About to buy a Jimny in Japan...

Good Morning.Afternoon.Evening all,

My wife and I are about to purchase a Jimny in Japan to roll about in for a couple of months in the snow where we are working, and then are planning on shipping it home via RORO ship. We have sourced a person who can organise the shipping side of things for us, the next step is settling on a vehicle!!

We viewed about 9 today in various places nearby and will view 3 more this week, all aged between 86-94, either the 550/660 turbo intercooled engine and a mix of raised, re-sprayed and overpriced! All are less than 100k and in general are rust free compared to UK cars. They have the odd bits of scab on the wheel arches, and the main concern that I have raised is on the body mounting points in the front of the rear arches, the battery tray and the body mounts just behind the front struts.

I know a little bit about cars but am a mere tinkerer at this stage as I've been travelling for ten years and never stayed put that long! The aim is to keep this one for a long time, and keep it with us in the french alps as our town wagon, i have a diesel passat estate to do the long boring toll roads.

My questions to those in the room would be the ease of sourcing the body parts that need replacing, the edges of the arches seem easy to source through googling, however the cab sections looks like a bar steward of a piece and i haven't had as much luck finding any info yet!!!

the link following is best opened in google chrome with the translate add on, its our favourite so far we have seen in the flesh

www.goo-net.com/usedcar/spread/goo/14/70...063530181212001.html

price on the road with 6 months of the japanese mot is £2400 roughly. bonnest/3 doors are perfect, the arches are a touch scabby, and some rust is showing where the cab mounts to the chassis. its got a decent interior, power steering hi/lo diff locks all worked well. it would just need wax oyling and the bits of welding done to get an mot i expect.

alternatively we spend a bit more and the following 3 look great but are too far for us to view at the moment..

green one is

www.goo-net.com/usedcar/spread/goo/14/70...080230181125001.html

white one is

www.goo-net.com/usedcar/spread/goo/13/70...109630180214005.html

and the last one is black

www.goo-net.com/usedcar/spread/goo/13/70...061030181226003.html

these are a fair bit more money but do look sorted rust wise and general condition!

any advice, tips, put downs and reality checks are greatly appreciated.

many thanks.

same chassis/body, just smaller engines to duck the emissions/tax laws. the brand new 2018 jimny sports a 660cc engine too!

I have owned many SJ's of various models. Probably nine or ten..
When it comes to rust, check door sills underside/inside. Front floor both over and under side. Aft edge of the floor, and of course as you mention wheel arches. I had one SJ I should have kept but the rust in the beam across the floor and around the bodymounts in front of rear wheel and seat belt bottom of B-pillar was too severe to fix for me.
When I bought a new project few years back to fix up and keep, i used an Endoscope and a PC to check for rust inside the floor cross beam and inside the sills as this area is the most time consuming place to fix the rust..

Other stuff is driveshaft play and front axle kingpin slack but these are not expensive fixes. 5-speed Gearbox whine is a turn off maybe. 4 speed boxes are better and usually stays good. transfer seldom acts up..

Frame seldom rust, at least not here in norway. My 1987 frame has no rust at all.

The Japanese 600/660/800cc engines i have no experience with.

Keep an eye out for any changes to the chassis that might be OK in Japan but not OK in your own country. Here in Norway nothing is allowed without approved documentation. and if the car is over 30 years you sometime have to keep it original to get it imported as a historic vehicle, otherwise higher import tax. This varies between countries of course.

do not hesitate to ask more. did not have time to look at your links today, but will do later.
Good luck hunting

Oh and front windshield frame on the cab. the underside is often rotten due to bad drainage of condensation.
Also around the windshield wiper on both highroof/tintop and cab, check for cracks as there is a weak brace there on early models. and if you do not lube the wiper axle the strain is too big and the sheet metal cracks..

great info thanks kindly. The one we liked was original paint and had been stored inside as there was not even sun fade and had no rust other than the creeping in at the body mounts. the wind screen wiper is a great tip, i'll shall make sure to look at that.

the body mounts and riggers are my biggest concern at the moment, i have had sills done before on vw's as its relatively easy to obtain pattern panels and not so stressful. on this though, its the cab mount sections that scares me. i am starting to think maybe better to drop a bit more cash here to get a good one in these areas and suffer the extra duty/vat to be paid on import.

fella wrote: great info thanks kindly. The one we liked was original paint and had been stored inside as there was not even sun fade and had no rust other than the creeping in at the body mounts. the wind screen wiper is a great tip, i'll shall make sure to look at that.

the body mounts and riggers are my biggest concern at the moment, i have had sills done before on vw's as its relatively easy to obtain pattern panels and not so stressful. on this though, its the cab mount sections that scares me. i am starting to think maybe better to drop a bit more cash here to get a good one in these areas and suffer the extra duty/vat to be paid on import.

Riggers on the frame are very seldom rusted here. Most old SJ's have severe body rust with large parts lost, but the frame has just surface rust.
body mounts and front floor and inside sills are the most pain to fix.

And do drop more cash into it. If i had bught a better starting point i would probably be driving it now, but it still hangs in the body roller waiting for me to get the inspiration to weld and fix all of the rust.
I bought my current 1987 long weel base for approx 400£ 3-4 years ago, sold parts for 300£ off it, and planning to throw parts for 10000£ on it..

Here is a project of mine from years back for inspiration. Body was gone, but the frame was good.
used a body tub from another car and the frame from this one.
Never completed it but was sold on when i was done doing the rust on the body..

So after being let down by banks and all sorts of faf, we have finally bought one!

Attempt 1 was a '89 limited edition 'scott' with tinted windows fancy alloys and was rated 4/5 on the auction sheet. Signed sealed contracts and made the transfer, only for the sellers bank to refuse the transfer as he gave us the wrong business name. That brought great shame upon us and they refused to try agian and cancelled the deal.

We had now given up as this was 2 weeks before we were due to leave, only for something to come up 48 hours before we left town. A friend knew a friend....

Will update with pictures when i get them, only saw the car for 5 minutes before i had to go to work but it's newer than i wanted but was cheap and in very good condition. The only snag is see is that these cars were never int he uk in under any guise so parts may become interesting if need be... we bought a

ja22 Landventure, 0.6 litre turbo intercooler!

pictures to follow.

Remember to rust proof it before you go near our roads.

Japan does not use salt on their roads, so the JDM cars are not treated like the ones for export.

Other than that- enjoy!

I give you the Ja22w or Sj413. Coil sprung on the same basic chassis as the british Sj's. Previous owner treated the underside. It has a couple of small blemishes on the paintowrk, has been resprayed relatively recently and has a lot of wax thats not been buffed off, hence the paint looks a bit dodgy in the pictures.



Arrives in June!