Project 720 progress...

[Davezilla]

Ok... I've had this truck for about a month and I've done a lot to it mainly to get it roadworthy again and now it's ready to be driven some... Until now I've just ran it in my driveway or just up the street and back since one of the rear tires was considerably smaller than the other 3... One good thing is that it does drive nice with no pulling side to side or wheel shimmys... Sooo... here's what's been done so far...

First thing it needed was the carb gone thru... The ad said it needed a fuel pump and a few carb adjustments... ya, right... I ended up doing a complete overhaul since it's been sitting for years and there was no way gas could even get into that thing, inside the carb was bone dry and all the fuel passages were totally blocked.
Carb fixed but running rough as hell... new plugs and wires fixed that little problem.
Nothing works electrically... Lots of spark chasing and un-butchering the wiring to get the headlights, horn, and signals to work again... Thanks for the links to the wiring diagrams, they helped a lot.
The cab didn't match up with the bed... I found that the body lift kit was missing a spacer at the passenger's side rear corner, and the driver's side rear spacer was just sitting there not even bolted down.
Heater didn't work... more spark chasing, found the problem to be a bad ground... now it's nice and toasty inside

Took it for a few more test drives today to make sure it would go thru all 5 gears and to make sure the 4 wheel drive worked... all is good there.

This thing is in desperate need for some new seats since a leaky sunroof ruined the bench seat on the passenger's side and the sliders are rusted solid... My plan is to borrow the seats out of my 300zx and install them into the truck since they'll bolt right in... and this gives me an excuse to get new racing seats for the Z too... lol

While I'm doing the seats, the interior needs some freshening up as well... The dash is cracked but those dash caps look great when installed properly, a little vinyl dye will also bring the plastic up front back to life... and a new carpet for this thing is another cheap upgrade. The only thing I'm gonna have some trouble with is the headliner, I've done several of them in the past but never this type that has the support ribs.

The body is nice and straight except for the front valence and another dent in the roof causing the sunroof to leak it could also use a new front bumper then it'll be ready to prep for paint

Here's some pics of it after I got it home... I already had the carb off, overhauled, and back on before I could get a good set of "before" pics under the hood... Hopefully I can get the interior done in the next month or so and be ready to paint it as soon as the weather gets a little warmer over here...

[300ZXttZMAN]

Dude I love it!

I am keeping an eye on this one.

[Rev_D21]

Truck look great!

[Davezilla]

Thanks guys... it still looks pretty much the same so no new pics yet but I took it out to the inspection station and it passed then I drove it around the neighborhood a little more to get the feel of it and find out if it needs stuff like new shocks or if there's any annoying rattles etc that need to be found and fixed.
The truck drove flawlessly up to about 50 mph, couldn't get too much faster than that where I was driving. No serious problems need to be addressed but it could use some new shocks and maybe some of those little rubber bumper pads on the tailgate to quiet it down some. It's definitely ready to put some miles on this thing and I can work more on how it looks now that I can trust it to get me from point A to point B without any issues.

I'm gonna stick to my plan and go for redoing the interior since it can be done quick and cheap, already got a center console off ebay and a few cans of vinyl / plastic paint to bring everything in there back to life. I chose charcoal gray for all the hard plastic parts then I'll get the carpet in a lighter gray. Still thinking about using the seats out of my 300zx for this one, but those cool looking racing seats cost a lot less than I thought so I might just get new seats for both cars. I'm doing the interior in all gray and maybe some black so I can paint the truck any color I want and it'll match nicely.

[300ZXttZMAN]

Thanks guys... it still looks pretty much the same so no new pics yet but I took it out to the inspection station and it passed then I drove it around the neighborhood a little more to get the feel of it and find out if it needs stuff like new shocks or if there's any annoying rattles etc that need to be found and fixed.
The truck drove flawlessly up to about 50 mph, couldn't get too much faster than that where I was driving. No serious problems need to be addressed but it could use some new shocks and maybe some of those little rubber bumper pads on the tailgate to quiet it down some. It's definitely ready to put some miles on this thing and I can work more on how it looks now that I can trust it to get me from point A to point B without any issues.

I'm gonna stick to my plan and go for redoing the interior since it can be done quick and cheap, already got a center console off ebay and a few cans of vinyl / plastic paint to bring everything in there back to life. I chose charcoal gray for all the hard plastic parts then I'll get the carpet in a lighter gray. Still thinking about using the seats out of my 300zx for this one, but those cool looking racing seats cost a lot less than I thought so I might just get new seats for both cars. I'm doing the interior in all gray and maybe some black so I can paint the truck any color I want and it'll match nicely.

[Davezilla]

Here's a quick progress check...
I took the seats out of my 300zx and bolted them into the truck for a trial fit and they do bolt in but the holes up front on the seat track need to be elongated just a little bit and the seat tracks are about 1 1/2 inches longer than the stock bench seat tracks so I'll need to drill the holes to bolt the backs down and put some screws in the existing holes to prevent water, mud etc from coming into the cab and ruining a new carpet.

Another thing I wanted was the center console which mine didn't come with so I got one on ebay for $15, cleaned it up and painted it dark gray to match when the new carpet gets installed later. After trial fitting the console I found out why the original one was removed... the shift stick hits it on both sides because of the body lift, there's not really enough room for stick travel. I came up with a fix for that by heating up the stick and re bending it in 2 places but it still hit so I trimmed off about 3/8" from the console with a 1" rotary file then cleaned it up with a flat file and sandpaper so it still looks oem but there's plenty enough clearance on both sides now.

You can also see where I'm re painting all the interior plastics that I plan to keep dark gray, vinyl paints work well for this since they bond to the plastic better than regular paints, this stuff won't peel off later on. To get a clean oem look you need to clean and prep all surfaces free of oils, waxes, silicones, etc, then sprayed on 2 coats of adhesion promoter then the vinyl color paint. The vinyl paint dries flat on plastics but a light coat of clear makes it just right... not too glossy but not dull and flat.

I still need to get the new carpet and install it as well as redoing the door panels, head liner and the dash cap, I also decided to use a Grant steering wheel instead of trying to make the stock one look good. As you can see, I still got a good way to go before it'll look nice inside this thing, but I'm making decent progress each time I get time to work on it

[Davezilla]

Just a quick pic of the console before it was cleaned and painted... it definitely looks like it hadn't been cleaned since it was new back in 82 but it looks nice and new now...