Datsun 620 - A Budget FunMobile

Hi guys,

I've been absent from TacomaWorld for about a year, but I'm back! I have some plans in store for the Tacoma but I'd like to share what has been taking attention away from my beloved Tommy.




I'm a mechanical engineering student at Arizona State University, and with three years left in school I wanted an old vehicle to work on using the resources available at the college. I wanted a project that was cheap, simple, and most importantly fun. Enter Daisy the Datsun.



Daisy is a 1974 Datsun 620 pickup. I bought her in August 2014 for $1300 with 90,000 miles on the original L18 4-cylinder with recently rebuilt 4-speed. The drivetrain was probably the best part of the truck though. The interior was a mess with bucket seats welded in by the previous owner. The wiring was a rats nest of disconnected wires and after a fuse box fire the previous owner disconnected everything that wasn't vital (including brake lights). The body had seen better days with evidence of body filler beneath the brushed on house paint. Being an Arizona truck, the only major rust was in the bottom of the doors where water had pooled due to the lack of window seals. Lastly, the brake master cylinder was leaking and needed replacing.


































Needless to say, this would be an undertaking but certainly a fun project! Follow along as I log the progress from this past year on my little Datsun pickup.

 

sub'd - i love little old trucks like this one!

 

Before starting on the fun stuff I had to go through and get the necessities out of the way. Most notably getting the wiring working and replacing the master cylinder.











After the brakes worked and the brake lights lit up, I drove the truck around for a couple of weeks just getting to know one another. I learned a few things:

• It's not a fast truck! Max speed is about 65 mph.
• The gas tank is quite petite at only 8 gallons. There is a hole in the passenger bedside from where one of the previous owners installed a secondary tank in the bed.
• A car without air conditioning in Phoenix, Arizona is pretty hot most of the year.
• The bucket seats that are welded to floor don't leave much legroom and the old carpet was so dirty that it would create a cloud of dust in the cab whenever the windows were down.

After I had more free time with school and the temperature dropped, I began tinkering and changing things.

The first order of business was bringing miss Daisy down to Earth by adjusting the torsion bars in front and installing lowering blocks in the rear.

Before:




After:












The next steps would be investigating the bodywork and overhauling the interior.

 

Toss the hard body wheels and get some titans. Those old trucks are sweet.

 

Nice find. Looks like you should be able to use Toyota wheels on it.

 

Ooh foreshadowing...

 

Daisy is lookin' GOOD!

 

Steelies. Win.

 

Subbed

 

Ditto

 

One of my main goals for this project was to get my feet wet in every aspect of the automotive hobby; mechanical, bodywork, interior etc. With the mechanical basics covered, I decided to dive into the exterior and see what was hiding beneath that gorgeous paint. The tear-down began with the front end sheetmetal.











A peek into the parts room.





It soon became obvious that I wasn't the first person to peel these panels away and mettle with Daisy's metal.

Surprise #1
The Datsun 620 came with fender badges, but mine had none. Upon further inspection I found the emblem holes had been filled with a combination of welded bolts and body filler.





Surprise #2
The front fenders are made up of a main piece and a lower front corner, at some point the two became separated and were expertly welded together.





Surprise #3
The front fenders had been "patched" in the bottom corners after rusting away at some point. Once again a combination of seam sealer/adhesive and body filler were used.





This wasn't the verdict I had been hoping for but it would give me an excuse to learn some new things. The next day I further diagnosed the fenders by grinding and blasting away the paint.

Filled in emblem holes-



Fender rust and repairs-











I tested the blast cabinet on the tailgate handles



At this point I began to realize that for some pieces it would be easier and ultimately more cost efficient to source replacement parts than fixing the old ones. The only problem is Datsun parts can be hard to find, many have been destroyed and most survivors are in bad shape. Some panels are reproduced, but the cost along with the quality and fitment left me wanting original parts. I'll leave you with some pictures of my cousin and I out in the middle of the desert searching for anything we could use on Daisy. We left with some rust free doors and sunburn, but we saw some cool stuff too.

 

While the front sheet metal was being stripped of paint, I turned my attention to the interior. I wanted to remove the bulky heater box from under the dash as there's no use for it here. This led to pulling out the control panel to fill in where the heater knobs were, which snowballed into removing the entire dashboard and carpet.









27 screws later and the carpet was free!















Meanwhile back at the ranch...







During the paint stripping process I began to notice that the original paint varied from piece to piece. The inside of the cab is white, the inside of the bed is blue, the hood is brown, and the fenders are yellow. It's quite the patchwork quilt beneath the tan paint! And around that time I also bought some 18" Nissan Titan wheels for a song.







After weeks of hunting I was able to track down somebody with Datsun 620 parts. I ended up getting a driver's side fender and an earlier grille with beauty rings. I definitely found the right place.





After my field trip I was excited to test fit my new goodies.









At this point I finally felt like I was making some progress even though half of the truck was stored away in the house. It motivated me to keep chugging along, and I would need it for the long days ahead. There was still a lot more paint stripping and dashboard refurbishing to be done in the near future.

 

I spent a few weeks of free time stripping paint off of the Datsun and prepping the underside while I had access to it. The fender wells got sprayed with Duplicolor bedliner, it's held up great on my Tacoma and goes on easy. The drums were covered in caliper paint and everything else got degreased and painted black as well. For now the stock wheels have been Plasti-Dipped until the tires wear out and I can justify replacing them. Here are some photos of the process:

























My previous plan was to bodywork and paint the truck but it became hard to ignore the overwhelming amount of time and money needed to get it to that point. Now that it's finished I'm pleasantly surprised with how it turned out.









Smaller than my roommate's Mustang!



Assembled front end with painted grille and clear turn signals.





Only clear coat protects the exterior so you can see every imperfection and I'm sure it will get love/hate reactions. I think not having to worry about rock chips, scratches, dents etc. can only increase the fun factor for me.

 

Looks great man. Makes me want to spend even more money and buy a project car. What's nice about yours is that it's simple, unassuming, yet so very quaint. I like it a lot.

 

Now that the exterior is (mostly) squared away, the focus returns to the interior. The cardboard glovebox that came in these trucks is pretty useless after 40 years in the desert, so I made a new one out of aluminum.











The dash was cracked after years of sun so I sanded and filled it before painting/ bed-lining it. I also wanted to make a new face plate to cover where the radio and heater controls originally were.









I also put some LEDs in the gauge cluster and bought a sweet new steering wheel.











I finally got the dome light to work, and thankfully had a leftover LED bulb from the gauges.



Test fitting the dash and pulling out some old stuff...





The old speakers were marine speakers that had the cones held on with tape and they were wired with lamp cord. Oh dear.











Finally mounted the radio in the glovebox and finished the bulk of the interior install. You can see here that I covered the aluminum panel in brushed aluminum vinyl.





















All of the wires were zip-tied out of the way and the fuse box was mounted out of sight. The gauge cluster got a makeover with some black vinyl cleaning up the rough edges around the gauges. I also made a decal from a Z car emblem and put it where the radio used to be.

 

man, love all the interior work you've done.

slick idea mounting the radio in the glove box

 

Subbed!

 

Thanks guys! We're nearing the present condition of the truck. I'm up in Pinetop AZ all summer for work with the Tacoma, but Daisy is still down in Phoenix...melting.

 

For safety sake you should be running a steel block in the rear not aluminum.

 

I didn't know they made them in steel, what does the material impact?