New SJ owner - couple of q’s

I’m the proud owner of a 92 Samurai. We’ve had it a week or two. So far we’ve pulled the body off and stripped the chassis. 

Couple of bits that spring to mind. We’ve replaced the original springs and shocks with the OME kit. That should do the trick for some basic trialling. But if we want to go higher will the OME shocks take a set of lifted shackles?
 
Secondly…. The body mounts behind the seats and in front of the wheel arches. One fell off when we pulled the tub. I’ve ordered the panel from India. Thinking about making a jig with 20mm box off the centre mounts and cutting the outer skin off.
We have some snotty repairs below the arch and above the body panel. They are quite complex shapes.. are they available as a repair panel? If so from who and what are they called! 

Nick

We are getting my sons SJ rebuilt back to "showroom" so we are trying to use the proper parts and panels wherever we can.

You can see the story so far  (come on Winchfield!!) here:  www.bigjimny.com/index.php/bigjimny-blog/sj-rebuild
There are quite a lot of panel pictures in the blog.

There are actually quite a lot of genuine body panels available from Suzuki and via India (Maruti Suzuki) as the vehicle is still in production in its military form and the civilian form only stopped production in 2018. 

As for repair panels, there is a company in Poland selling them on Ebay. They are fairly low quality but as you are going trialling I suspect you just want metal and not necessarily "beautiful"

I am not familiar with the OME springs. On our off-roading SJ we had a "shackle reversal" pillar set-up. This has the known flaw that under certain conditions the shackles can fold up, collapsing the suspension on one side. As this tends to happen turning on a descent it can be "interesting". We had the collapse happen a couple of times with no disasterous effect but at least one friend had a more exciting time at the top of this long high descent. As I mentioned this is a known flaw with "shackle reversal" lifts so check what the lift you buy does.

 

Thanks Martin, we are going for strong good repairs. Ideally to factory spec. It’s tyro trials so non damaging (scuffs and scrapes).
I’ll check the blog for piccies!
The old man emu setup is a new set of 40mm raised springs and new gas shocks. The old stuff looked very tired with practically a negative curve up front!

Hi!

I had these springs on my SJ, well not my current SJ's but 20 years ago. They still lay in my garage just in case, loved them so much I kept them when the SJ was recycled.
The OME Shocks went off fast as I remember. They are a bit too short and not particularly good anyway. Well that was 20 yeras ago, the current ones might be better. I liked the very soft OME springs. If I was doing a modded car today I might do those springs again.
For your 92 however the shocks are placed a bit firhter out on the shaft than on the SJ from before 1988. Might be ok. Not sure if the wider axles will affect wheel travel and articualtion and shock travel.
I would try to use rubber spring bushings and original shackles based on my experience. Poly-something wears out fast in sand and is too hard for my taste. Longer shackles will not help much unless they are well designed. The longer they are the more risk there is of over-bending the springs so they sag faster, and too much articulation may also damage the shocks. max 1" longer shackes in my opinion, never 2" longer.

Well after another look in the garage I’ve taken a brave pill, ordered wheel wells, floor braces and the new mounting panel. That should leave the fabrication to just flat sheet.

Now I just need it to arrive so I can start to chop out the grot and snotty repair patches

I think we will need some pictures of this when you are ready

Good luck with your project!

 

So here she is on the sellers drive. New wings on it, and new cills. Overall seemed pretty solid and had a rebuilt motor. 

   

Body off and after a few days… cleaned stripped hammerite and raptored. 

 

       

Started with the toe board to sort a bijou hole out. Seems to have patched in ok…

               

Todays progress. Stripped the body mount out and cut out the outer skin. Rebuilt the floor lip in a couple of places butt welding in new metal. 
Pulled a load of junk out of the petrol filler area, and then drilled out the spot welds to the arch. 
Cut the arch out through an awful lot of filler. 
Tommorow I’ll finish the edges of the floor and when I’ve got some new slitting discs I’ll remove the rest of the scuz round the body side. Should have new panels next week and I can then cleco it all up and start to stitch in. Then the other side… 

We’ve owned it 2 weeks so far!

Last couple of days progress. T case in tear down for the SUMO gears. Back brakes stripped and rebuilt. New exhaust hung and started on getting the front bumper on and well aligned. 

Waiting on a box of panels from india, reckon we could have the tub back on the chassis in a couple of weeks. We’ll see how it goes.

       

Back brakes back together and a delicious cheeky yellow to peep past the brakes.
We are aiming for a stock + feel…

New product panels from India look nice quality and should nail on fairly easy…