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720inOlyWa

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  • Website URL
    http://www.mocreativeinc.com

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Olympia, WA
  • Cars
    1984 720 2wd King cab, 1985 720 Nissan King Cab 2wd ‘the Fudgecicle’, ’86 Nissan 720 4x4
  • Interests
    Most all Datsun / Nissan pickup trucks, as long as they have only 4 cylinders.
  • Occupation
    Writer, Luthier, Creative director, Hydroplane Driver.

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  1. 720inOlyWa

    Seats

    2000-2003 Isuzu Rodeo seats. The mechanical ones. I am told that the Honda Passport ones will work too, but I didnt care for the headrest. My Rodeo seats are a huge improvement. Just flip the computer under the drivers seat so the forward / backward slide clears and you are good to go.
  2. 720inOlyWa

    Muffler size

    I had a stock muffler replacement, early in the game. It sounded like shit- way tooo damn loud, like a ceesey 4 banger glass pack. Plus, the flange leaked and that added a little more to the noise, even with a new gasket. So I had them reface the flange and put a Honda Accord muffler on the Fudgecicle. FANTASTIC! Nice and quiet, with just a hint of those lovely jaqpanese trucky tones. The perfect choice for quiet neighborhood trundling.. This is the only muffler solution that this old coot is ever gonna use from now on. I am very satisfied wth it..
  3. “Yeah. What Mike said.“ The MPG model is an interesting version of this truck though. I had heard that it might be gutless, but it is most assuredly not. The power seems fine to me. I wonder how common this version is, Mike. Seems to me that once California banned them for import, Nissan quickly dumped the concept and (perhaps for repairitive PR reasons) leaned on marketing the Nissan Anti Pollution Z24 motor instead. I like them both.
  4. Woah, hold on a second there.... I just glanced down at the speedo and tach while I was driving, then recalled it three hours later for my post. I may well have messed up my reporting, but I can tell right away that it turns a few less rpm at 50 than my 85 does. You notice it right away. It also feel like maybe first and second are lower, if that is possible. In first gear, it just barely moves at idle. I call this ‘trundling‘ and it is one of my favorite characteristics of these old analog Japanese pick up trucks. They trundle great. Well, this MPG version is an exceptional trundler. I am also kind of fascinated by how the 2.0 engine is torquey enough to drive it along with even more authority than my A/C and power steering burdened Z24. This is going to be a really nice little truck for somebody when it is done. I can tell that the basic package is quite lovable, even though the repair list is still pretty long and it aint there yet. I think I will fix a couple of things that will make it easier to drive, then haul it if to Eddies for a new exhaust pipe and an Accord muffler (the best choice for a 720 “TrundleKing“ grandpa truck!). I put a center console from a Pathfinder in my Fudgecicle. It already had an arm rest on the door insides. Being the ‘Scoth Buy‘ model, this truck has neither, of course. Just a little pull handle on the door to close it shut. Boy, I really miss a place to put my elbows when I drive! Like a few minutes behind the wheel, and I am trying to lean on something. I‘ve gotta fit arm rests and a center console to this dude before I am done with it. I am not sure if I bragged on this before, but I have a list of five people who want to buy this truck when it is ready. Two neighbors, the mailman, and my barrista and her boyfriend all want it- badly. Now that is is rumbling up and down our street, I am starting to hear from the peanut gallery. “Almost done yet?“ And my wife badly wants it to leave the driveway. So it wont be too long before she, and some lucky buyer, get their ways. Then I can take that dough and finish off the 4x4.
  5. 720inOlyWa

    My 720 Resto

    Although the other trucks have been getting all of the elbow grease lately, my daily driver gets to have a new home in our boat shed, away from the sun and the rain and the snow...
  6. Well, Fitty Buck Chuck is officially a runner now. All new brakes, and I mean all new. I replaced everything. She sounds like a tank because the exhaust system is still toast, but I snuck it out for a few shake down runs to get the grease worked into the steering linkage nicely. I replaced 4 zerk fittings and gooed it all up real good. This is an MPG model truck remember, so I was interested in seeing if it was gutless with the taller rear end. I can say, it is NOT! This guy is a little burro, even more torquey and my Fudgecicle. It just wants to get after it. My initial impression is that I like this package a lot. 2,000 rpm in fifth gear looks like 53 mph. Noticeably lower than my 85 King Cab. The repair list is now much less dire than it had been. With the brakes more or less locked up before, and the steering linkage stiff, and the tires low, this truck had the distinct feel of the coffin about it. But now that it rolls nicely on good wheels and tires, with the wheel bearings greased up, the linkage greased up, and new rotors, calipers and pads and a total top end rebuild, the beast has fully emerged from the crypt nicely. No power steering aint so bad after all, once the front end is serviced and the tires nice and hard. And that 2.0 MPG engine is the best runner I own right now- even with the choke not working yet.. The list of fixes is still pretty long, but most of it seems to be pretty minor stuff. I better go transfer the title tomorrow, huh?
  7. 720inOlyWa

    My 720 Resto

    The stars are lining up: no real obligations this weekend, combined with decent looking weather. The annual is due on the Fudgecicle here, and I plan to do the tear down of the front brakes of Fitty Buck Chuck. Who knows, maybe I get the entire sheebang done if I gut it out. Not much for gutting it out these days, but you never can tell when the old bones will get fired up for the task.
  8. 720inOlyWa

    My 720 Resto

    The weather is warming. And so the Ratsun mind naturally turns slowly towards the unfinished brake job, sitting in the driveway, on jackstands.
  9. Doesn‘t matter what I like. It’s what you like that counts.
  10. I am not sure how to post a craigs list link here, so I will just let you know that there is an excellent little 720 regular cab on the Seattle CraigsList. It is in Oak Harbor and it is listed for $400. The engine is done, but the rest of it is in exemplary condition. No rust, no dents, clean and nice. If I didn‘t have 3 720 projects going right now, I would nab it in a heartbeat.
  11. Send him over here when he is done, Charlie.
  12. Interesting point: I got help! In fact, since I wrote and disseminated this email, I have an army of flippers all over the country. I mean, this is really catching on! just wanted you all to be the first to know, to get in on the news before it happens. Of course if you don‘t like it, that‘s fine with me- I don‘t really care. But if you want to join the ELA, well you are always welcome. It truly does (or can) soothe the soul to flip the garbage in the stands.
  13. Like so many of of my friends and acquaintances (but not all), I felt a ball fisted sense of dread and anxiety when the orange crested shitbird took office. Over the past year, little has happened to relieve my resentments. I don’t normally live this way on a day to day basis so I think that subconsciously, I was looking to a way to relieve the pressure. And I won’t lie to you: I felt like lashing out. But what can a peon like me do, beyond joining the Women’s March with full gusto? I felt a long dormant revolutionary urge welling up inside. My devious and vengeful self was awakening, somehow unsatisfied with just the lawful approach. Feeling this way one day last spring, I was struck by a tiny lightning bolt as I stood in the checkout line at the Safeway store. There on the little magazine rack, prominently displayed, was a short stack of National Enquirers. The vile, despicable Enquirer, the buddy pal of the orange crested shitbird himself. The enabler rag of all that is evil, feeding the mouthbreathers lies and propoganda on a weekly basis. The headline read something like ‘Hillary sodomizes alien, Bill is in a jealous rage!’ with the superhead of ‘Is that any way to say hello?’ It was something like that anyway, or perhaps even worse. Whatever the headline, suddenly my simmering resentment had a focal point. I removed a copy from the rack and feigned interest for a moment before returning it to the rack upside down and backwards so that all that was displayed is the pointless back cover advertisement for ceramic birds of prey, now reading upside down. Finally, my dark side had been fed and simultaneously a dam had broken. I felt so much better after dishing out a little local market-vandal based payback to this disgusting waste of ink and paper. But somehow this singular act just wasn’t enough. After repeating it a few times I needed a bigger hit. I decided to file a customer complaint with the store. I asked the checker in a most polite manner, who I might offer my complaints to. She gave me an email address and a 1-800 number. I emailed my complaints to Safeway Customer Care and included my phone number, politely encouraging a call. Not three weeks later, I recieved a call from them. The pleasant and perky young woman on the phone was obviously scrambling to grasp the specific nature of my complaint as we exchanged pleasantries. “Now I sense that you are upset about the magazine racks at the checkstands?“ she asked gingerly. “No, I just want you to remove the National Enquirer from your store.“ Clearly, I had no hope that I could have everything I wanted with a single stroke, but I didn’t feel like dancing so it was worth a try. “So you do not care for the National Enquirer?“ I was getting the feeling that she was rapidly locking in on the possibility that this was a kook call- or worse, an old coot complaint. I also felt any hope for a desired result slipping away by the second. It was time to lay my cards on the table. “It is simple, really. I just can’t stand the sight of garbage right next to where I purchase my food.“ The logic of my arguement, no matter how audicious, rocked her for a moment. There was a pregnant pause. I sensed that she was scrambling for a stiuational fix and coming up empty. All hope for a civil resolution to my cause was gone now. She gently rebuffed me, offering profuse thanks for my input while sincerely assuaging my concerns all along the way as she lead our conversation directly to the door. And now I was spring loaded for a jihadi conversion. My Irish blood was up. This shit was on. Over the next two weeks, I refined my technique to the point where I could inconspicuously flip the Enquirer on every checkstand, plus the self-service island, without drawing the attention of the checkers or the store manager. I figured out when the new issue would be posted and hit it early and often. This was war. One fine summer day, after flipping the new edition throughout the entire store- the one with the headline “How Trump will Save The World from the FBI!“ with the superhead “It’s All True!“ or something like that, I noticed that the checkers were fighting back meekly. Some previously flipped copies were hastily and haphazardly returned to face forward. Those were, of course, re-targeted immediately, General Schwartzkof style. As I processed through the checkstand with my grocery purchases, I flipped the last stack of Enquirers with consummate skill when I heard a womans voice from behind me: “What exactly are you doing?“ Caught red handed, I turned to discover a pleasant faced woman, about my age, entering the line right behind me, scouring me with a rather concerned look. I wondered if she had noticed me flipping the entire store. Maybe she was a Safeway detective, collaring the vermin who was killing their National Enquirer sales. At this point, I just decided to go for broke. While we waited for the customer ahead of us to finish I explained to her, in a quiet voice, that I could not abide the sight of garbage next to where I purchase my food. Bolstered by repetition, my rationalization for this indefenseable act almost sounded like The Truth now. I waited for whatever reaction I surely deserved. After a thoughtful pause, her face broke into a beaming mischievious smile. She leaned forward over her basket and in a low voice she said “Oh, I like that!“ Over the next few weeks, I noticed that the checkers were slowly giving up the fight. New editions would sit all week without being returned to face up. As this development unfolded, I noticed that often, the brand new editions were being flipped before I could get to them. And that’s when I realized that the ELA- the Enquirer Liquidation Army- was born. By then, the store was reducing the number of stands that even carried the Enquirer or the Globe to just the self service island and that edition was almost always ways flipped before I could get to it. I started visiting other grocery stores. She must have told others because I went into the west side Albertsons one day only to find the entire store was already flipped. On another ocassion, I discovered that the Frog Pond Grocery- a tabloid bonanza- was already half flipped, so I finished the job. As the war spreads across the city, it is safe to say that Olympia market revenues from poison pen tabloids are probably down a bit this year. But we have only just begun. Maybe it is time to spread the word and scale up. It doesn’t restore the democracy, but every flip soothes the soul and feels like a tiny blow for freedom. I am not advocating anything for you, but it is really easy to join the ELA if you want to. All you need is a dose of open resentment and to dust off a few of your old teen age vandalism skills. It could do a heart good to start seeing stores flipped all over the place. Just sayin‘ flipper general
  14. You guys can really use a good block heater. Out here, Id just kinda like one ‘just to be able to‘. Id like to hear how the install worked out and if it is doing the trick for you back there in America‘s ice box...
  15. 720inOlyWa

    My 720 Resto

    To illustrate how the warped mind of an old codger works, I had sorta wondered to myself if having my big, soft, automatic transmission equipped Legacy back in hand would mean that I relegated the truck of limited ‘role playing‘ service, carrying loads, etc. And after I had a brand new factory key cut to celebrate it is true that for a week or two, I jumped right into the fresh ‘new‘ Legacy when I headed off to get coffee or run an errand. In fact, I left the truck idle in the driveway long enough that when I did kick it over, it took some coaxing. But then, after a bit, the novelty wore off and I drifted right back to the truck as my daily. Not only is it more charming to drive, but also people like it, talk to me about it, admire it, want it. I just never tire of the long stroke torque curve and the incomparable ‘trundleability‘ of driving it. The other day, I parked downtown just behind a really nice looking yellow 620 that was leaving its parking spot. I was driving the Subaru. I tried to park quickly enough to tell the driver I admired his taste in trucks, to slow him down long enough to get the story on it. But driving the Subaru, he had no reason to linger and he just drove away. I know the sound of a freshly and correctly rebuilt Datsun 4 banger when I hear one. If I had been driving the Fudgecicle, he would have waited.
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