Daihatsu nooblet

Hi there!  Owner of a RHD Daihatsu Hijet 4X4 pickup for about 2 weeks now.  Maybe one of the best early Christmas presents I have bought so far.  I had bought this truck from a reservist who built it with his Dad... but what I found out is it is a 75' chassis with various parts of later 90s models added.  It is street (and highway) legal... plus smog exempt.  Which is rare as I currently live in California, US and they are usually just registered as offroaders here.

So far, I am planning on taking care of some surface corrosion under and top of the bed and also to get some refurbishing done on the inside.  Maybe also put some nonskid on the bed and get a new coat of paint too.  Mechanically wise, I need to install the handbrake cable, which I plan on finding the maintenance manuals for.  The only hard part is it is various years.  But it looks to be a 95 cab, and it has a 659cc 3piston single carb engine.  Which I am not sure if it was from a 95 model.  

It is a fun truck, easy to fit into the garage, and was very easy to adapt to right hand driving in.  I was expecting it to be harder, but I love it.  I am jealous of it since it gets more thumbs up than my daily driver which is a 92' 3000GT SL hahaha!

Spoiler:

Hi and welcome, and nice truck!

What makes you think its rocking a 1975 chassis?

It is narrow enough so right or left hand drive make no difference    

HighlyJetted wrote:Hi and welcome, and nice truck!
What makes you think its rocking a 1975 chassis?

Thank you!  

Well, until I get into knowing the truck more, all I know is the VIN number on the chassis is of a 75.  Or at least, is in the books as one. Would there be a large visible difference that a noob like I can check for?  It has been repainted and everything under there.  Other modifications they did was wielding in certain places where it is normally glued to make the truck a little stronger.

waz wrote:It is narrow enough so right or left hand drive make no difference    

Very true! We also have a 72 MGB GT, so its smallness is roughly the same. The only downside is at highway speeds, the side mirrors tend to bend downwards. So I need to find better hardware to replace the ones there to tighten them up more.

Can you not for a rod from the top of the mirror to the door frame?

waz wrote:Can you not for a rod from the top of the mirror to the door frame?

I... might be able to do that. Don't have the drills for that though. For now I just will be seeing if I can get a nut onto the screw inside of it to tighten onto the ball more. It is weird working upside down.

Don't botch a rod on, that's a bit rough....

When they fold back at speed it just means the balls arn't gripping anymore.

Some people screw a self tapper/wood screw through the whole thing when correctly adjusted. others adjust them, remove, then pour glue down the ball joint.

I'm sure there are other options.

As for the age, your cab looks like an S82,

While a 1975 chassis would be an S38 or S40....

I wouldn't think you could easily put the cab of the s8x onto a s38 chassis. It would mean totally starting again with alot of the "chassis" - which the s8x type vans don't really have much chassis under the cab as it mostly a monocoque. Also the widths are very different.

I'm not saying it isn't possible, just I would be very interested to see some photos of if underneath.

If you had so much of a s82 at your fingertips, I see very little reason or motivation to chop it up to join it to the earlier chassis. It would mean either running all the old rubbish running gear, or then modifying the chassis everywhere to suite the later running gear. This all seems quite far fetched, or an awfully lot of work.

I hope I do not come across overly negative or critical.

And I would love to find out the truth, and also I appreciate conversion work of all types alot.

HighlyJetted wrote:As for the age, your cab looks like an S82,

While a 1975 chassis would be an S38 or S40....

I wouldn't think you could easily put the cab of the s8x onto a s38 chassis. It would mean totally starting again with alot of the "chassis" - which the s8x type vans don't really have much chassis under the cab as it mostly a monocoque. Also the widths are very different.

I'm not saying it isn't possible, just I would be very interested to see some photos of if underneath.

If you had so much of a s82 at your fingertips, I see very little reason or motivation to chop it up to join it to the earlier chassis. It would mean either running all the old rubbish running gear, or then modifying the chassis everywhere to suite the later running gear. This all seems quite far fetched, or an awfully lot of work.

I hope I do not come across overly negative or critical.

And I would love to find out the truth, and also I appreciate conversion work of all types alot.

No worries, not negative at all. I also want to learn more about it. I am thinking they used the 75 chassis to get around the anti-kei car/truck rules California has. Along with that, instead of registering it as a off roader, they called it a pickup. Then got around smog with it being a 75 and smog exempt. But it also still has the Cali-smog stuff attached to the engine.

Where would I usually find the plate on the chassis with the VIN number? Is the only information plates/stickers under the driver's seat at the radiator/belt access?

Tuskano, I believe you are probably right with the anti kei truck rules thing. Here in the states its not common for these trucks and vans to be on the road and even more uncommon for them to be on the road in SMOG states. Ive seen a title with 1990 Daihatsu Hijet frame and vin number on it, but the vehicle listed on the title is a 1990 Daihatsu Charade (3 door coupe) same vin. There are many loop holes people are forced to use to get these legal here in the states. The main problem i have seen is that they are usually classed as LSV (low speed vehicles) or MSV (medium speed vehicles) which means they can be driven on roads up to 25 mph (LSV), and on roads up to 35-55 mph (for MSV) depending on the state. If it were not for fuel prices I would not have looked into getting a micro truck or van. Here in the US we are the Pioneers of the micro car movement, hopefully soon we will see them lift bans on the 25 year rule and we can get some of the newer trucks and vans as well for on road use. Sorry you will probably have to cut and paste the link and fix the spacing on the w w w, says i cant post links for 7 days....for I am still a noob on the forum.   

          w w w.iihs.org/iihs/topics/laws/mediumspeedvehicles

It's been awhile since I posted here, but I have been looking more into it.  Also fixed the mirror issue... just tightened the bolts, not going custom on that.  Still no solid info on the VIN, but the cab itself is a S110.  The chassis number is all I can find, and from what all the location threads and everything has been pointing, they are the same.  Where the VIN is stamped, it is the chassis number.  Good news is I am waiting on a paperback maintenance manual for one.  Will help out a lot.

mkguyvr wrote:Tuskano, I believe you are probably right with the anti kei truck rules thing. Here in the states its not common for these trucks and vans to be on the road and even more uncommon for them to be on the road in SMOG states. Ive seen a title with 1990 Daihatsu Hijet frame and vin number on it, but the vehicle listed on the title is a 1990 Daihatsu Charade (3 door coupe) same vin. There are many loop holes people are forced to use to get these legal here in the states. The main problem i have seen is that they are usually classed as LSV (low speed vehicles) or MSV (medium speed vehicles) which means they can be driven on roads up to 25 mph (LSV), and on roads up to 35-55 mph (for MSV) depending on the state. If it were not for fuel prices I would not have looked into getting a micro truck or van. Here in the US we are the Pioneers of the micro car movement, hopefully soon we will see them lift bans on the 25 year rule and we can get some of the newer trucks and vans as well for on road use. Sorry you will probably have to cut and paste the link and fix the spacing on the w w w, says i cant post links for 7 days....for I am still a noob on the forum.  

That's the only thing I can think of and that is what I was told by the owner from before.  I know it is at least from Japan though.  Found a sales form from a place called Rudderless Turtle Hardware Head Office under the passenger seat cushion.  Looked it up on google maps and it even has a newer model Hijet in the front.  This one must have been one of its delivery trucks.

But yep, like you said there are lots of loop holes.  Your website explains a lot of it, along with this one here.  It is the last sort of vehicle people expect on the roads in a smog state... got props from guys in a Prius taxi, random people on the road and at car shows, and was even stalked by a curious Police cruiser that was just interested in what the heck it was.

There are a few mini trucks here on base that are classed as LSV that are propane powered.  Pretty cool, and it gives me a excuse to park next to them.

Some pictures aside from the ones linked in the talking. May even link to a video a friend took of me driving on the highway once he sends it to me




At a carshow


The good news is, the Hijet has been my daily since new years ever since the automatic tranny went out on my daily.  Have had no overheating issues, and have been keeping up with regular maintenance. Even got it aligned. So right now, it is just holding out till the main car is out of the shop.  Then I will have time to properly clean the Hijet and give it a new coat of paint.