1995 Nissan Hardbody: Clutch Safety Bypass + HAM Radio Install

December 03, 2025

Earlier this summer I brought home an old Nissan Pickup, also commonly known as the Nissan Hardbody or Nissan D21. I had been looking for one of these trucks for over two years before I found one in good shape, but that’s the Rust Belt for you.

I picked her up from an older gentleman and retired mechanic in Southern Pennsylvania, who only put ~3,000 miles on the thing during the 15 years that he owned it. At this point she’s sitting at just over 201k miles, and these old VG30E’s were known to get upwards of 400k miles with regular maintenance. To top it off, there isn’t an ounce of rust anywhere on this thing, and the interior was kept in fantastic shape.

Bypassing the Clutch Safety

For those of you who have no experience driving a car with a manual transmission, since 1991 all vehicles sold in the United States are required to have a clutch safety switch that prevents the vehicle from starting unless the clutch is fully depressed. I find this very annoying because I know how to drive – so I removed it.

First, I began by locating the safety switch at the very back of the clutch pedal. You can see that there’s a small blue connector leading into the back of the switch. Depress the clip on top with a screwdriver, and wiggle it out.

Here you can see that it’s just a simple two-slot connector. When the clutch pedal is depressed, the switch completes the circut and allows the starter to crank.

After testing with a paper clip, I cut and stripped a small piece of 18-gauge copper wire as a more permanent solution, since I didn’t feel like going out to buy a jumper.

Shove the wire in, and you’re done. It really is that simple. Now I don’t have to depress the clutch when I want to start the truck.

This mod isn’t just for sake of convenience (though it is mostly for sake of convenience), but can prove useful for getting out of percarious situations. Now that the starter can be engaged while in-gear, I should, in theory, be able to use the power of the starter to move the vehicle a very short distance if the engine won’t turn for whatever reason.

As of writing this post, the starter actually died due to a recent cold-snap lol. Good thing I’m not planning to take her anywhere until the salt is off the road anyways.

Installing the HAM Radio

An old truck like this isn’t complete without some kind of boomer comms system. Several years ago, my dad bought me a mobile HAM radio for Christmas, so I figured this would be a good time to slap it in.

I drilled four small holes in the bottom of the glovebox for the radio mount, and ran the power cable through the rubber electrical conduit on the passenger side of the firewall. The positive and negative leads already had fuses installed for protection, so all I had to do was crimp a few lugs on the end of each lead and stick them on the battery terminals.

Once I fire her up again in the spring, I’ll figure out how I want to mount an antenna.

And of course, no old pickup is complete without this in the glovebox:

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