buck fifty 720

[tdc]

Hey guys, I'm new! I just picked up an 81 720 a couple weeks ago for way too cheap. The backstory goes like this; I've been driving my Nissan Hardbody around for the past year or so and love the truck, but the kind of commuting I do really doesn't call for a 4x4 V6. I took the thing out on the beach once and it was a blast, but otherwise I mostly commute ~14 miles a day, 5 days a week for work. On top of that, I often need to haul motorcycles around and trying to load an old Ironhead into the back of a tall Hardbody solo isn't really going to happen, not for me anyway.

 

So I started looking around for a 2wd 4 cylinder truck. I put my Hardbody up for trade and start emailing people on Craigslist. If you're in the northern Oregon area and have had a 620 or 720 up for sale in the last couple weeks, there's a good chance I emailed you. Didn't get any bites, so I started looking around for cheap trucks. There was a few I was interested in, but found this 81 up just outside of Corvallis for $300. I set up a time to go look at it and my brother and I jumped in the truck and headed up with a trailer to check it out. After the 4ish hour drive, the guy wasn't responding to texts or calls and we sat around for a couple hours waiting for him to get back to us. Just as I was about to cut my losses and head back home, he finally got ahold of me. His phone had died and he was held up at work for a couple hours.

 

 

We meet up, the body is rough (the driver door fell off when I opened it), but it has less than 130k miles and is cheap. I asked him how low he would go and he said I could have it for $150 since I drove all that way and ended up sitting around for a couple hours with no word from him. We shook hands, my brother and I loaded up, and I went home.

 

 

Got it home, cleaned the carb, started right up. The carb was still having some trouble and rather than spending the time to tune it I decided to go Webber. I have a few 32/36 DGEVs on a shelf left over from my BMW 2002 days, so I bought an adapter plate and went with that. I took out all of the smog junk, relocated the coil pack, and cleaned up the engine bay a fair amount.

 

 

 

Still a bit more to do under there, need a breather filter and do something better with the brake booster vacuum.

 

Hit up my local self-serve junk yards and got a door and another 32/36 from this 1980 model I found in the first lot, then a rust free mostly straight front bumper, wiper pivot/linkage assembly, and a few other odds and ends from a later model 720 that was hanging in the 2nd lot. 

 

My truck came with a passenger side fender to replace the bent up one, so I threw that on too.

 

 

So far that's where I'm sitting. It's running great (though it has half a tank of old gas and I need to adjust the auto choke a bit) and I need to go get tags for it, but I'm less than $300 in so far for a lowish miles, clean title 81 720 and I couldn't be more stoked on it! I need to fix a little bit of rust (driver floorboard mostly, don't really care about the rest much), and once the Hardbody sells I'm going to get drop spindles and blocks for it as that will help with loading bikes and looking rad.

 

Anyway, I'm pretty excited. I don't know how active I'll be on the forums, but at the very least I'll try to keep this updated!

[datzenmike]

Welcome to Ratsun. Nice first post...

[Charlie69]

Welcome great score!

[Draker]

Welcome!

 

Nice first post man.

[Crytek89]

Welcome to Ratsun!

We'll be happy to answer any questions you may have! *Cough* mainly DatzenMike *cough*

[Draker]

north bend huh... not too far away. Come hang out in Eugene some time. Lots of us up here.

[tdc]

thanks guys. i get up to eugene once in a while, it'll definitely be happening more often when i get the datsun on the road. the hardbody and a100 cost too much to drive to leave town very often.

[Draker]

http://www.ratswithdats.com !

[tdc]

woah that sounds pretty fun! it's kinda short notice though. hmmmmmmm

[Rhino13]

I'm dropping the first motor I've ever built into my 720, it's the snake pit thread. Although I'm in Eugene so I'm much closer, but you can do it!

[tdc]

if i don't get to go, it'll be because of work. i'll see what i can do! would it be worth coming up for a day if i can't do the whole thing?

 

today i took the truck for it's first drive. well, first drive since i've owned it. it's loading up a bit, but i'm pretty sure that's the bad gas. i'm hoping the more i drive it, the better it'll run as the bad stuff gets burned up. i also want to remove the catalytic converter asap, i have a feeling it might be a bit stuffed up. even if it's not, i don't have to worry about smog around here, and all the heat shields down there are loose and rattly, so everything's gotta go. 

 

the bed has a fair amount of rust, but the tail light buckets are, by far, the worst bits on the truck in that regard. if i can't find some solid ones on one of the trucks in the yards around here, zip ties will have to do to keep my tail light in.

 

 

i also pulled the stereo out and wired it up properly, the previous owner did a hack job installing it and had everything wired wrong. it's good to go now, though. well, it needs an antenna, but yeah.

 

 

i forgot to get a picture of it in, but i'm sure you get the idea. 

 

a mirror for at least the driver side and getting the tags caught up and i think it's pretty much ready to be my daily driver. still plenty to do to it, the biggest priorities being replacing the floorboard on the driver side, lowering the truck (i may just crank the torsion bars down until my hardbody sells and i can get drop spindles on the way) and bolting down some wheel chocks in the bed for strapping down the bikes. 

 

after registration, i'll be sitting just under $300 invested so far, which was the original asking price for the truck. i'm stoked and super excited to get it on the road!

 

i'll do better about getting more pictures next time!

[Draker]

Saturday would be the day to show up, if just for the day! That'd when all the shit goes down. The rest if the time is just chillin.. and bs'ing

[KoHeartsGPA]

Welcome to Ratsun!, hope to meet you soon.

[tdc]

thanks ko. not sure if i'll get to make it next weekend, but i'll be around at some point.

 

so i'm planning on drop spindles once the hardbody sells, but until then i may just crank the torsion bars down. is it pretty harsh driving around with the front dropped down on the bars like that? hopefully the truck sells soon and i can do a proper job of it sooner rather than later.

[Rhino13]

It's not horrible depending on your tire size. I have about an 1 1/4 inch left on the threads but you can go less and still have some travel. When you lower them just look at the spacing between the bump stop, you can cut them down a little but if you're doing drop spindles its probably not worth cutting so they're complete.

[tdc]

stock wheels and tire size for now. it wouldn't be a big deal to cut the bump stops, i can always grab another pair off one of the junked 720s around here. thanks for the insight! i'll probably do it until i get the spindles. once i have those, i'll probably reindex the torsion bars to get it a bit lower than the 2" the spindles provide. 

[tdc]

picked up an oil change and the lowering blocks today. i'll be spending the day today working on my bike, but tomorrow is all truck. i'm pretty excited to make it my new daily driver!

 

are the bushings for the shifter readily available? mine are missing completely and it makes for a super sloppy time trying to shift. got 5th once when i was going for 3rd even, haha. i was going to grab them from the black and blue truck at the yard that i posted above, but it was missing them also. worse case, i'll just take some measurements when i get the truck home and make something work.

[tdc]

today i did the oil change and changed out this sucker, it was causing the biggest oil leak ever

 

 

happened to have "new" sending unit laying around so i threw it on. no more oil leak!

 

i also turned the torsion bars down until there was 1/2" left on the threads, which meant trimming up the bump stops 

 

 

i know it's pretty ugly under there, but once the hardbody sells and i get the drop spindles, i plan to go through everything.

 

i also installed the 3" lowering blocks out back

 

 

that went easier than i figured it would! those bump stops are going to need some hacking too. i'll probably cut off the u bolts while i'm at it.

 

the truck is looking a lot better! i was going to deal with the title transfer/tags today, but it's going to cost about $175, so i'm going to put it off until i get paid on friday.

 

here's where i'm at with it -

 

 

 

 

someone buy my hardbody pls

[Rhino13]

Nice work man! It's fun driving these things around lowered.

[Rhino13]

thanks guys. i get up to eugene once in a while, it'll definitely be happening more often when i get the datsun on the road. the hardbody and a100 cost too much to drive to leave town very often.

Just saw that you have an a100! Let's see a few pictures of that!

[tdc]

yeah, she's my current toy hauler. i'm kind of part of a van club out of portland called rolling death, we're pretty into these old things.

 

[Lockleaf]

Gl1100 hiding in there?

[tdc]

haha yeah. another project

[Lockleaf]

I will eventually own a goldwing. I'm planning on a 1000, just so I have the spoke wheels.

 

My best friend just installed the late gl1100 spoke mags on his 1100. Gorgeous rims, much better than the comstars. I have comstars on my gl500. I hate them. Too ugly.

 

Sweet set of vehicles/projects you have.

[Draker]

yeah, she's my current toy hauler. i'm kind of part of a van club out of portland called rolling death, we're pretty into these old things.

 

There is one of these in the yard down here. It's missing the windshields but seems like a lot of stuff is still here. It's got a lot of windows.