This is going to be a long winded update post for anyone who cares. I figure some of you will get a kick out of my adventures.

I've had lots of fun working on and driving this little truck.
I posted a couple pictures in an album on my page. I'll add some to this post and more to the gallery tomorrow if I remember to. So, i bought the thing in San Diego, about a 2 hour drive from home. 2 hours turned into 5 when the thing wouldn't go over 55mph because of a poorly jetted mikuni and lack of fuel delivery, so i decided to take backroads home. All in all pretty enjoyable.
I did the little things(oil change, coolant flush, thermostat, etc) right away.

I've been driving it since, and luckily for me it somehow passed smog on the second or third try. I think the nice Oriental guy at the smog place cut me a break, because it was running so bad it smelled up his whole shop. So with that I was able to take it out of non op status and register it. But for some reason the CA DMV had it labeled as a car. The guy said I could register it like that but I'd most likely end up with a ticket. So to switch it into a commercial truck I had to take it to a semi truck scale to get it weighed(Cali has to charge for everything, even weight). For those curious, it clocked in at an even 2500lbs. The weight fee ended up being like $6 or something stupid like that . But now it's legal and I've been driving it as much as I can.

I never could find a jet kit for the mikuni and it was impossible to tune, not to mention the thermal choke making it idle around 3000rpm when cold. So more recently I bought a Weber K610-M kit to put in it. Super simple install, did it in probably 6 hours over the span of 3 or so days. I know it's not legal in CA, but it already passed smog so it wont be inspected for another 2 years. I'll most likely be in South Carolina in Navy Nuke school by then anyways. Anyways, now it runs amazing and I'm glad I did it.

Quirks I've noticed:
- The shifter is pretty loose. I've just gotten used to it.

- Funny story, The previous owner had a sub in it at one point but took it out and left all the wiring. Like a dummy, I assumed that none of the loose wires had power because the main in line fuse was blown. One day I get the thing about a mile from home and smoke starts dumping out of the vents. My genius quick thinking led me to stop on the side of the road, shut it off and bail out into traffic. Ooops! I thought the thing was about to blow up lmao. To my surprise it fired right back up after all the smoke cleared. I limped it back home very carefully. Took me a while to figure out what did it but apparently one of the amp wires shorted out on the seat mount and burned all the insulation off the wire and left a pretty good mark in the carpet.

- The paint is pretty faded. I want to try wiping boiled linseed oil on it. People do it to protect and shine up patinas on older cars, so I wonder if it would bring some shine back to this girl.

- I still haven't found a grill for it.

- The wiring all around is super dodgy. The rear running lights weren't working right and I was out of time that day so I afro-engineered a new ground and ran an inline switch. Super ghetto but it works.

-By far the worst thing driveability wise is the steering. I have about a 20 degree area of play in the steering wheel. I changed the tie rod ends and that made it a little better but it's still pretty bad. The only play anywhere is in the steering gearbox itself, and I've had a hard time locating a replacement. And it doesn't have any kind of adjustment that I've found.

- The speedo cable broke. It was always pretty shaky, which I later learned that that was it sticking.

- The night time dash illumination is nonexistant

- reverse lights don't work.

-The driveshaft carrier bearing is shot, so it shakes a little when taking off. oddly it isn't noticable at speed. I have a replacement, but I've never taken out a driveshaft before, so I'm kinda nervous.

- The window seals are pretty worn so any little bump makes them rattle loudly



Things I want to do:
- Get a grill

- New steering box

- There's lots of surface rust in the bed, so my plan is to eventually hit it with a wire wheel and spray or roll bedliner in it.

- Distant future, get a couple inches of lift and some nice offroad tires

- Either get a limited slip rear end or a higher geared one. It could be me, but it seems to have a waay to low final drive.

- LED Headlights for sure

- replace the dash lights with LEDs

- Maybe put a sub back in

- find a way to insulate it some. The road noise is pretty loud.



I'd like to hear what you guys think of my plans and what else I should do with it. She has good bones and I can see myself driving it for a long long time.