looking good!Got love shiny parts.

 

Yup, got all the ball joints, both sprindles with rotors and the Xterra springs installed today.

I might cut a tiny bit more from the springs, too much gap I think, might wait till I lower the back.

going to work on the exhaust maybe wednesday, putting on the brake calipers and one new brake hose tomorrow.





Does this look normal? looks like too much spacing? I took measurements from the 73 and 77 ball joints, both were the same so im guessing this is ok, it has a cotter pin in it so It cant go anywhere anyway.



Xterra springs fit pretty good, not going anywhere, it stiffened it up enough.





rented this from advanced, had to remove a new ball joint i put on while I had drum and didnt want to buy another one, this made it pop right out, used it on the tie rods too and jeeze it makes thing easy.

















springs are cut the same lengh, one might not be settle down in where the end of the spring goes.

 

not bad at all!

want me to help you spray that wheel black?

 

Yeah been meaning too paint the other ones but its not a high priority, the only reason the other one is because I was super bored waiting on parts to come in. That was with rustoleum laquuer seems to come out pretty good, I could care less really, I just have 4 silver ones with bad paint and 3 blacks ones, so I want the other ones to match. Ive never been much into stuff looking nice, if it drives good.

Thinking about painting the wheels that came on it white and the lip polished.

 

According to Napa Auto in Hayward, California, the part numbers for ball joints and tie rod ends are the same from 69-78'. At least according to their system. I looked at both my trucks and took measurements and everything seemed to match up so 72.5'-78' I was pretty sure of.

It's just where the mounting points (where it bolts down to the frame) of the front clip that are going to be different between our two trucks (72/73 and 77')....

 

Alright, I had just never did any kind of work like this, you dont run into ball joints much on a 80s 300zx and thats really all I have experience on. But this truck has 2 uppers 2 lower, inner tie rods, outer ties rods, tie rods in a space time continuum, tie rods in space, tie rods in a parallel dimension.

And I guess they do an alignment by twisting that thing that connects the outer tie rod to the steering(sorry I don't know the terminology), Because I noticed the tie rods are left hand thread.

 

Got my calipers and pad, and one new brake line for the passenger side front. Im going to get new ones for the rear also, they dont looks so hot. Also did the rear wheel cylinders, one leaks and one was frozen.

Picked up those typical 3 inch blocks that autozone sells from a junkyard from a jeep, These dont seem to do good on these trucks spring perches... So Im going to mill them down and then get plates welded on each side. Then I can make them made to fit my springs and rear end. If that doesnt end up working im going to go with the steel ones from streettacos.com, I just dont have the money to spend on blocks right now.

Now all left to do is bleed brakes, weld on muffler and reinstall the exhaust, rewire the coil, Get a air filter. And get this truck registered and insured.









my buddy found these in a jeep near the one I got the blocks off of. pretty funny.



Here are those typical aluminum blocks, probably going to mill it down .500 and use .250 thick plates, drill a hole in one and use a rotory table to do the dimple for the other one. Might even go further and mill it a inch or .750 and make plates .500 to .375. gotta see if my teacher will let me grab that material for free... or I gotta wait for someone to mess up one some stuff and throw it in the scrap bin. Im sure our crap is stronger than these blocks, our stuff is 6061 I think.

 

good sh*t bro, just had a read through, sits well at the front now aye? what are those springs from? are they captive when you jack it up? gotta do some similar mods

 

As in captive do you mean still tight? yeah you cant move them when the truck is jacked up. They are from a 2000+ Nissan Xterra, the front springs. I want about a half inch lowering I think in the front.

 

Well finally found one, a supercharger from a 2000s Nissan Xterra, it will go on the engine im putting in my truck a VG30E, and with this it will be a VG30ER. Stock boost is 4lbs highest I think ive seen is 12 from one of these with a different pulley. I got everything I needed too, most of the time you just find only the supercharger, this one came with the lower intake, upper intake, throttle body adaptor thing(note big hole in side where throttlebody bolts up, people who use these never get those), injectors, fuel rail, crank pulley, idler pulleys. Dont think it will clear the hood which is fine, I have my stock 73 hood which is rusted out so I dont feel bad about cutting a hole in it. I dont plan on doing this swap till end of summer and even then I dont know if I will start on it, never too earlie to start buying parts. Its a m62 which is relativly small for a 3 liter but it will give good response and all I care about is reaching 200hp. which on a stock turbo Z they hit 205hp with 6psi.

Looks very clean to me, the guy said it only had 100k on the engine when it spun a rod bearing, VG33E engines are junk really... nothing compared the old VG30Es.....

 

Almost done fixing the wiring for the rear tailights, for some reason the brake lights quit working, fuses look good... I dont know.

I should be driving it next week though if I can get the carb tuned good.

 

Nice work goin on there!

 

Was fidling with some stuff today. My gas tank bracket is done, even if it is ghetto to have a 20$ fuel cell in the back of a 73 truck with 100hp, its there.





I think the welds are pretty good for a 100dollar welder and ive never been taugh how to weld. These welds are strong to, I did a test piece and tried to break it and I couldnt.





Going to put a lock nut on these and grind down and excess length of bolt.

 

why not redo the cage so it holds its to the floor instead of the tailgate. whats going to happen when you open the gate?

 

It bolts to the back of the bed near the cab, the bed is off of the truck right now.

 

lol... good try... (as in thinking it was bolted to the tailgate), but yeah, it being bolted down to the floor would be much better!! harder for some one to steal it!

 

lol wow im retarded. ok well in that case good job looks good! ive been working way too hard this week. I was trying for a while before i posted to figure out why would you want the fuel cell attached to the tailgate..i could not figure out why someone would do that....makes sense now.

 

I still have the stock tank, going to try to get it redone so i can throw it back in, this fuel cell will hold me off till thats done, I ran out of money.

 

Been driving the truck up and down the road, its got more get up and go than I thought it would, must be a light truck or a Hellacious engine, im guessing light truck... 55mph is easy to get too with the heavy 17inch mustang wheels.

I have 2 fuel filters on it now, one at the tank and one at the engine, hopefully nothing is getting to that carb. still have something funky going on with the engine mating to the trans, I think its a dial pin thing, might try to do a 5spd swap before I tag and insure it.

Some more tinkering and front sway bar, rear shocks, swapping leaf springs from the 77 truck they seem stiffer, mine look weird, 3inch drop blocks, it will be ready to daily. Also need to change the rear diff fluid, probably has never been changed, you never know.

 

You're doing a wonderful job for a guy with limited funds. Once you get the front suspension all sorted, let us all know how well the front springs turned out.

Less than $20 at Home Depot gets you a couple of gallons of acid (swimming pool section). Might be a good idea to soak that stock fuel cell and remove all the rust while it's being stored anyway. At least this way you'll also find out if it has any weak points (leaks). If not, then you could re-seal it yourself whenever you're ready, and for way less than what I paid to have mine done.