[With all the recent talk about a "Projects" forum, let's try some "projects" in the Announcements forum, which is rarely used in any case.]


Two days ago on Friday, I bought a Sunny Truck down in LA. As far as we know there are currently five of these in the USA:
- two south america-built LHD
- three Japan-built LHD
They are becoming less rare every day

My quest for a Sunny Truck began almost five years ago, about the day after I bought my 2-dr sedan (Aug 2003).


I considered getting a ute from Japan or Australia, or even Costa Rica. The latter is probably a good way for Americans to buy. As we found out, the 1200 "camionetas" (little trucks) were built in a Nissan factory in Ecuador for some time. The price in Costa Rica is average but shipping is half the price. And if you are so inclined it could be driven up to the States.

Anyways, after these five years of searching, researching, talking and dreaming, one finally came up for sale, out of Los Angeles. This was Jose's red sunny truck from South America.


Jose's truck was reported to me as fair condition for a 35 year old vehicle, which means it had quite a few small dings and you might say could use a new paint. He was asking $6500 on craiglist in May 2008, which apparently did not sell because on eBay, June 2008 the same truck was offered, and the high bid was $2850 "reserve not met".

At this point I called G-speed again. They had shown a nice 1200 Sunny Truck from Japan at the October 2007 JCCS -- America's Japanese Car show.


Previously they had told me "not for sale" as it was a good promotion for their business. But this time when I called they were willing to talk about selling. Within a couple of days we had made an agreement on the phone. I made arrangements to fly from Seattle to LA (distance: 965 miles), and called everyday to check on paperwork and other questions.

So Friday, I flew to LAX airport and took a taxi out to G-speed, which is about 4 miles from the airport. The Sunny Truck was what I expected and everything they told me checked out. It seems they had only driven it on the freeway once (over to Long Beach for the JCCS show) so could not guarantee suitability for a long trip. But me knowing Datsun 1200s, I decided after a short test drive to drive it straight home. After all, it's just up the I-5 interstate freeway from LA to Seattle (albeit 1,000 miles).

Oh, the deal-maker for me was that this one already had a California title and registration (license plates), so paperwork should not be a problem. AND is old enough that I do not need emission testing in WA state.

G-Speed was good to work with, but their main business is selling Japan engines and half-cuts, rather than whole cars, so I had to ask the right questions, and call back the next day to wait for answers from Japan, etc. and know about paperwork and such. The truck was already in California, but G-speed is owned by a Japan company so some of the questions were discussed with Japan.

Yes, it made the 1,000 mile journey up to Seattle without any major problems. Although there were many minor mishaps along the way ...

Here's one along the drive home.


ddgonzal's Sunny Truck at Mount Shasta

good to hear the story and that you finally got one!

very unique in your parts will get a lot of attention

what were the minor mishaps?

what are your plans dd...are you going to do anything to it like a respray, bigger engine???

yer i recon. maybe we could have another forum bout "Datsun road trips" im sure there would be alot of stories and alot of people being "bush mechanics" lol

Thanks.Quote:Ah well first, instead of the 19 hours I expected the drive to take, it was 23 hours ... too long for one person in one day ... but all pumped up by Datsun 1200 driving excitement somehow I did it.

So on Friday, I drove it about three hours in LA, out to a friend's house, then hunting down air filters for the sidedrafts, and getting back to his house.

Those Solex/Mikunis ran flawlessly. What a wonderful sound dual sidedrafts make, something 1200rc you've been telling me for years and now I hear it myself. I'm guessing this engine was either built in Japan (because of the Solex brand) or tuned by the 'experts'. It looks like a new A14 done with brand new carbs. They are jetted rich but run great. The idle is lopey, but smooths out as RPM climb -- and "revs" hard as they say. On the deceleration it burbles and has little (good sounding) backfires. Like a race car.

So I put on the air filters, aired up the tires, top up the radiator, etc. get everything ready for the trip the next morning. I left at 5:30 am just after sunrise ... and the truck barely runs. I figured it was just because there was no choke cable -- but anyways it ran when I floored it. So I get on the freeway and am doing the 65 mph (106 kph) no problems but it doesn't sound quite right. But even after it warms up it won't run part throttle, it backfires etc. It will idle but not well. But since it runs OK at 55-65, and great at 70 ... I just keep going.

The next problem is I have to stop for gasoline about every 200 miles. The little 10 gallon tank isn't very big when it's only getting about 20 or 25 mpg ... then I put in Premium (high octane) because I'm worried why it running lean and have no idea what kind of pistons is in this A14.

Around noon I stop for lunch in Sacramento and lurch around town. But when I hit the freeway again it won't go over 50 mph...

I stop again and finally figure out the rubber insulators between in the manifold and the sidedrafts are cracked. They look new, but but maybe it's just a flaw. Well I've got a bag of zip ties I bought to put the license plate on (American plate doesn't fit Japan plates holes . I pull up on the carbs and tie them up. Yep, it works well enough to get up to 70+ again. The faster I go the better it runs.

I had to keep stopping every few hours and tighten the zip ties .... it would get to running worse, tightening it would help.

Then it got bad and the zip ties didn't help... I looked around a while and found two intake manifold bolts were loose. Not too surprising on a show car, so it doesn't bother me. In any case, tightening those gets it back to the "running good enough" and I keep going.

Then halfway home, I can't buy gasoline. My credit card is "rejected". I spend all my cash but it doesn't even fill the tank ... I called VISA from my cell and they stopped the card because of all the "unusual activity". Is it because of the $400 plane ticket? The thousands charged for the vehicle? (hey, I charged it . No, they are worried about all the gasoline "fill-ups" that were charged that day. Anyways the phone call fixes that. (They also stopped the card once again on Sunday for the same thing).

DD, congrats on the new ride, I noticed the dead smooth panels in the show pics but the graphics in the newer pics you took...

If VISA did that to me I would be pissed off, if they did it twice I would be abusive when I rang them, thats just unacceptable to me... especially twice...

Quote:The A14 is surprisingly powerful, so let's see how it goes. The company I bought it from had all these CA18DETS, RB sixes, SR20s, etc sitting there for sale ... it was tempting for guy with a credit card, but I successfully resisted.

My plans are to change the loud muffler for a more quiet one (my ears are still ringing). And I suppose I should take all the company stickers off the car but they cool in their own way. The blue metallic paint is flawless and there are no dings in the body. It is show-quality.

It really doesn't need much done to it, just minor stuff. I'd like a bench seat but I guess only South African's got those.

And fix the speedo and add a tachometer. It was kind of a pain driving for 20+ hours and having no idea what speed I was actually doing ... Sounds like it was running about 4000 rpm mostly. If it wasn't before, it will be 'broken in' now. Maybe I should re-torque the head bolts and adjust the valves

And hook up the temperature gauge. It was kind of unnerving not know if the engine was overheating. But after a few hours I stopped worrying about that.

i'd definitely be taking those stickers off pretty quick, you'd hate to have the paint fade around them. we drove my ute from launceston in tasmania to hobart and onto the boat to melbourne and then to canberra and she ran flawlessly the whole way.

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And it was hot as hell last week out here. I'm sure it was near 100

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Very nice looking vehicle. Modded A14 should be plenty of fun especially on the road.

There is nothing quite like the sound (music?) of sidedrafts burbling away.

Regarding the airleak, you're probably already onto it but the "O" ring type insulators between the carbs and manifold are a good bet (Either the metal type with rubber molded to them Or the plastic type with an "O" ring on each side.)