TRUCK PROJECT A MIX OF DECADES AND NAMEPLATES
They say timing is everything, and for Patrick Mccready, the pandemic lockdown proved to be something of an ideal situation.
When he had a hip replacement last year, the Edmonton man was sidelined from working on his custom Datsun truck project. He was pretty much immobile until earlier this year — right around the time everything got shut down.
“I had a garage full of parts that I couldn’t do anything with,” he said. “The lockdown coincided with my own increased mobility, and I could finally get after this truck.”
Mccready was interested in all things mechanical from an early age. His curiosity led him to dismantle many household objects, including a kitchen clock that had stopped working.
“I took it apart to quite literally see what made it tick,” he says. “I fixed it, and got it back together, too.”
As he got older he began tinkering with bicycles, and later a neighbour became a mechanical mentor and he taught Mccready how to work on automotive projects.
Mccready’s first car was a
1972 Datsun B210, purchased for $200. After he had the cylinder head rebuilt, repaired the front fender and cleaned up the interior, he drove the Datsun for a few years. Then off-road vehicles interested him, and a 1975 Jeep CJ5 took much of his time, as did other mechanical and motorsport projects over the years.
In 2017, Mccready says he was thinking about building another Datsun.
“I wanted a father/son project that was mechanically simple, and I really like the body style of the mid-1970s Datsun trucks,” he says.
He located a 1976 Datsun 620 King Cab truck in southern Alberta. He started by removing the body and box from the frame.
“The 620, with its drum front brakes and kingpin steering was archaic,” he says. “I wanted disc brakes, and there’s a conversion kit available to do this. But I got looking into it, and the frame from the next-generation Datsun truck is generally the same.”
So, from Edson, Alta., came a 1986 Datsun/nissan 720. The body was rusty, but the running gear was in good condition. After separating the rusty body from the frame, Mccready had a foundation on which to build.
“With the 720 frame I got disc brakes, power steering and a 2.4-L engine with a five-speed transmission,” he says.
When test-fitting the 620 King Cab and short box to the 720 regular cab and long box chassis, Mccready discovered most body mounting points lined up, with the exception of two for the box. After the frame was sandblasted to bare metal. Mccready went over everything to ensure there were no stress fractures or other damage, and relocated the two box mounting points. He painted the frame and repaired and detailed the stock suspension before putting it under the rails.
When we spoke about the build, Mccready had just finished putting the engine together, complete with a 0.05inch overbore. He has ported and polished the cylinder head, and the motor is balanced and blueprinted. The carburetor was on his bench for a rebuild and once that’s completed, he plans to mount the engine with transmission in the frame so he can assemble the exhaust and finish running the fuel lines.
“After that, I can put the body and box on the frame,” Mccready says. “Then it’s off to the body shop for some rust repair and paint. I’m not a paint or body man, so I’ll give them as clean a metal canvas as I can prepare, and they’ll take it from there.”
He has plans for a custom interior, and will de-brand the truck so that anything with a factory Datsun or Nissan emblem will be replaced with parts he hopes to create using 3D printing technology.
“This is Stage 1 of the project build, where I’ll have it running and on the road so I can work out any bugs. There will be a stage two, but its purpose is to be driven, and that’s what I intend to do with it.
“I think by summer 2021, we’ll see the handiwork at car shows, rod runs and cruises — and I’ll have my truck ready to go.”