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aarivers

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  • Location
    United States
  • Cars
    1985 Nissan 720 4x4

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  1. Best compliment ever. :thumbup:
  2. Alright I managed to get some shots of the truck before the rains came today. Here's a before shot to show just how bad the paint had become. There was no shine to it at all. And here's the after shots.
  3. Thanks man, it's starting to come together. I fixed the dome light today, the switches plastic rivet had broken, so I drilled it out and put some small screws in it to get it to stay in place, replaced the bulb and cleaned the door strikers and I now have a nice working dome light, even the timer works on it. I also washed it, then broke out my rotary buffer and hit this old black paint with some Meguiars 105 cutting compound on a red foam pad, then followed that up with some 205 polish and a black foam pad, washed it once more to get the excess compound off and waxed her up. It's amazing how much it shines, I took it for a drive and I have to say it's a whole different truck now. It idles nice and has nice power without sputtering like it used to. Fixing that cab mount helped with the shake I was getting at 40-45mph it's almost non-existent now. I picked up a window crank remover so i can get those door panels off and get those annoying windows and lock rods to stop rattling. I'll get some nice shots of her when the sun gets lower either today or tomorrow (black doesn't photograph well in lots of sunlight).
  4. Truck is looking good dude. Looks better with the bumper on it and the black dash in. :thumbup:
  5. Next steps are to take the doors apart and get all the rattles out of them, those lock rods and handle rods are making quite a racket. The windows are rattling against the stops also, so they will need to be adjusted. I need to find some window sweeps to replace the old dry rotted ones. An alignment is in order to since I replaced all those front end parts the steering wheel is way off center and it pulls to the right. Finally I'll wash teh outside and get after the old paint with my buffer an some polish. then wax it up.
  6. Center console all cleaned up and the shift boot clipped back into it. There was about 5 dollars in change under this thing when I took this thing out, time to get some Taco Bell! I still need to get a leather strip to tie up the top of the boot. Last to go in where MY NEW SEATS!!! WOOO. Pulled these out of an Isuzu Rodeo, I wish they had been a from a 2 door instead of a 4 door as the slide mechanism doesn't get tripped when you flip the seat forward. I'll have to see if I can make them do this at some point. These seats where incredibly dirty when i got them. so I stripped them down to the bare frame and threw the covers into the washing machine, I had to buy some hog rings and pliers to get the covers back on but it was worth it, they look so much better. So I still need to get some new speakers to replace the blown passenger side, and I also need to figure out what to do about these crappy cardboard kick panels, the passenger side panel is in real bad shape. I need to get some goo-gone to get that glue residue off the dash from the funky carpet dash cover that was velcro-ed on.
  7. Next up was getting the panels in place and getting them burned in. Thankfully the Nissan sheet metal is a little thicker than GM's and was easier to weld. I know it's not pretty but I'm using a flux core gasless welder. As you can see here I decided to use some 1/4 thick steel to reinforce and rebuild the cab mounts. They aren't going to be rusting through any time soon. The passenger side was much easier, not a lot of curves to bend. Now that it's all welded up I shot some etching primer and flat block over them to seal them up. After I got that done I figured it would be a good time to give it a good cleaning since I haven't done that after buying it. As you can see the carpets where a mess. The front had dirt all in the jute padding from being exposed where the holes where. While I was in the back vacuuming, i saw I really needed to get that old purple tint of the back glass, so I grabbed a blade from my carpet knife and a pair of vise grips to make probably one of the the most dangerous tools in my tool box. lol. Be extremely careful when using something like this! After I got done with the rear window I moved on to fixing one of the rear seats that was rattling when it was in the up position. There's nothing worse than an annoying rattle in a vehicle. So after looking at the problem i could see that the spring holding the metal stand up was just worn out from use and wasn't holding tension when at rest. So I drilled some extra holes up higher on the brace to put more tension on the spring. Hopefully it will last another 20 something years before I have to move it again. I added the missing seatbelt retainer back to keep that from flapping around in the back. Ahh this is looking better by the minute! Rear carpets all cleaned up. Front carpet is in and cleaned up.
  8. Alright so the 720 got some lovin' this week. I ordered a carb kit from Rockauto and decided to tear into the rebuild, I followed the directions on the NICO forums and it was actually a lot less painful than I thought it would be. Took about 6 hours from start to finish, I took my time as I have never rebuilt one before (loves me some fuel injection) While I had the carb off I went ahead and took the valve cover off and adjusted the valves. I went with the cold adjustment of .010 inch. most where fine but I had a couple that where actually too tight and some that were loose as expected. Got the carb back on and and it started right up, no more racing idle or sputtering on throttle, this little baby can run now! While I had the truck in the garage I figured I might was well take the time to get rid of those unsightly rust holes in the cab floor. Started by removing the seats and front carpet to get a better look at what I had to deal with. As you can see the drivers side has the worst of it. There was a nice hole and even the cab mount was eaten through with rust, I had to think about what I was going to do to get it back together. Passenger side was not too bad. At least the cab mount area is intact. Getting the rust carved out to make way for the patch panels.
  9. You'll need to pull the steering wheel to get the switch off. Once off you can remove the plastic cover over the contacts and remove the stalk assembly to clean all the old dried gunky grease out and regrease. Also clean the contact pads with some Scotchbrite to make sure they are not corroded. Here's a large picture to show what it will look like. Picture The contacts to clean are on the right side. I also ended up having to bend some of the contacts to give them more resistance force to push the contacts back better especially for the highbeams. There is also a plastic follower that "clicks" at each point of the light switch setting, I put a spacer behind the spring in it to make the switch have more resistance to turning on to make sure it stayed in the position I wanted it in.
  10. Nice lot of work you've done so far! It's always amazing what PO's can live with in their vehicles. I just don't understand how some people can leave stuff alone when it's clearly not working or worn out. Can't wait to see the truck up close.
  11. aarivers

    subwoofers

    and don't forget that if the sealed box isn't able to reach the recommended internal volume you can cheat a little and use some polyfill to get it a little closer. Not knowing what your ultimate goal for the system is and what music you'll be listening to, but a couple 8's in a nice box should be more than adequate for a small single cab space. don't forget the dynamat or your choice of sound barrier to maximize your results.
  12. If those 300ZX seats fit I would think 240SX seats would fit as they have the same bolt pattern as the 300Z, last I checked. Some great info in this thread, I'd like to see what other seats fit without major mods.
  13. I was thinking I would just have to drop the front pumpkin and the steering components to get it at. If I have to remove the engine then it's not going back in, lol. Something in the KA range would be going in it's place, I loves me some fuel injection. Yeah those flairs always got me as a kid and I still love em. Needs some bigger shoes to fill them out properly though. I also forgot to mention that I also removed the headlight switch and cleaned all the old gunky grease and rebuilt it so now I can actually have all the lights working on the truck instead of just the high beams. I went ahead and found some screws to replace all the the missing screws in the column cover when I put it back together. While I had it apart I also had to grind the bolt that locks the column in place as it was slipping and wouldn't allow the adjuster to fully tighten down on the column to keep it in the right position for me. it's always the little things. lol
  14. Yeah I thought about that after I took them off. I was thinking how they could be in such good shape with the boots gone and then it clicked that they wouldn't be rotating under regular 2wd mode. Thanks I'll check them out and that's what I was afraid of. Such is the price of having the nicer looking body style. :D Yeah I saw that post and it made me want to go right out and grab a set, hopefully I can find a set that's in decent shape for cheap. I had thought about doing the Weber swap and was also thinking of just replacing all the vacuum hoses under the hood, 20+ years and 250k miles, it could probably use a few new ones all over the place. I'll have to check that out, these new suspension parts took a fair amount of the slop out, it still wallows in the corners but that's due more to dampening than steering. I really would like to get some Bilsteins under it but they only make them for the rear, I'm wondering if Pathfinder dampers might work for the fronts. The radio in the truck has a clock in it so I'll probably reserve that space for another gauge later. I'll be sure to check them all over next time I pull the truck into the garage. THANKS!
  15. Update on the project: Got the truck back on the road this weekend. Parts replaced so far include. Upper/Lower Ball Joints, and Inner/Outer Tie Rods & adjusters. I had the front axles rebuilt at a local place, $85 an axle, kinda steep I thought but he's supposed to do good work and at least I stay with the Nissan OEM parts instead of some cheap Chinese axles. I also cleaned and repacked the front bearings since I had it all apart and that old grease was looking a little thin. I replaced the rear tail light housings with aftermarket units, they definitely look better than the old broken ones. lol Now that I have it in a driveable state I get to find all the other faults. The truck does not like the cold for sure, I've never been a big fan of carburetors and this auto choke is kinda flaky stuff, the truck wants to stall out unless I slip the clutch a lot and run the motor above 2k rpms till it gets warm. Still likes to spit and sputter under 2k even once it is. I haven't had a chance to check the plugs or rotor yet so I imagine all the ignition stuff is wore out. I eventually would love to replace the motor with a KA24de down the road. I loved that motor in my 240SX. Good thing is, now that it is driveable I can drive it down to the junk yard and get some new seats, a tailgate and any other parts that I need a truck to be able to get. I'll post pics once a snap a few of the new parts on the truck. Also needed some assistance, if anyone knows whether other model Nissan torsion bars will fit my truck, the left one apparently broke or something and has been welded back together and boxed around the weld, so I really don't feel comfortable with it like this and 720 torsion bars that aren't worn out are hard to come by.
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