Another 720 2.4z

[mmitchell57]

Guam,  I'll give both a run then.  I wasn't sure what the vacuum valve was for and I wasn't sure what to do on the coolant reservoir.  I'll work it tomorrow and snap  some more shots. on another note, I have the truck back on the ground and ran it today.  still is nice and quite like it should be. I hope to finish up electrical this weekend. I found some spiral wire loom that is much better solution then the electrical tape.

[_chiefjt]

Nice.

[mmitchell57]

So, yesterday ended up a being a day with the kiddos, wife, and grandma. No truck work. Hopefully this week or next weekend.  Did managed to knock out a oil change on the DD and fixed some electrical issues on my BIL's Nissan 720.

[xsdg]

Family days are good days too.

[mmitchell57]

Yesterday I managed to get a switch panel installed in the place where the stereo used to be located. I made it out of an old license plate and it works. I don't know if I'm a fan, but it's my first shot at any real metal modification. I'll post some pictures tomorrow. I should be out there for a bit knocking out some other things. Since I got my hands on a welder I may pull the seats apart and fix some jerry rigging I did a while back. One long pole in the tent, pull the bed and clean it up / fix it up. Damn thing looks like a cheese grater.

[mmitchell57]

So, looking at drop blocks and drop spindles so I can pull about 2 inches out of the suspension. Any recommendations? I may head over to summitracing.com and take a look. May also pick up some head lamps. I realized the other day that the outter lights that are a 3 wire setup do both and high and low. The inner two wire lights are only high beams. This is good since I want to get away from the inner lights and setup a cold ram air setup. Get as cold air to the filter as possible. Should be an easy win but I need to buy some new lights and make sure they are stupid bright.

 

Got the whole front clip back on the truck with exception of the inner fender plastics. I'll get those on soon. The lower spoiler has been slightly modified. I still need to clean up the work because it's still a bit lumpy but I have it primer sealed. Looks good. I need to work the bed here soon but I can't take it off yet since I need to run some Christmas stuff down.

 

Also, Guam, I cleaned out the radiator overflow and it looks great now.  Surprised how dirty the inside was. Pulled the vacuum valve off and it looks better. I'll try and grab pictures this weekend, but it's going to be a busy one.

[mmitchell57]

Another question would be, can I drop the rear by 2 inches by changing the shackles rather then blocks? When doing the suspension lift on the GMC I had before the shackle / spring switch was better then going with blocks.  I still went blocks because I couldn't afford springs at the time, but I know the risk. Is that still the same with lower?

[datzenmike]

Because of the rear-most position of the shackles a 2" shortening (not at all advised as the spring lengthens under compression and this has to expand somewhere) ... will only drop the axle less than half that distance. A boughten or home made block would be far better.

[Charlie69]

720 4x4 springs will give you the drop.  Just search it in the forum search.  Bell Tec for dropped spindles.

[mmitchell57]

It's been a bit since I've been on here. Been super busy with the holidays and truck. Since last posted I've done a ton of work. I am learning to weld now since I got hold of a flux core welder. nothing crazy, just the basics. I gutted the interior of the truck to find all the holes I could and I came across 3, 2 of which were fairly large.  One was right below the gas pedal. It was about a 4 inch diameter hole. Another was at the base of the front part of the driver seat near the transmission tunnel. The last one was up where the firewall met up with upper most corner on the cab. On the first two I welded in 22 gauge sheet  metal to seal the holes after I ground out all the rust with some airtools.  They cleaned up really well. The third one I cleaned up as best I could and wrapped in tar based flashing from all sides in hopes it would seal it until I eventually get the sheet metal done by a pro.

 

I also extended the shift stick. Was a bit short so I added about 6 inches to it. I wish it was the easy for all sticks.... wait...     I then sound deadend the whole interior and started putting it back together.  I also stripped the seats down. Had bad metal in the drivers seat base. I created a new base for the wires to spread across and weaved in some material to make it strong. I also broke the back support. So I pulled it, stripped down to metal frame, welded what broke, and put it back together. With both parts I put in a layer of burlap to add support which appears to have helped out. Seat's all nice and comfy now. They should hold out until I pick up new seats.

 

Outside of that, nothing else has been tinkered with. It's running pretty damn well. Oh, I did find I was only pulling 50% throttle on the weber carb due to an adjustment on the gas pedal. I adjusted both the throttle pedal and the cable at the carb side. Now I have double the pull and get about 95% when the pedal it to the metal. Huge different in acceleration.  Makes for a fun drive to work and around the country.

[mmitchell57]

I decided I'll got with the drop blocks for now. I went and measured and it looks like I'm going to pull 2 inches out to make it look good.  Then i'll stick with the stock out diameter of the tire while going up in wheel diameter. That should make it look pretty good and level it out.  I'm looking at going through the entire front suspension and replacing everything I can within reason.  Control arms, bushings, ball joints, endlinks, pittmans, and all that crap.

 

Right now I've pretty much finished the interior of the truck. I fixed the seats so they feel good, cleaned up the floor pan. Installed new sound deadening material. The last couple things is to finish up on the stick shift extension, redo my switch panel, and figure out wtf is up with my gauge lights. They still don't love me and I belive it's the rheostat but  I don't know how to bypass right now or test everything. I get power to the rheostat but beyond that is beyond my brain power right now.

 

So, next on the books....   Suspension repair and stiffening, brakes need to be maintenance/upgraded from the top down, upgrade the seats, clean and modify the bed, Run cold air intake to the carb through a very nice plenum, 4-link the ass end, and plan engine upgrades for the down the road plan. Assuming nothing bad happens to the truck, I hope to have it another 4 or 5 years and doing some stupid stuff with it. Beyond 5 years I'm not sure yet. Maybe a 240sx w/ an ls3, maybe drops a big block in the truck... meh.. what ever happens.  Fun times. :)

[petercscherer]

 Run cold air intake to the carb through a very nice plenum, 

I'm almost positive that installing a cold-air intake will do nothing for performance. It may look cooler, and that's a personal preference, but just a plenum isn't going to boost your performance.

[datzenmike]

The 720 already has a stock cold air supply going to the air filter snorkel. There are several on here who have trimmed the stock air filter to fit the weber carb. This will allow the cold air function and keep the carb heater air. If you get temps down close to freezing (or lower) and high humidity like freezing rain and fog this will prevent carb icing. Heep your high beam headlights, they look better and you can see better. Form follows function, you don't have to remove a headlight for cold air. This is form (looks) above function (utility)

[mmitchell57]

Makes sense guys, no issues. It's nothing that's going to happen next week.  Just a long view down.

 

Short term goal which is this weekend, install the 2" drop blocks I picked up. Install new outer headlights. Start working on a new switch panel. I picked up some much nicer stock metal that I can fix up to sit nicely into the area where the original stereo was. We'll see if I can get to it this weekend.