82 720 'Blue's Refresh

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

Drug home a Datsun, ok, he's a bastard child. You know the stigma of the Nissan Mark? Yeah, he's got it. Not only that but, there's something going on with the cargo area.

 

Did a test drive and jumped. Kinda  been stalking it for awhile. The flat bed had me sold.

 

 

I like what they did with the filler.

 

Got about a half hour drive bringing it home. Z22, Hitachi carb, 3spd auto with a really good looking header. The truck ran strong. Peppy and not overly stressed by the hills.

Shifted well but you knew it was shifting. 

Overall the truck is pretty good shape. Like any old datsuns this one's got some minor spauwks.

 

In the Safeway parking lot about 5 minutes before dark, we found no working running lamps. Well we had head lights even tho I was about to find out they could have been out as well,  being the difference they made.  So my wife would just follow me home and be my rear guard. At the angle the truck was parked, it was obvious I had no panel lights either. Damn, reached up for the cabin light and it ain't working. 

At least I had headlights right.

 

The drive was a blast. Started thinking about my speed on the hwy, no probs, I was keeping up with traffic and every thing felt and sounded okay. Remembering I had a pin light on my key chain, I dug it out of my pocket so I could see the instruments. Minimal as the are the temp gage was on the high side of middle and holding. Speed sitting at 60 with what felt like power and speed in reserve.

At least the turn signals worked.

 

Once on the back roads and near home the oil light started flicking. I had checked the oil at Safeway and was thinking if was leaking it a good one. Pressed for home, then remembered Robin was following so I slowed a bit so she could catch up.

 

By the time I got home the oil light was more like flashing steady and went full on as I parked. Getting out of the truck I didn't notice any smells, I hadn't heard any suspicious sounds. Shinning my pin light under the truck I saw no obvious big leaks.

 

We made it.

 

Did a right up in the 720 section for the troubleshooting so far with no definitive cause at this point.

 

Back at it tomorrow.

 

Yeah, it must be the flat bed.

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

He's half a rat.

 

 

Somebody did a really good job on the flat bed.

 

 

Thought I'd push it in the garage last night, found it's definitely a heavy bastard.

 

 

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

Got the oil pressure taken care of. It helps to have enough oil in it. 

See the low oil pressure thread on the 720 page.

 

It works!

 

Continuing on.

 

Lights and noises.

 

It's a looker I tell ya.

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

No parking lights, instrument lights or cabin light. Found blown fuse and installed new. Turned on light switch and the fuse immediately blew again. As good as the bed looks the wiring for lighting sucks.  Disconnected the rear harness and tried again. The fuse blew.

 

So I somewhere have a hard short. Still digging. 

Any suggestions?

 

82 720 kc

[datzenmike]

 Cabin light bulb blown or door contacts to ground rusty and not grounding. The 15 amp fuse is in line just inside the cabin behind the glove box where the main harness enters from the engine compartment.

 

Disconnected the rear 10 pin harness plug under the passenger seat just before it exits the floor.???? 

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

Right on Mikey 

I'll let ya know.

Thanks

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

Met with the previous owner and picked up a Haynes manual along with some maintenance history records. 

We talked about the lighting issue and informed me a repair was made on the rear harness. Was told the repair was fwd on the harness and hard to get to. 

Jacked up the passenger side, removed the right rear wheel, placed jack stands and crawled under.

 

 

From the rear going fwd I followed the bundle and found a bulge in the harness just aft of the cabin pass thru on top of the frame. Tugging on the harness I was able to get enough slack to at least see it and removed the tape. Went ahead and disconnected the harness under the passenger seat, 10 pin connector, and pulled the harness out of the cabin. Found a ziptie holding me up on top of the frame. Nothing showing but the tail. 

After several adjustments with the with the dyckes and working blind I cut the tie. Knew immediately I screws it up.

 

 

We can fix that.😐

 

Got the harness front section out and could see and repair the harness.

 

 

 

 

 

And repaired my mess.

 

 

Feeling good. That had to be the problem right. 

Rung the wires plug to plug on the harness and taped er up.

 

 

Good as new.

 

Plugged in the the fwd plug installed a new 15amp fuse and turned on the lights. Immediately blew the fuse.

Dammit!

 

I'm still digging. Will follow Mike's suggestions today and go from there. Chris, the po, told me the installed bucket seats are electric and kinda hooked up.

 

'Keep Trucking On'

 

 

Nice drop 😎

 

 

 

[datzenmike]

Unplug under the seat to isolate the exterior harness. If it keeps blowing then has to be elsewhere. If it's fine then it's from there back.

 

Trailer hitch splices added by POs are the biggest causes of later problems.

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

We have lights.

Found a pinched wire under the dash. Need to clean up the bed light wire harness and we be rocking.

 

Next, the noise. The exhaust pipe is rubbing or bouncing in several spots. Found the front bumper loose and making a hella racket. Missing the right hand bolt on end cap for the bumper as well. It's coated black and looks like plastic. Anybody got an extra? 

 

Blue is approaching road worthiness.

 

 

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

As been previously mentioned, made a trip to the pic n pull.

Took some crap off several d21s. Mostly off a 90 model.

Kicking myself for not taking pics there.

Anyway, one of the things I nabbed was the air box and directors. It looked cool and I thought it might fit. The intake was the right size.

 

The beginnings of a fresh air intake.

 

The tube even lines up with the valve cover tube mount and I got a handful of those rubber shock mounts. Chop the neck to length, install filter (blue of course) a we're styling. Oh, throw on a mini filter on the vent.

 

Maybe she not as close as I thought.

 

 

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

The carburetor broke. Looks like the auto choke linkage is just hanging there rattling. Have a really high idle to boot. 

 

Got big reds Weber 32/36 ready to install. I'm in the Seattle area. Anybody got a base gasket for sale?

Or know where to get one locally?

 

Help a brother out.

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

Got busy tonight and stayed up to late.

 

 

Can you imagine seeing this under your hood. It ain't a handsome look.

 

Posted earlier about my trip to pick and pull, ok a a few times, but any way, this is the intake off the 90 Nissan truck.

 

I like the old school look of the original air box so I adapted the piping.

 

Rough cut the front of the intake down a bit as well as splitting and trimming the carb box end. Brought the carb box end around and tucked under the the existing intake wrapping above the the valve cover support plate.

 

 

Nibbled at it with scissors,  razor blade and a boy scouts knife till fit.

 

 

 

It's got potential.

 

I'll let ya know if the hood closes.

 

One more thing, notice the plug wire clips? Should be able to do something with those.

 

One other thing...  

 

LET'S GO BRANDON!

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

Every damn time I look at something on blue it needs fixing.

 

After contemplating using big reds weber I slapped myself. 

Red was running like crap before the being ripped into and that 32/36 has seen better days. 

Found blues carb  mount gasket, block,  brick or whatever you wanna call it, sucking air. Torqued it down and it still sucks. New one tomorrow.  

Did a full tune, or almost. 

Finally did the valve adjustment and they pretty much all needed it. By far the worst were 2 and 3 well below .012

Compression check- 1,2 & 4 at 170, 175 #3 at about 160. Prolly just throw some oil additive in and keep an eye on it. 

Cleaned and gapped the plugs. #3 plugs were black and wet. 

Installed new cap and rotor, plug wires are good. 

 

Checked timing and found the distributor pegged clockwise direction. With no more adjustment available sitting at 10 degrees. Figure I'll check at tdc and and restab as needed. 

 

Ran the truck for a bit and played with some carb adjustment and didn't really nail anything down.

Will redo when I get the carb brick replaced and the timing right.

 

Spent some time on my new intake. 

Almost done and rather pleased with it.

 

Before

 

 

After

 

 

Not liking those wires coming over the top. Have a bracket that I saved  and gonna mount it on the under side of the the valve cover support, , run the wires between the valve cover and support bracket. 

 

 

Also need to secure the left side wires hanging over the header.

 

 

Now that's ratsonized.

 

Later kids, I'll be sleeping in.

 

 

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

Put in some more OT tonite.

 

I might have a problem.

Been screwing around with the distributor off and on all day.

The engine is at TDC and something ain't right. The rotor is pointing at the #1 plug but it's the non pickup end.

 

 

The metal pickup is facing the opposite way. Not sure if this is right.

Looking down at the distributor drive it is cocked slightly right with the bigger half of the gear facing aft. 

The cam gear is sitting like this.

 

 

That's a #2 straight up, white dot,  with 1 on the left and a 3 on the right. 

 

When I was timing the engine I ran out of adjustment.

 

 

Cocked full left and was only getting 10 degrees btcd. 

Not sure where the idle was at but I'm  guessing well over 750 rpm and I  did not pull the vacuum for the the idle advance while checking the timing.

Could the idle advance still hooked up be screwing it that bad. 

 

Need some help guys.

 

Spent some productive time tonite on the valve cover or rocker box if you prefer. 

 

 

Not sure about painting or just throwing on some clear coat. 

 

Also pulled off the front bumper and valence. There both a bit mangled.

 

 

 

 

Using big red for a storage rack for the moment. 🙄

 

And the biggie.......

Got a new Weber 38 kit on it's way.

 

This will be a properly running daily beast pretty soon. Just need to quit finding shit.

 

But seriously, throw something at me on this timing issue. 

And thanks in advance.

 

Gitty up.

 

Closing this update with a sincere and I do mean heart felt.....

 

FJB 

 

or for those who might be easily  offened... 

 

LET'S GO BRANDON

 

 

[NC85ST]

I don’t know if you or someone else has pulled the oil pump, but it looks like it’s a tooth off.

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

5 minutes ago, NC85ST said:

I don’t know if you or someone else has pulled the oil pump, but it looks like it’s a tooth off.

 

So the distributor drive should be turned one tooth counter clockwise?

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

Looking down at the drive the gear is sitting slightly aft or about the 1 o'clock position at tdc.

[NC85ST]

Yes. Here’s what it should look like when you pull the distributor at top dead center, #1 piston.

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

Current position of the gear is slightly aft. I just marked the flange now for reference. One tooth to the left would be straight up or slightly fwd?

 

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

 

Right on. Thank you so much.

I was about ready to take off the chain cover and check everything.

You rock!

[datzenmike]

 

Take that red air filter off. That's a one way valve behind it. It only allows air OUT of the air filter using negative exhaust pulses to draw filtered air into the exhaust manifold so the catalytic converter can burn emissions. It's disconnected so nothing is going in ot out of there.

 

Look up the timing for your Z22 10 BTDC AIN'T IT!!!!! Should be more like 5 BTDC

 

There are TWO TDCs on a 4 stroke engine. One is on the compression stroke (the one you want) and one on the exhaust stroke (the one you don't and probably why the rotor is pointing 180 out) Set to TDC using the ignition timing mark and scale. Pop the distributor out and this is what you should see....

 

 

Notice that the half moon has a large and a small side.

 

Engine RUNS!!!! how can you think something is wrong with the distributor?

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

5 hours ago, datzenmike said:

 

Take that red air filter off. That's a one way valve behind it. It only allows air OUT of the air filter using negative exhaust pulses to draw filtered air into the exhaust manifold so the catalytic converter can burn emissions. It's disconnected so nothing is going in ot out of there.

 

Look up the timing for your Z22 10 BTDC AIN'T IT!!!!! Should be more like 5 BTDC

 

There are TWO TDCs on a 4 stroke engine. One is on the compression stroke (the one you want) and one on the exhaust stroke (the one you don't and probably why the rotor is pointing 180 out) Set to TDC using the ignition timing mark and scale. Pop the distributor out and this is what you should see....

 

 

Notice that the half moon has a large and a small side.

 

Engine RUNS!!!! how can you think something is wrong with the distributor?

 

Spank me and call me Sally 😆

 

There are two tdc'entors.

 

'hows about eh, I'm working here'

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

Thanks once again guys. Was chasing my own ass end on this one.

But got it done after fixing my own FU's.

 

Still got a list of things to do and blues new carb may be here tomorrow. 

 

Fun times, eh...

 

 

 

[Thomas Perkins]

Cool ride...

[Snohomishdatsun guy]

11 hours ago, Thomas Perkins said:

Cool ride...

 

Thanks dood. 

 

Got back on the powder blue boy last night and all day today. Found some new shit. 

Good news I guess, got the new Weber.  Went with the 38/38, why?, some may ask. Because redeye said there cool.

 

 

Got the Spain marking and everything.

Matching it up with pre installed header.

 

 

I've seen some stuff posted on here about headers being difficult to install and butchering happening.

Well on further inspection...

 

 

Drivers side motor mount.

Prolly woulda just let it go, but, the mod didn't even accomplish what it set out to do. The header tube is contacting a sharp point on the bottom of the cut out. Not sure how l'm gonna clean that up. That's some thick and hard steel. Dont think I have anything to cut it with.

New mount and have somebody do it right. 

Anybody know a good butcher?

 

Moving on. 

Looking under the intake I noticed rust runs iminating at the head and down the block.  Looking closer I saw pieces of the gasket kinda hanging here and there. Screw it, pulled the intake.

 

 

You can actually see were coolant was being sucked into the ports.

Oh them sunny beaches... 

If you zoom in a bit  into the ports look like someone took a shit in there. Sludge and hard  carbon deposits.

Looks like the truck was run on bath water for quite a while. Rust stained passages. 

 

The heads coming off in the morning or maybe tonight if I get a second wind.

Not likely.

 

Can't wait to see what those pistons look like. 

 

 

Dammit Jim....