Another 620 KA24DE swap, slow but steady...

[farinboy]

Ok, so I'm new to ratsun, but not new to cars.  Newest owner of this delightful 620 though. Picked it up a few weeks ago and gonna start posting about it again after 2 years of nothing. She's running good I'm glad to say, but still has her issues and things to finish. Looks a little different, but still good. I'll post pictures when I get this figgerred out.

[]2eDeYe]

Photobucket works ok for photo hosting. Looking forward to seeing current pics. :D

[farinboy]

Ok, so here's basically how I ended up with the truck.  I'm out in northwest Florida right now after 5 years in SoCal.  Been drifting in my corolla for a while and been into pretty much all interesting cars.  Trying to get friends into them too. So I look on craigslist all the time to find cool shit for them.  Then I stumbled upon this bad boy.  I told my friend he had to go check it out and buy it.  He was down and when we went to go check it out he loved it.  Then he asked his wife... and now doesn't have the truck.  I jokingly asked mine with no intent to really buy it and she said "if you want it."  Thought about it for a couple seconds and here we are.  Just couldn't deal with not seeing this thing all the time, and if my friend won't buy it, I guess I had to.

 

So got it about a month ago for what I think was a decent price.  It's got it's issues which I knew it would, and quite a few things were changed from when mantas owned it.  I've been plucking away the little stuff while getting together parts for the bigger things.

 

Here it is when we rescued it:

Some of the obvious difference that the past owned did were the front chin spoiler(sweet), projectors and yellow fog lights(sweet), wood bed insert(sweet), changed the buckets out with some old military jeep seats(kinda sweet), put in a home audio speaker in a duffle bag between the seats hooked up to an amp behind the passenger seat with aux cable(somewhat sweet), put on a plastic roof rack(looks sweet but not really), changed louvered hood with a rusted out, bondoed up, red, blue, and rust colored flat one(not sweet at all), changed tailgate with an ok one(doesn't match yet), and busted out sunroof so there was the big hole(not sweet for obvious reasons).  Probably some more that I'm sure will be pointed out.

 

Besides that, none of the mechanical issues had been resolved.  Still suffering from the wierd rattle noise.  1st and 2nd gear synchros going out.  Leaking and burning a bit of oil.  And was running very very rich.  Black smoke, bad mileage, and all that.  Also getting hot easy.

 

Over the past few weeks I've been getting shit together to adress those issues, while taking care of the ones that I could with just time and work.

[farinboy]

First thing done, window crank on passenger side was off.  $2 at oreilly and it was clipped back on.  Don't know how it wasn't put back on before selling, but whatever.

 

Then me and a buddy moved on to getting that massive hole in the roof taken care of.  Atleast temporarily.  We got some 1/4" lexan and used his wood working tools to cut it to shape, put 10 square holes in the lexan, and use carriage bolts with metal plates and wing nuts to secure it.  No extra holes in the roof this way, and it can be taken off whenever.  Used some c-channel weather stripping and it works pretty good.  Been driving it a lot for a few weeks and no wind noise at speed, and it holds up pretty well in the rain.  Not perfect, definitely get some water through, but for minimal price and the ability to change it later, I can't complain.

Pictures are before weather stripping was added.

 

Then there were a few other things.  Took the grill out, cleaned it up, and gave it a few coats of satin black.  Looks soooo much better.  Then it was time for the hood to come off.  Took it out back, sanded it down, found the many colors that it used to be, and primed and painted satin black.  I love the black hood on a bright colored classic car look.  What do you think?

Pic with the corolla because I love my cars.

 

Bled the brakes very very thoroughly, but they're still weak and pull to the right.  Might be getting some calipers.  Will continue to troubleshoot.  Found that the fuel pressure regulator was set to over 60psi!  Back down to 35 at idle and no more black smoke, just the typical ka24 white smoke lol.  Picked up a ka trans to take care of that synchro issue.  Will be putting it in whenever I get time.

 

Also, found wires for the horn button floating with no connectors. Hooked them up and replaced that weak horn with a real loud oogah horn.  Love it or hate it, I'm down with it.

 

I'll keep updating when I can.

 

And here's one last shot of bringing it in to work one night to get a real good polish on that paint.

[Lockleaf]

truck is looking good. Thanks for bringing one back to the fold.

 

If the metal pan of the bed hasn't been removed, that wood insert will create huge rust issues, so watch for that.

[]2eDeYe]

Nice work environment :thumbup:

[mantas]

I log back into my account and realized this truck is probably still breathing...hey Newbie, glad you took good care of this thing, do you still own it?