Suzuki Club UK

Found a hardtop samurai the other month no engine or gearbox in it, I managed to do a deal with the owner and now its mine, well pleased ive wanted a hardtop for a while. I did originally have a soft top one i was going to restore but its had a lot of parts robbed off it to keep my other one on the road and it was suffering badly from tin worm, it did have a good engine and box in it though so I think ive got enough parts to build the hardtop one back up. Only problem is space, or lack of it so I have to get rid of the soft top before the new one arrives. Got my socket set out yesterday and set about it.
This is as far as i got, all stripped just the axles to take off. Just waiting for the new one to turn up now, going to try make it look brand new, fully standard. The new ones quite solid, apart from where its been towed with no engine and the prop from the t/box has spun round like a propeller and ripped the floor up, looks like i'd best get me welder out!

Looks like a good project!

get yourself a set of spot weld drill bits and it won't take too long to remove the transmission tunnel from the swb to fit into the tin top

The last picture is a belter.

I bet it made someone jump when that happened!

Ladaman wrote:The last picture is a belter.

I bet it made someone jump when that happened!

I was just thinking the same. Looks like a flywheel explosion. Is there a pair of sawn off legs in the footwell with it as well?

Bloody hell, I had a mid prop let go once... I should be glad it only took out the wiring loom and the transfer box

twiss wrote:Bloody hell, I had a mid prop let go once... I should be glad it only took out the wiring loom and the transfer box

Oh, yeah, of course, the flywheel's too far forward. Derp.

Started to do a bit of work on my project over the last few days, Ive managed to remove what was left of the tunnel, it came with a donor floor that had been cut out of another sj. There was plenty of floor left, tricky bit was getting it to match the hole I'd just cut out of the anus, think I did an ok job, once its had a bit of weld on it I should be able to get the gaps to close up with a bfh! The man who I got the anus off also gave me some rear wings of a lwb to use for repair panels on mine. Just picked up my new welder so off for gas tomorrow and then see how it goes from there.

Its been a while since I updated this so here's a few photos of some of the work I've done so far, if you don't like looking at photos of welding then this probably isn't for you! It took me about a month of afternoons and weekends to get to this, Ive done some other work to the engine and running gear but ill add those photos later.

Well done, I'd have took one look and said sod it with all that rust, but you've managed it.

That is a real quality job that you are doing,must admit i wish i had some welding skills but i do enjoy reading these build threads