A short story and pictures from a newbie.

Hi everyone,

I'm new to Jimny ownership so I thought I'd just give you a little introduction.

I bought a Jimny chiefly as a work vehicle. I have a small business harvesting and selling firewood. I have developed a special trailer that enabled me to do the whole harvesting and delivering operation using any vehicle with a towing hitch. Until recently I'd been borrowing a quad bike for harvesting duties and delivering the wood with my Peugeot 306. But the quadbike struggled to tow the loaded trailer on the soft marshland and I spent more time getting out of holes than I did splitting wood. The 306 handled the trailer great on the road but after several years of abuse was due for replacement.

The appeal of the Jimny lies mainly in it's size and weight. Compact, manoeuvrable and half a ton lighter than a Defender, I realised it would be great on the marshes. And unlike a quadbike it would also be ok for the delivery side of things. So I went on a Jimny hunt!

Although there are hundreds of Jimnys on the roads, there are relatively few for sale, so finding a cheap but servicable one was tricky. Eventually I found one 50 miles away- slightly over budget at £2200, tatty wheels but very genuine and drove ok. After haggling the price down to £1800, this delightful silver 52plate was mine!

Once home, it was time for a play. There were very few obstacles on the farm that troubled the Jimny- it really is a very capable little car.

I soon fitted a towbar and put it straight to work:

The woodland I work in is on a peat bog. Once you break through the top layer of grass, the peat is soft and bottomless. A defender would already have sunk if it was parked here:

As well as the towbar, I've fitted a decent Alpine headunit and a cheap ebay roof rack to increase the carrying capacity:

The only other things I will be changing are the standard Duellers (the rears are dated 2002 so possibly even original?!) for some mud tyres. I'm hoping some 215/75 R15 BFG KM2s will fit straight on.

Thanks for looking!

Welcome! It's nice to see another work horse jimny

Nice to see you and your Jimny.

Welcome to bigjimny you well enjoy your little jimster.......

Looks like you have found the ideal motor for the job

Welcome this fine forum it’s good to have you join us ................

Welcome to the forum from another newbie here. Good pics, especially the one with the hill climbing shot. I'm well impressed withe the new toy too, just got mine yesterday.

hi and welcome

welcome Busta
the roll cage is meant to go on the Jimny not of the trailer

looks good, how do you get the dumpy bag off - simply drag of using brute force?

like the concept, could maybe winch dumpy bags on to it ?

but dumpty bag of "stuff" = tonne = so that;s too much for a Jimny is that right ? confused
is is right we can only tow 300 kg

Halford wrote: is is right we can only tow 300 kg

only if the trailer is unbraked

Thank you all for the friendly welcome.

Halford; The bags are raised and lowered onto the ground using a hand winch. The trailer floor is taken out and the back of the trailer detaches so you can drive clear of the lowered bag. No brute force needed! The bags are 1 cubic meter- almost twice the capacity of a 'dumpy bag', but as logs aren't nearly as heavy as sand or gravel a full bag weighs between 350-450kg.

The trailer is un-braked and weighs up to 550kg with a bag full of logs, so it's over the Jimny's un-braked limit but tows fine thanks to the long drawbar and good balance. All the weight is concentrated in a small area over the axle, with a nose weight of about 25kg. This trailer is the first prototype. Mk2, which I will be building soon, will be braked.

After praising the Jimny for its light weight, I managed to sink it!

I was in a very boggy area of the woods that I probably should have avoided, but where's the fun in that?! The problem with this ground is that once you cut through the 'crust' of grass and dead leaves it's just bottomless soft peat. Once the trailer dropped through I was just pulling a dead weight and the Jimny dug itself in!

After pulling the Jimny out with a tractor on flotation tyres, I went back with some longs strops and rescued the trailer with the Jimny.

Once I've bought a set of mud terrains I think I'll be saving for a winch!

Given the boggy ground I think your next bet would be to fit wider tyres on the trailer to spread the load as that is a lot of weight concentrated on those skinny wheels.

Also, I'd bring the Jimny tyres down to around 15lb and keep a twin-cylinder air compressor in the Jimny for inflating the tyres quickly when you get to firm ground/road. A set of auto-deflators can quickly bring the tyres down and only cost about $60. Twin-cylinder compressor should set you back about $130.

For your Mark 11 trailer, set up the axles to be the same width as on the Jimny and for preference, the same stud pattern as the Jimny, makes life easier.