1988 Desert Runner build

I have wanted one of these for years. Here in South Carolina I had only seen one, but I saw it pretty regularly. The guy who had it got it for his 16th birthday, and regardless of what I offered, it was never for sale.

Finally in September 2016, a friend of mine ran across another one, and this one was for sale. Not only for sale, but for sale at a reasonable price As I understand it, the only two options available for the Desert Runner were AC and Automatic Transmission. This one had both. I literally found out about it 2 days after my second son was born. Not the best time to think about another car project. After a couple weeks, the wife and I decided I may as well snag it, as the price was good. So she came home to live in my workshop. Now that a couple months have passed, I have worked through figuring out the process and what I want to do with her. She had been backed into things, and front drivers corner not great either, but all for that everything was there.

General Plans:
2 inches up on front suspension for leveling the truck
Rancho suspension all the way around
55W LED lighting for each of the lights in the roll bar (were 35W halogen originally)
80W LED lighting for hi/low beams in headlights
55W LED lighting for rally lights on front brush guard
Whelen Corner strobes for front corners and rear tail lights
Whelen LED pattern flasher (for tie in with light bar)
Replace front bumper brackets (old ones are bent)
Replace missing roll bar support bars
Replace missing bed mounted spare tire rack
Upgrade grille to later body style (97)
Upgrade dash to 94+ style
Swap out door panels for 94-95 Pathfinder power door panels with subharness and power window motors.
Spray in bed liner for the bed, and most of undercarriage
Swap out for VQ35DE and 01-04 transmission.
Repaint the hood and roof for the moment. Eventually complete respray and replacing all decals (already had a graphics shop measure out, scan, and digitize the Desert Runner graphics.

The good news is that I already have most everything on the list already on hand. The big question is really going to be one of time. I anticipate it taking quite a while to get around to everything.

So far accomplished, a good friend of mine resprayed the hood and roof. He also sanded down and repainted the roll bars and lights up top. I had a local steel shop remake the support bars from the roll back to the back of the bed. I have put in the LED lighting in the roll bar lights.

Hoping this weekend to get the bedliner sprayed in, updated headlight housings, headlights, and grille installed as well as the Rancho shocks. Then baby steps after that. As a dad of two kiddos under 2 and a half, I have my hands full along with keeping the wife happy.  I will try to keep updating as the coming months go by.

Open to thoughts about things I might be missing, or should think about.

Update from the weekend. More parts came in the mail Friday and Saturday. When the weather is a little decent again I will try to snap some pictures of everything that came in.

Pulled the taillights out and started checking through what will be needed to deal with rust. The bed has a little surface rust, but not a big deal I don't think. The driver's side tail light had a good bit of deeper than surface rust present inside the housing, as well as the exterior around the end of the bed. Strangely none on the other side.







So after taping off and looking things over a good bit, the sandblasting began. After sandblasting, got the first of probably 4 coats of sealant on it all.





Bed liner kit is now with the truck. Hopefully that will be a next weekend project.



This evening I finished taking the light bar apart. Next weekend it and the housings will get a new coat of paint. The high intensity LED bulbs will go in while it's taken apart.

Bits and pieces arriving via UPS, FedEx, and USPS. Rancho Shocks, Fabtech bed mounted tire carrier, 55W LED bulbs for each of the lights up on top the light bar, 85W Hi/Lo bulbs for the new headlights, new headlight housings, new headlights (not pictured), new bumper brackets (not pictured), and all new bolts,washers, and nuts for the light bar and support bars. Finally not pictured, new Nissan graphics for each side, and new Nismo Off-Road graphics for each side, and a spare set of each for when I eventually have a full repaint done. Pictures below. Now time to find time to start working towards installing things.

Little bit of progress this morning. My son Mason wanted to help. :-) A good time for everyone. The headlights, grille, and bumper with brush guard all came off. It is kinda funny how few and how small of bolts hold all that together compared to more modern trucks. Especially funny next to Shrockworks bumpers. Old bumper was bent and beat up. Amazon.com provided new cheap bumper and mounting brackets. Only thing I forgot to do was order the black carriage bolts for the whole bumper. Ah well, that has been fixed and they should be in on Tuesday. Then I’ll worry about putting the bumper back together and hopefully get everything mounted back on the truck.









Also another part of my Nissan problem/habit. Small, Medium, and Large Pathfinders…



And sadly what’s needed to take the wife, kids, and in-laws to the mountains for a weekend… But snow tubing was a lot of fun.



More on the Desert Runner soon…

Too cool. I've wanted to restore one of these for a while. I know of a really nice one here in town, but it's got a lot of $ tied up in it from repairs.

Just out of curiousity, why paint first? I'd have thought addressing the other stuff (like the corrosion) would be easier before paint.

Thanks. I have always liked the original Desert Runner. The only other one I have seen here in SC was in a bit better shape, but the guy who has it will never sell it. He got it new for his 16th birthday.

There is corrosion, but not terrible. It was limited to primarily the area around the drivers taillight, drivers bedrail, and a couple spots at fender flare on driver's side.

The hood, roof, and light bar got paint first because a buddy offered to do it for free. That is an easy thing to say yes to. While that was going on I started ordering some of the parts. Now things have started coming in, I just have to find time to work on it. Two kiddos under two and a half shows that down a bit.

So awesome!

I wanted to know if you know the suppliers for the bars in the rear. You said you purchased the two bars I want to know if they have the main structure/ base.
Ps: I own this exact vehicle

I truly love what's you are doing with this truck.

A few posts to update what has been going on. I know it has been a while since I have been around.

It has been quite a while since getting any time to work on my Desert Runner.

Where I am at now, is that I picked up a wrecked 2012 Frontier Crew Cab. I have stripped engine and trans, along with wiring harness, ECM, fuel tank, etc. The plan now is to work on swapping in the 4.0VQ into the 88 and swapping to 6MT. Hopefully that will get started over at my buddy's shop this week or perhaps next week. Also swapping out to all new suspension components and the like. After measuring everything, the cab will probably come off to make things easier.

I posted some of this to the Facebook group and was reminded that I probably needed to come back and update this thread as well.

Here are a couple pictures of stripping things down to go to the shop.

Latest update is that I have managed to snag a pair power door panels from a 98 truck. Also got the power window assemblies, door lock mechanisms, and the full door harness for each door. These are rough pics just unloading them and before cleaning. hoping the local vinyl guy can fix the door pulls.






I also snagged the back wall carpet, speaker rings and grilles from a King Cab to add into mine. Needs a serious cleaning first, but something else to do.

Also in these pictures is one of the spare Whelen strobe controller. That will give 6 hideaway strobes to toss in.

One of the things Nissan did with the Desert Runner were light covers for the lights on the Roll Bar. They seem to be one of the first things lost as the trucks started getting some age. I have found a local upholstery shop to reproduce them using marine grade vinyl, and a local screen shop has reprinted the four covers with the Nissan from the time period. I also had two additional covers made, one with 4 x 4 in red, and the other with the period correct Nissan Logo. Pictures are on the test scraps of vinyl to be sure we could do it.

I'm working on some research now to get more info about them as a whole. So much conflicting information out there. If anyone has confirmed information about the history production numbers, etc, let me know.

A pillars came in, and happy with the condition of them. Also below is a picture of the Sho-Me system I will be using as a flasher for the headlights and foglights. Considering a second one for the light bar up top independently. :-) What can I say, I like lighting.

Speaking of lighting, the recreation of the light covers for the light bar are finished. quick test fit pictures below. I was very happy how they came out, and the fact we have everything in place so others with Desert Runners can get them made as well. I also did two extra covers, one with 4x4, and the other with the three color Nissan logo from 1988. Those were done as one offs for me by the screen printing shop.

My son's birthday is next week, so perhaps the week after that I will get back to significant work on prepping the bed for spray in bedliner, and reassembling the light bar onto the bed.

Looks like you're building a nice truck. I know it's not correct, but if I could find one cheap, I would replace the hood with a 96-97 hood. Never liked the louvers on the older hoods.

Louvers are great. Don't change the hood!!

Oldnissanguy, I get where you are coming from about making exterior changes. I personally prefer the rounded dash over that of the square dash in the 88. My thought is to keep everything interior and exterior pretty much true to the 80's. The only thing so far I have decided on that is not true to the era visibly is the Nismo Offroad graphic, and swapping from bucket seats to bench seats for the moment (I have two little boys, and at least one would be crushed if I left him behind).

Substantial changes both under the hood, suspension, and brakes system. All of which kind of are hidden away unless and until you open the hood.

Sounds like its going to be a fun project!

I fail to come back to the site often enough for updates. Here is what has been going on in the last several months... A whole lot of time not being able to work on the Desert Runner, followed by a few afternoons here and there to actually accomplish something...

LED lighting in the roll bar lights done, along with the aforementioned flasher kit (I have two more of them, one for headlights/front fogs, and one for the taillights):




Put Nissan on each of the doors, Don't know why, but putting some of the decals on just made me happy:


Bedliner complete:



Rollbars going back in:


More Decals:


Strip Lighting under the light bar for lighting the bed of the truck. Also have two LED strips to go under the bed rails of the truck and tied to the dome light inside:


Lightbar and rollbars fully reassembled:




Rear Brakes disc conversion. Brackets by Beebani Customs:



Took out the buckets and put a bench seat in so both my boys can ride with me once we are finished:



Up next, finding time to finish the under the bed rails LED strips. Also going with plugs to disconnect between the bed and rest of the truck rather than the single run of wire that was originally done for the lightbar to the engine bay of the Desert Runner. After that working on finishing the rear disc conversion, and 300ZX front brakes conversion. Then hopefully will get underway with the engine swap, and finally the power windows/locks conversion.

Beautiful rare one of a kind and totally amazing. Your WIFE. One positive thought she will always know where to find you. Nice truck.

Absolutely amazing! Great Work!!

Thanks. Been at a standstill for a couple months. Life gets busy ya know?

Only update of late is it has moved to my buddy's shop. Having a lift is nice. Going to pull the cab off after taking measurements and then start the engine swap. Probably going to have to go custom gauges to fit in the cluster.

By the way, what brand of lift? I'm getting one and it's good to hear reviews.