Worth it?

[jgipp]

I am a noob to this vintage, but I have had a hardbody pickup, and have a 86 300z, but am looking at an 84 720 for a winter driver. Its a king cab, long bed 4wd from Texas, and the body is super solid, especially being in upstate NY. Problem is, it kinda runs ragged. Most noticeable is that when launching from a dead stop, it stumbles all over itself and wants to stall. Have to rev it to 3 thou, slip the clutch, and hope, but once its rolling, sounds like it runs as it should. Idles good too. Without load, it seems like around 1800 rpm it hits a dead spot, looses rpms unless you let off. It has had its electrical butchered, poss egr deleted? elec choke is unhooked, along with anti diesel cylinoid, so the guy says. Has had the block decked, head checked, new water pump, head gasket, dist/ wires etc, claims upper end it mostly new (carb came a parts truck he had) Also, ign switch deleted, now is on toggles w/relays. Im super interested in it, but am foreign to the carby lifestyle. I know its impossible to diagnose probs for sure with out being front of you, but what you guys think-simple as plug wires being out of place, super bad egr leak, carb needing rebuild? Also it came to NY from TX via Colorado-mebbe was rejetted for higher alt, needs to be corrected? Truck only has a 500 dollar pricetag, and its breakin ma heart here for NO RUST

Thanks

-Jeff the noob

[fisch]

I hear you Jeff! It is HARD to find a rust free one in this area! $500?! Do it!! I say go for it and figure it out. After all it would cost you $1100 or more to have a rust free one shipped to you.

 

Most folks would slap a weber 32/36 on there first thing anyway.

[izzo]

500 bux for a 4x4 is a good price

 

can do some tinkering and get rid of that dead spot. probly carb, or needs a good full tune up or something simple

[datzenmike]

Sounds carb related but needs a thorough going over.

 

First does it burn oil, smoke out the exhaust?

 

Does it run without overheating?

 

Start every time?

 

Run up to speed without strange noises?

[TrevDaddy]

I personally had an issue with stumbling from a start. It seemed the throttle would not respond until higher up in the RPM range. I rebuilt the carb, and it felt 100% better. I highly recommend doing this, b/c the rebuild kit is only $25 on ebay. I got mine for $18.50, but that was on sale:D

[jgipp]

It does not seem to smoke, there was some sparse liquid, poss water, poss unburnt fuel, I didnt think to really check it at the time (was excited to find it in such good shape body-wise) seemed to start fine, stalled out after a sec of idling, but only did it once. Did notice the motor seemed to "shake" a bit while idling, didnt know if motor mounts just old, mebbe out of time slighlty, or just the nuances of being an inline 4. Like I said before, the electrical to the carb has been hacked and I cant remember what it looked like, with the elec choke unhooked, would that cause it to be choked or unchoked, and is there any way of hotwiring it to test? I am leaning toward just saying screw it I'll figer it out later, but then again, I can hope in one hand and S#!* in the other, I need something drivable as soon as I see a salt shaker go down the road. Shot in the dark, I know there is alot of changeability between these trucks, and im fairly sure I read that the z24 carby engines and KA24d stuff is somewhat interchangeable, any chance the z22 is similar, I have a hardbody off in the weeds, mebbe convert to EFI w/the top end parts-lower end had a bad knock (timing chain ate a guide, chewed through the backside cover, antifreeze into the oil, etc)

[izzo]

its pretty easy to toss that carb and run a weber on there.

[jgipp]

Is the weber a direct replacement, or does require any other changes along with it? (im starting to look more now)

[jgipp]

Just found out its a 2.4