72patbo620

I did a little DIY seat re-covering seen here: http://community.ratsun.net/topic/68063-72-620-modern-refresh/ But i'm not going to lie it was pretty time consuming and my results didn't come out as great as I had hoped (but it works just fine). Part of this was because I just essentially wrapped a flat sheet of vinyl around the foam. If you have a straight bench it should be pretty easy, I had the bench with the shifter cutout and it was more difficult than anticipated. If you have the cutout, take the time to do it correctly which would be tracing out the curve and sewing a new piece in front to alleviate the headaches of trying to make a clean curve with a flat sheet of vinyl.

See yall there.

Rock auto. 6$ each.

Bottom side didn't come out as nicely as I hoped, but I did the best I could. Trying to get around that cutout cleanly proved to be a complete PITA. Got it all installed and made some floor mats from some turf. Its a surf truck so it's going to get sandy and a little wet. (Don't mind the wires running through the trans cutout, it was a quick fix to get me to pass inspection for reverse lights.) Even got a chance to clean up and paint the stock jack and and tools. Lastly I had a chance to change my brown coolant and put some hose water through the radiator and block to give it a good flush. Tomorrow I should have a chance to fix some headlight rings and install my amber fogs, also it turns out 4th gear is not whining, I believe its a screaming speedometer cable which I am just going to try and lube with a bunch of gear oil. Other than that, I think I want to start gathering supplies for a disc brake conversion up front but want to be able to fit it under the stock wheels. Can it be done with some D21 hardbody calipers?

Finally made some more progress, so here we go. Got a chance to trim the vinyl at work because it had a nice flat floor After getting it all cut, it was a matter of lining the edges up and pinning the two finished sides facing eachother Then its a matter of just sewing the panels together. Mine was a really simple design because well it was cheap so I just had to do some simple stitching. I had to thin out the rear foam panel because it was too thick in my mind Get covering. This proved much more difficult than I had anticipated with only one person and no experience. Got the back side covered which came out decent, getting the folds nice and clean was pretty difficult. I didnt quite get it perfect, but its good enough.

So just a small update: Since I finally got the truck running, I decided to take it for a nice long 60 mile ride (mostly highway) and everything was fine! Although this thing is really... really loud in 4th gear, so I might have to see whats going on down below. Maybe try and find a 5-speed to drop the RPM's on the highway. But other than that, My vinyl fabric has arrived to upholster the seats with. So here are some teasers. Fabric is from Ebay and it seems to be of pretty good quality for 6$ a yard which is significantly cheaper than the local upholstery stores. The driver and passenger will get the black perforated material and the center section will be the grey pleather to break it up a little. I also snagged up some Amber Fogs for dirt cheap (6$ each) Hopefully this week i'll be able to get it all stitched so I can start attaching it to the frame next weekend.

Yeah, just pull off the carb, remove the 2 12mm bolts, flat head screw driver the jets out and spray the hell out of them as well as inside the carb body. It made all the difference in mine.

SHE FINALLY RUNS RIGHT! ITS ABOUT DAMN TIME! Finally got my carb issue squared away. I cleaned the jets and although I did not see any debris, it sure fixed something. Now more progress! So at this point since there are a few of you interested in the bench seat re-do here we go! I first spent some time reading through upholstery forums and watching videos to give me some baseline as I've never upholstered anything in my life. But i'm the kind of person that will try doing anything myself because i'm pretty confident in my skills and like learning things that I've never done before. Materials: Seat Frame 3" Upholstery Foam (Home Depot 25$ per sheet X2) 4 Yards Burlap Fabric (Jo-Ann Fabrics 4 Yards @3$/Yd= $12) Hog Ring Pliers w. 100 Rings (Eastwood 30$) Extra 100 Hogrings (Eastwood 5$) 3m Super 77 spray Adhesive (Home Depot $10) Electric Meat Carver (Target 15$) Upholstery Material (I am still undecided...) Quick back story of the original seat; Previous owner must have got sick of the torn seat and instead of re-covering it he did the worst thing possible... He removed the seat back, cut all the springs out of the bottom and welded a 3rd row seat from a junk yard on top of the original seat frame. I'm 5'7" and my head was in the headliner, so needless to say it just wasn't going to work out. So the hunt began... Thanks to Nathan H, (Red13) for selling me an original seat frame and although it was a 5 hour round trip, I ended up with a 620 bench frame with cutout! Thanks Nathan! After doing some searching I found out that my local Home Depot sells a 3"X 24"X 60" open cell foam specifically for seat cushions for a reasonable price. I first started tracing the seat frames to the foam, then added 3 inches to the traced line all around as the extra foam will give you a nice rounded edge when you go to stretch the final fabric. Trim the foam with the electric meat carver (Its well worth the 15$ investment, cuts like butter and allows you to cut smooth curves) With that all done, you will have something that looks a little like this: Once that's done its time to put a base layer on the frame so the foam does not tear on the springs over the years. I chose burlap because it is cheap and durable and really its all you need. Cut the burlap to the size of the frame leaving about 1 or 2 inches of overlap all around for some shrinkage. (When you attach the hog rings you will pull a little fabric and the extra inches help)(Extra inches always helps. Ayoo!) At this point its time to settle down with some whiskey and start attaching the burlap to the seat frame. Bulleit to the rescue! Starting from the center working your way outward, attach the burlap to the seat frame. I used way more hog rings than needed on the bottom, luckily I ordered an extra hundred rings. Also, the 45 degree tips on the pliers are great for some hard to reach areas. They make a straight, 45 and 90 degree so I figured 45 would be right in the middle and its been working great! After a few minutes you will have a burlap covered seat frame! Once the frame was covered I did some more detailed foam trimming to get a better fit and gain clearance for the seat hinge. That's about where I left off last night. I still need to decide on what fabric/ Vinyl I want to use on this so I've got to get working on that pretty soon. Also after sitting on the foamed frame I feel like the seat-back foam is too thick at 3" so I might cut it down to 2" or 1.5". Stay Tuned!

Damn Nathan, looking good! I didnt know you were this deep into your truck. Too bad I didnt get to see it when I got the seat.

HOLY CRAP ITS FIXED!!!! I can finally dive it! Its still not 100% but it sure it a hell of a lot better than it was before. Mexi-tune was no bueno, so I pulled the jets, and although I did not see any debris, I sprayed like a half a can of carb cleaner on everything. Sure enough started up, started to stumble when driving and after a few full throttle punches it cleared up. Thank you guys very much for your input, if we ever get a chance to meet in person, i'll gladly buy you gents a beer. Cheers!

I really should have done a how-to write up, but I didn't take nearly enough pictures so i'll try and write it out. I started with the typical UV cracked wavy dash that could have passed for a whoops section on a supercross track, let alone a dashboard. I tried taking it out as cleanly as possible which included: Disconnecting the wires under the dash on the passenger side firewall (like 4 or 5 connectors and I pulled the glovebox liner to gain access to the wiring) Disconnect the speaker wires from the radio and the antenna wire Disconnect the heater cables that actuate the doors and hot/cold and blower motor wires Disconnect the speedo, ignition, light switch, wiper switch, ect ect. You get the point on the underside. Use an L shaped screw driver or a drill Philips bit and a wrench to get those pesky dashboard screws by the windshield Disconnect the 4-5 underside bolts, remove the steering wheel (it helps with clearance) (I found unbolting the steering column from under the dash did nothing because its a solid rod to the steering box) Gently start removing the dash, If you feel resistance STOP, check and make sure you are not stuck on anything. And boom your dash is out! (I opted not to pull the gauges to make it easier. Refinishing. I did not remove the dash pad from the frame as I wanted to keep it rigid while I was sanding. I started right away with 100 grit on a sanding block to bring it back down to sort-of level because it was warped as well. After getting it knocked down, the cracks became larger which is fine but I cut a slight V in the foam to give me more surface area to bond to. I used bondo because I had some leftover from an older project but if I were to do it again i would probably opt for the dash specific filler. After that it's really just body work on a dashboard, which for those of you who are not super familiar, light coats of filler followed by sanding and repeat until you are satisfied with how smooth the dash is. Start with 100 grit to knock down the plastic, I used like 180 grit to knock down the big filler areas, 220 to smooth things out and 400 grit over the entire dash to finish it off. I think i did like 4 coats of filler occasionally priming over the filler to expose high and low spots after sanding. Once it was all sanded and I was pleased with the profile, I cleaned it all up CLEAN HANDS CLEAN HANDS CLEAN HANDS!!! (Shopvac, soap and water, and a tack cloth to remove all the small particles) After it was all clean, masked off the gauges and anything I did not want sprayed and hit it with the tack cloth again. I followed it all up with 2 coats of self etching primer and sanded a few more spits because remember you will be staring at it all the time so you may as well make it perfect. Lastly, I painted it with Rustoleum Multi-Color Textured paint (Iron Oxide) because I wanted a textured look. LET IT DRY IN FULL, Don't risk messing up your hard work. Reverse the removal procedure and boom you are done. In all its a solid weekend project between removal, filler drying times, paint drying times ect. but absolutley well worth the time invested. In all, it took me about 10 hours maybe? but as far as difficulty I would say its about a 5/10, its just time consuming.

So another update: Still working on sorting out my running issue documented here: http://community.ratsun.net/topic/68511-72-620-runs-rough-when-warm/ On the plus side of all of this nonsense, I know my motor at its core is in great shape by way of compression test and some other inspection. But as far as progress goes: 3" angled lowering blocks arrived yesterday so I was able to get those installed last night, but not without some issues. Kit came with 9"X3" U-bolts but our trucks need 10" But thankfully Autozone had the 10" bolts so it wasn't a total waste of time. Before/After 3" out back and about 1.5" in front to just level it out and clean up some wheel gaps. Lastly, my hogring pliers finally showed up from Eastwood so I can keep working/finish my seat project!

So just to confirm, Mexican Tune-up, and if that does not work, clean out the jet pointed in red?

Reviving a thread from the dead... but the Wagner 4412A were 18$ shipped for the pair on Rock Auto. Just as cheap as paint and you can keep the original clears.

Definitely great looking patina! It adds a lot of character. I just got one for the same reason, surf/mountain bike truck to get dirty and its a fun little project. Are you 3" lower in the rear? and how much in the front?