Mild Tintop Build

[Tryloff]

Sorry, this whole deal will go slow.



Here it is as i picked it up a few years back. non running but otherwise in decent shape. Not as good as it looks though.

It had a blown out intake manifold gasket keeping it from running. I thought it was the carb, so i rebuilt that too. after i got it running, i did simple things like timing belt, v belts, brake job, flush all fluids, a few u joints, and front and rear wheel bearings. I daily drove it like that for a year or so. Then i decided i needed to go off road. I put a fuel tank skid plate and low profile winch bumper from zuks off road, and a shackle lift from dr z. After that, a buddy and i went to Rush offroad for a long weekend.

I was surprised at how well it did. It was pretty gutless due to the stock everything. even with that, when the trails were dry as long as my line was reasonable, it was pretty much point and shoot. It rained halfway through and the rig was useless after that. with no power to clean the tires out, and no lockers even if they were cleaned out, I got stuck on the easiest of trails. Even when it was dry, I had to go pretty slow on anything rougher than a paved road, and even then it was rough cruising due to blown out shocks and worn out leaf springs. When I got home I tried to get more power out of the 1.3 and realized that it was a no go. I decided I needed more power. I was torn between an ahu TDI swap or a 1.6 tracker. I had both the engine and unmodified harness, and a 400 buck 96 tracker at my disposal. I decided the tracker was the best decision for various reasons after hours of wasted internet reading. Don't get me wrong, I love diesel. My entire income is maintaining and fixing them. Unfortunately, my goals for the rig didn't line up with that power plant.

I pulled the engine from the tracker and mounted it on a stand. The tracker didn't run right, so I pulled the intake, exhaust, and head to investigate. The exhaust manifold was cracked in a dozen or so places as expected, so that went to the scrap pile. I bought a brand new pre owned manifold from hwy 84 on FB. The intake and gasket were in good shape, so no more money spent there. When I pulled the head, I found the running issue.

 

[Tryloff]

The cylinder walls looked to be in decent shape, and I pulled a few main and rod caps to check bearings. I also checked crank thrust but did not write down any of the measurements after I saw they were within spec. I sent the head out for a new valve and seat, as well as decking, cleaning, valve job, and new seals. A couple bucks later and it it ready for install.

I finished up the rebuild with new water pump, timing belt and pulley, and all new seals.

Going to be using the zuksoffroad engine mounts and petroworks adapter to the stock samurai transmission and use a stock samurai clutch with the resurfaced original flywheel. I have a good condition used petroworks aftermarket clutch too, bit dont like how much it chews up the flywheel on the puck side. Since I haven't found anyone who makes a good aftermarket flywheel I try to save the ones I have.
Next up is doing the wiring harness. I pulled the entire harness out of the tracker and cut out everything not engine related. Which left me an organized mess. Then I pulled the sami harness and laid it out to get a rough idea of how I'm going to route things and where to mount the ecm. I still have yet to pull the engine wiring out of the samurai harness, but here they are laid out:

I'll work on that a bit more when I get some time. In the mean time, I got the gauge cluster all fixed up. Unfortunately, my small soldering pen dies halfway through, so instead of waiting like a smart person, the jim beam made me press ahead using my much larger and less accurate soldering gun. I might redo this using the circuit board out of my other cluster with more accuracy and less whiskey.

Speed sensor installed with ground wire added and routed through original hole for the USA switch:

Bottom screw on the right side is the other side of the vss circuit. I just scrapped the green stuff off to make good connection. Then the yellow wire is soldered in to connect that circuit to pin 3 on the cluster plug. The left side is with my pen. Then the pen failed on the right side and on the white wire below. Looks worse every time I look at it. The white wire is bypassing a diode in the CEL circuit.

The other end of the ground wire is connected to the rest of the ground circuit for the cluster. So there's no added plugs for the gauges to work. I forgot to get a picture of that end so I'll edit it in later.

 

[Tryloff]

I pulled it outside the other day and pressure washed it inside and out for the first time in years. And got the engine mounted up to the trans and all of the mounts put back on. It should be ready to stick in next time I have a few hours. I flushed the trans out with diesel. The oil that came out of it looked pretty nasty, but no metal.

Not much other progress done though. Work is picking up so free time is pretty far between now.

 

[Tryloff]

Been a long time since posting. I did get the engine and transmission mounted. I finally got the whole in the firewall enlarged for the new harness grommet and was able to get the harness wrapped in some fabric tape. I haven't made much progress beyond that though. Maybe I'll have time to get the harness ran through the firewall and start plugging things in. Work has been wild lately plus a new kid. Shop time has kinda taken a back burner.

 

[Penetrode Offroad]

Love me a tin top.

 

[Tryloff]

Ye

Love me a tin top.

Ah I'm pretty big on them myself. I hope to have sometime this winter to get this one driving again. I have big plans but just need to get it driving again to stay motivated.

 

[Butch]

Mine's a stocker, and gonna stay that way, but I love the little dude...
Butch

 

[YotaAtieToo]

I've had 3 soft tops and really like taking everything off but the cage in summer. But recently, I've thought it would be neat to have a tin top.

This thing will be a rocket with a 16v

 

[Tryloff]

I've been plucking away at the swap for the first time in years. It's wild how much important stuff I've forgotten. I got the engine mounts adjusted up and backwards to give me cooling fan clearance and oil pan to dif clearance. I need to drill new holes for the trans mount now. I've been routing the swap harness and intake as well. I moved the intake air temp sensor to the intake tube between the maf and throttle body. This way I don't need another tube after the maf.

For the cooling system, I am planning to use the stock radiator paired with a 14 inch puller electric fan. 3 inches thick and moving 2100cfm. I'll make a fan shroud for it. I plan to control the fan with a temp switch and also will have a manual switch incase it gets hot. If this won't keep it cool, I'll switch to an aftermarket aluminum radiator.

 

[bad zuki]

You shouldn't need an electric fan if you keep the clutch fan. I normally put the tracker radiator in there just because some people want them. But a good samurai radiator and shroud will be fine.

Keep up the Thread!

 

[Baldy]

What he said the Sammi radiator / fan combo is more than enough to keep it cool. I drive a superchrged 1.3 Sammi in Arizona where summer temps get to 120° on a regular basis. My Sammi never gets hot even at 18 pounds of boost and running it hard.

 

[Tryloff]

I will double check, but I thought the fan was set too far to the left for the factory shroud to work. If I was going to remake a shroud I was going to use a centered fan to make it easier. It will be easy enough to check though, should only be a one beer job.

 

[Tryloff]

The fan and shroud definitely do not work in there. I even adjusted the engine mounts a bit to get another .5 inch or so but it still wasn't enough. Either the engine needs to go another .5 over or the shroud does. I think I can move the shroud by cutting out where it hits the rad mount bracket and drilling new holes on the pass side. The drivers side will need a strip of metal to mount to. Should be easy.

I don't know why it's so offset. My valve cover is pretty centered. I'm using zuks off road engine mounts. They have a lot of adjustment in them and this is full driver side, full rear and full up.

 

[FleshEater]

Why not ditch it and run an electric fan?

 

[Tryloff]

Why not ditch it and run an electric fan?

Thay was my plan in post 9 before I was told this would work. If it works, it saves me 200 bucks. I don't care either way so I might try to get this working.