'79 King Cab Sloooow build

[svswan]

By way of hello I thought I would start a build post.  I would like it to be a fast build, but Time does not give me a break as much as it use too.

 

Around 1986 I bought a '78 KC and loved it.  Right up until the time I stuffed it into the Alma overpass trying to make the turn from Page Mill in Palo Alto.  Forgot that there was always a puddle there.  Now I'm thinking about making an EV and the 620 seemed like a perfect starting place.  Though a KA would be a lot easier...

 

 

Bought it in July from an estate sale in Mount Vernon WA.  The body has a bunch of little dings but it's a solid driver and mostly stock.  Save for the two big holes the PO drilled in the tail gate for extra brake lights.

 

I have a friend with a complete Leaf drive train for sale, and two complete Leaf batteries that have some life left in them.  Connecting the Leaf motor to the stock 5 speed is not so easy though.  Think I'm going to hold off on the EV part and just work on the truck for now.  Replace as much of the suspension bushings I can find replacements for, better brakes, interior refresh, do the best paint touch up I can with color matched rattle cans, rip off the massive rear bumper deck, but...

 

First things first - Rims ;-}

 

 

2016 Toyota Tacoma 16x8 with 25 offset.  They tuck just about right.  I've got Belltech 2" blocks on the rear but have not got to drop the front yet.  Need to figure out center caps that say Datsun.  Found aftermarket caps with no name that said they would fit, but no go.

 

If anyone has rear glass for sale somewhere between Seattle and PDX let me know.  It's got a cheese slider with a Plexiglas repair.

[datzenmike]

Looks great as is. Don't wreck it with an electric motor. Drive it and it will grow on you. Enjoy.

 

Electrics don't usually have transmissions as they make maximum torque at zero RPMs. Find out what the leaf weighs and what final gearing it has if any. Try to duplicate this on the truck. Jeff (Icehouse) on here was trying something like this on a 510. See what he planned.

 

More pictures.

[svswan]

Thanks Datz ;-}  The Leaf has no gears other than a 7.9 or so reduction and I know it would weigh more than a 620, even with a battery on the truck.  I like the idea of gears though.  And I thought it would be less expensive to connect it to the 5 speed than it would be to come up with a reduction.  I also thought of opening the stock gear case on the Leaf and welding the spiders then using just one output shaft to connect to a driveshaft.  Something would break in that set up though.

The L20 runs smooth and starts easy.  I think it will last a long time with only maintenance.  Gonna stick with that for now.  And I'll check out Icehouse's build just for fun.

 

And more pictures to come!

[Farmer]

My king cab build started in 2005 and is still completely torn apart. You got time, LOL

Edited October 7, 2021 by Farmer

[frankendat]

1 hour ago, Farmer said:

My king cab build started in 2005 and is still completely torn apart. You got time, LOL

Hey, I resemble that remark

[frankendat]

w

7 hours ago, svswan said:

Thanks Datz ;-}  The Leaf has no gears other than a 7.9 or so reduction and I know it would weigh more than a 620, even with a battery on the truck.  I like the idea of gears though.  And I thought it would be less expensive to connect it to the 5 speed than it would be to come up with a reduction.  I also thought of opening the stock gear case on the Leaf and welding the spiders then using just one output shaft to connect to a driveshaft.  Something would break in that set up though.

The L20 runs smooth and starts easy.  I think it will last a long time with only maintenance.  Gonna stick with that for now.  And I'll check out Icehouse's build just for fun.

 

And more pictures to come!

When I was thick into researching alternative fuel rigs, the standard transmission to alternative drive source and the clutch was a problem. I settled on using a T100L transfer case as low/high like a city/hiway selector, at worst, the driving mode selection would be set at startup at best a "clutch" that stops the motor, but allows the truck to keep moving, could be used, for a shift on the fly, scenario. I didn't try it out, no matter how I sliced it, the negative (in terms of cost/reliability) of EV's were greater than the positive. (If the cool factor isn't incorporated) The best option, as far as EV's, was the incorporation of a two-cylinder diesel that would operate a battery generator and incorporating solar cells on all available flat or semi flat exposed surfaces. The diesel would operate at its most efficient rpm, independently of the operator demands e.g. self starting in a parking lot to keep cells charged. This would end the problems with charging station availability, in the winter, or a series of overcast days, or before and after a long trip additional charging options would be required (New EV batteries, are able to charge simultaneously from multiple sources to speed the process.)

I still believe that this type of "hybrid" is the best EV option, even more so, if the regenerative braking system off a Prius is incorporated (I pulled the electric power steering off a wrecked Prius for a project five or so years back and was amazed at the low prices. I went recently, to score another (because prices on the old units (easier to adapt and modify) have tripled in price) The power steering swap is now popular-DAMNIT) My point, the more backyard builders go EV, junkyard deals will fade away or in other words, find something nice and people will always come and fuck it up. So, mine wouldn't be a pure EV, rather a 100+ mpg diesel. The new EV batteries would make my plan awesome, but the new EV batteries are far far out of my budget and their claims have yet to be confirmed. 

[datzenmike]

Electrics don't need a clutch, just turn off power. Not like a gas engine that slows a vehicle down compressing air and valve springs turning cam timing gears oil pump, an electric motor would just free wheel, in fact it has kinetic energy stored as inertial spin that will be will keep the car moving farther than if it was disconnected after the juice is turned off.

 

I don't think the Teslas use transmissions. There are no gear changes. Electric motors make maximum torque at zero RPMs. Gear it to make what ever top speed you want. Size the motor and the batteries to the size/weight of the vehicle and away you go.

 

 

[svswan]

16 hours ago, Farmer said:

My king cab build started in 2005 and is still completely torn apart. You got time, LOL

NOOO - I did not hear that!  La la la la la la la  ;-}

My vanagon has been down for over 2 years with the motor ('05 WRX) sitting on a stand.  Blew one motor because a $3 part let go.  JDM replacement and it ate 2 turbos before I found the pencil eraser sized oil filter in the turbo oil supply line.  Then it started overheating and I put it under a car port tent.  *Plan* to fix that this winter.

 

[svswan]

14 hours ago, frankendat said:

w

When I was thick into researching alternative fuel rigs, the standard transmission to alternative drive source and the clutch was a problem. I settled on using a T100L transfer case as low/high like a city/hiway selector, at worst, the driving mode selection would be set at startup at best a "clutch" that stops the motor, but allows the truck to keep moving, could be used, for a shift on the fly, scenario. I didn't try it out, no matter how I sliced it, the negative (in terms of cost/reliability) of EV's were greater than the positive. (If the cool factor isn't incorporated) The best option, as far as EV's, was the incorporation of a two-cylinder diesel that would operate a battery generator and incorporating solar cells on all available flat or semi flat exposed surfaces. The diesel would operate at its most efficient rpm, independently of the operator demands e.g. self starting in a parking lot to keep cells charged. This would end the problems with charging station availability, in the winter, or a series of overcast days, or before and after a long trip additional charging options would be required (New EV batteries, are able to charge simultaneously from multiple sources to speed the process.)

I still believe that this type of "hybrid" is the best EV option, even more so, if the regenerative braking system off a Prius is incorporated (I pulled the electric power steering off a wrecked Prius for a project five or so years back and was amazed at the low prices. I went recently, to score another (because prices on the old units (easier to adapt and modify) have tripled in price) The power steering swap is now popular-DAMNIT) My point, the more backyard builders go EV, junkyard deals will fade away or in other words, find something nice and people will always come and fuck it up. So, mine wouldn't be a pure EV, rather a 100+ mpg diesel. The new EV batteries would make my plan awesome, but the new EV batteries are far far out of my budget and their claims have yet to be confirmed. 

I drove a '96 F250 that ran on used veggie oil for about 90k miles.  in '04 it was easy to get veggie oil.  Now not so much.

I also followed builds for a set of plans that sounds like what you're talking about.  The XR3.  A three cylinder Kubota driving the front two wheels, and one electricaly driven wheel in the back.  125mpg.  

And then there is the https://www.aptera.us/  One would definitely get attention driving one of these.

 

[svswan]

14 hours ago, datzenmike said:

Electrics don't need a clutch, just turn off power. Not like a gas engine that slows a vehicle down compressing air and valve springs turning cam timing gears oil pump, an electric motor would just free wheel, in fact it has kinetic energy stored as inertial spin that will be will keep the car moving farther than if it was disconnected after the juice is turned off.

 

I don't think the Teslas use transmissions. There are no gear changes. Electric motors make maximum torque at zero RPMs. Gear it to make what ever top speed you want. Size the motor and the batteries to the size/weight of the vehicle and away you go.

 

 

The teslas have a gear reduction similar to a Leaf; about 9.7 to 1.  It would be sweet to just stuff the rear subframe from an S under the back ;-}  Mod the frame like the Porty's Chop Shop vids.  That guy (who I could only imagine is on here somewhere) put 240SX sub frames under his 620 and had to redo the entire back end.  There are plans for an adapter plate that incorporates a special bearing and coupler that takes loads off the motor output shaft.  Finding something that has a roughly 9:1 reduction would be there trick...  KA would cost less then that im sure.

[datzenmike]

Right, basically a differential and directly coupled and no need for transmission and gear changes. Gas engine RPMs are limited by their piston speeds to about 45MPH. Stroke is the governing factor, the longer the stroke the lower the safe 'red line'. Electric motors have no reciprocating mass and can be precision balanced. Their upper RPMs are almost unlimited. Anyone who has a 30,000 RPM router knows this. Thus no need to change any gears. The 9 to 1 is simply multiplying a smaller motor's torque rather than a larger motor directly driven. 

[Lockleaf]

There are a few EV makes choosing to use 2 speed transmissions in certain applications (porsche taycan for example).  The T100 transfer case Hi/Lo idea is quite clever to do the same thing.  I'm not sure how the motor would respond to direct connecting it and letting it freewheel without a clutch.  That would turn the rotors inside, which I would imagine would energize the motor? Would you have a contactor disconnect the motor power whenever the throttle pedal was at 0% throttle?  Then the motor just free spins without resistance?  Would re-engaging the motor be smooth or a hard jerk at that point?

Thinking out loud here.  I'm fairly confident I will eventually do an EV swap on something, so its a fun brain exercise when the opportunity arises, but also a topic i don't really know anything about.

[svswan]

There was a company, EVWest, that was converting unique 2 speed automatic for use in EV conversions.  Most conversion motors are lower voltage (144v and less), and therefor lower power.  The two speed helps with that.  It had an electric pump to supply the fluid pressure to operate because when the car stops in an EV, the motor stops - no fluid pressure.  You can connect an EV motor direct.  When you stop the motor stops too.  The leaf motor is 360v and has about 120hp and a whole ton of torque starting at 1 RPM.  First gear would be fun ;-}  Hence wanting to connect it to the 5speed.

 

Saw a thread earlier about shifters.  That was the first thing I did on my truck.  Replace the bushings and the little dust boot on the shifter.  Soooo much better.  I also bought a pair of '01 Forester leather seats that I think will be easier to bolt in (fingers crossed).  Just bought new upper and lower control arm bushings along with new rubber for the sway bar ;-}

[sick620]

please find a crappy civic and make it electric and cruise the datsun as is... too cool of a truck to convert to electric in my opinion. 

[frankendat]

9 hours ago, Lockleaf said:

There are a few EV makes choosing to use 2 speed transmissions in certain applications (porsche taycan for example).  The T100 transfer case Hi/Lo idea is quite clever to do the same thing.  I'm not sure how the motor would respond to direct connecting it and letting it freewheel without a clutch.  That would turn the rotors inside, which I would imagine would energize the motor? Would you have a contactor disconnect the motor power whenever the throttle pedal was at 0% throttle?  Then the motor just free spins without resistance?  Would re-engaging the motor be smooth or a hard jerk at that point?

Thinking out loud here.  I'm fairly confident I will eventually do an EV swap on something, so its a fun brain exercise when the opportunity arises, but also a topic i don't really know anything about.

New trucks (I still consider anything in the 2000's new) have the ability to shift into 4wd on the fly, I thought such a system could be salvaged for EV shifting (low to high). In the end of my alternative fuel investigations, I decided the best bang for my limited bucks would be a hydraulic system with a small diesel. I got farther along in the creation of a hydraulic hybrid than any of the other alternative fuels (the two cylinder diesel I acquired for the project was set up (rubber replaced) for biodiesel, but like you, in the early 2000's it was no longer viable, because it was no longer free. The time straining and filtering and the general yuk, messing around with fryer grease was tolerable for free, for not free, even if cheap --not worth it. A guy up north in my state, published a device that allowed diesels to operate on ethanol and water, it is very cool, but staying legal means  registering your still and confirming it will not be used for moonshine, plus, documenting all ethanol produced and  paying tax on it. The big buzz kill, the laws about stills and road tax are Federal (felony prison time) And the ATF have proven they will descend on homes in Idaho and kill, to enforce their regulations.

[svswan]

EV's are far less dangerous as far as the FEDs are concerned ;-}  Right up until you grab the wrong wire...

 

More Pics, 'cause we all love looking at Datsuns!

 

Engine bay is pretty stock and fairly clean

 

 

 

I was checking out the Big Red build and realized I have a cylinder pressure tester stashed somewhere.  Going to try finding that and testing this weekend.

 

Interior is... to be expected.  Also found out it leaks water into the cab.  Time for the 4th car port tent ;-}

 

 

 

I've watched a couple of videos where guys use spackle with white gorilla glue mixed in to repair the dash, then 'frock' it.  The car was made in the 70's but I'm not sure i want the dash looking like a shag carpet with a shave.  Anyone tried such a technique?  Did you like the results?  (haven't searched that here yet but I will)

 

... and the scary part

 

 

The PO was a little too safety conscience I think.  Hope that strip of aluminum isn't hiding complete nastiness.  Didn't get to meet the PO as he had passed.  Reason for the sale.  I believe he owned this for ever and cared for it himself.  The guy running the estate sale (son?) was talking to someone else and while I waited I spied a 7" grinder on the ground.  When he turned to me i asked if the grinder went with the car.  He said sure, and do I want to go look in the garage for more freebes?  There was about 50 years of car stuff and tools in there, and just as I started looking my girlfriend walks in and says 'it's getting late, we need to hit the road'.  That was about the toughest 'yes dear' I ever uttered.  

 

My neighbor is an long time hot rodder and I'm going to get him to help me fill in the holes where the lights were added.  At least the PO missed drilling the D and N.

[Lockleaf]

I've never flocked a dash, only watched a bunch of youtube vidoes on it.  I used blow foam to fill cracks on my 510 dash, then sanded and upholstered it.  You can find that in my "Half Pint" thread, which is linked in my signature.  If nothing else, you can at least look at that and see if it provides you anything useful.

[svswan]

Thanks Lockleaf - will do ;-}

 

[svswan]

Would anyone care to take a guess at the color code for paint on the this truck?  I'm not having any luck asking the truck...

 

 

Don't want to order custom rattle cans without more certainty.  My best guess is Code 217 - Eggnog.   Does that mean I have to name the truck Chris Crinkle or Saint Nick, at least until I fix the dents and scratches ;-}

 

 

in case it helps - here is where the code came from -

 

https://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplaym.cgi?model=Datsun&con=o&year=1979&rows=200 

[svswan]

Finally got some more done on the truck.  Dropped the front end down via re-indexing the torsion bars.  That showed me just how useful drop spindles are.  Lowering the front to match the 2" blocks in the rear pretty much puts it on the front bump stops.  

 

I still only drive it around the area I live.  The lights were terrible, so I though that would be a neat and simple project.  Hopped online and bought 4 Hella headlights and a pair of 100w/55w H4 bulbs.

 

 

 

 

I would assume many know about these headlights and bulbs, but somebody doesn't.  The bulbs are normal high quality lights for regular driving, but the high beams are 100w instead of the usual 60w.  I think they're better than LED's, but it takes a bit more to power them.

 

I also bought a set of relays and some new H4 connectors to rig up the lights so that I had 4 regular headlights shining during normal driving and 4 bights when I hit the switch.  BIG difference.  

 

Here are the relays - 

 

 

 

I set up the wiring with a bit of overkill.  One relay for both low beams per side.  One relay for each high beam on each side.  I mostly did this so that in the future I could put a cut out switch on the second set of high beams if I wanted to.  One relay could handle the ~17 amps for two High Beams.  To start out I only have the 100w high beams on the inner lights.  So far that seems bright enough.  The light housings each come with a standard 60w/55w bulb so I'm just using those in the outer two lights at the moment.

 

The back of the housing piece that holds both light buckets was a good place the mount the relays.

 

 

 

I tried to draw out a wiring diagram before I starting putting it together, but found drawing it out more difficult than just wiring it.  I think it would be helpful someday in the future to have a diagram so if I manage to draw out something readable I come back and add it.  On the relay connectors you have 4 wires; RED is for 12v in (notice the incorrect wiring above?), BLUE feeds the light, WHITE goes to the switch, or plugs into the lighting harness in this case, and BLACK is ground which I also plugged into the wiring harness.  On the H4 plugs the WHITE is low beam, the BLUE is high beam and the BLACK is ground.  I ran the White and Black from the relays into the lighting harness so the light switch and high beam toggle in the cab still work like normal.  Strait battery power is fed to the relay, then to the lights, then the Ground from the new light connectors runs back to the battery.  The battery connectors look a little overkill...

 

 

In the picture above there are only half the additional wires on the + and - battery terminals.  The terminals are a funky Amazon item.  I certainly wouldn't use them on my F250 Superduty but they are kinda neat for this truck.

 

 

Instead of cutting up the original light connectors I just added blade terminals to the white 'switch in' wires on the relay harnesses and plugged those into the original light connectors.

 

 

The orignial light connectors were pretty loose.  I figure they will do better just running the small amount of current required to trip the relay.  The new connectors are much tighter on the back of the light bulb.

 

 

 

One neat thing about these relays is they have a build in socket for a fuse.  All the fuses are 30 amp which seems high for 14 gauge wire, but with open-air wiring the fuse will pop before the wires melts.

 

After I got it all together I took it for a drive down to the elemenery school to point it at the wall and adjust the lights.  Standing in front of the lights my leg felt warm.  So when I got home I pulled out the amp meter to measure the draw and found that the lights pull just about all the power the alternator can put out.  I had thought about this earlier, but just figured I could order a better alternator.  Surprise.  I keep forgetting getting parts for a '79 Datsun 620 is not like getting parts for a '66 Mustang.  I found a solution that Gearhead mentioned from another thread on here, an '88 Subaru alternator.  I'll post about that install soon.