Tread Lightly

Fingers crossed for you.

sniper wrote: Well impressed with the new exhaust from Tony Banks..... The Aussie "Wildcat" headers (4-2-1 manifold in English) were fitted along with a sports cat and a 2" single box system. The box sits nicely between the transfer box and the fuel tank, it should be safe.... Tony was a nice bloke to deal with and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend him. When first quoting, he said that a cat back system for a standard Jimny would be around £300.

The plan has worked..... There is a lot more torque and you get it lower down Even managed to spin the wheels up on the change from 1st to 2nd (in the wet and by accident...it's changed) A little disconcerting really, I had gotten used to how much throttle to use in the wet and it looks like I will have to learn again.... queue brown pants.....

Only a motorway drive home and it is much more responsive and eager to accelerate than before.

There was a negative that cost me a couple of hours, lambda 1 failed even though it came out easily. Quite common and only a £36 part. Swapped and codes cleared, they took it for a test drive and all was great. When I restarted the car to leave the EML light was on.... the second one had gone too but not shown on the first read..... As the second sensor doesn't affect fuelling like the first, I decided to change it myself at home, rather than hang around while parts were delivered again...

sniper

Cracking exhaust Sniper! Looks absolutely stunning. I can only imagine the sound!

This Tony Banks you speak of... is this the fella (company)?: www.tonybanks.co.uk/

I have been very casually browsing for exhaust systems. My back box is pretty fudged and my 'new' exhaust middle section is rusty all over despite being 6 months old. I tried to get in touch with the bloke who did Martin's exhaust on his Jimny...but never had much luck

Yes that's him R2D.... He said that a cat back system on a standard car would be around £300....

sniper

Called down to Terry & Reece Lofley's workshop to discuss the front cage and a bit more work underneath, painting the chassis & running gear. They will have a price for me in a few days and we can hopefully get it done before the summer ends....

Booked in at a new workshop for the 10th. ICE 4x4 in Bolsover, to get suspension limit straps fitted. Look to be a sound bunch, they have a bare shell Landrover Discovery rebuild nearing completion. Very nice work. Small world, they are also part of Calow hospital 4x4 assistance group that I joined a bit back. Neal & Shaun, they drive some very chunky Discovery's that dwarf my car, funnily so.

sniper

It's a PASS with no advisories...... I had little doubt.... but I was a tad concerned about the emissions, the new single sports cat, single box system from Tony Banks worked as he said it would and it passed once hot.....



Two of the plugs were quite burnt, as you can see. There was no obvious miss-fire but now the car does feel a bit sharper and according to the wife... It's quieter in tone from the exhaust, I can only assume that there was a little unburnt fuel making through from the two cylinders with poor plugs...

sniper

Nice one matey
Best get round to changing my plugs
I bet mine is still on original plugs :laugh:

Excellent news. Another year of happy modification awaits.

The rear limit straps are on but the fronts will have to wait until next Tuesday as I had asked the guys at ICE4x4 to sort a prop change (courtesy of Jackonlyjack) and some squeaks had developed at the back end.....



Shows how limited the downward travel is on my road biased suspension...... The squeaks were traced to a loose shock top mount bolt and a Panhard bolt that was loose also.

All quiet on the way home....

sniper

Has the rear prop click gone now matey ?
Get yourself a paint pen and put some witness marks on the now tight bolts
So at a glance you can see if they've moved

jackonlyjack wrote: Has the rear prop click gone now matey ?
Get yourself a paint pen and put some witness marks on the now tight bolts
So at a glance you can see if they've moved

Spot on thanks mate, I have new UJ's to rebuild the other one. I had noticed all your witness marks and it made me smile. The first time I saw them I was only a small boy, on a victorian pump house engine that I visited on a school trip. Rally teams always had a white under belly and red witness marks when I grew a little older. Got to love good engineering practice....

sniper

First day out since the refurb, a gentle trundle around the Peaks with Andy Atkinson, another member of the "Jimny Jaunts" group. He kindly prepared the route and we met in Buxton....

No car problems and all went well, we had time to stop for a pint and a sandwich....



sniper

As previously mentioned, I had to strike a deal with the finance fhurer to get the funds for the truck cab conversion. That meant that there was no money for laning trips for the rest of this year.... Covid came along and that put the kibosh on trips with the jimny jaunts group who lead most of my driving trips. This lessened the pain somewhat, at least I did not have to watch my mates go out whilst I couldn't....

With the group cancelling trips until next April now, the pain of being skint might be continued for a few months more......

Whilst investigating a possible gearbox swap to a Mazda MX5 box, a friend who had visited a sports car manufacturer suggest I contact them. They are a local firm so I popped along and was greeted by Richard one of the gaffers who showed me around. Long story short (separate post), the box swap can be done but it was going to be next year.....

Whilst there I was told about some ITB's which is another thing I want to do....



As you can just see, the ITB set up which is made in-house is attached to a Ford 2ltr Zetec unit with MX gearbox attached, it's kitted to fit the company's Lotus 7 style cars but looks a treat. I fell in love with the set up.....

So the plan is to fit a 2 litre Ford Zetec on ITB's with MX5 gearbox, early next year.... Only about 40 kg heavier than the current set up with somewhere around 180 bhp and 150nm of torque.

In the meantime, the car is going in to ICE4x4 in Bolsover on the 19th for an R7ME gearbox and manual transfer swap, this will let me run 29-30" tyres...

Lots happening and lots to look forward to....

sniper