Passed a Z on a trailer in SE Michigan today

[wheee!]

The car is stripped and on the rotisserie right now.... I don't have a pic of the sloped deck on my phone either. Full size spare tire too.

It is possible the PO picked up a sloped deck sometime in the car's life and replaced the original too...

[Zed Head]

25 minutes ago, wheee! said:

The car is stripped and on the rotisserie right now.... I don't have a pic of the sloped deck on my phone either. Full size spare tire too.

It is possible the PO picked up a sloped deck sometime in the car's life and replaced the original too...

That makes more sense.  Actually, I'm not sure the deck is sloped so much as raised.  It's different though.  Your car sounds like a normal 76 car, with the big tire well, and the gas tank that fits it.

[wheee!]

It looks just like your sloped deck...

If I can replace it with a flat one I will.

[siteunseen]

09/76 build date, accordion front bumper ends, N42 spray bar on a drilled cam N47 cylinder head, collapsed spare with air bottle.  it's a mix of parts for sure but they are all original, for sure.  I think they were using up all the stuff from '76 when mine was built, my Dad calls it a hermaphrodite car, but he's on some heavy meds. 

those red wires you see are from an alarm system.  You can see the spacers they put in, towards the front of the spare.  The 75 and 76 had less space with the raised deck, 77 and 78 were lower with the space saving spare, more room for kids or golf clubs etc.

I would think the 78s didn't have those spacers, allowing the lower deck height.  Just a guess though, when I had a 78 it was in the late 80's and I don't remember much from 85 through 1999 or so.  

[gwri8]

My 1/77 has the sloped deck with the space saver tire and the can of compressed air. I have a 6/77 parts car that has the flat deck and the space saver tire.

[Jeff G 78]

No Cliff, the '78 floor is spaced up like yours, but without the angled back.  There is a plastic interior panel covering the tail lamps.  The '78 uses the same spare and canister as yours.  The hatch area in my old '76 was much more usable due the extra 3+ inches of cargo depth below the window.  The only good thing about the raised floor is that it makes a wonderful place to hide audio equipment.  I have two amps and a crossover sandwiched between the floor and the wood deck forward of the tire well.  Eventually I will build a speaker box like the one MSA sells and put a sub in the tire well in place of the nearly 40 year old inflatable spare.  As a hobby woodworker, I can't spend $150 for $30 worth of MDF.  

[wheee!]

So I am definitely getting rid of the slope back floor then on my 76! Sounds like I will need that plastic finisher panel then too.

Edit: had a look at the slope panel in the shop last night. It's still under a ton of other parts on the shelves, but I can see where it has been hacked up around the back edge. Definitely not a straight edge. Looks like someone tried to make it fit around the interior where it wasn't supposed to go. I guess I will have to replace that regardless. I will probably try and build one from scratch before trying to order one in from the states.

[siteunseen]

11 hours ago, Jeff G 78 said:

No Cliff, the '78 floor is spaced up like yours, but without the angled back.  There is a plastic interior panel covering the tail lamps.  The '78 uses the same spare and canister as yours.  The hatch area in my old '76 was much more usable due the extra 3+ inches of cargo depth below the window.  The only good thing about the raised floor is that it makes a wonderful place to hide audio equipment.  I have two amps and a crossover sandwiched between the floor and the wood deck forward of the tire well.  Eventually I will build a speaker box like the one MSA sells and put a sub in the tire well in place of the nearly 40 year old inflatable spare.  As a hobby woodworker, I can't spend $150 for $30 worth of MDF.  

So the later cars have less rear cabin area.  That was for a taller fuel tank, more fuel, I've read that before.  I'm getting old.  

 

[Jeff G 78]

There are no storage bins either. I think they were trying to make it more luxurious and quieter with the high deck. I liked the '76 cargo area better. 

[Captain Obvious]

My 77 has storage bins. They are just hidden under the raised deck. They didn't bother to put any door lids on the bins, but they are there.

I'm no expert on the whole timeline, but thought the whole raised deck thing was driven by the changes to the gas tank and the shallower spare tire recess. On 76 and earlier, they used a full sized spare and the recess for the spare was deeper. But when they went to the space saver spare in 77, they made the recess shallower (presumably for changes to the gas tank?) and had to create that false raised deck to get over the width of the spare.

Is that the consensus?

[Zed Head]

Why did Nissan make all of those changes?  They lost 1/8 gallon of tank capacity according to the Owners' Manual.

[Captain Obvious]

I have no idea. They changed lots of sheet metal in 77. Doors, floors, seat mounts...

Safety updates maybe?