Hey fella I am looking into buying a 68 Patrol here on the east coast. If the price is right I will be needing a soft top as it does not have one. Here is the link to it on EBAY.Patrol on Ebay

heya....

It needs more than canvas. The rear tub looks like ithas rot in it and thus they have put plate steel over the rear of the bed/tub. Do not fret though as I can get you a brand new tub. Be well aware that Patrol needs a restoration. the seats are trashed...as I understand it needs motor work. But it is cheap...and it is very rare. 975 rag tops were sold in the USA so this is the rarest patrol on our soil that is a USA native. it is also worth the most restored, like well over $10k. The 68 on ebay is a perfect truck for resto though and should go to a good home. I can get you everything you need to do the restoration from the ground up. Most of the body on it looks good other than the tub and it has all the soft top gear. I have had offers to sell my s/t gear for $500 or more so consider that when bidding. You will not find stock canvas but with the help of other Patrol owners such as myself we can show you what it should be like so you can get it replicated. or you can wait untill I have s/t's for sale but this still may be a year or more off.

Best of luck and let us know if you get it! As long as you know it needs work and is a project I think you will be very happy with it. Like I say it is extremly are and worth a lot fo money....

Thanks for the info Ian, just posted in your forum regarding restoration and a soft top. I am going to buy it so long as it goes for under $1000. It is only about 3 hours from where I live so I will go get it with a trailer. Is there a hard top available for the rear? What kind of rear seat options can I go with and fronts too?

heh...you been bitten by the P-troll bug!!

I would pay up to $1500 for it. I paid $1000 for my ragtop which was trashed but it needs a bit more because the suspesnion is home made and funky! This means new leaf hangers on my truck and that one should be fine and ready for a lift kit! Thing is once I figure in transpo I would have at least $1000 in shipping or more. So you my friend are the perfect buyer! You will also be pretty damn popular at Nissan with that thing! I am sure yo can handle the resto no probs...

I am doing a frame off right now. Spent good part of the day (again ) working on the frame. No blaster so it is manual labor cleaning up this one. If it was me buying the 68 ragtop that is what I would do...a frame off resto. I think it is holding it's stock green paint too. There is even the posibility it had a very rare option, the deluxe seats. This came out in 68 and 3 of the 4 I have seen were on 68's. I bet you are going to need a tub and floor pans unless you are a master body guy or have one to do that. My 64 rag top is costing a lot to have a good body guy do the resto. Cutting out rotten panels and rebuilding inner structs in the body is slow going. That is why I am replacing the tub on the one I am doing now...

BTW, it is also an early 68 because it has the 3-bar steering wheel and some other things. You can put a hard top on it no probs. you will just have to find a good one to do it and then drill a dozen small holes around the tub. or you can upgrade the heater and use an insultaed canvas for winter. In my LG61 that is pictured below it has no heater and a light weight fiber glass top. So I am putting a nice litte Espar diesel heater in it with a small tank. Puts out like 8,000 btu's and runs all day on hardly any fuel! So there it is food for thought!

Just make sure you are there ready to bid when it is closing time...always lurkers.

Oh yea...seats.

You can use stock jump seats in rear that sit side ways like a TLC. Jump seats are not that hard to find. You could use a bench like a Jeep but rear door is a barn door. For the front stocks could be recovered. There is a guy in Oregon that redid his and man they are sweet. Extra big and chusy plus he has a Nissan Patrol logo on them with a fat army guy! Or you can use any buckets that are small enough. I used hyundai Excel buckets and so did John. You just don't want a big butt bucket that will push your knees into dash. Stock frame work will be used or one can easily be made. On my 64 I had it made so you could put stock seats back in it. Used a console from a van and it worked out perfect!

hey what happened to the Patrol!? Auction ended early because of an error in the listing is what it says. Did you get the truck Pat?

No, he didn't get it... All of these apply:

Looks like the seller ended it to sell to the other guy that had out-bid Pat last night. Pat's pretty upset...

Damn, that sucks man, would have been cool to see a patrol running around maryland.

that does suck...I would complain to ebay as he didn't say anything in the listing about pulling it because it was for sale elsewhere. It won't do much to complain but it is a way to vent. BS, I would have liked to see Pat get it.

I'm worried that since its in west virginia, some hillbilly will get it, play with it for a week, trash it and leave it to die in his field. I just pray someone who will do it right, gets it.

Yeah I think we are all a little ticked about it being pulled. Now we don't get a fair chance to bid on it. Some one should have bought it when it was listed with a buy it now of $800.00.
Keith

That is the thing about the "buy it now" feature. Once a bid is placed it goes away....The buy it now was only there the first day I think.

The seller told me he got $2k for it so if a buyer is paying that much for an old rotten Patrol....well, I would think they have plans to restore it not hack it up. I am sure we have not seen the last of this 68 ragtop.

6 months ago I saw a 66 ragtop Patrol on ebay that was in eastern Wyoming. It looked like crap because some person had riveted camper siding to the s/t frame for a home made top. The same thing had been done to my 64 ragtop. Plus it had a bunch of funky snow plow gear on it. But it was same green color as this 68 and had no dents and little rot. It did have some holes in the body though from people hacking it but uncut fenders. You could only tell it had the ragtop gear in one picture and then only if you looked hard. This one I almost bought too but let it pass me by. I think the auction ended without it selling but a request later to the seller and it turned out it had sold. Not sure if it was on ebay or not that the sale took place but it went for around $1,000. Also needing a frame off resto. Goes to show ragtops are fetching solid prices these days even trashed.