NOOB with some questions

yaknowthatguy · Post by **yaknowthatguy** » Thu May 21, 2009 10:54 am

Greetings everyone! I am buying a 71 710 model pinzy and am WAY stoked on it.

I am BRAND new to Pinzies, so have a few questions.

Anybody done a power steering conversion? Suggestions on doing one?

Any specific tires that people like? I'll be joining Rocky Mountain Pinzgauers, and the club has some deals there....but am open to suggestions from people who've had them for a while.

I may, ultimately, be interested in doing a frame-off resto. Any big hints on this? Besides get the tech manual (coming with mine).

Has anyone relocated the handles for t-case and lockers? Or converted them to electric? Not that I'm PLANNING to, but am curious. I need to rig up a place for ham radio equipment in the cab, so will probably build a tray over the windshield for this purpose....but am just spitballing until I have the 710 in my driveway.

Thanks to all for their expertise and suggestions, I think this is going to be a lot of fun

Jim LaGuardia · Post by **Jim LaGuardia** » Fri May 22, 2009 12:44 am

If you can't steer it the way it is, you may as well get an SUV

Power steering can be done, but it is dangerous and expensive to do properly.
Best suggestion is go and drive one before figuring out how to modify it.

NC_Mog · Post by **NC_Mog** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:37 am

x2. Additionally on steering, if yours still has the stock tires, replace them with radials of your choice. The steering effort drops noticably. Otherwise, stock steering effort is fine. Just don't lock your thumbs around the steering wheel.

Profpinz · Post by **Profpinz** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:59 am

I love my PS but it took a lot of time and effort to design and build the system (and NO I don't supply kits

)

Full details at:
http://users.bigpond.net.au/profpinz/mo ... eering.htm

undysworld · Post by **undysworld** » Fri May 22, 2009 7:48 am

My experience has been, and I've heard it often repeated, that it's tough to out-design the original Pinz vehicle.

That's not to say that mods like pwr. steering or relocated lockers aren't a good idea. But Peter is one of the very few who've installed a workable power steering system. I've not heard of anyone who changed out the lockers.

In my case, every time I've changed something around, whatever improvement I realized was then compromising another aspect of the truck. It's grown into an appreciation of the original design.

As with many antique vehicles, preserving the original condition of the vehicle is often viewed as desireable. Whatever mods I've made I've tried to design so I could remove them and restore the truck to stock if/when needed.

But then you've got guys like Peter out there making up some incredible changes... Either way, I expect you'll have fun at it. Good luck.

Erik712m · Post by **Erik712m** » Fri May 22, 2009 8:07 am

I've not heard of anyone who changed out the lockers.

Herbert Has look at the green pickle. One ugly truck but it has every mod you could think of from disc brakes to fuel injection. Also there is a yellow 712m floating around with electronic lockers.

I love my PS but it took a lot of time and effort to design and build the system (and NO I don't supply kits )

So are you going to put out a kit?

yaknowthatguy · Post by **yaknowthatguy** » Fri May 22, 2009 11:15 am

thanks for the info guys, I appreciate it.

My intent isn't to change the lockers themselves (that sounds pretty bold to me), but to change the location of the handles should the dash be modified. And the power steering setup that you've got does look pretty awesome Peter!

She arrives in the next several days, and then I'll get a better idea of what's what. Tires will definitely be the first thing I do.

Jason

pinztrek · Post by **pinztrek** » Sat May 23, 2009 12:52 pm

Erik712m wrote: Herbert Has look at the green pickle. One ugly truck but it has every mod you could think of from disc brakes to fuel injection.

Actually you don't change out the lockers, it's the actuators. His are air operated, and are one of the factory options if I recall.

If you think about it and are mechanically clever it should not be too hard to swap the hydraulic cylinders for air actuators.

That said, as a fellow ham, you would find having radios at the locker area a pain. Not that easy to operate, and will constantly get in the way of removing the dog house. Better approach is to go with a remote mount head, with the radios on the cab wall behind the seats and the heads in an overhead mount or lined up on top of the instrument panel.

I would avoid the temptation to mount lot's of radios high in the cab in a steel jeep type overhead mount, as you would be moving the Center of Gravity high & forward on a vehicle that already is heavily biased in that direction.
One pound at roof height counts like five at engine level, so you have to factor that in. A couple of small radios are fine, just be aware of the CG issue.

I'd get one, drive it a bit, and then figure out where you'd want your radios.

Have fun,

Alan

yaknowthatguy · Post by **yaknowthatguy** » Sat May 23, 2009 3:22 pm

thanks for the info pinztrek

my primary rig is a yaesu ft857D, and it does pretty well all I need. I have it in my F350 for the moment with a remote mount - faceplate on the dash, and the body behind the back seat. I think I'll probably end up doing the same in my 710 - overhead mount of some kind for the radio, and then put the body behind the seats. then I'll put the ATAS 120 on the roof (probably) and a uhf/vhf antenna up too somewhere.

I could never lease a vehicle....I always modify things on them way too much. The 710 is going to be a lot of fun as a project vehicle I think

thanks again for the info everyone!

pinztrek · Post by **pinztrek** » Sat May 23, 2009 7:42 pm

I have many thousand miles on my FT-857D in my Cummins Ram.

Excellent radio, and will work quite well in the pinz. I use a Solar Converters battery equalizer to deal with the 24v issue.

Have fun!

Alan

texas pinzgauer · Post by **texas pinzgauer** » Sun May 24, 2009 2:54 pm

Welcome to Pinzgauer ownership. As the previous respondents note, I too would encourage you to live with it for a while before I'd go changing things. There's certainly room for improvement for our countless and varied civilian applications but it is a very well designed vehicle right out of the box. Unless Roger Penske or Jack Roush is a close relative and you have access to their machine shops and in-house fabricators, I suspect you're wasting time and money with some of those mods you describe.

The more Pinz folks you meet, you more you'll learn and the more you'll come to appreciate this truck just the way it. There's room for improvement but I'd say those changes are more evolutionary and not revolutionary.

Enjoy your new toy!

Douwe · Post by **Douwe** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 11:23 am

In my opinion you are leaving out the mod with the biggest return of investment. New Seats. I replaced the stock seats with some Saturn seats for about $50 and it made the Pinz experience much better.

Other small mods I've enjoyed are making the window tops removable by cutting notches in the window sills and mounting the handles directly to the bottom half of the door. Another easy one is a small 3LED battery powered dome light.

Power steering is pretty low on the list of things I'd like to do to my truck considering marginal benefit and high cost. I have never had the luxury of trying power steering on a Pinz, but manual steering has never interfered with the Pinz experience.

Higher on the list for me would be fuel injection. Disc brakes would be nice too, but I don't see a realistic option for those.

yaknowthatguy · Post by **yaknowthatguy** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 2:47 pm

I've ordered up a couple of trinkets, and have some plans, but nothing that seems really out of the ordinary for most users. Will be doing the Pertronix upgrade, and put in a 24-12v step down so I can run my ham radio and a few other things. Inverter, some offroad lights - but those are not on any schedule, and I want to get a feel for things first before making any real mods.

The seats sound like a GREAT idea, I'm sure to look into that. My pinz gets delivered this week, and I'm looking forward to playing with it!

ka · Post by ka » Sun Jun 14, 2009 4:09 pm

i gotta say, i love the way my steering feels. it would definitely be nicer to have some power there when i'm trying to wheel around in ruts and such, tho. feels awesome otherwise.