LandCruiser Replacement Jimny

Hi everyone, long-time lurker, first-time poster! 

My story with Jimny started last September when I rolled my 1983 Land Cruiser BJ42 (pictured) and decided I am done competing in a de-facto historic vehicle. Requirements for the new car were: two solid axles, frame, and disk breaks all around. 

I bought a red 2006 Jimny converted to a manual transfer case. 2 weeks later I also bought a 2003 green one, sight unseen, just based on the photos from a fellow Facebook group member.
Fortunately for my relationship, the red one sold in less than 24 hours. 



It's 2003 Green Jimny petrol. 

Mods include, in no particular order: 

1. Alfa-Romeo 147 rear calipers to get disk break requirements satisfied and retain hand break. While at it I also rebuild all calipers, new pads, and rotors. 
2. I managed to get a leather steering wheel – a really good mod  
3. For wheels, I went with 15x7 ET-10 black steelies. ET-25 was easier and cheaper but I didn't want to add fender flairs. And with ET-10 I don't have to. 
4. The tires are Coopers STT Pro (new). This was an easy choice as I run the same on the LandCruiser and really liked it. Tires are expensive nowadays! 
5. For the lift, I installed Polish-made 3.5" lift from Jowisz Garage. I know the guy, it's very heavy-duty all around. The lift is also quite complete as you can see from the picture. 
   I could even pick a color for all the elements and gun-metal gray it is  
6. I got an air locker in the rear and a compressor under the hood. It was never an issue with the Land Cruiser because of flex, but I figured that if switched cars already, there's nothing stopping me from making it better offroad. The plan is to get a front air locker as well, but HD axles are unavailable in Poland currently. 
7. I did move the back differential carrier (with 4 spider gears) to the front to make it a little bit stronger. This involved a little bit of milling, but I now have 4 spider gears on 22-spline axles. Pretty neat  
8. AISIN locking hubs with spacers. 
9. I also installed an HD winch plate, but only for the two hooks in the front (visible sticking out of the bumper). Maybe I will get the winch as well, but I am definitely a hi-lift and recovery boards guy. 
10. The truck is now so tall, that I can't park in the garage with the roof rack on  

Hello and welcome, nice intro

Next week we're going on a small one-day trip with a friend to get our Jimnies muddy finally. Preparing for it I fitted a quick disconnect to the air locker compressor. Looking at the hose now, I may have overkilled it a little with the size.  



Bit of trivia: my friend owns an identically speced Jimny, which not long ago was 2x4 (4x2?). 



Also: here's my Jimny next to stock 4 gen. It was parked on my street   

We spent the day playing in a little bit of mud and a lot of sand dunes.

Quite contrary to what we typically do in Poland where sand dunes at the beach are strict no access zones for motor vehicles, but mud on the other hand is in abundance everywhere you look. 

There are however a couple places where there are large sand pits in central Poland (far from access restricted beaches) and its where we found ourselves last weekend. 

With my (green) Jimny I was able to play around with the real locker and see how it performs on the sand. This is my fourth offroader but the first one where I can manually engage locker and compare driving with and without it. 

We were in a convoy of nine cars where our Jimnies were the lightest, and the least powerful. Turns out 80hp isn't an issue when tire pressures are low and Jimny weights nothing. We were the only one to power on and off the sand dunes all day. Others were battling overheating engines, broken CVS, and generally spending time at the bottom of the dunes unable to reach the summit. 

Next week we're going on a off-road rally. Different animal altogether. Will post pics. 


 

Great photos, looks like you had a fantastic time showing the other vehicles how it is done.

Robin

Thank you Robin! 

---

Last Saturday we managed to find babysitters for all of our kids and took part in an off-road rally. It's a navigation course with a roadbook plus challenges in a quarry.

You get the board attached to your passenger grab handle with a metal line. And there are numbered stamps attached to trees, also with a metal line (safely, not harm to the trees).

With around 25 cars we managed to take home 5th spot. Jimny did exceptionally well. Got myself stuck twice, both times not listening to my pilot over the intercom.

Finally had a chance to get that rear locker working and boy does that thing make a difference.

Couple other points to fix for future were hanging bumpers collecting mud, no jacking points whatsoever, and I need to organize my roof rack better. Recovery boards fell off on a timed section and it cost us 4th place for sure.

We lost to three Samurais and a Pajero, which felt like a slap to the five part grill. 



 

After 10 rallies (and 5 podiums) in the last season, this year we're switching gears a little and Jimny has become a camper  
We're going to Bosnia for 9 days with two identical Jimnys. Here's how we modified the back: 

- The whole back is covered with double floor with some boxes neatly sitting on the left. 
- Both cars have the one rear sit folded down and other removed. There will be three of us and need be, we can jump in the car together. 

 

Here it is with some stolen cutting board and our mini fridge (17L). 
The other car has this whole space for storage. 

 

I also had a need for one extra switch, but I went overboard a little designing and printing this whole airplane-inspired panel. 
I will open source it once I am done. If you have the printer, you could design your own facia. 

 

Other than these things, we have a list of 247 items that needed checking, replacing, buying, or otherwise thinking about. I am slightly ADHD and building lists while hyper focused helps me. 

Carpet and switches are stolen from the crashed LandCruiser project, so on brand for this thread  

Open-sourced model for this mod.