What did you do to your jimny today?

@George C If the new Jimny has a smart alternator, have you tried disconnecting the sense wire from the shunt on the negative terminal? This should revert the charge profile to a normal ‘always on’ which would keep the alternator charging rather than turning it off now and again to save fuel.
I have had experience of smart alternators on my VW Transporter, if you change the battery on that, you need to reprogram the ECU with various parameters so the charge profile matches that of the battery, on the VW it also tends to only charge the battery to 80% as it leaves some capacity to allow for dumps from the alternator at times (e.g. in no throttle downhill periods it senses the engine braking and turns the alternator on to get a free charge at no fuel cost)
Not saying the Jimny does this as it normally requires an EFB or AGM battery from the get go to account for the dumping of high amounts of current, but it may still have a preset battery capacity in its memory that it charges to then turns off the alternator because it believes it has reached its limit, no point in continuing to charge it, so it turns the alternator off, if you have a larger capacity battery in place and the ecu still thinks it has a smaller capacity one connected, it effectively never gets fully charged

This weekend I have been mostly shaking down the new road springs. Suplex on the front, cheers x8ggy Dave, Monroe on the back. The rears are plenty firm enough for a standard height after market spring but that's not a bad thing for me. Either way I'm happy with them and they have highlighted the weakness of the old ones. All is good.

I have decided to improve the dynamics of Dreadnaught. This will make her faster and better off road. How? I'm going back on the diet. There's no good reason for me to weigh over a hundred and forty kilograms. It's like constantly having a passenger but without the stimulating conversation!

Good luck with the diet Lambert.

Cheers mate. It's really only a matter of wanting it enough. And not eating chocolate!

past month, learning to weld by making some roof bars, refurbing rear arms with new bushes!

new transfer box guard , needed to be modded to fit, due to custom stainless steel exhaust


the welding is rough ( sorry) but it works, my first arc welding experience was making the roof bars

Good work that man. How did you get that bushing through the last mot?I've had mine failed for far less movement than that?

thanks! 11 months since mot next job, rear left wheel bearing kit install, and soon transfer box seals!

GeorgeC wrote:

GeorgeC wrote: After The Test Drive: A little more information.
I was disappointed in the fact that the battery was not instantly compatible with the charging system after the car booted up.
After driving on Monday and Yesterday the battery resting voltage this afternoon is 12.87V.
While this is quite good, it is only 0.07V above the voltage out of the cardboard box, after spending 3 weeks in transit from Melbourne.
I have asked Suzuki to look into how to make the charging system recognise the EFB Battery and charge it appropriately. More later..

Thank you all for the response and comments to the above post.
During the week I had a chat with a retired Suzuki Service Manager, he is also and a Jimny owner/driver and mechanic. His expectations for a traditional lead/acid Battery is a resting voltage of 12.8V with a healthy alternator/charging system. However for the new EFB Battery he said I should be seeing 13.0-13.2V under the same conditions.

Today, Saturday, my weekly Voltage check:
New EFB Battery in the Car: 12.80V
Original Battery on the bench: 12.76V

The Voltage in the car is now what I would expect after each drive, a net loss of 0.1-0.2V.

Today, Saturday, my weekly Voltage check:
New EFB Battery in the Car: 12.77V
Original Battery on the bench: 12.76V

For those following and doing the maths, the nett loss of capacity since fitting the EFB Battery would be in the vicinity of 20AH, that is 34% of 58AH! In that time the car has covered about 18km with 8 starts.

When I remove the EFB Battery, probably next week, it will take about 15-20 hours at 1 amp (+ rest time) to recover the initial charge. While that is happening, I will re-fit the original lead acid battery as it is almost fully charged at 12.76V and waiting on the bench.

Finished my front bumper by making some lamp units.

That looks like a spider. Bet it will crawl up walls too!

Drove back from Italy over the course of the past five days. Italy -> Switzerland -> Germany -> France -> Luxembourg -> Belgium ->France

Will post up something of a 'blog' when I get time.