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Introduction...picked up an 85 720 kc 4x4


GarrettQ

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Just getting my feet wet and saying hello.  I recently purchased a 1985 720 KC 4WD ST.  Its pretty rough, and is just screaming for me to save it, so we shall see who breaks first.

 

Trucks new home is in San Antonio, Texas area, but was purchased in Colorado, and used most of its life up in Washington.  Surprisingly rust is not as bad as i was expecting, but there is some floor pan rot i will have to repair.  The truck is in need of a new front end, which i have mostly ordered already.  Hopefully get started on that next week.

 

Carb will need work, which is completely foreign to me, so ill definately be reading these forums and/or asking questions on that. Engine does run though, so my carb issues may be as simple as getting it adjusted properly.  Transmission lacks reverse, previous owner said he installed something in backwards which stripped something relating to reverse, im a newbie when it comes to transmissions as well, so hopefully someone can chime in and help me make sense of that. Other 5 gears work fine.  May attempt the trans rebuild myself after i read up some more on it, and see if i feel confident enough. 

 

Rest of the issues with the truck are mostly cosmetic and minor.  The interior is in horrible shape, i get the feeling i will be going custom with a lot of it.

 

I look forward to learning about these trucks here, thanks in advanced.

 

Here are a few pics of the ol girl.   Can anyone tell me what the black plastic pieces on the tailgate are? Is it factory or a dealer option? I assume its some kind of plastic trim piece, like on the early pathfinders, but i have never seen a 720 with something like that.

 

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That's a nice ST 720. The plastic pieces clip a brushed aluminum? 'finisher plate' on. There was a 2wd and a 4wd ST plate.  Check the junk yards for one as they are $300 at Nissan.

 

The good thing about reverse is that it's not too hard to get at and you don't have to take all the gears apart. It's all in the tail.

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Welcome :)

 

Not sure what plastic pieces you are referring to.

As for the transmission, I would just go find another 5 speed from a 84-86 4X4 or a 85-86 2wd regular cab/short box truck and put that in, the reason is that you should just change the tranny out and fix that transmission if you can later as a backup.

Well that's my 2 cents. :lol:

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Thanks for the welcomes and the advice. I havent been to any junkyards yet, so hopefully i can find some of these trucks to loot from.

 

As far as the trans goes, if i can find another one locally, the idea of having a spare is a good one. The truck has 225k miles, the motor just under 100k with documentation from nissan, so i assume the trans is original.

 

Btw wayno, i love that red datsun pickup you extended. Very classy.

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Thanks for the welcomes and the advice. I havent been to any junkyards yet, so hopefully i can find some of these trucks to loot from.

 

As far as the trans goes, if i can find another one locally, the idea of having a spare is a good one. The truck has 225k miles, the motor just under 100k with documentation from nissan, so i assume the trans is original.

 

Btw wayno, i love that red datsun pickup you extended. Very classy.

Thankyou, but I have a couple extended red ones, I suspect your talking about the 521 kingcab, that was my first big modification.

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Yeah i was referring to the 521. Im really not up on my datsun number naming lingo, so i left it at "red datsun pickup".

 

I found the forum topic the day i bought my 720, now that i checked the links you have in your signature, you have quite the collection of custom datsuns, all very nice.  

 

Ill update this post or maybe do a build thread on my 720, although my build will be fairly slow as money for the project trickles in.  It definitely wont be anything fancy for a while. 

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Decided to pull the filthy carpet out and see what kind of surprises i would find, and boy did i find some interesting things.....

 

here are a few shots of the interior:

20140921_134301.jpg20140921_134241_HDR.jpg

 

Previous owner tore up the radio slot, along with factory radio wiring, so i will have to get custom with cleaning that up, i think a nice brushed aluminum plate will look nice, do the same on the glove box as well.

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Here is th first surprise i found, tucked underneath where the carpet overlaps under the driver seat.  Im actually really glad i found this too, as this seems to be an original key and operates the doors and ignition perfectly, unlike the copy which only worked on driver door, and barely worked in ignition.

 

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Surprise number two was even better, i found these under the carpet up by the gas pedal.  Between these and all the change i found in this truck, this thing just keeps getting cheaper.

 

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Of course the euphoria could only last for so long, because then i found this on both sides of the truck. Should be easy enough to fix the pan, but im going to have the strengthen up the the body to frame mounts.  There is also my suspicion that the windshield may be leaking, the jute pad was damp in this area on both sides.  Rest of the floor pan is cancer free, save for some surface rust here and there.

 

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So the adventure continues, thanks for looking.

 

GarrettQ

 

 

 

 

 

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I would always recall where I put $70.00

Looks like you have a little floor repair in your future, that will be $70.00 for me reading your future, paypal works for me. :lol:

Score on the key!  :thumbup:

The dash is not that hard to pull and replace, if you can find a semi decent one at the wrecking yard, you could be looking good in about 3 or 4 hours at the most, I can pull a whole wiring harness in a couple hours with components, so a dash should be a piece of cake, the wiring harness has two plugs for the dash.

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Yeah, i dont think i could loose 70 bucks, and given the state of these bills, and the fact they are "series 1985" tells me they are as old as the truck.  $70 in 1985 is equivalent to about $150 today.

 

I paypal'd the money, wait for it, dont do anything else until you get it......lol

 

Floor repair definitely needs doing, will get started on that later this week.  im gonna have to get creative with the frame mounts, they are completely rotted off of the body.  Fortunately i work in a metal shop with access to plenty of materials to fab something up.

 

Locating a junkyard with some of these trucks on the lot is my mission this week.  they are hard to find here in texas though, most of these small trucks get bought up and taken into mexico.

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Lol Wayno, funny story with those bills, i took them to my bank.  Long story short, they couldnt determine if they were genuine, (bills of that series didnt have the strips in them yet) so they had to be mailed to Homeland Security.  Hopefully hear back about that in a week or two.

 

Made some progress today, i ordered the parts i was missing from partstrain.com.  never used them before, but they were cheap, and i need to get this thing to pass an inspection, so ill use these parts for now.  the truck was damaged on the passenger side front, so the core support is pretty tweaked, as well as the pass fender, which i did my best to straighten out.  The bumper is crooked, and the tweaked core support and fender is throwing everything out of whack.  So its not pretty, but it will do for now. i need to splice the old connectors for the corner lights since the new ones had a different connector.  I also need to put in the missing headlight.

 

here are some pics.

 

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I also get a new idler pulley for the power steering, the previous owner said the bearing was toast on the old one, and he never got around to getting a new one, so he left the belt off.  Apparently "All it needs is a new idler pulley bearing"  is code for  "the power steering pump is spraying fluid from a busted tube", and i just am unable to decipher.  I hooked everything up and tested it, and the power steering pump was spraying fluid from the reservior, it is the small metal tube on the back which i assume is the return hose.

 

Is this fixable? is there a seal or something it is missing?  The L shaped metal tube has a flare on the inside end because i cant pull it out, but i can push it in freely.  Here are some pics to show what im talking about.

 

Now i know where all that oily gunk came from just behind PS pump.

 

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Any help is greatly appreciated, and thanks for looking

 

GarrettQ

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Thanks for the info Wayno and Datzenmike, i will clean it up and try to jb weld it.  Im a welder by trade, but this weld may be more delicate than im capable of.  If the JB weld doesnt do the trick, then ill be on the hunt for another PS pump.

 

Thanks again,

GarrettQ

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That tube has a defuser screen on the end of it, it could melt if it gets to hot, and the reason it is there is because when it is not there, it sprays all over, including out the cap.

You need the defuser, so if you remove it, or if it gets damaged somehow, you will need to replace it somehow, I had one split and it spit fluid everywhere, even with the cap on the reservoir, I had to replace the whole assembly, it was just easier to go that route.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, my search for another reservoir has not been successful.  I am considering just relocating the reservoir using one from a D21 pickup/WD21 pathfinder, which has the res mounted seperate from the pump near the firewall.  Has anyone ever done this before on these trucks?  I tried searching for it both here and elsewhere and i turn up nothing.  From my limited research on power steering, it shouldnt be a problem, but i have yet to pull the stock reservoir off and see how the feed line connects to the pump.  If there is a way i can securely attach the feed hose to the pump, the rest should just be plumbing, and finding a good place to mount the reservoir, which i assume needs to be mounted higher than the pump.  Yall know these trucks much better than i do, so if there is a flaw in my logic here, i really appreciate the feedback.

 

Also have an issue with the guage mounted clock.  It worked when i got the truck, but after removing the carpet and unplugging the ECM under driver seat, and the timer module under pass seat, the clock no longer works.  Does the ECM or timer have anything to do with the clock?

 

Thanks,

GarrettQ

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I will be in Payson AZ on Friday on a parts run.  I was there last Friday and the were 3 720 there I will pickup a pump if there is still one there.  There were 2 last Friday.

I will pm you the price if you are interested.

 

I also have a brown dash I can take some pictures of if you are interested.  I do not remember what shape the dash is.

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I will be in Payson AZ on Friday on a parts run.  I was there last Friday and the were 3 720 there I will pickup a pump if there is still one there.  There were 2 last Friday.

I will pm you the price if you are interested.

 

I also have a brown dash I can take some pictures of if you are interested.  I do not remember what shape the dash is.

If your willing to ship it to texas, that would be great. Just let me know price of part and shipping and i will paypal the amount.

 

Dash is pretty low on prority for right now, but if you have one thats better than mine pictured above, id be interested.

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The clock is on it's own fuse and is, (obviously) powered at all 'time'. (pun intended) You could check the 8th fuse over from the left on the fuse box (10 amp) Actually replace it as visually checking doesn't always insure it's good or bad. Swap it with another 10 amp fuse and see.

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The clock is on it's own fuse and is, (obviously) powered at all 'time'. (pun intended) You could check the 8th fuse over from the left on the fuse box (10 amp) Actually replace it as visually checking doesn't always insure it's good or bad. Swap it with another 10 amp fuse and see.

 

Bingo Mike, im starting to think you actually know what your talking about......lol.  I feel pretty stupid for not checking that first. 

 

Im certainly glad you specified where it went to, as i have no fuse panel cover.  Luckily a quick google search turned up a picture for future reference.  The one that was in there was a 15A and it was visibly blown, so now im wondering if the previous owner did that because it was blowing the 10A fuse, or just put whatever fuse they had laying around in.  I tested it with another 15A in the truck and it didnt blow it, but i only left it in there a few minutes. Fuses are pretty old, so it may have just coincidentally failed.  I'll pop in fresh fuses all around and go from there. 

 

Charlie69, thanks a bunch for helping me out with the power steering pump/reservoir.  You, and everyone else ive communicated with here on Ratsun have been super helpful and nice. Its much appreciated.

 

GarrettQ.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Quick status update:

 

Not much has been done to the truck, due to time and money restraints.  I did however get the power steering all fixed up and working great, thanks to the reservoir Charlie69 pulled and shipped to me. No leaks, and no pump whine.  Finally some good fortune.

 

The bed of the truck was full of trash and broken tempered glass from the bed shell that was on it, so i cleaned all of that out.  Forgot to take pics of the cleaned bed, but it has a few small rust spots, nothing major.  The first owner of the truck had a piece of plywood cut to fit the floor of the bed, so the paint was protected from scratches and the sun, and is in great condition. Ill end up treating/repairing the rust and applying a roll on bedliner later on down the road.

 

The engine runs pretty rough, so i tried to check the timing and adjust to see if that would make it run better, the truck idles sporadically and the motor shakes a lot.  I knew it was probably best to do plugs/wires and cap/rotor, but i didnt want to pull plugs until i had new ones to go in.  So friday i decided to just go ahead and pull the exhaust side plugs just to see what they look like..........Not pretty.

 

The first two pictures are of plug E1, and the second picture is of E2. Both of these plugs are autolite #64.  I didnt take photos of E3 or E4 because it got too dark, and i couldnt get my phone to focus correctly.  E3 was an OE NGK BPR5, and looked the best, no oil fouling, very little carbon, and the ground strap wasnt bent. E4 was another autolite #64, and was the second best looking, no oil fouling, minimal carbon, but ground strap was touching the electrode, but not bent to the side like E1 and E2.

 

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So my question, could incorrect timing cause the ground straps to bend like that? Or is it possible the pistons slapped the plugs?  I looked inside the port with a flashlight, and didnt really see any signs that the piston hit the plugs, but without a borescope, i really cant be sure.  These plugs came with the truck, so i have no idea if they were bent this way before being put in, but i wouldnt think someone would purposely bend the grounds like that.

 

hopefully i can get new plugs and wires next week, (NGK of course), along with cap and rotor.  The crud on E2 has me a little concerned, looks like i may have to take a stab at rebuilding this motor sooner than i wanted.

 

Also, do you guys know the best place to get the gasketing/seal for the windshield? A friend of mine who does window replacements said there is an exterior and interior seal, and i only seem to see the exterior seal on ebay etc.  i need to fix the floor pan rot, but i want to get the leaking window seal fixed before i tackle the floor pan.

 

GarrettQ.

 

Ohh, and here is a pic of the truck next to my Infiniti QX4 for fun.

 

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I run NGK plugs in all my Datsuns and Nissans.  The last plug looks oil fouled to me.  I would do as Wayno suggested and clean straighten and gap and reinstall the plugs.

 

As for a good quality window seal Nissan is the best. 

I Use Nissan Parts Zone for OEM Parts

http://www.nissanpartszone.com/

 

Rock Auto sells them has 2 prices same part Number so I would buy the cheapest.

 

Rock Auto

Windshield Glass

https://www.rockauto.com/catalog/x,carcode,1210352,parttype,6512,a,Search%2Bfor%2B1985%2BNISSAN%2B720%2BPICKUP%2B2.4L%2BL4

 

Windshield Seal

https://www.rockauto.com/catalog/x,carcode,1210352,parttype,766,a,www.google.com%2BSearch%2Bfor%2B1985%2BNISSAN%2B720%2BPICKUP%2B2.4L%2BL4

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