I bought my Jimny in New Year 2017. It is a manual 2010 JB43V and came fitted with M15 engine ex a Swift, had manual hubs, steel rims with 215/75R15 Dynapro tyres, body lift of 50+, upgraded panhard rods and steering rod, bash plates, steel ARB bullbar, LED driving lights of various sizes, Rego had expired (just) and it was not in top condition, with a few major issues like ABS light on, speedo not working, 4WD would not engage (and sometimes the dash light started to flash), no rear seats or mounting brackets, leaking front diff oil seals. The old owner agreed to leave registration in his name until I could get the issues resolved and a road worthy carried out. So the first job was ABS - using a multi-meter to check the frequency signal from each wheel sensor to the ABS pump, I found an open circuit and damaged cable to one sensor. This was repaired and speedo and ABS reverted to normal behaviour. Not the 4WD however. This took some serious chasing and two faults were found. One a damaged wire to one gearbox limit switch, and second an incorrect vacuum connection to the front hub vacuum switches (manual hubs but the electronics needs the signals to function). Then an update of the engine number with the transport department and all was in order for the roadworthy, and change of ownership.

I fitted LED bulbs to the headlights (massive improvement), my long range driving lamps off a previous vehicle, larger alternator, rewired a lot of crappy wiring, integral external mirror indicators, refitted the tow bar, suspension bushes to the front, oil seals to front diff. The gearbox had an overhaul with new bearing kit. We found the rear housing had been damaged at some stage and the tailshaft was somewhat slack in the bushing. We could only dress it up and see what result. It does cause some vibration and shudder like a clutch issue, but it is acceptable if not annoying. It served me well going on a number of trips around the south east corner of Queensland, one with a rooftop tent (too much weight up high). Further trips included using a small trailer with the roof top tent mounted on the trailer. Early 2018 I imported air-locking diff centres from Taiwan and had them fitted, along with replacement castor corrected radius arms with new rubber suspension bushes all round, and oil seals to front diff (again). The death wobble had hit me once and worried me to the extent that I had to do something! Various improvements along the way included vented disks and callipers to front, disk brake conversion to rear, dual batteries, cruise control, alloy roof rack, rocker panel sliders, neoprene bushes all round as the rubber ones had chewed out already. My latest upgrade was a replacement clutch and an M18 which I would recommend highly. It makes the car so much more driveable. I modified the air intake ducting to a larger diameter to correct the MAF error when running an M18 on the M13 ECU, and run M18 injectors and M13 IAC motor. After the COVID is under control (hopefully), I want to do a trip to Broome via Alice Springs!!!