Those are 17s. Im not dead set on keeping them. Your right though, they do seem nice and light. They're wrapped in Azenis slicks with cords coming through now. This sucker doesn't have any issues breaking loose. Overall width with that wheel/ tire combo measures 5" wider than the truck. 2.5" sticking out on each side may not look too terrible, just gonna have to wait and see. Ultimately, I want the truck to appear stock on the outside. Whatever the equivalent of a 5.60-15 would be height wise. Id love to find a set of steelie-ish alloy rims for it, similar to what's on there now.
The truck hasn't ran in over a month. I drove it into the garage after the local car show. The next time I went to start it it would just crank. I knew what the problem was, I was just dreading taking it back off and opening it up again.. The accelerator pump passages were all clogged with crud again. This was all from not having the tank flushed good enough. Its been running off a boat tank, but there must've been shit in the lines still.
Now that it's running again I did some side by side comparisons 2 blatantly obvious things. 1. Truck is 10" longer wheelbase 2. Miata is 7" wider with those tires
did you add an inline fuel filter before the carb? It'll be interesting to see what you plan to do about the width difference, if you do the body swap thing.
I have an inline filter and a sediment bowl with a filter. The rust was so fine it went through both... then turned to clay
Im not doing a body swap. The plan is to mount/ graft the 2 subframes to the existing truck frame. This is all I'm keeping from the car. I really don't not want to do any body work to the truck, I think it looks perfect the way it is. If I was planning a full repaint it really wouldn't take much to wide body the front fenders and widen the pickup box. I dont think it would look all that bad if I did honestly.
Truck already has flared fenders, adding wider aftermarket flares would not take away from the look. Luckily the drifting crowd does so much widebody mods these flares are common and relatively cheap and durable. 2.5-3" flares would not be a problem. Wheels, Mazdas had those yellow/beige spare donuts, can't recall if they were 14 or 15", they will be narrow. They would have the steel wheel look and proper BP, might even be able to get a whole set for naught. Torque arm might be a tougher solution, its a pretty convuluted shape. Looked at a similiar swap using Miata drivetrain, initially the thought was to use two TAs and weld them together to get a longer TA, but there weren't any common surfaces to allow the desired length change. IIRC that was on a Ford Courier swap. What kind of fuel filter did you use? Fuel injection filter will have a finer media to collect smaller particulates. I've gotten the 'clay' gunk in a freshly built carb. I now stick a filter in between the fuel line and fuel pump in the engine bay. 90s GM TBI/TPI filter(Fram G3727). It has threaded ends (16mm x 1.5), which allows a bit more versatility. So many 90's GM trucks used it, the hard lines and filter holder are ripe for the harvesting at your local yarde.
Im just using cheap a inline plastic filter at the moment. Great tip on the efi filter! As for the torque arm. I am actually a welder/ fabricator by trade. I shouldn't have any issues splicing in that 10"+/- of aluminum. (I hope) I've built plenty of driveshafts in my day also. I've gotten pretty lucky with doing those. I may even go get this one balanced when I'm done haha Unfortunately I lost my shop this past February from the insane amount of show we got over the winter. Here is the current situation with my press brake. I've been having to farm out all my bending. Good thing is I have friends who are able to help out. I went from having a 50'x100' engineered steel building to now working out of a 25'x30' garage. All the space for working on my personal toys is gone.
All I'm seeing here is a front and rear clip to attach to your frame. You can adjust the truck body ride height by how you mount the frame to the two subframes. The torque arm can be built from any material and at any length, it just needs to keep the trans and rear end pinion square and parallel with each other. Then your only issue is the track width of both the front and the rear. Just by looking at the pictures, I believe the spring struts are going to be the biggest problem, other then tire clearance. The add on flairs will cover most of the extra width of the tires, so front tire when turning becomes the biggest issue after the spring struts. The spring struts appear to occupy about the same space as the truck frame does now. I believe they will pose the biggest issue, but good measurements and careful placement could solve that issue as well.
155/80 R15 24.8" 185/65 R15 24.4" 195/60 R15 24.2" These flares are usually used when switching to the larger 165/70 R10 19" on a mini. Probably not large enough for The stock ~24.5" tall tires of the Datsun. Early Miatas ran a 185/60 R14 22.7"
Back at it. Drove thr truck out of the garage 2 weeks ago, and it died on the lawn. Carb again. Last night I pulled the carb again and quickly just sprayed carb cleaner in all the passages. I got it to run, really rough. But runs. I left it in the yard because the dew fell and this thing is useless in wet grass. Went out with this morning with my daughter and everything was exactly as i left it. Fast forward an hour, I go to get into my daily, and the datsun is up against it. Something happened and it rolled 15feet from where its been sitting for weeks. Maybe the earth spun faster?!?! (Not entirely true, I left it in neutral. But it waited about 18hours to roll?) I was still hesitant about modifying this a little. Not anymore last straw, fully committed to yanking that drivetrain now
Still thinning the harness out. The end is in sight. Doing it all in the car so I dont really screw it up. I took some better measurements today. With the miata parts using the current wheel and tire combo the out side of the tires measure 6" wider than the widest point on the truck (front fender lips) So theoretically tires will stick out 3" on each side. Im trying to plan ahead on packaging everything under the hood. Looking here, there is no way the stock miata power brake booster is going to work. I dont need power brakes. There most likely is a way to de-power this master cylinder. Id rather just use the universal unit i have there and leave the firewall and pedal assembly alone. The clutch master cylinder would probably just hook up to the miata slave cylinder. Or worst case scenario mount the miata slave to the firewall.
Harness is stripped down. Currently sitting waiting on UPS to bring some used shocks and coils i bought for mockup. They should be here any minute nowm The springs on the kart are all broken. Once those are in, I'm gonna burn off what's left of the tires. Then start disassembly. Taking measurements now from both vehicles. The shock towers aren't nearly as high as I was worried they would be. The rear is only 2.5" front the top of the subframe. They should moujt just outboard of the truck frame and i shouldnt have to modify the pickup box at all. The front is 8" from the top of the subframe. Trimming the inner fenders is a given, but not an insane amount.
Looks like you are about to have a whole lot of fun! I'll be watching from over here, in case you need a cheerleader, or an opinion.
Here we go. I have no clue what i bought used off Facebook, but the guy said they worked good in his beater autoX car.
Rather shocking isn’t it, bit of a bend over and grab the counter, btdt, used a lot more care removing them after that
$20 a piece on RockAuto. i was able to track down some heavy duty ones for $13 each. Grade 12.9, never knew that was a thing. Better and cheaper than stock.
Ohhh you’ve no idea, 15 years ago I paid 146.00$ to the stealership for 2 bolts, not available aftermarket
Hoping to pull the engine over the next couple of days, I have the majority unhooked. Box came off very easy. Hoping to make big progress over this coming weekend.
Can you remove most of the front sheet metal as one piece, or do you have to unbolt each piece separately? With the front sheetmetal removed, you will get a clearer picture of how the "new" front suspension will fit.
It wasn't built to come apart easily. As it looks right now I will most likely be cutting the frame at or just behind the firewall and will be building new front frame horns. The frame tapers pretty dramatically under the cab. The front of the truck frame measures only 24" to the outside. 10" narrower than it needs to be. Rear is going to be a breeze
I kind of thought it was not going to come apart easily. I believe that firewall is going to be a pain in the butt, that heater box is just in the wrong place. Got to pull those front fenders, inner fenders, and the nose piece off anyway, your project will be much easier with them out of the way.
Its almost like working on a modern car. As in everything was built so compact you physically can't fit your hands where you need to, and have to remove 4 other parts to access what your working on. That heater box is just that, a box. There are 2 J- bolts on there. It just lifts out. There is a tray it rests on. I'm sure that tray and the tray for the battery will have to be cut out.
The Jalopy Journal
