My 88 D21

[Ranger850]

This is the 88 Nissan Hard Body "D21"

This is the day I first parked it in the yard. It was worse for ware. At first glance, It was ugly to say the least. When you got up close, it was even uglier. The Hood and PS fender had obviously been replaced, so it has been wrecked, , The wheels were just disgusting, and the interior was horrendous.

The door panels were replaced with wood paneling, the bench seat had a couple of pillows stuffed into the Driver's side, for support. and the dash is ….. I cant find words for the dash.
As far as the Drive train, it wasn't too bad. It started up every time, no problem, and it drove fine. Leaked a little oil I thought, no problem still, It is 30 + years old. But the rear breaks were leaking.

 

[Ranger850]

One of the first thing I had to do was ditch the bench for some buckets, and find some door panels for this thing.

 

[Ranger850]

And then, on to the real stuff,

replaced the old wheel cylinders
and did a rear break job.

 

[Ranger850]

Now that my stopping juice wasn't leaking out, I jumped into some cosmetic stuff, WHEELS.

^^This is what they looked like when I got them.
So, I stripped them down to bare metal. There was this plastic clear stuff over the wheel, I chose to use a "waffle wheel" to get it done. That and a good pressure wash session netted decent results.

Using the DODGE wheels as inspiration...

I did this...

It's very subtle, especially with 15" wheels, but the face is black and the backside is Gold.

And now the Truck looks like this

 

[Ranger850]

The Door handles, were working, but that's it. The DS was dangling and the PS was a plastic POS that was just going to fail at any time. So I found a guy on InfamousNissan.com wanting to get rid of some metal, chrome ones for the $$ of shipping.

 

[Ranger850]

The emissions on this little truck was a joke, so I removed all of it from the engine bay.

The top shot is the fender where all the emissions stuff was jammed in there.

 

[Ranger850]

The engine bay now needed a good cleaning, so I could try to figure out where the oil was coming from.

I did the undercarriage too

 

[Ranger850]

Time for new plugs & wires, and a Valve Cover Gasket.

Look what I found, the oil leak?

The plugs,

 

[Ranger850]

New Plugs in, new wires on, and VCG replaced. I also painted a few pieces while they were out.
Before

After

 

[Grumpaw]

Nice job bringing a truck back from the "grave".
Never have owned a Nissan pick up, but used to race SCCA in a Datsun 510.
Have had same era Toyo trucks. Back then they were solid, dependable little trucks, and with routine maintenance would last forever.
Luck with your project.
Grumpaw

 

[Ranger850]

Now that she was running smoother, I jumped to the inside for some trim pieces.

DS pillar

PS Pillar

Mirror Trim pieces

The gray material I used is called Microfiber. I got it off of an abandoned couch lol

 

[Ranger850]

The mirrors were a sad subject too. DS was fine, but the PS was not. It had a huge, oversized convex bubble bolted to the mirror housing.

Here they are, already off of the truck.
I found a nice Xterra at the JY that looked like the Mirrors would fit my HB, so I snagged them.

But before they could go on, I had to do some slight mods.
1st, I had to cut out these little tabs.

Then I had to smooth that out, using a grinder to open it up a bit more.
Then I did this

This is a little rubber boot that came on the Xterra Mirrors that were NOT on my HB. I removed that part instead of making the hole larger.

prepped and ready for paint.

 

[Ranger850]

Drivers side done, nice fit

D21 vs Xterra

And here is a Left&right shot

 

[Ranger850]

My next big project is a brake upgrade. I ordered all V6 components, ( slightly bigger and thicker rotors ) and will be putting those on soon, along with the leaf spring bushings. stay tuned...

 

[sgtsandman]

Nice work so far. The body looks to have held up pretty well. I love the slide bolt latch for the driver's door. Classic Mr Bean mod there. I'm assuming you'll be addressing that at some point.