology, I don’t just mean checking the glove box for fuses and spare change, or checking under the seats for old roaches and dried french fries. No, what I am talking about is the mechanical archeology; dissecting the layers carefully to detect not only the tragedy that befell the vehicle to put it out of service, but also the reasons that lead to this event happening in the first place.

 

When I used to renovate 1949 Plymouth Suburban station wagons, it was especially thrilling- and satisfying- to discover something in one of my projects that had been a problem from the earliest days- and then fix it thoroughly. In the case of my Nissan 720 truck, the head gasket failure that felled it was a result of the problem that occurred immediately previous: the water pump failing. As it failed, it must have been driven for a while because the fan blades had begun to tear up the fan shroud and the water pump end dinged a few of the radiator fins themselves.

 

As I replaced the shroud and fan, along with the timing chain sprockets and tensioners and head gasket, I sent the radiator out to be pickled and repainted. As it was flushing, a chunk of something approximating ancient JB Weld clunked out of the top. The radiator shop guy said he had seen this once or twice before: he thought that it was a sealing material that the factory used (and sometimes abused). In any case, it looked like it had been in there since day one. It had the shape of the radiator top molded into one side. I wish I had saved it to show you, but I didn’t know about the Ratsun Forum back then. In any case, perhaps you can imagine me quivering with delight when I found and corrected something that was wrong, perhaps from birth. 

 

Rennovation is, to my mind, restoring the original archeology, the one it had- or should have had- when it was new. I am frugal about it, however, and that is why I am digging this little brown friend so much. Unlike my Plymouth wagons, where parts are expensive and scarce, you can still find the occasional 720 in the part out yards. As a result, it has been easy, fun, and relatively cheap to upgrade through wrecking yard parts.

 

Take the mounting plate for my vacuum delay valves, for example. If yours is an 85, like mine, there is a little tray on the intake side of the engine compartment where the delay valves attach. On my truck, that plate had turned into the consistency of a Butterfinger bar. Rainwater had pooled on the little shelf there and utterly destroyed it. The valve attach points had long since rusted away and the valves themselves just laid on the fender well. At the wrecking yard, I found that I had a choice between two replacements, each in near perfect condition, for something like seven bucks. I grabbed the best one and nabbed a perfect fan shroud as well.

 

The help that I get here, along with all of the reasons mentioned above, make my little 5 speed Japanese motorized wheelbarrow a pure delight to own and drive.

 

I can hardly wait for Canby next year. I feel a full on baptism coming on!

 

NISSANRADIATOR_zps5b643107.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment

I work from home, where I have a home office. I own my own business and therefore run my own schedule. The flexibility is nice, but like Dad said to me decades ago “When you work for yourself, you work for the meanest bastard around.” True words, as you who are self employed know so well. You do things for your little business that you would never do for an employer.

 

In any case, I need a little time each morning to adjusted to the challenges of my work day before I actually sit down at my home office desk. I require a ritual. So I drive across town (Olympia) to the best coffee place anywhere and get myself a triple latte and a croissant. Hazel, my best dog buddy always tags along for the crumbs. Olympia Coffee Roasters: you just cannot beat ‘em.  The drive over to the west side OCR store winds through downtown and up over the hill to the west side of Olympia. It is exactly the sort of drive that gives one the opportunity to enjoy driving. The traffic is light, the smell of the bay is heady, and the sun rising over Mount Rainier on a late summer morning is nothing short of epic. My little 85 Nissan 720 is purrlng through the gears happily as we head to coffee. The windows are down and the morning air has the faintest feel of approaching fall. 

 

At the light below the hill, a bright red Triumph TR 3 pulled up next to us. Surveying the appointments, my guess was vintage 1959. It was in show car condition. A gentleman maybe a few years my senior (I am 65) was driving her. I couldn’t resist the flood of memories that washed over me. “I had one of those. Beautiful car. Despite everything, I loved mine!” I shouted. Turning to me, he smiled. “Thanks.” as he quickly surveyed my ride. Then he shut off his engine and listened to my truck for a second. “I had one of those, too. I loved mine without reservation! Yours sounds real good. Nice truck.”

 

The light turned green just as his TR kicked back to life with that familiar British snarl. I was thankful that I had worked out the last little kinks in my throttle so that I could motor away from the stop sign in the appropriate Japanese gardener manner, off of his right quarter panel. When he turned off to the left at the top of the hill, he flashed me the ‘okay’ sign.  For a moment, I wondered if he would trade with me? But it didn’t take more than a second to sober up on that idea. I don’t want another TR 3. Mine was a chick magnet, to be sure, but a flippin’ nightmare to keep on the road! When mine ran, it kept me broke and when it broke, it kept me running to beg rides from friends. It was either one or the other.

 

As I crested the hill, I slid into fourth gear and let the low-end torque of the NAP Z trundle us along the flats towards the smell of fresh brewed coffee. Perfect coffee. 

Link to comment

I am lucky to know my friend Lee Robertson. Lee is just the real deal when it comes to fabrication and mechanical problem solving. As good as they come. A few years ago, Lee was a fellow crewman on the restoration and deck crews of the 1982 Atlas Van Lines unlimited hydroplane, restored at the Hydroplane & Raceboat Museum in Kent, Washington. That’s where I met Lee. Here I am manning the transom rope on the 1977 Atlas, which we just finished up just this past summer. If you watched the Seafair coverage, perhaps you saw Chip Hanauer drive this boat, which is among the most famous to have ever raced.

 

ManningtheRopes_zps73fc23ec.jpg

Patrick Gleason photo.

 

 

I also race 1/8 scale radio controlled models with R/C Unlimiteds, where Lee Robertson and his son Jesse were nearly a dynasty, back in the day. I campaign my 1982 Atlas Van Lines around the R/CU circuit.

 

ATOMICCUP2014Straightaway_zps43a9ea35.jp

Chris Denslow photo

 

The point of telling you all of this is to impress you that Lee is one heck of a problem solver. And the good news for me is that recently, he was given a 1982 Toyota pickup truck! This means that now, I can access the keen mind of Lee when working out my own trucky problems.

 

As an example, I have posted here somewhere about my sticky throttle issues. It was really killing my truck driving fun and I was having a hard time tracking down the problem. I replaced the cable, all vacuum lines, and chased it in various other ways for a couple of weeks- until I saw Lee recently and found out that he too was mini-truckin’ again.

 

“Do you have a Weber?” He asked. Yes, I do. “Me too, and I had the same issue- it is sticky, then it lets go right around idle, right? Very irritating. Here’s what you do...”  I was spellbound by the pearls of wisdom that were about to come “Take a pair of channel locks and, standing on the exhaust side, bend the control arm on the trottle body until you are satisfied that it is in perfect alignment all the way through the throttle rotation, in both axis. Really make it perfect. Chances are that when you bent the tab up to accept the cable end, you didn’t get it perfectly re-aligned- if it ever was that way to begin with. It doesn’t take much to lose the smooth travel.”

 

Sure enough, my arm was a little off alignment. Maybe 2 degrees on the Y axis, 1.5 of on the X axis. With the channel locks ratcheted down appropriately, I carefully bend the arm into true alignment to the cable travel and the throttle body itself.

 

Boom- problem solved. Forehead appropriately thwacked.

Lee, man. I am telling you, he is good.

 

You know, you don’t see what you don’t see.

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Tomorrow, I am going to crawl through two (count ‘em, two!) Pull A  Part yards, scouring for 720 tidbits. They say it is going to cool off, but I am hoping the rain holds off, too.

 

I really look forward to the time spent with the recently deceased, harvesting organs from donors to my 720 Nissan King Cab.

Link to comment

I didn’t find much at the wrecking yard today, but getting a console- even one that doesn’t quite fit- is a huge deal for me. Finally a place to put my coffee cup and, more important, a place for Hazel to put her front paws! This one was off of a 89 Nissan truck. I was hoping the mounting / tunnel shape were the same, but they’re not even close. I had to cut the mounting feet off of this one, so maybe I will just use  another mounting scheme. The pad was pretty rough and worn, so I applied six coats (2 light, four wet) of all surface, all in one paint to really give the top some new skin. I may hit it couple more times for good measure.

 

GoodEnough_zps5671cf04.jpg

 

 

Before the ‘foot reduction’, a trial fitting in the cab. Until a nice original version comes along...“Ahhhhh!”

 

 

TrialfittingtheConsole_zpsa6fb9c48.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment

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.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.