#ProjectRatsun: The Canvas

Introduction

1981 was a big year in human history. That year, MTV, the IBM personal computer, and Jessica Alba were all born. We sent the Columbia into space for the first time, discovered HIV, and saw an actor become the President of the United States. That same man, Ronald Reagan, would survive an attempt on his life later that year, as would Pope John Paul II. The tragic events of Bob Marley’s death and Paris Hilton’s birth would also occur in that year. As would many, many other events.

This made it easy for the little Datsun 720 pickup truck to fly under the radar, so to speak, in terms of historical significance. But, in 1981, one regular cab Datsun 720D, painted in silver and fitted with an SD22NA diesel engine, would be produced for the Canadian market. Thirty-five years and 211,500 kilometres later, it would be sold to a boring, pudgy McLovin lookalike with a strange fascination for normally-aspirated diesel pickup trucks and a burning disdain for rice.

Of course, that nimrod would be me.

But I bought this truck because it literally had everything I was looking for in a car. I wanted a truck with a diesel engine and a manual transmission, and I wanted the engine to be as mechanical as possible. Without question, these kind of trucks are very old and usually very difficult to find in any sort of decent shape. So when I saw the ad for this Datsun in my local classified ads, I did a double take. Then cleaned my glasses. Then phoned the seller to ask if it was still available.

It was.

One Of The Rarest Trucks On The Road

Now if you are reading this article and you are from any locale other than the USDM, you’d probably wonder why I got so excited to find a friggin’ Datsun truck for sale. Where I live, in Canada, Datsun trucks are extremely rare for two reasons: they weren’t exactly a bestseller in a market dominated by F-150s, Rams and C/Ks; and most of the ones that did sell rusted away to nothing. Diesels are even more rare in the petrol-addicted North American market. To give you an idea of how rare the Datsun 720D is in Canada, I did a quick search of 720Ds for sale in Canada, and found only one: the one that I now have the keys to. This makes it about as rare here as original Mustang jokes.

Naturally, I had to have it. But I am well aware that exclusivity comes with a price.

Condition

As you would expect for a vehicle built in the 80s, it’s not exactly in showroom condition. There’s rust on it. But there’s only one very small hole in the bed—the rest is surface rust. The frame is in excellent shape, as is the virtually indestructible 4-cylinder engine and 5-speed manual gearbox. But there’s a nasty wrinkle in the body and the right passenger door, which could become a problem area for rust in the future. The interior is also in mediocre condition, in the sense that the interior is there and complete, but has been roughed up like a tourist on the wrong side of Compton. The bench seat is badly worn, the headliner has a huge hole in it, and it’s dirtier than Larry Flynt’s imagination. And there’s a module which, having failed, does not shut the engine off when the ignition switch is in the “off” position. The solutions were either a $400, difficult to find replacement module, or a $15 choke cable which you could run through the firewall and to the fuel shutoff switch to kill the engine. Want to hazard a guess as to what this truck uses?

Equipment (or lack thereof)

The standard equipment list is also very much unlike a modern one. In the day and age of Apple CarPlay, heated steering wheels, illuminated cup holders and “welcome lighting”, my Datsun is hilariously basic. It comes with a Sony head unit to a very cheap radio, which is fine by me as it has an aux jack for my phone. But it’s certainly no S-Class. There’s no heated seats, defrosting mirrors, power seats, or anything else that you could reasonably find in a pickup truck. There’s also no air conditioning, power windows or airbags, which are pretty much taken for granted in the modern automobile. It doesn’t even have power steering or a tachometer! If you need a detox from convenience, this truck is for you.

But the worst thing about this truck? Sweet mother of Mary, is it ever slow…

I haven’t taken my truck to the local drag strip. But there’s no need—you’ll be racing everyone at the lights if you don’t want to look like a grandpa. The Mighty Little SD22 That Could produces an astonishing 61 horsepower and 102 lb.ft. of torque. 0-60 takes somewhere in between 15 and 20 seconds, depending which way the wind is blowing and whether or not you Supersized your Value Meal. You could do a top speed run on a public highway without batting an eye—it only does around 117 km/h. But the cloud of black smoke consequential to accelerating to highway speeds is comical—I once rolled so much coal that the drivers of 2 Cummins drivers passed by me grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

All in all, though, the fundamentals are all there. Fixing this baby up is going to be pretty easy. And worth it, too. But there are a few things I have to make absolutely clear about this project.

The Vision

No, it’s not going to be a drift truck. No, I am not welding the diff open. No, I am not doing an SR20DET swap. And it’s not getting stacks. In fact, I am planning to get rid of the fully functional stacks that came with the truck.

What I am looking for here is a simple build with the end goal of having an efficient, practical, reliable pickup truck with a bit of character to it. Without sounding like James May, I don’t really need that much more power. I can still go around plenty of soccer moms in town here, even with 61 horsepower. Yeah, the body be rollin’ more than Limp Bizkit, and the steering may be more slack than The Big Lebowski (those floor mats really tied the whole truck together, man!), but I love driving my little Datsun. It already has character that you do not see in modern automobiles, and I love it. The bottom line is to keep it in good shape and to have a little cheap fun with this little beast.

It’s going to be one unique daily driver.

Coming Soon: Part 2: Exhaust and Basic Fixes