Suzuki Club UK

Well done, I've not seen a GV turned into a trials truck. Will be interesting to see how it does.

Cheers all!

Darrell, I posted a link to this thread on the facebook group. Someone responded and posted some pics of another one. They said it performs well. I don't think they're using 35" tyres though. I think mine might work well - for a bit.

I made a bit more progress last week but spent fair bit of weekend helping my Dad sort the trailer out to transport this thing!

I sealed the snorkel. There's a drainage hole in the standard air box so I sealed that up to. I extended the front axle breather and the gearbox/transfer case breathers to run up the side of the snorkel. Didn't get any pictures of the breathers. The front axle breather comes up the side of rad and can be seen capped mounted there. The gearbox and transfer case is already merged by a T piece on top of the gearbox and appears between the engine and the firewall mounted on the back of the engine. I had a length of hose lying around. I extended with that and put the existing caps up on the ends by the snorkel. The rear axle breather is already long enough to go up the rear of the body and I will cable tie in position once all is painted.

Invested in a decent set of wire strippers and sorted the wiring to the rear lights. What I realized is when you have better tools you can get it wrong twice as quick! Had to redo most of it as I wanted to split at the loom rather than off one light and patch across to the other side!

Filled the front axle with oil as spilt most of it on the floor when putting it in (came out the non bolt on side). At least I thought I had spilt most of it. Was surprised how little went into it to get it full so decided to drain it and change all the fluid... I think I've done the oil too many times on patrol axles recently and hadn't really appreciated how little oil these things need.

Decided to pull the thing out and turn it around again so I can paint the rear, do the windows, and move the fuel filler mount. I got the pressure washer on it to try and knock most of the dirt and dust off.

Go some pics of it in the light ...

Still flexes a bit look!





Going to get the fuel tank etc out (again) tonight, move the filler and start chucking some paint around.

Done some more bits on it at the weekend.

Moved fuel filler mount as its going to collide with the spare... It's on the drivers side on the first picture. I moved it further down the piece of angle its welded to.



Next I put some gussets into rear body mounts. Should have done this when I put them on really.



I should really have loosened some body mounts and lifted rear end of body to get the bush out... but I had a lot of hassle getting the body in the right place already so instead I didn't bother. I tried to not weld all in one go to reduce heat but also took bolt out and drove a wedge in to stop the mount squeezing onto the bush. Seems I got away with it.

Time to fit windows...



I thought this would be a lot of hassle but to be honest was a nice easy job! I used 3 4x750x750mm sheets of Perspex. To be honest the sheets were way too big. Think I could have bought in a far more cost effective cut looking back at it. Its long enough ago that I ordered the sheets I can't remember if I over measured for some reason.

I did the center first. That was fairly easy. Offered it up and got a marker pen in from the outside, then converted to straighter lines with straight edge on bench. Cut with a jigsaw and required a bit of fettling around welds in the corners. I clamped it in with some lengths of wood behind the edges to hold in place and then drilled through from the rear.

To get the sides I cut to the height I needed giving me a rectangle. As there is enough flex in the material it meant I could slide in until top corner hit the top corner of roof. Roughly measuring the gap at the bottom gave me the shorter edge of the triangle I needed to remove. Seemed to work and must have done something right as managed to use the first as a template to make the second! Again I clamped with wood where I could and drilled on vehicle from outside. As I couldn't clamp it all I used the drill just to mark a few of the holes and went all the way through on the bench...(didn't want to break anything and as the window pushes away from the hole it tends not to be in the right place)

Time to start chucking some paint on!





I mostly just painted the new bits. I did the back section of the chassis where I'd cut or welded to it. There was some rust showing through on the top so that got a bit of paint. I plan to modify things around rear axle at some point so didn't go too nuts. Fuel tank had some spots of rust so I thought while I'm there may as well tidy that up at least.

I'm going to say I prepared it first... but probably not as well as I should have done. Took some high edges off of welds in a few places. Did round off the edges on the spare carrier mounts as they were looking a bit lethal. Other than that just attacked everything with a wire brush.

I used zinc182 primer. I've used it before and seems to do the job. I brushed into the corners and then used a small (3" or 4"?) foam roller from B&Q to do the larger areas. Generally I put the roller over everything to try and limit brush marks. Later on I found the roller would go into most corners and with a few rolls get into welds too! I'll do this again as it made really quick work of it, used less paint, and I think gave a pretty good finish that will look good enough when I've (rattle can) sprayed onto it.

I only dropped the brush in the paint once... although did at some point tip the roller tray all down the inside of rear bulkhead without realizing it... so that's now primed again.

Next step is to spray some black onto it like the front wheel arches. I had an experiment with "blending" the black spray onto the original red as I think its going to look weird if I have solid lines. Think the same about just leaving doors red and doing entire body... and to be honest I've already fitted the snorkel and don't really want to remove it. As the red is fairly dark to start I think its going to work out alright. Hoping to get on that tonight!

Awesome stuff!

Thanks Anton!

Got going with a couple of rattle cans last night.



Its going to need another coat tonight - but I think you get the idea from the above pic. I think it looks good enough.

I've also been underneath and put some sealant where the new panel meets the floor. Then I primed that and sprayed some rattle can waxoyl. Its a lip where the angle sits under the floor which I think otherwise would be prone to collecting water.

Chap on the facebook group suggested I should have used Makrolon instead of Perspex for the windows as its tougher. Had a google and price seems similar so I think if these windows break or I do anything similar again i'll give that a go.

Getting there now! Once this paint is done its a case of bolting everything back on. The only real job beyond that is putting some skid plates underneath it. My Dad donated a piece of 3mm sheet to the cause for that... although he's since let on that its domex 690 so i'll have to either design around that fact or sharpen some drill bits!

Alright so i've got it all back together. Bit slower progress as i'm alternating between this and trips to my parents place to help sort out the trailer.

Here i've got the tank back in and am just trying to tidy up the wiring.



Ran out of tape! Never happens!

Exhaust was causing bit of a hum on the panel its bolted too unsurprisingly. Robbed some bushes and the washers from the anti roll bar drop links. Knew there was a reason i didn't chuck that!



Does seem to have helped.

Windows in...



Spare tyre on...



Getting the knack for swinging it up there now. Think i can go bigger

I put seats and harnesses in and forgot to take a picture. At the weekend i decided to get it out to turn around again so i could make up some skid plates. While i was at it decided to test the flex just to get a feel for if this was even worth taking out without suspension upgrades...

Tried ramp under one corner to start with...



No issues going up in 2wd. Thats good enough for me but you've still got to try a ramp each corner.



So here it struggled (did put it in 4L). I roughly measured about 8" at each corner from the tarmac. I rounded up a little as the thing rolled back a bit. It would have gone up with only a bit of momentum but that pretty much defeats point of the test. To be honest i'm okay with that and means i can use the ramps as a test on upgrade - first objective set!

Also happy with how the front end is behaving - i think it is way better than my vitara with calmini +3" springs on the front. One of the pictures below shows quite well...




Oh i switched to opposite corners vs single ramp as i couldn't see the ramp under the front wheel on the drivers side but could looking back.

So yeah skid plates next - hopefully this week. But i think it's getting tested this weekend either way! (trailer allowing). Getting excited... think its going to be fun. I hope it lasts at least 20minutes before it breaks something. That's all i want. Enough to prove that its worth going to phase 2!

Nice! What kind of upgrades are you considering for more flex then? I don't know much about ifs, but I'd imagine that there's a limited amount of flex in the setup and getting more would be much harder than in the rear.

Correct me if I have something backwards!

Good question! Ideally i want to get more flex without lifting it any further - unless it starts grounding out.

At the rear its going to depend a bit on what is holding it back. I've got ideas to convert it to 4 link removing the panhard. This probably will need moving anyway as i want to move the outer trailing arm mounts and shock mounts to be above the bottom of the axle. The axle won't go back with the panhard where it is. I was sort of thinking it would be quite interesting to get more at the back using standard shocks and springs - so potentially moving the springs to act on the outer arms and re-arrange the angles of the shocks. Failing all that the easiest things is probably to move the upper spring perch and shock mounts to accomodate a lift kit without actually creating lift.

At the front i'm really not sure - but yeah basically its harder work. The front diff out of the XL7 looks like it may convert to being a centre diff relatively easily due to the bolt on shaft housing on the passenger side. If i can build a rear diff into it it should also be pretty strong. So that could be interesting because i could go for a long arm twin wishbone setup. There's one on zukiworld here http://www2.zukiworld.com/feature_hagen-newfrontend/ but you'll see they end up using the original wishbones as the top set... which means you gain alot of height - which i don't really want. Due to where the chassis rails are i don't know if i can really achieve that length of arm.

I don't really know the situation on the grand vitara but my understanding on vitaras is you don't really increase "shock travel" when you put a suspension lift on it (at least most kits dont). What you do is you space the shock mounts and that only provides more travel as the bump stops are 2" longer than they need to be. I did read a thread somewhere about genuinely longer shocks. I keep thinking about going to twin wishbone anyway just way shorter arms - but i don't really see the benefits other than strength. So i'm thinking at the moment try and go for longer struts and lift the top mount. Possibly Fit "lift springs" and move spring mounts. The objective is to try and get as much gain in upward wishbone travel as downwards.... only downside to that will be i do start losing clearance under the front - on a lifted vitara even with decent compression you wont be that much higher up than the diff (if at all) so you still end up winning from having IFS.

Yeah so i guess you could say i don't really know! Feel free to make suggestions or blow holes in any of that! In any case i want to test it properly each time i do something which is why its still standard. I want to really know what any mod to the suspension has gained me. When i did my vitara i didnt really test it before going straight to suspension kit.

I also built some skid plates for it at the weekend.



Thats the rear most mount. I've twisted that cross member on vitaras so wanted a plate which would make it less likely to get caught.



Here you can see the already existing holes in the cross member behind the front axle. Got some bolts dropped down i was using to locate everything as i built it.



This is the rear plate tacked together. Two holes at the front for bolts from first picture. The other plate sandwiches it. Rear four holes make use of the nuts i welded onto rear mount.

I didn't take any pictures of making the front plate as I had a deadline. The plate bolts on at the rear using the bolt holes just mentioned. It comes under the front diff and then up to the chassis cross member i welded in for the front recovery point. I welded some mounts onto the back of that cross member. It also attached onto the lower front crossmember in front of the front diff. There are four bolts each side which hold the crossmember up. When the vehicle arrive there were two mounts which i think was for a front towing point which use the inner two of these sets of bolts each side. I cut these up and used that as the new mounting points for my plate. The bit under the diff is off of my vitara (which won't need it soon hopefully) repurposed here. Unfortunately the rear holes didn't line up so i cut the flat strip off at the end where it met the rear skid plate and built a new one - tacking it together on the vehicle.

Here's the front one painted...



I wanted to protect the rad a bit so i used a piece of perforated sheet i had lying around



Which i had headlights off i decided to spray the metal around the front to match the wings and do the same overspray thing on the bonnet edges.

Got alot done that day - finishing at 2am! By timed i'd had some food was a 3am finish! Committed!



The next morning i got the skid plates fitted (sorry no pics again - but not alot to see - its just flatish there now!). Did a few other things like added a second throttle return spring (club requirement) and covered some of the exposed metalwork in the cab with foam pipe insulation. Makes it look alot tidier in there.

The rush was on as plan was to trailer it to somewhere closer to trials on the next day - and then go to trials on the sunday... unfortunately that fell through due to trailer issues. Another month it is then - but it might get tested before then. I even washed it...



Anyways thats "phase 1" complete...



...although i added "phase 3".

Bit of a let down having finished it but couldnt really use it. Put a bit of a downer on the hole satisfaction of finishing all that work but i'll just have to be patient.

Superb!

I have to admit, you lost me a bit with the IFS stuff. Not being a Vitara guy, the IFS stuff is a bit voodoo to me - I really don't understand it at all. As for the rear, I don't think there's any "right" way to build it, other than avoiding radius arms. 4 link is pretty much the defacto on challenge trucks I think, but in my (not expert) head I see little gain over a good triangulated 3 link.

If you're looking for advice, see if you can find Parrot, he's helped design a bunch of different conversions (hilux's and fourtracks come to mind). I think he's still around on the hpoc.co.uk forums. If not, 4x4 steve (on hpoc.co.uk again) might be able to help - he's done one or two too (with Parrot, if memory serves).

I don't think any of us here have done it (although I reaaaaaally want to do mine!).