Oops, I did it again!

[84720FourWheel]

Knock sensors should retard the timing, it's to prevent damage from pinging/detonation.

[720inOlyWa]

So it turns out that replacing the fuel shutoff relay did‘t do anything to stop the buzzing  because it was the choke relay, not the fuel shutoff relay that was making all of the racket. I unplugged the module and the  engine revs went up by about 100 and things got a little smoother. I will get another choke relay asap.

 

With it running well after replacing the plug wires, I decided it was high time to do the first test drive, to see what is working and what is not. Everything under the hood seems pretty strong and smooth now. I ran through the gears and it shifted nicely and made no tranny noises. It still steers like a tank, but I haven‘t lubed the front end, etc. yet. 

 

Time to go get a title so that I can drive it over to Eddies for a new muffler and tail pipe. That should help little too.

[Charlie69]

Here this should help.  You said it handled like a tank,this is why I asked about the sway bar.

 

[720inOlyWa]

Well, I have one of those already. (were they optional too?)

 

Looking at the mostly bald tires, they are pretty wide- wider than the new Hankook tires that I have on my power steering equipped truck. I remember from my 49 plymouth days when we would get some old, hard, narrow rayon belted skinny tires for the front and then, all of the sudden, you could steer it in gravel! I need to get some good tires on here and give it the lube job that it probably needs badly. Then, if it steers like a tank, I will rethink my strategy.

 

An interesting thing happened today as I was dialing in the tune up, removing that last little flutter from the acceleration curve. I started hearing a vacuum leak, small at first, then building. But it was over on the exhaust side. I turned off the truck and it continued for 15 seconds as it slowed and stopped. Holy cow- there is a small hole rusted through the bottom of the brake booster! I started the truck and then searched it out with my fingertip util I sealed it. The last little stammer in the idle smoothed right out.

[Charlie69]

I do not believe they were optional, but I have purchased trucks in the past that some one had removed them and replacing the sway bar made the trucks drive and handle better.

[720inOlyWa]

Let‘s begin todays post by ripping the scab off of the ugly truth. Here is the current state of the brake booster area on Fitty Buck Chuck:

 

 

Not so pretty, huh? The uglier truth is that there is an actual hole rusted out of the bottom of the can. One lesson that I have learned from my 720 experiences is that brake fluid is one hell of an effective paint stripper! Once the paint is gone, the rust begins in earnest. Yesterday, I found a can that I could rehab at the wrecking yard and nabbed it. I spent the afternoon giving it my de-rust treatments and a couple of coats of satin black.

 

 

Replacing the can should‘t be any more difficult than it was to retrieve it from the donor vehicle. But the rusty fender well beneath it is going to take some serious rehab work...

[720inOlyWa]

Ratsun Patio Furniture

Last fall, brother in law Jerry brought us a couple of mid-century patio chairs in severe disrepair. He pulled them out of the blackberries on a beach side (read: salt air) job site. They had been there for a long time, but with some liberal applications of elbow grease and Rustoleum paint, they came back nicely to serve as the most comfy and appealing patio furniture we own.

 

Seeing that we jumped right on this rehab project, Jerry mentioned that there he thought there might be a third chair, thrown even further into the blackberries, but he was’t sure. We didnt think much of it until a few days later when the gnarliest metal patio chair on the planet showed up in my workshop. I did’t need to inspect closely to grasp that all the wire brushing and Rustoleum in the world would not bring it back. It was a grizzled, rusted mess!

 

So we did little more than the previous owners did- we tossed it on the dump run pile, over under the pine tree. That’s where Jerry found it yesterday, when he pulled it out onto the lawn to supervise my bamboo burn pile in action. “You should just wire brush it a little and clear coat it, so people don’t get dirty sitting on it.“ That sounded like an interesting idea, so we took turns giving it the once over with a wire brush before I shot the first heavy coat of Duplicolor clear engine block paint.

 

This morning, I sat in it and delared it to be the new pride of our fleet. Then I shot another heavy coat of clear on the seat and arms and set it in the sun to bake for the day.

 

 

 

Epilog: The powers that be judged it to be an ugly rusted chair and banished it from the patio to the garden, like it was a parts truck or something. Sheesh. So be it.

 

[720inOlyWa]

Today, I pulled the old ‘holey‘ brake booster can and de-rusted an area underneath where brake fluid had eaten away the paint, causing some surface rust. I was‘t about to try to reshoot factory color paint (even if I could find it). So I gave the area a serious scrubbing with various wire brushes and POR 15 metal prep. Once I thought that I was there, I did it all again.

 

After a clean up and coat of primer, I taped off the scene of the crime, I shot some trunk paint over the rehabbed area.

 

 

Old booster can, meet the new booster can:

 

[720inOlyWa]

They had trip meters in some of the earlier Datsun 720s with the square gauges, so it must be model related, I always grabbed the square speedos with trip meters until all mine had them.

 

Like Spicer says: “Let me get back to you on that.“ Only I will.

[720inOlyWa]

I rebuilt the master cylinder this afternoon while the paint dried. After dinner, I started putting things back together.

 

 

I just have to finish up my fuel manifold so that I can move the intake over to the other side and get rid of that dumb loop of fuel line. Once I sort out the choke relay issues and get the wipers working again, I will be all done under the hood.

 

[720inOlyWa]

You know how it goes, when you are bringing an engine back from the dead. You fix little problems until it is sitting there purring contentedly. I find that it is an interesting journey, tracking down and eliminating little problems. Some you can anticipate, of course. But some can take a while to reason out. It is fun when answers clunk into place.

 

Take this brake booster. I told you that I discovered it leaked when I shut the truck off after tuning it up.  I could hear it slowly dissipate, which told me that a vacuum reservoir was the culprit.  I also told you that a finger over the hole smoothed out the idle nicely. But my mistake was that I should not have assumed it ended there, with the replacement of the leaking booster can.

 

It was only this evening, while checking my new fuel line routing for leaks that I decided to check the timing and reset the low speed idle mixture again, just for the heck of it. Sure enough, it was timing out at about 18 degrees BTDC! Why / how had it moved 13 degrees?  You see earlier, when I timed it, the leaky booster gave me false reading. Now, with no leaks, it threw the timing back out. I should have automatically checked the timing again anytime a vacuum leak was found.

 

Heh, heh, heh. Live and learn. 

 

The problem now is that it is much quieter and every bit as smooth as my Z24. I mean, it is really running great. Without the power steering pump, A/C pump and a couple of extra idler pullies,  it just makes less noise under the hood.    Dang, I am falling for that  simple, spartan austerity....

[720inOlyWa]

Okay, wayno... 

It took a few days, but I finally got around to looking at the ID plate for the first time. Holy cow- the actually skinny on this rig! So, here it is:

 

 

I have my shop manual open and that can clear up some off this mystery, like the fact that it did indeed come with the Z20, in 1984. Again, this suggests that it was the ‘mpg’ model, but I am still not quite sure and the general info on this model still seems unclear to me.

 

I recall that you, or mike, carefully walked us through this information some time ago. I want to know it cold, so I will go back and look for it on my other thread. On the first line, KF720 must mean King Cab 720. Below that, where it the type as KFL 720STUF I read to mean King Cab, 720, Standard model, Manual transmission, Non-California model for USA, Five Speed gearbox.

 

It has the regular five speed 71B transmission, of course, but the H33 designation- which is the axle model, I believe- I forgot what that means.

 

My big clue here as to model suspicions have been confirmed though. Whether lists an ‘MPG‘ model or not, this version was not to be sold in California. That tells the tale, as far as I am concerned.

 

Now that I am working inside the truck, I am noticing all kinds of things that I did not notice before. It has super spartan door panels (in good shape) no kick panel shelf on the passengers side, and no metal shin plate on the drivers side. It does not have tilt steering (did that come with the power steering column?) or jump seats, so a console is right out of the question. No trim package, of course; not on the fenders or anywhere, no beauty bands on the wheels no pinstripping on the cab. I won‘t be able to confirm this until I redo the drivers seat, but I think there is actually just less padding in the seats, from what I can tell. The is the plebian model, in any case.

 

It all seems to be aimed at saving weight. 

[wayno]

If you ever want to change your rear gears in that truck, I want the gears you have in it now, they are what I want for my turbocharged diesel trucks, you have 3.30 rear gears in that truck.

What that means is that it don't have a lot of grunt, but it supposedly gets good mileage, at least that is what they make it sound like saying it has the "mileage option".

[720inOlyWa]

They are a little taller than regular then? I wish that I could find out about this ‘mileage option‘ and the mpg model. I am a ways from driving it yet. I need to get to the bottom of this choke relay issue, gets the turn signals and wipers working, etc.. But I will be curious to see if it actually gets ‘good mileage‘. If I swap out these gears for any reason, you will be the first to know.

 

Are your turbocharged Diesel trucks geared a little too low for your use, wayno?

[wayno]

They are a little taller than regular then? I wish that I could find out about this ‘mileage option‘ and the mpg model. I am a ways from driving it yet. I need to get to the bottom of this choke relay issue, gets the turn signals and wipers working, etc.. But I will be curious to see if it actually gets ‘good mileage‘. If I swap out these gears for any reason, you will be the first to know.

 

Are your turbocharged Diesel trucks geared a little too low for your use, wayno?

In can do the same speed at a lower RPM, it has the torque and HP to turn them kind of gears with the turbocharger, I have 350 gears right now in the 521kc, the 720 has 3.30 gears, I want them for the 521.

I think that 3.30 gears with a 2L engine is weird myself, I don't see how that engine can even push them gears down the hiway/freeway, but somehow they must otherwise they would never have built that combination, it's kinda like the 1980 Datsun 720 4X4 truck(2L), they put 4.6 gears in that truck, and likely had to to move that heavy truck, the guy that drove it back to Vancouver for me said it was gutless, I would imagine that yours is also with them gears, but I have never driven one, so I really don't have a clue.

[720inOlyWa]

We will find out together, wayno. I had one guy say that with the higher compression, it really isn‘t too bad, power wise.  But hell, he was talking about a camperized version, which had to be way heavy.

 

The Z20 valves are sure bigger than my Z24. I am (so far) completely satisfied with the power of the Z24 for my use. When fresh, it seems perfect for my uses.

 

But I have only 5 blocks on this Z20 so far, so I don‘t know. Sure curious though. Something to think about as I fix stuff.

 

Is your 720 the turbodiesel? Or is that the 521 that is the turbodiesel? As I remember, both are amped up in some way.

[wayno]

They are both turbodiesels now, I converted the 521 over just before Jrocks shop meet in mid April, that was it's first trip and it went off without a hitch.

[720inOlyWa]

Today is my birthday. Happy Birthday, me. Okay, moving on to more important topics, I took Fitty Buck Chuck for an official test drive this morning. From my place near downtown Olympia, I drove it south on highway 99 past the airport, making the loop onto 92nd, rolling on down past the house of Phixius, past Johnstons Machine shop, then back not on the freeway to downtown Olympia again. The NEW trip odometer says I travelled 9.8miles. It was enough to get a decent initial driving impression.

 

The disclaimer to the comments that follow is simply the it does not have the correct tires on the front for a non-powersteering version of this truck, so it is  still a bit more ‘heavy on the wheel‘ than it will be with correct / new tires. It reminded me instantly of the way we drove our old 1949 Plymouth station wagons: always move forward (or backward) as you attempt to steer. It isn't bad, not having power steering on this truck. I can tell that once it is all sorted out, it will be well within the range of manageability. But I do prefer the power steering option.

 

The power curve / gearing is interesting. The taller rear gear set really does make freeway cruising a bit more pleasant. And my favorite loafing-along gear, 3rd, loafs five miles an hour faster than my Fudgecicle. I so rarely gun it to get up to speed that the difference in power between this 2.0 and my 2.4 seemed negligible to me entering the on-ramp to I-5. It ran up to 70 mph just fine. I was not carrying a load, beside the sack of shit driving at the time, so load carrying is still a bit of a mystery. I can see what wayno is talking about in desiring this gear set. Taller gears is a nice option.

 

This positive impression being stated, I still drove home with a long list of things I need to address visa vie actually driving this truck. Just a typical laundry list of little things, all of which will help the cause of smooth operation. Brakes, wipers, choke, tires. You know the drill...  Birthday jobs!

[720inOlyWa]

I am cruising down to the wrecking yard this afternoon, to see if I can procure a set of beater wheels and tires, so that I can remove the ones on this truck for refinishing and re-shodding and still can keep the project ambulatory as the process happens.  I think I will try sandblasting, them rust treatment and silver engine block paint. Of course powder coating would be preferable, but given my poverty, I don‘t have the balls to find out how expensive that would be- especially for a truck tat will leave at some point in the near future. No, I will save powder coating for the truck I keep.

 

You know, it is a weird thing: I have fewer and fewer places that I am going online. side form being an information search tool, my online participation has fallen to the point where this is the first- and sometimes only- place that I check out. everywhere else seems to have some form of bad news or bad vibes. Even the Telecaster forum is not immune! Bloody hell.

 

So let‘s all endeavor to keep Ratsun... what it is, whatever that is.

[720inOlyWa]

Today, I decided the time and mood were right to dive back into my Nissan 720 fleet. First up is ‘Fitty Buck Chuck‘ here, who is really close to being a nice little runner. The choke relay is buzzing like crazy and replacing it didn‘t do the trick, so I pulled it altogether for now. I suppose that means my choke isn‘t working, but I forged on anyway. It was running great, except for being cold blooded due to no choke action. I warmed it up and checked the timing again and then set to adjusting the mixture and carb settings on the 32/36 weber. I had it set up a little rich and a quarter turn tighter on the mixture screw really smoothed things out nicely.

 

This evening, when things cool off a bit, I will pull all four wheels off to drag them off to Les Schwab. They will remove the tires and then I will refinish the wheels before they get new tires and go back on. This will give me a good chance to check out the brakes and lube up some chassis bits.

[720inOlyWa]

While the wheels are out to the blaster, I can do some needed clean up in the wheel wells and re-grease the fittings. An interesting note- I thought that maybe the front end was in bad need of lubrication because it was very hard to steer without any power steering. I mean brutal. But when I removed the front wheels, I discovered that everything was nicely greased and the steering worked effortlessly without a load. It had a pair of rotten recaps on the front there that were a pretty wide profile tires for a 14 inch rim and their casings were breaking down, creating even more road surface contact..

 

Hey, I have been in this movie before! When I put some fat, low profile Michellin steel belted radials on my old 49 Plymouth wagon, it became VERY hard to steer when parked. I mean impossible! (I think that old flathead six weighed more tan my entire 720KC) So I went back to skinny 1949 style tires and it was just fine again. Grandma could steer it in a gravel driveway. Lesson learned! I will get some skinny tires on the front of Fitty Buck Chuck here, once the wheels are re-painted silver.

 

 

I live in a pretty caucasian neighborhood, so you never know what shit is gonna go missing in the night. KnowhatImean, Vern?

[720inOlyWa]

Good news arrived from ebay this morning! 

 

There was a real nice ‘kid‘ on this forum, a young Guamanian guy who lived near Las Vegas with his dad. Do you remember him? He enlisted, and I haven‘t seen him here since. He helped me out a lot, back in the beginning. Anyway, this guy was a cool dude with the aesthetic sensibilities of a young truck rodder. I remember him saying that the look of the ST options- the wheels, steering wheel, etc., were ‘played out‘. I liked that comment a lot. I disagree with it by about 180 degrees, but I understood where he was going with it.

 

Me, I like to dress my orphans up a bit, but I am not too keen on going beyond stock. So ST stuff will always have some appeal to me, depending upon the project at hand. Not  so much the wheels, per se, but the steering wheels, clock and tach for sure. I like ‘em! Besides, I need a little more diameter on the rim of my steering wheels than Nissan offered in 1985. They just need to be a bit fatter than the stock ‘coat hanger‘ wheels to be comfortable.

 

The look of a nice ST steering wheel may be ‘played out‘, but it is one hell of an improvement over those little beige ‘style nightmares‘ that came on the lesser models.

 

You don‘t often see good ST steering wheels anymore, and this one is a beaut. I just had to nab it. It is totally rehab-able, and the leather and the stitching are relatively intact, if road worn. I restored one in exactly this condition with a kit I bought from a YouTube video (Leather Repair Company / Steering wheel) and it has held up very nicely for well over a year now, with daily use. I think it does a lot to protect the leather as well. I am a satisfied repeat customer.

 

I know, I know, a cheapie ‘MPG‘ model, with a ST steering wheel? Kinda weird, I suppose. An aesthetic clash perhaps.  But by grandpa truck rules, it is totally okay. Besides, I am confident that he eventual owner will thank me, after they pay me.

 

The brown color of the stock covering was just a little bit weird, (fleshy) so I am sure to darken it somewhat when I re-stain and refinish it. (I just ordered an ‘Umber‘ refinishing kit this morning)  But by ‘before‘ standards, this wheel represents a very promising start...

 

[Lockleaf]

Sweet. I don't know how any stock vehicle component can be played out, but those steering wheels are classic. I have one in my ST truck and one in my 510 wagon. I seriously want one for my 240sx as well.

[MaxChlan]

Personally if I found an MPG or standard truck with some ST components I would know that at least someone at some point cared about the truck enough to go through the trouble of finding the parts and replacing them. You're right that most of the ST wheels that appear on Ebay are fairly shot up. I wonder if you couldn't fit the horn button into a Grant GT or NRG wheel? That is something I want to do. 

[720inOlyWa]

While I exchange the alternator and other beefy tasks today, I like to take little breaks to keep my lower back from totally revolting on me.  A lot of good folks would not bother restoring a high wear item, like these cheapo MPG model black center caps. And I understand that. But as for me, I enjoy banishing ‘the shabs‘ whenever it is practical to do so. So my little break job today was restoring the tired, oxidized old black center caps to like new. Cleaning, cleaning again, wipe down with naptha, black epoxy primer, 2x semi gloss rattle can black.

 

The flecks that you see on the hood is ash from the forrest fires burning in our state.