1980 720 old school look build (Read 766 times)

[bananahamuck]

We picked this truck up about  a year or so ago figuring we could harvest the 5speed and brand new Weber carb it had for other stuff and maybe use frame for another 520 project my neighbor is thinking of building. But my son was pretty against just stripping body off as he really likes the box style ( like his Warthog A10) ,, so since the weather was unseasonable warm this last week i broke off the ZXT i'm repairing for a meet in Seattle and went through the stacks of parts we have to see if we could get it rolling by June 14. 

When we first got it about a year ago



Hole where battery would normally be



Temporary fix using license plates and plywood.




I wanted to jack it UP with these off a 1982 Yota 4x4 because we live on the boundary of a large forest. And i figured he and his little brother could motor around in the woods when sighting the their rifles..



But he wants these 8 1/2 x 15 slots with 295/50/15 on rear and a little stretched 205/50/15 tires to dump the front down , old school style





______________________________

1980 720 trucks come with vent holes in hood but i have owned a few in the past and having holes almost directly over your carb makes leaving vehicle in rain makes for a mess if not driven regularly.. so i cut them out and welded patch panels in .





85 VW Golf hood



I use hard drive magnets as they are very strong and don't weigh the panel down which may cause it to warp even more than my bad welding














After that we tore engine apart as it had a stuck valve that needed to be fixed.

[bananahamuck]

The truck has sat since 2001 so i thought stuck valve was being caused by dry valve guides,, but it wasn't



Since 1980s come with round port heads we had to switch exhaust manifolds too. So while son tore engine apart,, i had to remove broken stud, welded a nut onto it and 5 tries later it came out.





Torn apart





HUGE gash in 2 and 3 cylinders most likely from letting water sit in there from bad head gasket.. Oh well we are just going to run it till it uses so much oil we have to switch engines.





Back together





Boxes of parts as the kid had stripped most everything off before abandoning project














Canopy he is assuming i'm going to let him have ,, hump in back will most likely accentuate the rake the truck should end up with.





The one good thing is the new doors and fenders are rust free and the kid had switched the brown dash for a newer black one.






Now that it is raining again i can go back to monkey-ing with my stuff because like the wicked witch of the west ,, my sons are deftly afraid of rain water.



He hasn't decided on a color but i'm politicking for a very bright color to get out of a monstrous amount of body work it needs.

[Al Ramone]

sweet. i love the look of these.

[bananahamuck]

It has been 83 degrees since Monday so even though i spend a goofy amount of time dinking around on internets i/we have gotten a few more things done.

Big hole in fender where battery once sat is filled and since making a pan to fit battery is really hard we are moving battery to bed ,, so we had to cut up some scrap in back and make a tray.

pictures







My orange rubber hammer and pipe sheet metal machine... I switch out to skinnier pipe for the more complex bends.









Whaa Laahh!



Scrap for battery holder




Used cutter wheel to save Acetylene gas.




And this happened ,, "why it's getting hot out here,, and what's that burning smell?  "  WHOA!!







Battery is one they take out of fire engines as routine maintenance, 1000 CCA certified,  so it should be big enough.




and that's it,, we are re-thinking our June 14th deadline but you never know.

But in case you guys are still going through late winter,,,,,,,,,,,,,, it is now 9:30 am and 75 degrees F

[Al Ramone]

we've got sun. sorta...

i'd be more worried about the lack of guard on the grinder then the burning. ekk!

[bananahamuck]

Yeah, a little dangerous for sure but with the guard you can't cut with it with grinder leaning, so grinder will fly away from you if it catches.

My motto: It only hurts, till it stops.

[Al Ramone]

i've never, ever needed to remove the guard. only ever needed to move it round a bit.

[bananahamuck]

Yes but that would make cutting off the ends of my fingers so much harder.



I kid, i kid

[bananahamuck]

We did a couple things to get it closer to roadworthy. The truck was going to just be a parts vehicle so when we pulled 5speed out for use in my 510 we just cut the tranny hump so it was easier to just rip it out and throw another in so we wouldn't have to push it by hand. So i welded that mess up.






Then since we might use SU carbs in truck and my sons 79 A10 wagon we made some brackets so both vehicles stock throttle cables could be used ..

Took this piece of metal and made a pivot point closer to firewall as like i said we want to easily switch between vehicles.

 





He put on the fenders and what-not while i took these piles of scrap metal .





And made this exhaust pipe ,, it looks pretty whack but it is sealed up and tucks pretty nice.






The truck is bring built on the pretext that it will be a engine/tranny test vehicle so we are thinking about cutting a tranny hump out of another truck and having a fully removable screwed down one in the future. but that is probably just a dream.


And because it's my thread,,, here's from the other day when we went to the taco truck. You can't beat tacos for $1.50

[bananahamuck]

So we have the car meet of the year coming up on the 14th so we baled on this as there was no way we could get it done in time,, but to show you we have been at Datsuns .. I give you updates from the other cars we are getting ready.

My son bought these off my buddy Bill last winter for about $117. ( the money he had in his pocket ) because Bill is a diehard Weber/Solex type guy and these were on a 69 wagon he bought and re-sold and popping a stock Hitachi on it is way easier than fiddling around with SUs.

Anyways,, we put these on his 79 A10 wagon L20b engine last Saturday and  think we have gotten all the corrosion inside them ( car had sat for a long time) and rich idling problem finally licked... Don't mind the white rag filter,,, doctors orders and what-not.




And while he worked on getting the carbs switched in his car ,, i pulled mine up and switched the door and fender that i finally got back from my brother.. (short version) this was the parts car for my brothers 70 4door ,,i found him a matching color door for his finally.. mine is now one color again.

before: in case you have never seen the Lizard mobile





After:minilites are the summer wheels and 215x60x13 tires are impossible to find over here.








I will update the 720 that this thread is supposed to be about soon as my buddy is still finishing re-drilling wheels that are going on it.  .

[bananahamuck]

Got the wheels back and man there is a lotta holes!! 

The bigger holes were waaaay out of round,, now i guess we see how much my friend had to drink before doing them... I half expect to be driving around like those clown bicycles.

8 1/2" x 15"





It is almost ready for the road but we still have to pay to have the license plates and road tax tabs put on. so i have been using it as my brush and junk hauler ,, instead of a wheelbarrow.







Front bumper was homemade out of a 4" piece of channel iron.

[bananahamuck]

Video of the truck when we first got it about a year ago,, and we were just seeing if it ran,,  notice boy is sitting on wooden box.... One of my buddies just happened to be driving by ( you see him go by and circle back) so that ding-a-ling is caught on video. 

If watching at work there is a tiny but of cussing but we aren't very politically correct around my garage.




anyways there you go

[bananahamuck]

My son put some meats we had laying around in garage from years ago on the wheels.. Needs a little lower in front but not sure if we will do that before paint or after.

A ton of other work was done besides wheels,, but showing pictures of soldered up heater switch just isn't as visual as you might think.






 



Not much but it should be almost road worthy.

[bananahamuck]

We still need to shim bumper bracket on left side to even it out as it seems really crooked and we only had 20 lug nuts and those were mostly my minilite ones he stole outta my stash.

[Al Ramone]

720 looks great. rear light look like 620 type. is that stock?