Man, I would cut the hump off the existing rear frame and weld a tube or channel on the inside of the front and rear sections that matched up with the rear axle subframe so it could be bolted on (at the chosen ride height). By removing the hump, it would provide more clearance for the spring struts to lean in to clear the tires. Than its a matter of building frame brackets to bolt the spring struts to. It does appear, by the tire wear, there are some wore out parts in that rear suspension that you will want to replace before you modify the bed to put it back on.
Those tires were ran hard be the previous owner. Don't fret though, I have already bought a full set of black poly bushings for it. As it looks right now I won't have to cut the floor like I was originally concerned about.
Long night at the kitchen table. But i got through it. This is just the ECM harness. I retained the Oh so useful ODB1 port. Hoping to adapt the stock instrument cluster to work. I have all the wires and warning lights labeled and ready to go.
Outstanding! Glad to see you picking through the original harness. It's a peeve of mine to see folks not use an existing(known working) harness because 'reasons' or they have some spare cash and think a painless(HAH!) harness would be easy/better/whatever. Keeping the factory fuse box does make diagnostics a lot easier. Reduced down a few modern Ford and Mazda harness's over the years. Mazda stuff seemed to be more forgiving Seeing IRS under frame is quite****illating. I wonder if anyone makes poly fenders for smaller applications, just to prevent pelting rocks at the bed and back of cab.
I believe I would copy the sheet metal design of the upper shock mount into thicker material (maybe 1/8" or 11 gauge thick) and modify them so they will be self supporting as they are attached to the truck frame. The sheet metal was part of the car's unibody design and will be missing several support parts once attached to the truck frame. I suspect they will probably will be too light of material to attach to the truck frame and last very long.
Good call, and I was already thinking it would be easier to make new than strengthen these things. Atleast now I have patterns
Shop is an absolute mess from all the metal prep and paint. Got all the new bushings in. This took too long. Rear frame is done. Hopefully can find time to install it over the weekend.
YUCK! Looks like some taller tires and lowering is in the future. I can see why later models had lower skirts on the pickup boxes.
If i lower box the cab proportions would look weird. Could probably raise the subframe, but loads more work. Luckily being miata parts, its going to be super easy to lower the suspension. Gotta deal with the nightmare the front is going to be before I put too much stress into that now.
What is up with this? Didn't the bed originally sit on top of the frame? The entire suspension is below the top of the frame, what is keeping the bed from sitting down? So I went back and looked, the bed is sitting at the same height as it sat at before. I think the only thing you need to do is raise up the rear spring mounting plates higher on the frame, that should allow the frame to sit a bit lower. It almost appears that the biggest difference on how it sits now and how it sat before is the difference in the tire diameter.
If moving the spring perches doesn't do it for you, I would consider dropping the bed down a couple of inches. A picture of my 49 Dodge. Most USA trucks have the bed sitting a bit lower then the body lines on the cab. This bed is mounted on the frame at the factory height, compared to the cab height. No one but you (and us, I won't tell anyone) will know that you lowered the bed a couple inches. Most people will have no idea how the truck was originally built.
My immediate thought was "why isn't the bed sitting right?!" Then I realized that it was. The big open space under the box is where the gas tank sits, hopefully it won't look so stupid once the tank is in. It looks like I'll be able to mount the miata tank in the same general area as the stock tank, and still be able to use the stock filler location. On the passenger side I may put some sort of filler in that area. My Honda was the same way, but it was so low you really didn't notice.
At a quick glance it looks like the truck would need to be lowered an inch to get the same wheel clearance as factory. However... The Miata wheels are 2" shorter diameter than the Datsuns. So a stock height wheel/tire would probably put you back to the correct look. Also the RPF1s dont help in comparison.
Nothing special, just a generic atv winch on a custom bumper I made. Also doubled as a snowplow mount.
For what ever its worth, up through the 1990s, domestic truck truck body structure was not much better. After the 1990s they did things much differently, not really any better, but different. After around 2010, the car companies decided that adding foam inside of the rockers and between body panels to reduce noises, was so much better. The foam was not only flammable, so you couldn't cut it out, but it also retained water.
While you're working your sheet metal repairs, I'd add sheet metal before and after the rear wheels, extending down to match up with the bottom of the cab, adding flares to match the front fenders.
The Jalopy Journal
