LUVTruck.com

Bought a '75 luv off a farm here in sunny South Africa.

She was in a bit of a state when I received her, but not so bad as not to want to continue with the project.

There was some surface rust, the bed had a few rust rot spots, plenty of dents and a smurf covered interior.

The plan was to fix this truck and use it as a daily driver.












More to continue later once I have sorted out my pictures.

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

More pictures of the restoration process.

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

Last set for now, before the truck gets a new spray tan and later on this week, a new set of wheels.

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

Nice work so far...

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If you think no one cares, try missing a couple of payments...



FIAA!

SFPP!

Fixing / filling dents!

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

Dents out of the roof, and also a new valance built for the missing piece from probably hitting an ant hill on the farm..








Then a few layers of paint to start the process going!




A small view of where we were going with the paint change up.




Prepping the truck to see what new 15" wheels will fit, and clear all/most obstacles.


Finally sprayed and new wheels, and fantastic interior also done!

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

Interior and last few misc pics.







Now the real work starts, want to add a few modern niceties like alarm and central locking, tint the windows, and maybe add an electric aircon.

Also want to do an inch of drop block in the rear with aluminium, but that a challenge for a later day.

Time to give this old a girl a service and fluid change!

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

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If you think no one cares, try missing a couple of payments...



FIAA!

SFPP!

.

New window winders, trying to keep to the style of black and silver.




Previously did a fuse block lemon juice boil, that only held up for about six months. Time for a complete new fuse block.




Figuring out the 4 earths, 2 earths, and on the other block 2 earths and another 2 earths.



New relocation bracket made out of aluminium.



All wired up and ready to go!

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

Fantastic work. Glad to see another LUV coming back from the edge.

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1977 LUV Barn-find. (And my favorite thing to drive!)

Nice wirk

You went black and slicked that truck up! Nice work!

Are these luvs pretty common down there?

They used to be many years ago, like 1970-1980's, then chev pulled out of the country.

Currently, if there is still 100 of them in South Africa, I would be really amazed. Personally, I only know of two others.

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

Its been ages since I posted the updates on the truck. Luckily google saves all of our photo's these days. Good or bad, the jury is still out.

So for the more modern niceties I installed an alarm and central locking system into the luv. Cost about $50, can you believe it?

Finding where everything goes was a bit daunting at first, but once you slowly layout every wire, it was actually quite easy.





Now the fun started. This alarm also has a very cool motion sensor. Touch the truck, she complains, like an ex wife.



Figuring out how to correctly install the starter disable relay took some time to figure out. Look at the big alarm box at the bottom. She is loud!!

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

Late Aug 2018 I blew the motor on my KTM 990 Adv.

Guess what happens early Jan 2019? KABOOM goes a G161. Two motors in 4 months. If I did not have bad luck, I would have no luck at all.

So the short version, the radiator was old, and I tend to ignore warnings in general and there goes a head gasket. It was nicely rebuilt using the original top and bottom caps. Cost me $180 odd. She runs so cool now, she needs shades!

Ill let the pictures speak for themselves. Just for the record, water is not supposed to come out the back side!

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

Coming back from *graft one day the rear of the truck starts spewing noises like its the sole victim in an exorcism.

Upon disassembly this falls out promptly!



Quickly popping off the drum on the other side, I can see where this chaos originated from.



The whole mess in one picture trying to figure out how to fix this problem.



Luckily owning a magnitude of broken wheeled items, I had some spare threaded rod I needed once to fix the frame hanger on the KTM 990.

So dog style was still a style at the end of the day. I do not use my handbrake in anyway, as its a stick shift. So who cares about auto tensioning?



GRAFT = South African redneck version of say job/work.

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

I started noticing that the truck would either idle high, or not idle at all. Which all pointed to an air leak. I double checked that the manifold(s) and carburetor was bolted down fine. Yes sir, all bolts are tight.

This truck has a modified Weber 36 DCD carburetor on it, with specially made adapter plates.



My assumption was that this might have a leak somewhere. So I removed all of them, and cleaned the three plates properly and installed new gaskets with sealant. Rookie mistake, I did not use fuel compatible sealant and I'm still waiting for that to come bite me in the ass.



Fixing this supposed air leak did not solve the idling problem for me. After thoroughly cleaning the carb and making sure everything is perfect to the best of my knowledge, we figured out that the little button/nipple (don't know what its really called) that runs in conjunction with the choke bounces around depending on the vacuum created by the throttle openings. We looked at 36 DCD manuals on the internet and found that there is a little spring missing. Sampling a few ball point pen springs, we finally found one that makes it hover at the right elevation and the truck purrs like a kitten again.

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

With the truck finally in a reliable derivable state (or so I thought, but more on that later), I could finally carry on with the cosmetic changes I want to make.

I used lamp tinting film to tint the rear lights and front indicators to make the truck look more sleek and fall in line with the blacked out look.

Here are some pics with the tint, brake lights on and indicators on.






With the truck looking and running sweet I started driving it more often. But, every hundred odd miles the plugs foul and she sputters and chokes like an untrained porn star. Okay, maybe we had dud plugs. I replace all of them again, and low and behold. One hundred odd miles, plugs fouled again.

Okay, so I have given this 36 DCD carb a good go prior and I have to admit that I'm out of my depths here. Off to carburetor overhaul city we go. They charged me $95 for a complete rebuild. Look how pretty she is now!





This is everything that was replaced.



Next on the menu, drop plates. Hopefully when I post again, nothing has broken and I can continue with the cosmetics. These plates on both sides will drop the pickup about 1.5 inches at the rear. I always love a leveled out truck.

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1975 Luv 1.6L Stocker (G161) - 4 Speed Manual

Nice work on the brakes. The auto tensioners barely worked when they were new, so you aren’t missing anything.