'79 620 daily

[WAGON JON]

Quite impressed with all the fabrication! :D Awesome!

[INDY510]

.

I've been following this thread since the beggining ....... .. I am impressed with your skills,,, , and what seems like 1,000 hours of labor..... :thumbup:

 

What are your plans for paint??? .... color??

[Wide14u]

looks good keep it coming

[Gary]

thanks fellas :)

 

i lost count of hours spent after 500 or so, id dare say itd be over 1000 now. sounds a lot more than it feels like!

 

paint wise its staying white for now, but a flat white which makes things easier. plenty colours i like though, that flat army green on MCR's 510 and another cool lookin zed on here looks awesssommmee

 

progress;

finished working on the passenger quarter today, its as rough (maybe a little more) as the drivers side one. im glad no more quarter work though

 

finished up painting the grille and cleaning the trim rings, ive glued them on with trim glue but two of them dont fit so good so they're being held on with cableties till i figure out a better way so that they're still removable later. then swapped out parker globes for normal colour ones and the outers for indicators since i shaved the stock ones. most of the front end is together now :D been waiting 6 or so months for a peek at how it'll look, i fitted the bonnet on quick for shits. happy as! 620's look cooooooooooooolll

 

could do with being a few meters lower, but not until rwc :( tomoz i'll probs work on the bonnet

[Gary]

progress;

bonnet is as done as it'll be, got that on now after some rattle can action

 

also remembered about my drama with the little trim strip that goes on the bonnet. mine has had some pretty serious repair done to it and they didnt drill the holes and fit the trim piece after theyd finished. since my new trim bit didnt have enough good mounting studs on it, i had to make some which i did with the lathe;

 

then drilled holes in the bonnet, poked the studs through then tightened em up like factory and now its all good

 

tomoz ive got a mates car to work on, but might get round to fitting the bumper once more

[fivetenguy]

Awsome build, man! I've been following it since I became a member. Your truck is looking real good. You defenetly know what you are doing with this truck. Keep up the good work!

[Gary]

thanks :D i dunno what im doing, just pretending hah workin alright so far though

 

progress;

this weekend was spent mostly working on commodores, mates one saturday and brothers one today :\

 

managed to get the bumper on though, since i welded up the holes for the bolts for the bumper i had to weld the brackets on, so bolted them in, bent them so they matched (passenger side one was a little munted), mocked the position of the bumper then g clamped it to the brackets, then took it off and welded it, ground the rust off then fitted it

 

all back together now save for indicators, ill get to them later. next i think ill get battery fitted so i can get wiring done for alternator, stereo and the rest so its about ready for the engine to be started

[Gary]

progress;

made most of the battery box today, just needs a lid which i have to make airtight so things dont get wet inside, sort that out soon. also got some 4guage cable and terminals

 

looks like ill need to be fixing brothers commodore tomoz or next day, needs radiator and waterpump <_< i guess upside is rad is only 130 (pretty big mofo too) and waterpump maybe 120 or so. hoping cos its RWD it'll be simpler but i doubt it

[goes2fast]

Lookin' good, but battery cables should be at least 2 gauge when that long. You don't need that long of neg. cable, just run to frame then another short one from frame to engine block. Also run a ground strap from engine to firewall, and you shouldn't have any electrical problems. I always use 2 gauge cables no mater what the length, don't want any voltage drop due to too small of cable, the 620 electrical system is over taxed as it is, I have a 280ZX alternator on mine, and all LED bulbs, except the headlights, which are HID, and that helps, but eventually I want to replace the whole wiring harness with a better quality universal one from someone like Painless, or American auto wire. All my stock 620s when running at night with lights and heater on, when you turn on the wipers, you could hear the heater motor slow down due to not enough power, so the stock system isn't the best.

 

Keep up the good work! :cool:

[deadmonkey]

Honestly, I had an aftermarket wiring harnes in my 620 before I replaced with a stock one from '78. The wire sizes really weren't much different. Better grounding IMO is more important than bigger wires. Remember, electrons travel on the skin of a wire, not the inside. So a braided wire vs a solid wire will actually help with power transfer. Also, a larger ground cable is usually a better place to start because it is usually the "bottlneck" on the return path. Think of current as the water in a stream and the river size as the wire it is on. Smaller river(wire) means the current flows faster and creates more heat. Bigger river(wire) mean slower current for the same flow and less heat or power loss. Resistance increases with heat. Another thing to keep in mind is that the power for a vehical comes from the alternator, not the battery.

 

but yeah :) bigger cables can't hurt, but not really the end of the world.

you have an amp guage you can check to see if it is drawing too much for what the cable is rated for (turn lights on high, heater full blast and radio blazing, etc).

[goes2fast]

Honestly, I had an aftermarket wiring harnes in my 620 before I replaced with a stock one from '78. The wire sizes really weren't much different. Better grounding IMO is more important than bigger wires. Remember, electrons travel on the skin of a wire, not the inside. So a braided wire vs a solid wire will actually help with power transfer. Also, a larger ground cable is usually a better place to start because it is usually the "bottlneck" on the return path. Think of current as the water in a stream and the river size as the wire it is on. Smaller river(wire) means the current flows faster and creates more heat. Bigger river(wire) mean slower current for the same flow and less heat or power loss. Resistance increases with heat. Another thing to keep in mind is that the power for a vehical comes from the alternator, not the battery.

 

but yeah :) bigger cables can't hurt, but not really the end of the world.

you have an amp guage you can check to see if it is drawing too much for what the cable is rated for (turn lights on high, heater full blast and radio blazing, etc).

 

Bigger gauge means more wire strands for the electrons to travel on the outside of, unless you are using cheap wire that doesn't increase the amount of strands with the gauge, The more strands, the easier the path for the current flow, also both cables need to be large, as the flow is all the way back to the battery, so either one can be a bottle neck. :D

[Gary]

woa back again. been going through withdrawals not working on the ute :blink: honestly sitting down doing nothing over christmas (cant make a lot of noise) made my back ache!

 

i managed to sneak in some machining here and there to make some grommets for the battery box though, the mould i made was probably the nastiest thing ive made ever but worked kinda, using old chunky urethane didnt help but they'll do the trick i think

 

gettin back into it now thankfully :D i went by some random table on the intarwebs to choose the guage wire i needed for the battery. could probably have been bigger, i cant remember what the figures were now but i had about 50A give in what 4G over 10m was roughly rated to. the wire ive got is lots of little strands wound together. should do the trick for my basic stez and starting the fair low comp J series :D if i have dramas ill just get some bigger stuff and use the wiring for someone elses stereo or something

 

progress;

got into the battery box more after making those grommets. started by drilling the holes for the grommets

 

then made the lid, then got the hinges up against it to find i needed a rise of about 8mm to suit. the lid had do overhang so i could fit a small sheet of rubber in between, i need the box sealed against water since its under the tub

 

made a quick rise to suit, welded it on, then got the hinges tacked to see if they were good, the welded em on proper

 

now just needed something to hold the lid closed. it had to be down fairly tight to keep a seal between the rubber and steel, so i thought of using two straps of steel and bolts to torque it down nice and hard

 

the lid just needs something about 30mm under it to hold the battery in place, and ill see what i can do about ensuring the terminals cant possibly earth out on the steel around it once the clamps are on. ive decided too that as soon as the ute is moving and the tub is back on, im going and getting a mill

[Gary]

progress;

finished the battery box today, i got that support welded to the lid for the battery, then cut out some more rubber sheet to surround the terminals, painted it then got it all together and bolted onto the frame

 

tomoz maybe some bodywork, then work out where the power wiring will go

[Wide14u]

its coming out great

[Gary]

thanks :)

 

progress;

back into it once more after new years shenanigans. here and there for the last few days i worked a little on the cab. ive cut the roof back to matte and cleaned a few bits here and there, needs work around the windscreen and pillars though. also started to run the power lines;

 

then today i started the kick panels. these will hold speakers, so they're not quite finished yet but not far. i stripped the old ones, traced them out then made steel ones, then remade some of the mounting spots on the cab, then triangulated the position of the speaker hole and thats all i got to. tomoz ill cut it out, then work on lifting the speaker out a bit to clear the cab behind the speakers magnet, and it wont be far off done

[Gary]

progress;

some more work into the kick panels, cut out the holes for the speakers (not so fun with angle grinders), then made some rings, then got them in position and tacked them, then traced out a section to bridge the gap then made it out of steel and then i got called into work :(

 

[Gary]

progress;

 

finished the kick panels, speakers are ready to wire in. they look fair rough (just sorta tacked together) cos im planning to trim it in vinyl. its not a necessity at the moment though so it'll wait till later

 

[Wide14u]

they came out really nice

[Gary]

fairly rough in person :( wont be too long till its in vinyl though i spose

 

progress;

yesterday finished routing the battery wiring underneath the carpet and into the engine bay, and went to jaycar and got some bits (some terminals, a switch and some spade/round thing connectors)

 

i broke the hazard switch when i was fiddling with it when i first got the ute, so need to work out something to fix it. ive made a small bracket to screw in place of the old one, that the new switch will screw onto. im not sure the switch ive got will do the trick, the stock one looks fair complex so i guess ill only know when i wire it :D also gave it some paint cos the plastic is going white in places, flat black = win

 

today i worked on making something to suit my new terminals. ill work out something cleaner later but for now this'll work;

 

ive insulated the terminals against the bracket with some rubber sheet i have, ive put a different end on the original earth strap to engine so it suits the new terminals, just need to do that for the rest of the wiring that connects straight to the battery then ill have power! can work on the rest of the wiring then, not too much more and it'll be moving again

[Gary]

progress;

spent yesterday fixing a van and doing a little more wiring, and today i picked up some of this;

twin 40mm dellorto DHLA's for the L20 i have lying about :D

 

ive been fixing the ends of a few main positive and negative leads, and replaced some of the wiring. im trying to figure out how to lose the old regulator and keep the charge light but i dunno. getting there though i spose

[goes2fast]

progress;

spent yesterday fixing a van and doing a little more wiring, and today i picked up some of this;

twin 40mm dellorto DHLA's for the L20 i have lying about :D

 

ive been fixing the ends of a few main positive and negative leads, and replaced some of the wiring. im trying to figure out how to lose the old regulator and keep the charge light but i dunno. getting there though i spose

 

Maybe this will help, my 79 had an alternator with built in regulator, I swapped one from a 280ZX for the higher output. If you get a wiring diagram for a US spec 79 620, it should show how to make it work the way you want to.

 

I would kill for your new carb setup!!! :P

[Gary]

thanks for the advice :) i was trying to figure out what each pinout for the regulator actually did so i could work around them, but few diagrams i had corresponded exactly to what i had in front of me (J15 in a 620 has slightly different wiring to a J13 in a 520). i think i got it sorted now, ive got what i think is a spare ACC line though which im not sure is right. at any rate its all together and so far as i can tell there are no shorts

 

its been a while since updating :( i have been working on it though just had quite a few distractions here and there which werent helping. i managed to get through wiring, wired in indicators (using the park globes for my outer headlights im not using otherwise), my new alternator sans regulator, fixed wiring to various stuff (by various i mean i dunno :P), i got the side indicators wired in again (i cut the wire in haste when i removed a quarter for the first time), ran a few power lines to stuff, wired in the headunit, got me a decent antenna which will i think works when its hidden as it is, new ends for all of the larger guage wiring to battery, and wired in the thermo a little better. im not too good with wiring when it gets illogical (as it does), only cos i dont completely understand whats going on, but learning is tricky when im not overly experienced with how certain circuits work. got through it though i spose. ill tape up the loom once i know everything works, ive got a feeling ill be chasing gremlins soon enough

 

also nearly finished bodywork, finally. ive closed the sills and patched a few bits here and there on the drivers side and painted it, its as finished as it'll be. passenger side wise nearly done just need a tiny bit more filler in one or two spots. the passenger door isnt on right, hence the crazy gaps, ill fix

 

ill finish that tomoz i think, i also need to fix a few nasty bits around the windscreen, but after that ive got some minor spannering to do and it'll be about ready to start and move places!

[Gary]

progress;

i think i might maybe be possibly pretty much done for bodywork, finally :mellow: finished (as finished as itll get anywho) the sills, a couple bits on the back of the cab, and on the a pillars

 

also smoothed out just above the windscreen, looked a little bubbly (only some of it was due to surface rust :\) and gave it a quick shot of paint

 

tomoz ill look at the mechanical side of things, maybe fix that damn sump leak

[Gary]

progress;

well, sorta thought itd be better finishing the interior so i can get it back together, so i sorted out the aerial today. i wanted it hidden, or just not on the outside of the car so i got it in the cab instead. made a quick bracket and voila

 

 

also noticed the sill trim doesnt fit cos of the carpet, and that its beat up real good so i worked out a decent profile and ill get some suitable sheet tomoz and make those real quick

[Gary]

progress;

kinda stuffed up on a couple of counts, hopefully be able to fix but i made the sill trim things today

 

bent them up nice, got an ok profile going (a bit tall but i didnt care), until i realised if theyre too tall they might sorta foul the door when you shut it :( so now ive gotta bend it back and use a smaller radius to bend against, then trim it further to fit gdammit

 

the other fail was after making them i thought i could probably have made them from stainless instead, much better option for something thats gunna see some scuffs. happens though i spose

 

 

tomoz ill try fix em, if not ill start again with some stainless