Bob! Daily driver/something to play with!

I thought being blown about on fast busy roads was all part of the fun :woohoo: :side:

Driving these Jimny's is not all that disimilar to driving pre-war cars; their rigid beam axles causing them to leap across the road at the merest bump. The main difference being that the Jimny has much sharper modern steering as opposed to a steering set up with about 12" of play in it! :ohmy:

Although I've taken my Jimny for some very gentle off road experience with an experienced offroader instructing me which was good fun, its my daily drive so I have to be very careful or I can't get to work if I break it. Therefore mine remains a bit of a polished and waxed road queen.

If money was no object and I had time on my hands, I would love to have a serious off-road beast set-aside for the very purpose of green-laning. Having read and watched all the videos on S200KYS fascinating blog and seen how some 'green' roads/lanes are almost being lost from lack of use it makes sense for everyone to use them and keep them open for all to enjoy.

As for your exhaust knocking, I had a similar problem just last week, I was convinced I needed a replacement section of exhaust it got so bad. However I got under the car and found the rear left-hand silencer-box rubber had come off the hanger. I managed to pull several other rubber hangers further onto the spigots too, and it seems ok now. Hopefully yours will be similar.

eddlane wrote: Also,

My exhaust pipe knocks over bumps and stuff, it’s pretty annoying!! Are there stiffer hangers I can buy or any tips from owners I can do?

Cheers

The new rear box fitted to mine was hitting the tow bar, bumper off I could see it was hanging at a slight angle, the left side lower than the right. The tow bar makes space tight, but it still should have been level in my opinion. Two rubber mounts are involved on the back box, one left front of the box and one to the right near the exhaust tail pipe. The left hanger was obviously stretched, but I found it was due to other factors.
One of the pipe hangers further forward on the exhaust had rotted off putting more load on the box hanger. I fixed this then found that the left box metal hanger pin was not bent at the correct angle, I heated this and bent to the correct angle and bingo a perfectly fitting exhaust.

Interesting that Max Headroom's left box hanger had fallen off, that was the one on mine failing due to incorrect fabication of the box hanger and additional load from another failed mount. I wounder if all rear boxes have poor postional tolerances on this hanger. My rear box as an aftermarket replacement, the rest of the system still as suppiled by Suzuki.

So my advice would be to check the fit and condition of the whole system first. The supplied Suzuki hangers are stiff enough to hold it correctly. Be cautious of using generic rubber hangers, the ones I had appeared slightly larger when compared to the Suzuki ones. I changed these for rubber hangers supplied by Jimny Bits, these looked identical to the original Suzuki one it still had fitted.

If you want to make the hangers stiffer two possible options. 1) put a cable tie around the hanger to hold it tighter 2) Use a jubilee clip around the rubber hanger, you can adjust the "stiffness" using the clips screw. One or two cable ties to hold the jubilee clip on the rubber to stop jumping off make this the permanent solution. You end up with the Jubilee clip squashing the rubber hanger to your desired size.

Have fun

Mike

Try to loosen the joints and twist it a bit to see if it fits better out of harms way.
Remember the exhaust will expand rearwards a lot when warm.

And buy original exhaust. The half price stuff like walker and bosal lasts less than half the time and often crack up due to bad fitment and rust twice as fast.
I never buy those but rather fix the old one with my own welding or buy loose parts, or buy original.

-30 Wheel spacers didnt do anything for the handling on mine :laugh:

They were a need to get the non-offset 15x8 steelies on (should have bought offset wheels, doh!).

They do increase kingpin bearing (front) and wheel bearing (front & rear) wear rate a fair bit i think. e.g. I know i probably do more off-tarmac than most (saving for S200KYS/Dave and Maverick/Brett), but they need to be replaced at least once a year this equates to about 4000 miles before they are done in. I would say spacers/offset are to be kept to a minimum where possible.

For the exhaust i have the same problem. It clangs off the fuel tank guard and the towbar bracket. fixing a rubber hangar to the side of the towbar bracket worked for a while, but its all moved a bit from being shaken about and the annoying noise is back again. Scimike's suggestions for the hangar rubbers sound a much better idea

Hey all


Thanks for all the knowledge as usual!

I’ll steer clear of the wheel spacers for now, and Im still struggling to stop the exhaust knock. It’s the silencer knocking near its mount.

Started rust proofing, it was still on factory underseal so I could see every little demon, I’ve cleaned, stripped back, dinitrol rust converter on some then waxoyl underseal for the rear arches so far, front arches tomorrow then underneath.

Front arches today. Under the headlights was getting bad glad I have caught it!