powderfinger

Picked up an 86 720 4x4 today that I plan to fix up. The guy I bought the truck from got it from his neighbor who was an old man who bought it brand new. Unfortunately, as the original owner got older and used the truck on his farm he hit a tree along the passenger side while hunting in the woods. Going to take a bit of work to fix. He also shot a hole in the roof somehow LOL. Luckily I have a spare bed in good shape and another door. The back corner of the body is going to be difficult part. Looking for some advice on the best way to tackle it. The cab on the parts truck I have has a perfect passenger side. Was thinking it may be easier to cut the dented up section off the 4x4 and replace it with the straight metal from the parts truck. May be easier than trying to straighten this massive dent out? Truck only has 56000 miles on it. Has a blown head gasket of course 🙂 but ran decent enough to pull onto my trailer and then into my shop. Still has paperwork from original purchase.

What material is he using to print these? I have a 3D printer but I have never tried printing with any material that is flexible.

I used a piece of indoor-outdoor carpet on mine. Cut a strip, folded it and wedged in into the window channel. Works perfect and I already had it laying around the house.

I think one of the problems people have is sometimes it doesn't let them name the add what they want or they just can't figure out how to. I see lots of 720's listed as Titans or Pathfinders and then in the add the person who posted it said it wouldn't let them use 720.

Indeed, but many more people use marketplace than Craigslist now so we are stuck with it for a while I think.

This is not mine I just saw it and thought I would share in case anyone is close by and wanted to go look at it since these don't come up for sale that often.

One of the craziest things about the truck is not a single marker light is busted or even cracked!!!

Going to get this when I get off work today. No rust except in bottom of bed near cab which is very common. A couple of dings in the body but overall in good shape. At some point it was closed up with moisture in the cab, there is a lot of mold in there. It still runs fine and the automatic transmission shifts fine as well. Dude had to hard wire the fuel pump to get it to run but I am sure that won't be hard to fix. It's been sitting for a year. I will probably use it as a parts truck. Especially if I find a 4x4 to fix up. It is the base model with no power steering. Got it for $500. 🙂

Did someone one here beat me to these two? They were on Facebook Marketplace in Greensboro, NC. The blue one is in really good shape. I contacted the guy but was too late. He said he had several people already contact him that said they were coming to get them. I at least hope someone on here got them.

If your idle is set too high it can also cause dieseling. I had this issue after fixing my AC. I had to adjust the idle up some so it would idle smooth with the AC on. I overshot the idle RPM a little and would get dieseling when shutting the truck off without the AC running.

Two King Cab 720 truck beds just showed up on Facebook Marketplace in Raleigh a couple of hours ago pretty cheap. They are not in the best of shape but better than yours. 🙂

Pretty sure he is saying that there is a good chance your compressor may not be big enough. Need high CFM for blasting. The other thing is I doubt that compressor is rated for 100% duty cycle and it will probably run continuously while blasting like Charlie69's 5HP compressor.

That's funny because I am debating something similar right now. I just looked at a 4x4 King Cab truck for sale but the floor board are rusted through pretty bad. I don't think I would swap everything from my two wheel drive to the 4x4 but I would definitely take the best parts from each which would mostly come from my two wheel drive since it is in excellent shape. I originally wanted a 4x4 when I bought my truck but most of them I see are really rusted up. I'd like to fix up a 4x4 just like was popular in the 80s and early 90s with the brush guard, roll bars in bed, and big round KC lights mounted on top of the roll bar!

If you have parts you will sell I will definitely keep you in mind. There is a chance I will be fixing up a 4x4 720 soon.

Nice job, interior on your truck is in really good condition as well. If you could find a truck bed in good condition you would have you a really nice 720. There is a possibility in the future that I will have a spare bed that I could maybe part with. I actually have one in excellent shape now but not willing to part with it at this moment. It's the newer style from an 85 model though.

I drive an 85 720 to work everyday, 55 mile round trip, and I think the suspension is too soft so it's probably exactly what you are looking for. I will say however, that I have never ridden in any older model Datsun trucks so I can't compare the ride quality/smoothnesss.

I daily drive my 85 720, 55 miles round trip. Was going to fix it up but now that I use it as a daily driver I'll probably just leave it as is and get something else to fix up. Haven't decided if I want to fix up a car or truck. If I go with a car then I am leaning towards a B310 coupe, if a truck then probably a 620. Both are very hard to find on east coast in decent condition.

I didn't realize these trucks came with two different compressors and mine is the one you can't seem to get anymore. At least not at any of the parts stores or on RockAuto. Mine is a Nihon DKV-14B and most places carry the replacement for the DKV-14C I believe. They use different AC hose connections. Of course I didn't realize that until I purchased it so now I'll have to return it. After removing the old compressor I went to dump the oil out of if and it didn't seem to have much in it so I drained it and filled it back up with Ester oil and reinstalled it and crossed my fingers. I then pulled a vacuum and charged the system with R134 instead of the propane, hoping it would cool good enough. I read a lot about propane causing the system to freeze up if you don't mix it with butane. So far compressor seems to be working ok, no strange noises but system isn't getting as cool as I would like which is what I feared using R134. Had the same issue converting a late 80s Jeep Comanche pickup once. Yesterday evening it was around 90 degrees and the vent temps would only get to 50F driving at 50MPH. Idling it would be 60F. I wonder if I could find a larger condenser off another vehicle that might work better? Other option would be to pay up for some R12 but not sure I like that option for future use if there is a leak or anything which with a 35 year old vehicle is probably likely at some point. My compressor The one all the stores carry.

Good times 🙂 After cleaning all this mess up, installing the new expansion valve and drier, and charging system with propane the air is blowing COLD. Unfortunately, after running it for a few minutes the compressor starting making some pretty nasty noises so looks like I am going to need a new compressor. I kind of expected that from a 35 year old compressor that hasn't been used many years. Same thing happened when I tried to get the AC working on an old Honda I used to own except I just went without AC on that car.

Thanks guys, I figured it must be under the dash. Going to try to get this thing working in the next few weeks.

I have been driving my 85 720 for a year and a half now and am to the point where I'd like to get the factory AC working. It is still configured for R12. I tried adding some oil and propane (don't judge lol) to see if the compressor was working and crossed my fingers that it would everything would just work. Of course it didn't. As soon as I started to charge the system the pressure went from 0 to really high making me think something is stopped up. One good note is as soon as the pressure went up the compressor came on so that works. I tried blowing air through the evaporator with my air compressor and no air will pass through it so I am guessing that is clogged. A few questions: 1. I can't find an expansion valve anywhere. Where is it located on these trucks? 2. Is there a reliable way to clean out some of things in the current system without replacing them? I would like to avoid spending too much money if possible. I will certainly replace the drier and expansion valve (if I can find it lol) because they are cheap, and of course the evaporator because it is clogged. Mainly I would like to avoid replacing the condenser and the compressor. Although I have a feeling as old as the compressor is it will probably work for a while and then fail which is what happened to my old civic when I tried reusing the old compressor.

I guess I am in the minority here but I have pulled my 720 transmission out several times and pulling engine seems like way more work to me. One caveat for me is I have a two post lift which makes pulling the tranny way easier. Maybe without the lift I could see pulling the engine to avoid having to be working off your back the whole time.