Dave's Daily Driver Build Thread...

Saturday the 9th of April 2016, I was working in the shop and post office all day, and in the afternoon it quietens off, so I found myself sat in the post office with my iPad on my lap perusing eBay... as you do! I was searching for "Jimny" and noticed a complete vehicle for sale less than a mile from me, one I knew of, the owner had been using it for a bit of shooting... The advert said he "reserved the right to end the auction at any time as it was advertised elsewhere"... so I dropped him a message and said it was "Dave from the shop around the corner", and he messaged back to say he'd pop in after work...

And he did, we got chatting and he said he thought the auction was going too high, and he was a little worried that the eventual winning bidder might not think the vehicle was worth whatever it was going to end at...

So, we came to a mutually agreeable price for it, and he delivered it the following day -



And so, another Jimny entered my life... "DX02 UDH", a red soft-top example with 62,212 mile on the clock, a long MOT (9 months), all new brake lines, and reasonable condition...



Tatty hood as always...



Useful towbar / recovery point?!



Ummm... rot free boot?! No rear seats though, they had been removed for gun storage and ply-lined for carrying the quarry...



And 15" x 8" alloys...



Tidy in the front, although the seats were a little battered...



62,212 miles...



Dodgy keys, the original right one had a crack in it, so a new one had been made, and the original key taped to it for the transponder...



Some damage to the grill area where someone had covered it in gorilla tape presumably to get it to warm up sooner in the winter?



Engine looked tidy enough and seemed to run well...

OK then, seemed fine for a little runaround for me... having recently sold the New Grand Vitara, I just had the blue Jimny, although there are another three normal cars in the household, I still wanted something of my own, rather than having to borrow a vehicle off one of the other members of the family.

The blue Jimny is okay for the odd everyday trip, but I needed something a bit more 'normal', although not too normal, it still has to look the part!...

So, I started gathering parts for a cheap lift... the plan was to make it everyday driveable, refresh the obvious tired components after a presumed 62k mile of life, but still give me enough lift to squeeze some 235/75's under the 'lil Red Jimny...



A box of four springs had arrived, I bought them off eBay, they were all front springs, and the seller even 'phoned me to check that I'd ordered the right thing, "Yes", I told him,"front springs fitted in the rear will give me a bit of lift, and spring spacers in the front will give me some lift, and all with new springs", and new springs designed for the weight of the car (in pretty standard form)

So, above on the left (obviously) an old rear spring, with a new front spring for comparison, so you can see I'll get some useable lift in the rear...



And, to revitalise the old worn suspension some more, I ordered a pair of Monroe Adventure rear (Jimny) shock absorbers, and some second-hand rear shock repositions, which I tidied up, repainted, and fitted new bolts to, so give the shock an extra 1.5" of length, to match the longer springs fitted in the rear.

The Monroe Adventure shocks are designed for the Jimny, they are not a comparitivly length shock off an American 4x4, so they are correctly valved for a Jimny, and they are designed to be used in an offroad environment, "BUT"; they are standard length... but the shock repositioners will sort out the length issue.



Monroe Adventure D7706 shocks (eBay)



And the top bushes are the right size to fit in the Jimny chassis mounts, no need to cut them down... (or drill out the sleeves like with some other shocks you see advertised!)



It's going to be tight getting the 235/75's onto a Jimny with minimal lift (they recommend 2", I think I'll get more like 1.5"), so I'm also extending the bump stops whilst fitting the new springs and shocks...

On the left is the standard bump stop, and on the right a Redacted +50mm / +2" bump stop spacer, fitted with a replacement Bits4Vits polyurethane bump, so used together I'll end up with about a +1.25" extended bump stop...

The passenger side un-screwed fine, but the driver's side...



... sheared off!



So I drilled the snapped stud out and then got the saw out to cut the mount down so that I was just left with a hole in the chassis mount...



And then fitted a metric-fine nut on the top... sorted!

And there you can see the completed rear suspension... front springs fitted in the rear, replacement stock length offroad specific shocks with repositioners to make the length right, and extended bumpstops...



To the front then! And the old spring is still the same length as the new spring, although it has done 62k miles, so is probably a little tired by now and due for replacement!



One of my spring spacers on the top, will give me +1.5" of lift

... which should be the ideal height to assist getting the large 235/15's under the Jimny without affecting the castor angle, and causing the "death wobble", vagueness and lack of centralising that you can get on 2"+ lifts...

So, no expensive castor correcting arms or bushes needed...



With the spring out... an upturned scissor jack is ideal here... you can see the spring seats and the original rubber bump stop...



Out it comes...



And you can see it's only held in place by a cone shaped spigot moulded into the top...



And the hole goes all the way through...



So I gathered some bits from Bits4Vits stores...



I drilled the top hole in the chassis out to 10.5mm to get the 10mm bolt through...



And then, to get the bolt to the right length, I used an old trick that Tim Weston (RhinoCentral) used to use on his bodylift kits... wind a nut onto the thread... and then cut off across the bottom of the nut to get it nice and straight, and then nine times out of ten when you remove the nut it will tidy the thread enough to get it into the alloy block, in the next step...



Purists look away... I'm still waiting for the first batch of Redacted 's front bumpstop spacers to arrive, so I made my own up for now...

I had a couple of blocks from my old Vitara bumpstop spacers lying around, without the mounting studs bonded into them, so basically a 50mm OD block 37mm high with a 10mm metric fine tapped hole through it... So, in the above photo... the bolt that I'd just cut to length has been inserted through the top hole in the chassis, I've used a stack of nice thick washers to make the gap up where the rubber bump stop was sat inside the chassis mounting cup (as the blocks I'm using are too big an OD, they should fit inside the chassis cup eventually) and then I...



... tightened the bolt into the block, as above...



And then threaded one of my poly bump stop cones into the threaded hole in the bottom of the spacer...



Now the spring and spacer can be fitted...



And the shock can go in too...

This is again a Monroe Adventure Shock Absorber, BUT it is a Vitara / Grand Vitara rear shock, used on the front of the Jimny...



It's 1" longer than a front Jimny shock and all the fittings are almost correct... I did have to grind a couple of milimetres off each side of the bottom bush and sleeve to get them into the slightly thinner lower shock mounts on the Jimny's front axle..

Above, you can see that with the new spring and spacer in there's still a half an inch of droop still available from the shock, so a good length...The closed length of the shock is also a good match...

Sources -

old blog on Astra shocks shows the Vitara rear Monroe Adventure shock to be 470mm extended and 295mm compressed

Where as this old post on Shropshire Suzuki (by Martin Lines] shows a standard Jimny front shock having 447mm extended and a very similar 294mm compressed length.

So it's 23mm longer extended, and the same length compressed...

All back together then...



And the new tyres are also on / the old alloys...



Looks a good little cheap lift... and wound and valved correctly for the little Jimny.



The 235/75's don't stick out too much either (on 8"x15" alloys with no wheel spacers)



Good fit on the rear...



Slightly tight on the front though... so I'll have to trim the bumper...



Might get away on the back edge of the front tyres though... time and a test drive will tell (once it's taxed at the end of the month)



Big Blu'... meet Lil' Red!

24/04/16 - another parcel arrived this week...



A big one!



A rear fibreglass hardtop section...!



The rear hood on the Jimny wasn't in too bad a condition, but they never seem to fasten right onto the tailgate, and leave the Jimny with little or no security, so I thought this time I'd go for the...



Fastback look!



Just needs the brackets fitting to attach it properly... And a window fitting into the sloping part of it, which I'll order this coming week...

If you fancy a rear hood section like this they are available from IdiotMobil on this forum!



A couple of bits arrived from JimnyBits this week too, on the left is a brake compensator bracket for the rear axle, and on the right a single stud extender from the Grayston wheel spacers...



That fits onto the spare wheel bracket here...



...and allows the spare wheel cover to be refitted (to hide the spare steel wheel underneath!)

More things to do...

To correct the gearing after the 235/75/15's have been fitted, there's a Redacted Rocklobster Transfer Box, Cradle, Speedo Drive Cog and intermediary prop on the way, from Redacted . and I've sourced a Samurai front prop to use on the rear from eBay.

The BadBoy (eBay again) Bucket Seats that were destined for the buggy will be going in this red Jimny too...

And some other bits... but more on them later...

Looking good so far. Giving me some ideas for my girlfriends soft top.

1066Boy wrote: Giving me some ideas for my girlfriends soft top.

I am sure that comment doesn't read correctly - we need pictures of your girlfriends 'soft top' to be sure we all understand each other

I've got a hard one for that

maverick wrote:

1066Boy wrote: Giving me some ideas for my girlfriends soft top.

I am sure that comment doesn't read correctly - we need pictures of your girlfriends 'soft top' to be sure we all understand each other

I did not even think when i wrote that post. It dose sound a bit iffy!
I think i would end up in hospital if i posted those pictures!

kirkynut wrote: Dave you have an illness. I have it too but have managed it better over the last few years.

It is called I can't stop modifying cars itus. With me any car I own gets modified but you have the more severe strain whereby you can't stop buying more cars and modifying them!

I feel sorry for you. There is no cure. It can only be managed.

Kirkynut