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Lame small tire build

SKULLYOTA

SKULLYOTA

NOOB
Joined
Jun 30, 2023
Member Number
6564
Messages
228
Haven't done a build thread in awhile, this will be a pretty lame one:grinpimp:


After building a $$$$ diesel landcruiser and never wheeling it I decided to sell it to pay off some debt and build a cheaper 4x4. At least it will be a cheap shitbox sitting around not getting used instead of an expensive one

Had a tintop about 10-12yrs ago when I was poor(er)....I think I put 4.57 tracker R&P's in it, rears up front, rancho rears, 31's some homemade bumpers, etc
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Sold it around 2014 i want to say.

Flash forward to 2023, I pick up this in Portland:

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Main selling points were that it had a title in the seller's name (seems rare in Oregon) no rust, and ran and drove mostly. Came with a super cheap spring over that used stock shocks on top of the stock spring plates, stock springs, really badly welded perches on top of the axle, but also had a Trail Tough cross over steering kit. Needed a lot of work!

Paint scheme is straight from the cover of a Calmini catalog:

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After gutting pounds of useless wiring, a really old Blaupunkt German cassette player, cleaning up a bunch of battery acid rust and getting it registered, I discovered even more sh1t wrong with it after trying to drive it around some. both shifters felt like they were just floating around and the trans made some nasty noises in third....my test drive in PDX only got up to second gear since I bought this in a supposedly bad part of town and wanted to just get it on the uhaul and get the F out of Portland

Also pulled the seat covers to find these beauties bolted to the stock Suzuki seat rails :grinpimp::grinpimp: must be out of an 80's grandma car?

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Pulled out my trusty outside dishwasher (everyone has one right?) to clean up the trans and t-case parts:


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Rebuilt the trans and t-cases, fixed the fawked up shifters and added some 4.16's to the tcase when Low Range had them on sale for less than $300 with free shipping:smokin:


Also dug out an SJ410 grille I'd been saving for years in case I got another sammy. It is a made in India one and the fit and finish is so bad that the cable hood release mechanism won't fit between it and the radiator so I also put some heep-style hood latches on

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Big dumb air filter was dug out of the junk i never throw away and ghetto fabbed on since the original airbox was also totally mangled and broken.
 
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Did the usual cheap parts store extended brake line replacements from the old FAQ, Trail Tough nicely informed me that their high steer kit uses Ford Courier tie rod ends so I replaced them with cheap Rock Auto stuff. Welded shock mounts to the axles and used some cheep blue body Monroe shocks all around. Can' remember what shocks I bought but if another poor basterd needs the numbers I can get them...

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The Courier/Mazda rod ends have the same taper as suzuki stuff and i think its a 16mm threaded shaft. I have the FJ80 reamer and in the future I might re-ream everything and upgrade to FJ80 ends. Maybe.




Kids got me a winch mount plate for fathers day, the sammy came with a HF 5k utv winch that I threw on and also replaced the dry rotted 235/75-15 BFGs with the cheapest mud tires I could find on eBay (same size). Looking back I shoulda upped to 30-9.50's

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At some point I also re-did the camo to my wife's disappointment

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No axle gear plans yet. Seems like the good old days of finding tracker front diffs for cheap are long gone.

selling off the $$$$ wheeler was to pay off debt and prepare for taking a big pay cut/lower paying job that will allow me to be home way more. Hence getting back to the OG samurai guy cheapness roots. No ghetto fab on this build, just useable mods done on a budget.

Besides in Oregon i can just collect cans too :laughing:
10¢ at a time baby
 
:smokin:

Gotta love $6 tre's :laughing:

I was telling someone about og samurai guys being cheap, and I don't think guys today understand how low budget they were.

Plans for axle gears? The 4.16 gears are sweet for trail riding, they should have came with them stock :laughing:
 
SKULLYOTA said:
Pulled out my trusty outside dishwasher (everyone has one right?) to clean up the trans and t-case parts:
Click to expand...
I think I threw away my old dishwasher when I bought our house… why didn’t I think of this. How well does it clean parts?
 
fl0w3n said:
I think I threw away my old dishwasher when I bought our house… why didn’t I think of this. How well does it clean parts?
Click to expand...

Not bad, better than I woulda thought before I tried it. If parts are really nasty, I pretty much scrape/wipe/wire brush stuff the old fashioned way and then use the dishwasher as more of a hot rinse. I run a hose off of my washing machine hot water spigot, run it out of the house to the $50 craigslist dishwasher and just use a normal detergent puck.

Use the heavy pots and pans cycle of course :dustin:

I've done this sammy trans and t-case, some toy mini truck cases, and the bus tranny from my old baja bug this way.
 
SKULLYOTA said:
No axle gear plans yet. Seems like the good old days of finding tracker front diffs for cheap are long gone.

selling off the $$$$ wheeler was to pay off debt and prepare for taking a big pay cut/lower paying job that will allow me to be home way more. Hence getting back to the OG samurai guy cheapness roots. No ghetto fab on this build, just useable mods done on a budget.

Besides in Oregon i can just collect cans too :laughing:
10¢ at a time baby
Click to expand...
I feel this! recently parted out my big wheeler since it sat 85% of the year with too much money tied up in it.

I am also looking to end up with a Pay cut so I can spend my time closer to home. I tried to find a samurai but ended up with a YJ. Kinda wish I had held out for a sami.
 
Those seats are first gen Ranger bronco2 units, and damn, do they look mint!

The pic with the four-door mall mobile is comical since at one time the jeep was about the size of a samurai.
 
Thatg9659 said:
Those seats are first gen Ranger bronco2 units, and damn, do they look mint!

The pic with the four-door mall mobile is comical since at one time the jeep was about the size of a samurai.
Click to expand...

The guy with the big JK was a super nice dude, pretty nice jeep (single guy no kids money LOL) he had one of the first warn winch/compressor combos i'd ever seen. I was using it to air up at the end of that trail.
 
atoz2 said:
I feel this! recently parted out my big wheeler since it sat 85% of the year with too much money tied up in it.

I am also looking to end up with a Pay cut so I can spend my time closer to home. I tried to find a samurai but ended up with a YJ. Kinda wish I had held out for a sami.
Click to expand...

Sammys are so expensive and hard to find now. At the time I felt I overpaid for this one considering how much work it's needed, but now i feel pretty good about it considering how much $$$ anything else I've seen lately is.
 
Not sure where in the chronology this falls but over the summer a co-worker scored a 1992 1.3L Swift at an estate sale for $100. Amazingly it ran and drove so I immediately convinced him that he needed to double his money and sell it to me :laughing:

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If I didn't have a DD already I woulda registered this thing and fixed some of the small issues it had. I briefly considered carefully stripping the harness and reusing the EFI on mine but that seemed like more trouble than it was worth. I just about made my money back selling the tires/wheels, ECU and some other small things. Pulled the motor and stashed it in case mine blows up... or build it for turbo/propane some day. Also swapped the seats into mine since they were in really good shape and didn't look like my grandma's couch. Scrapped what was left for about $13
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Had to get creative moving the engine on a used stand from the garage to the shed out back, old engine hoist + scrap metal +:beer:=

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Damn, you should have swapped the efi, the zuk tbi is so easy to wire up. If 19 yo me could do it the day before a memorial day trip, you can definitely do it :flipoff2:

I keep saying I want the carb for simplicity, but it's been less than reliable :homer:
 
I would have needed a Sammy efi manifold for sure, and probably the efi samurai distributor too? Neither of which I had and didn’t want to pay the ridiculous eBay prices for. I guess I could have made a TBI adapter but oh well. I ended up with a running spare motor for about $50.

At some point I also added power steering with a kick box, RockAuto TC pump, used aluminum pulley, used Yota reservoir from my stash and homemade brackets.

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I even had the metric adapters (some of them) and then just added a surplus center hydraulic hose. Later while cleaning out the garage I found a filter setup and slapped it on the return
 
At some point I pulled the rear end to rebuild the brakes and reweld the perches. Pinion angle on the rear was way off, pinion was over center on the ujoint. Perches looked like they were cut from an old receiver tube. Wonder if the front pinion bearing ever got oil.
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Oh yeah also built a oVeRLaNdEr rear bumper and swing out.
 
Decided to sell off some stuff to fund a selectable locker for the rear end while it was out, ordered a TRE4x4 Elocker. The box that arrived was an Elocker box, but contained an air locker instead :confused:

The TRE4x4 USA rep was kind enough to have them send me the associated compressor so I could make it all work.


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Seemed like it was reasonably good quality and the wiring harness was pretty much plug and play. Seems to be working so far. It’ll be nice to have OBA too
 
I have a carb that seemed to run good when I pulled it off. PO said it’s a Toyota 3K carb, but I can’t tell.

All it needs is cleaned.
 
Tydes took care of me with a 32/36 Weber so I’m good for now. I’ve had webers on another Sammy, a hilux, Landcruiser and a Baja bug so I’m pretty comfortable working on them.
 
An official Weber is probably better than what I have. I didn’t see a brand so it’s probably an Amazon carb.
 
Yeah Webers aren't the greatest carb for offroad, but they're great for tunability and working on yourself. I don't know if i should be kicking myself for not stripping the EFI out of the swift, but I really like the simplicity of a carburetor. I shoulda at least saved the throttle body, it probably could have been used with a microsquirt down the road.

Then i see stuff like this on ebay and wish it was about 1/3 the price:

Holley Pro-Jection Single Barrel Fuel Injection System NOS  | eBay


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That Holley TBI is a partial kit you'll still need to locate the ECU, fuel pump and wiring harness.
I've tried every carb available for the Sammy, they all sucked off-road. None of them could keep the engine running at angles. My inexpensive solution was converting to propane. Runs at any angle even upside down, don't ask how I know that. After running LPG for a few years I'll never go back to gasoline in an off-road rig.
 
I was thinking a guy could pair that eBay TBI with a DIY mega/micro squirt or something.
 
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