1984 Nissan 720 bagged frame swap

[Fatsun870]

Hey guys, this is my first build I'm posting on the forum. Actually it's the first thing I've owned that I felt is worthy of being posted on the internet. I've had the truck since January of 2015. My grandfather passed away and I ended up getting his the 720 in the process of cleaning out his yard. He bought the truck from the original owner back in the late 80s/early 90s with around 80k on it, and a blown motor which he rebuild. The truck stayed on the road until about 99 when he deemed it to be unfit for the road. Back when I was about 7 or 8 years old we had plans of restoring the truck so I would have something for a first vehicle. We did a bunch of body work, but ended up giving up, due to a huge pile of issues with the truck. When I ended up with it, everyone was pretty sure it was never going to see the road again, considering it had been sitting in his swampy back yard rotting away for years. With a little help, me and a couple of my buddies actually got the engine to run, made a wood flatbed, wired in some boat trailer lights for the tail lights, and put some new tires on to pass inspection. I was debating on lifting it at one point, so i got a set of 33's for cheap. But for the year I've owned it, we have never been able to get it to move reliably.I came to the realization that the current drive train needed too much work for me to be happy. So one shitty day a couple of my buddies and I were sitting around debating what I should do with the pile of shit. We decided due to the frame rot we would be better off with a different platform to set the cab on. Also that way we could build the frame and drive train separate before we swapped the cab over. Lucky for me, my brother had just totaled his 94 f150. So I bought the truck off him for 250$ and parted it out, basically leaving me with a free frame with no rot and semi reliable drive train. I picked up two t5s for 50$ without bellhousings. My buddy Clint rebuilt one for me, and we drove out to NY 2 hours away to pick up a bell, starter, clutch etc all for about 150$. We got the frame on the ground and have the c notch mostly done, just need to finish making the bag mounts and plate. made some motor and tranny mounts, set the drive shaft pitch, shortened the frame about 3 feet, mounted the drivetrain in there etc. picked up some electric solenoid valves, 2 2500lb double bellows, and 2 2600lb double bellows. we decided to carb swap the efi block, and i plan on going turbo some time in the near future. so i picked up an 80's block carb mani and a 1bbl carb. planning on using the stock fuel pump in the rear tank and just running fpr to down the fp to carb spec. dont have a ton of pics atm, still rounding them up, and these database errors are slightly aggravating to work around.

[loekaaz]

This looks promising

[Fatsun870]

mocked up one of the bag mounts and started to weld some more support for the notch, but sadly ran out of argon before we got too far.

got a carb intake mani off an 80's f150 a while back. I decided to use the efi header after some reaserch, and the carb mani has a huge hole in the bottom that i had to block off, also started ripping the carb appart to rebuild it.


picked up a cheap shitty offbrand compressor, and a couple weeks later a buddy of mine ended up finding a viar for 15$ at a swap meet, so now i have 2 compressors, and i found an old shitty tank, looks to be about 10 gallons, i plan on using.

[Fatsun870]

Haven't posted in a while but I've been making steady progress. Finished welding most of the c notch, just need to finish plating the joints and trim off a little excess metal. Gusseted the bag mounts and threw together the tank setup, made some mounts for the tank to sit on.

carb is rebuilt and bolted in place, just need to take everything back apart to paint the manifold

so I used 1/2in electric solenoids as management(generally they are used for some form of house plumbing). basicaly when one is powered it will allow compressed air from the tank to enter the bag system in either the front or rear, and when the other is powered it will allow for air to escape the system. they run on 110 so i am using a power inverter to get them to work properly. only reason i went this rout is for each solenoid cost me just under 15$, and they are tested up to 200psi, so it was very inexpensive, and the inverter was 15$. each will run off its own switch within the cabbin. they are ugly so i plan on making some sort of cover for the whole apparatus to keep everything tucked and hidden.