My 720 Resto

[720inOlyWa]

Mark this day.

This is the day when I finally got everything working just right. I spent the entire day tweaking the distributor drive shaft until there was no doubt that I was in the exact correct cog on the gear and everything timed up perfectly. She runs up through the gears now with almost no effort at all, smooth as can be. Not sure it could have run any better the day it was delivered. I mean, it is prefect- or as near to perfect as I could ever reasonably expect.

 

The EGR Valve is tight to the manifold now too, and I adjusted the float bowl so that it is no longer spilling a little fuel into the manifold. I could use a turn signal switch, or to rehab this one- because it sticks going left. That is the short list for my truck. Wow. It took a full year from beginning to end, but I finally have it very close to the shape I want it.

 

Kind of a Big Day!

[Charlie69]

Take the switch apart and clean and re lube it.

[720inOlyWa]

Take the switch apart and clean and re lube it.

 

Probably all that it needs is a little rehab and lube, like most everything else.

[720inOlyWa]

Can you guess what this nifty little tool does?

Maybe you have made one of these for yourself.

I call it my ‘Tower of Babel’ tool, for no particular reason...

 

 

I had a terrible time getting the distributor shaft in just the right cog on the crank gear. After pulling the oil pump three times and having the shaft drop out with it, ruining my exact point of reference, I needed a better way. Hence, the Tower of Babel Tool. I used it to hold the shaft in place when I drop the oil pump.

 

I just pull the dizzy, drop it in the hole until the super rare earth magnets click, then I clamp it there with a spring clamp, and I am good. Once under the truck, I can pull the oil pump and the shaft will stay put. I can take my time pulling gear from the cog it was in, and moving it to the cog it belongs in, with absolute certainty as to my point of reference. No bullshit to fumble back together with oil spilling everywhere and the shaft moving in weird directions, because the Tower of Babel Tool makes it easy. The nice thing is, once you slip a cog and ease the shaft back in, the tool grabs it back with a satisfying click, holding it in place while you re-attach the oil pump without any fuss.

 

Last week, with this tool, I dropped the oil pump and advanced the shaft one cog. It took about 25 minutes, total. Now it times up perfect, and really runs great. Sixth time was a charm, thanks to my Tower of Babel Tool!

[Charlie69]

Great Idea.  Are you mass producing? How much?

[720inOlyWa]

Great Idea.  Are you mass producing? How much?

A couple of rare earth magnets, a screw, a spring clamp. It aint much, so I had to give it a big deal name...

[Charlie69]

So I have to think and make one for myself?  LOL

[ol'rusty1980]

HEY 720inolyWA .......Case in point: my ‘sticky throttle issue’........ I just recently found out that there was a recall for this issue

[720inOlyWa]

HEY 720inolyWA .......Case in point: my ‘sticky throttle issue’........ I just recently found out that there was a recall for this issue

I wonder what they did to fix the problem.

I have a theory...

[720inOlyWa]

On a whim, I changed out the slightly smaller Weber that was on my 4x4 with the larger one that was one the Fudgecycle. I just wanted to see if the low speed / low load misfire issues might be attributed to the carb itself.  With the carb removed, I discovered the adapter plate had one of the mounting screws loose enough that I could wiggle the plate ever so slightly. I removed the mounting bolts, gave them a little blue Locktite and a good firm tightening, and mounted the little Weber. Voila- problem solved! Oh, what a dream to drive! Smooth as silk. I had a slight leak between the manifold and the manifold adapter. Live and learn- from my mistakes! 

 

Tomorrow, straight to Les Schwab, for her final treat: shocks and tires- safety siped, of course!

[ol'rusty1980]

for the dents at walmart over here in this part of washington have these suction cups made by the bondo company that latch on tight and are made for that stuff. i live over in soap lake, wa near moses lake, wa. i have a 1982 datsun 720 2wd with a z22 nap Z.

[720inOlyWa]

On The Damn Job!

Six loads of garden mix hauled in over the last 24 hrs.  This is what I built my truck for!

 

 

But I learned that I need 4x4 leaf springs to carry a real load. so that item moved up the want list...

 

[720inOlyWa]

So I had a Weber 38 on this rig, until a few days ago. I rehabbed a 32/36 recently and decided to try it out to see if I likes it any better. I do.

 

That Weber 38 gave the Z24 a lot of torquey roar, especially before the exhaust system was replaced. It really beefed it all up as compared to the Hitachi. Well, we all know and expect that, right? The 38 hit a little too hard for my tastes, the mileage wasn’t so great anymore, ad it tended to bind a bit where the throttle shaft goes through the throttle body. All of these things are either minor, or due to my igorance. I have been learning fast, however.

 

The 32/36 really softens the space between compression and acceleration. This makes it easier to drive in traffic. It does not make as much power as quickly as the 38, but I like that, too. I still have plenty enough to haul whatever I can fit into the bed. It feels like it is way easier (less taxing) on the entire operation of the engine.

 

At first, it was very lumpy below 2000 rpm. That is the clue- the low speed mixture wasn’t quite right. The PO had apparently backed it out, again and again, because it was at more than 7 turns out, instead of 1 and a half. Such a quick fix- and that made it behave admirably. While it lacks a little of the roar of the 38, it feels more like driving the Hitachi- perfect for a grandpa truck like this one!  I wonder how the mileage comparison will play out...

[ol'rusty1980]

I dont like the hitachi carb on my 82 z22. It seems to be dragging the engines power down alot. But your info was very helpful in my decision for getting a weber carb and wil probably go for a 38 just cuz I want more power out of the truck... Not sure why the carb with manual choke costs more than electric choke... $250 for electric choke wk663, $300 forwk657 with manual choke, and wk663-38 is $280 with electric choke which is the one i want unfortunately i like manual choke

[720inOlyWa]

I like a manual choke myself. But that’s probably because I like to fiddle with the machine a bit as I drive it. My old 49 Plymouths had a manual choke operated by cable that ran almost straight back from the carb through the firewall and then through the (heavy duty, steel) dash. As it warmed up, I loved to tap that choke button to keep things working just right.

 

My sense of the 38- and others with more experience and understand would have much better input- is that it is really a lot more flow- both in air and fuel. I didn’t think I needed that in a 2x truck, used to haul compost and musical equipment. I think the 38 may be more suited for my 4x4, where I am going to tow a 650 lb. boat and trailer behind it.

 

Beyond that, I had a 38 on a motor that was only partially rebuilt, and still could be tired in some respects (considering waynos comments about rebuilding the top end only). It didn’t give me a sense of comfort to put my foot into it, feel the roar of the 38 going off while listening for possible rod noises. But that’s just me. Now that the 32/36 is on there, I feel like I could nurse this engine along (at this tax rate) for a damn long time, even if the lower end isn’t brand new. If I had planed on using the 38, knowing what I know now, I would be sure to have a fresh engine underneath it.

 

Years ago, my buddy had a 520 with, I believe, a 1300cc engine and a tiny simple carb. It was rated at a ton, and it could haul it, too. I got used to using less power wisely, driving that truck. so the 32/36 suits me just fine.

[720inOlyWa]

All of this choke chat reminded me that I had not set the coke up on the (used, dirty) 32/36 I installed a couple of weeks ago. So I went down the checklist, cleaned everything up, then loosened the choke setting screws and twisted. It didn’t budge. I shot some carb and choke cleaner in there, waited a few seconds, then it cracked loose. Ahhh hah! After a thorough douching, I set the choke up correctly, checked the float level, and tweaked the idle mixture screw in a quarter turn.  

 

Oh, those little fine adjustments are fun! In this case, a stuck choke was causing a somewhat over-rich condition when warmed up, so it was more like a coarse adjustment, I suppose. Runs real nice now though, in any case. Rollin on new Hankooks, safety-siped for our northwest climate!

[Charlie69]

I bet you like the 32/36 Weber over the 38.  The fuel mileage should be considerably better.  I still need to check my mileage after fixing the fuel leak.

[720inOlyWa]

I am getting to the poit where it is time to move on. There just isn’t much left to do to return this vehicle to ‘correct operating condition’, which was always my goal. I am nit picking little chores, and enjoying the begeebers out of driving it around town. It is high time to button up my 4x4 version of this truck, and give this one to my good friends, Brian and Jane, over in Ellensburg. It can live with them, and I will get to visit it from time to time. Giving a good, solid little 720 truck to a friend who could use one is just about as good a feeling as I have ever had. I really look forward to handing over the keys.

 

In the mean time, I have been carrying a phillips head screwdriver with me in the cab, stopping to make little adjustments to the choke and idle mixture screws until they worked together perfectly. It took a couple three tweaks, but now, it s exemplary. Better yet, I have gronked the process of nailing down all aspects of tuning and adjusting this motor. Moving my new found understanding to the 4x4 should be a breeze.

 

I am 65 years old, and I have been around the block a few times. Right now, I think that I can get my 4x4 buttoned up to the point of cranking the starter with a good weekend effort. This actually means that it will probably take 4 or five days given the myriad little time robbing issues that I have not discovered yet. But once that vehicle is stood up again, it will be time to take our two truck 720 caravan over to deliver the object of this thread to it’s brand new and loving home.

 

That will be a big day. I began this project by literally talking a kid out of selling this totally dead truck to the Pick A Part folks. Now, today, a year and a half later, I would be comfortable driving it to Chicago and back. I started out pretty clueless, and now I can fix or dial in anything on this truck.

 

Even more satisfying to me, the truck- an animate machine- has seemed to appreciate every step of this process somehow. With every repair, every component replacement, ever little bit of dress up, the old crate responds with a kindly improvement in performance. And when I made mistake- and I made plenty- it seemed to let me know that I didn’t quite nail it- without dire consequences. I drove it for over 300 miles before I discovered that I had both a vacuum leak and that I was one tooth off on the distributor. It ran okay, it just had a lot of valve train noise. Then I fixed it (again). Once I discovered the error of my ways and made the correct adjustments, all was forgiven, and it ran yet better again. This happened, over and over again.

 

Today, I am very confident that  have everything just so. And the engine reassures me that I am right by running in an optimum way- even when cold- and delivering both decent gas mileage and clean, tan sparkplugs. I couldn’t have done it without all of your help, and the many great threads on the Ratsun forum. Somehow, ‘gee thanks’ just isn’t enough, so I will have to go and buy a fistful of raffle tickets in Canby, to see where that leads...

[Charlie69]

Congrats! Now get busy! LOL

[denmarkboy]

now you need to get your friends ( new caretakers ) to bring the truck to canby with the 4x4 so we can all see these rigs in person !

[Gradyfest]

Great job. I can't wait to follow the 4x4 now. Lots of oics!

[720inOlyWa]

Never satisfied, I decided to replace the Autolite plug wire set with a new NGK set, just because I wasn’t sure how old these were, or what shape they were in. (The NGK set is part number 8115) Turns out that all of the exhaust side wires were a little stiff, indicating some internal breakdown. My 4x4 has crazy mismatched wires and was owned by one of the most reprehensible hillbillies that ever lived, so I ordered two sets.

 

This morning, I replaced the wires on my 2wd truck. I may wait on the 4x4 until I pull the engine and rebuild everything.  Once again, I got a pleasant little gain in smooth performance, both in cold running situations and overall through the power curve. The matching blue wires are just a bonus. I should have done this long ago. The NGK Wires are now matched to an OEM Cap and rotor, as it should be.In

 

One small issue- the new wires are smaller in diameter and don’t stay in the looms very well.  Any ideas there? I like using those looms!

[720inOlyWa]

One of the ‘final frontiers’ of this truck rehab project is the upholstery. In this regard, I am lucky on two counts; the seats aren’t totally shot, and Bill lives just over my backyard fence. When I say they aren’t shot, I mean that the seat covers themselves aren’t ripped up. The outer riail of the drivers side seat is somewhat broken down, as they always are at this point. When you are driving, it feels like you are leaning to the left. So I pulled the driver’s seat, swapped the passenger seat over, and began looking for a solution. Bill, my back yard neighbor, is a superb upholstery guy, with 50 years of experience. Now, I would never lean on Bill, because he is retired, and I want my neighbors to like me always- but I did ask him to stop over and assess my situation and give me some direction. He did.

 

If I hadn’t stopped him, Bill would have pulled my drivers side seat apart on the spot. He showed me how easy it is to service and recondition a 720 seat. “Nothing to it” he said, over and over. Together, we discovered one side spring and one main spring broken, accounting for the ‘list’ to the left.

 

Just like the rest of this truck, it turns out that rebuilding a seat is totally doable. Somewhere here in the Ratsun forum, I droned on and on about having somebody rebuild my seats. That fact embarrasses me now that I have my seat totally disassembled on my bench. It turns out that rebuilding / reconditioning  a seat is a relatively pleasant and straightforward job.

 

I will post a  step by step pictorial of my seat rebuild once I have all of the needed components here and ready to go, which brings me to my second embarrassing admission: I tossed a set of old seats that surely had the two good springs that I need right now for this seat repair. And the passenger side seat bun that I left at the Pick and Pull 4 months ago was probably better than the one I am working with now, too. If I hadn’t tossed it, I could have been putting my rebuilt seat back in by tonight. Lesson learned.

 

So now I have to track down a donor seat to pillage for a couple of springs. And I need to splice a foam graft onto the side cheek on this seat bun and replace it with a new chunk of foam, glued to the side, then sliced and ground into shape. I expect to ad a thin foam layer onto the main seat cushion as well. we have a great foam and upholstery outlet here. I can do that.

 

Bill also advised that I put a layer of burlap, canvas, or upholstery between the springs and the foam so that the springs cannot continue to cut into the underside of the seat bun- a splendid tip from a seasoned, retired pro!

[720inOlyWa]

And here it is, my frame up seat resto. I still have a little vinyl crack to repair, but it feels real nice and even under the buns. The extra spring in the side bolster worked out pretty great. The 1/4 composite pad that I added between the springs and the seat bun helped lift things back into a nice firm, comfortable situation. I will add more photos once I have a moment to spare, but for now, here it is:

 

 

No excuse for riding around with a fucked up drivers seat. None. This was simple and fun.

[Brohemius]

Looks super good. Interior is fresh as hell.