Suzuki Club UK

Hi everybody,
My name is Jody and I am a noob to your site and a mega noob when it comes to SJ's and 4WD in general.
Thought I would share the contents of my garage with you guys as I have been skulking around the site for weeks now, feeding my empty brain with nuggets of useful info!
I'm a serial finger happy eBay bidder and end up with many items of junk that add to the ever increasing work load in my life, the SJ of which is my lastest impulsive buy... I have been looking at getting one for about 6 months and decided this was the one for me as the write up was not to bad, it sounded like it had the right amount of work that I was looking to do and I got it for what I thought at the time was a bargain £370.00
Yes, when I went to pick it up I should have had a good look to make sure it was what the add said but it was late and dark and I thought to myself 'i'll fix it whatever is wrong with it, I can weld a bit, it will be ok' In the add it said that it needed new sills and two pea sized holes welding up in the floor! I'm not sure how much further from the truth it could have been, it is shocking. I have never seen such a rusty vehicle other than my bedford van!
I was really dissappointed with myself but I felt loads better after I had seen some of your projects with similar amounts of rust on them and how it had been overcome....
I got it a couple of weeks before christmas and have properly fallen in love with it, can't wait to get it muddy! Plan is to drive it to work too. Oh yeah just to clear it up, I didn't put the sexuki stickers on it but everyone has ripped it so much the name has stuck.
Well this is it....

Cut Cut Cut....Weld weld weld

I used a piece of megabars tranny van roof rack to fix the rear top rail

engine sounds really nice and strong, will be getting a full service soon, already had to buy it a new fuel pump and battery!

This bit was a right pain

wowzers




Ordered my box section steel today so I can make some new sills and probably a new bumper as the rear one is about to fall off!
Things I need which you guys might be able to help with:
-need a decent fuel tank and rubbery filler neck
-locks....I have no locks and no keys! The advertised push button start is actually stick a scrwdriver in the ignition!
-A pair of seats with runners!

Things that need addressing other than the ridiculous amount of rust that you may be able to help with:
-doesn't seem to stay in the low range box, it jumps out easily and is difficult to get in
-new fuel lines
-tighten up the steering box using the tip I picked up off here

This may be a total noobish question but could somebody please explain the 4wd on the SJ ?
I see it has 2wd and 4wd high and 4wd low. So in 4wd, are all the wheels locked or can they slip individually? If they are locked, are they all locked to each other or is it just each axle is locked?
In the add it said it has freewheeling hubs. From the pics can you tell if it does, and what are they anyway?? I have lots to learn!!!!!!!
Cheers

to the forum.

Okay, suzuki transfer box.

2WD only sends drive to the rear wheels through rear prop and rear diff. 4WD engages the front prop, driving the front and rear wheels through front and rear diffs. There is no centre diff, so do not drive on roads in 4WD. Because there's no centre diff you get transmission wind up in 4WD with can wreck your t-box. 4WD-low is the same, just through a lower ratio.

To me, your SJ doesn't appear to have free-wheeling front hubs.
What they do is allow you to disconnect the front wheels front the halfshafts in the axel, so that when in 2WD you're not turning the front diff, prop etc. which reduces wear and improves fuel economy.

This is what my free-wheeling hubs look like. The centre of that hub rotates to two marks locations, one marked lock the other open. Fairly obvious which is which.
When you want to use the 4WD you need to lock the front hubs, otherwise the front wheels still won't do anything.

Cool, thanks... well it hasn't got them then !!
So in 4wd can the wheels slip independantly of each other? sorry to be stupid but i've searched and can't really find an answer i understand!
Cool to see you are only in Brigg! You bin to that Kirton place?

to scuk, bloody hell thats one rusty sj you've decided to rescue! fair play some tidy welding too! especially considering how much of a bitch sj panels can be with how thin they are, I thought you said you could weld 'a bit'

yes you've pretty much got it, in 4wd it's the same as a landrover with the centre difflock engaged. there is no 'slip' between the front and rear axles, but if you get cross axled and lift a wheel, the wheel with the least traction will spin and you'll loose drive to the opposite wheel. if you loose traction in front and rear wheels that are diagonally opposite each other you'll get stuck. only way to stop that happening is improve the articulation or fit axle difflocks.

the transfer box jumping out of 4low can be caused by a few things. the nylon 'shift sheet' that the tbox lever sits on can get badly worn so pop the lever out and have a look. Are all the tcase mounts ok? sometimes if one has failed the lever can hit the transmission tunnel and pop it out. when you take the gator off to pull the lever you'll see if this is happening. im sure there is something else I have missed

hope that helps looking forward to seeing how this build progresses.

Scott

to the club what youve done looks good keep up the good work. another thing that can your t box is putting the gaiter on backwards

Thanks for the welcomes and comments dudes!
Cheers for clearing the 4wd up, I noticed whilst reversing one of the rear wheels was slipping and wondered whether it should be or not, so that's ok then!
The screws on the gaiter look nice and rusty so that will be another interesting Sunday afternoon job! I havnt really looked into it yet but it's hopefully something as easy as that to fix! Unfortunately my life is never so easy!
Bought a new exhaust today with the rubbers £65 bargain, from a local shop too!

Full marks Robbie, it was something as stupid as the gaitor!!!! Took me far too long to work out which way round it should go By the looks of it that gaitor had been like that for a long time as the carpet had a rusty mark and indentation only in that postion. Guess they didnt need the low box
Got most of the rear arch and hideous rot around the passenger side seatbelt mounting at the weekend too. I'll update with pics when I remember the camera!

nice one with the build mate, good to see a rusty old sj being repaired!

sorry its late!

looks like you have a massive project there, thumbs up for getting stuck in! when you have finished welding yours fancy coming and doing mine?

Lincoln, your not a million miles away from me, I work with quite a few lads from lincoln, (including the ex mayor!)

Hi dudes..... Sorry it has been a mega age since I updated this thread. Unfortunately I lost all my build pictures when I changed phones, so I only really have the finished (ish) item to show you, shame!!
First off I finished cutting out and replacing all that rot in the rear quarters and arches
I think I found this the worst task of the build



Then I replaced them rotten sills with some 80mm box section
Don't know if anyone else does this but I found it easier to jack the box section all the way up to the door shut? It doesn't leave as much hanging down as standard but I thought it would gain me some extra clearance, and it makes it feel nice and solid.
There were a couple of rusty patches that needed sorting in the footwells. A big one behind the accelerator pedal, no pics though sorry.

Next up a dollop of filler and a splash of colour, two coats with a roller!



Then to sort out the pesky front end. Fortunately for me, when I went to pick up a new fuel tank from a guy fairly local, he was breaking a sammi which had an almost perfect front end to it. We swiftly ragged it off, a bargainous £40 exchanged hands and somehow we shoehorned the lot straight in the back of our civic! By the time I got home the stink of fuel had managed to seep into the carpet in the boot. Bird features was not a happy chapette!!

Just this little patch





Onto seats, went to the scrappers and got these Alfa seats, £50, bit steep but i liked them and thought they would fit fairly easily...... Wrong!!
Had to unbolt the Alfa subframe off the seat and then modify and attach the sammi subframe to it. Drivers side was not too bad, still had to change subframes and modify the sammi mounting. Shame they have alfa stitched in them but they are uber comfy and they even pump up and down!