Hi from Pakistan... (And a few questions)

[Potohar]

Phew twiss

[dan_2k_uk]

dont worry

if you can find one with all of those problems I will buy it for you!

rust is your main enemy. If the body is solid the rest of it is normally easy to fix. (presuming parts are readily available in Pakistan)

obviously try get the best you can afford but if all else fails the whole thing is like a giant mecano set!

Dan

[twiss]

Yeah I don't mean to make it sound like they are un-reliable, but some of those signs will occur if the SJ has been abused in the past... Especially the leaking diffs.

All of that stuff is really easy to fix anyway, I agree with Dan though.... rust is the main problem, and everything else you can fix with a bag of spanners and a hammer

[Potohar]

Parts availability is absolutely no problem, you can find parts for the locally available budget suzuki vehicles in absolutely every corner of the country.

I dunno if I should say it here on this forum, but the SJ is absolutely hated here in Pakistan!! Why? because people think of it as a useless DOMESTIC car, anyone complaining about the horrible ride has NEVER bothered driving it off-road. We somehow have the notion that once you're off-road, bigger (read Land Cruisers, Land Rovers, Nissans etc.) is ALWAYS better... Well and

The good thing out of this though, is that hopefully I won't encounter any mechanical problems in an SJ that I buy, the sort that comes from the car taking a good beating off the road. Almost all issues will be the result of neglect and improper maintenance routines. Hopefully these are easier to fix??

[twiss]

Most of the things that I end up breaking are relatively easy to fix...

Wheel bearings, kingpin bearings, propshaft UJs...

... and my SJ takes a bit of a beating

I'm by no means a mechanic (work in IT) but I'm very confident about doing stuff on the truck, it's just so easy on SJs!

even changing stuff like a clutch or a gearbox is really easy

... and it seems like people over there have got the wrong idea... they're rubbish on road and great off road!!!

[Edweird]

SJ's don't stand for any nonsense. You can abuse them all you like and not much'll go wrong. I demolished an old lady's front garden and all I did was bend my bull bar and break a side repeater and a hub cap. Cosmetic stuff.

[Potohar]

Hi all,

Thinking and reading about the "basic" set of mods I talked about earlier, here is what I think should be enough for me for the time being:

1) bigger A/T (or M/T?) tires,
2) Spring-Over-Axle conversion,
3) And eventually, a "budget" diff lock like the PowerTrax Lockright.

What do you gentlemen think about this? Do we need extended shocks for SpOA conversion or the stock ones can be made to fit, and if yes then how to do it? Also, any comments on the Lockright thing? I have read only good things about this one, sadly they don't make it for the SJ410 any more, hopefully it could be available from parts warehouse type sellers. Can't even think about getting those remote lockers like the ARBs etc.

[ScottieJ]

Do you know what size tyres you want to run yet?

Personally I would get the tyres and then only lift it as much as you need for them, if done right you only really need 2" lift for some 31s, spoa is more like 4-5" lift and ideally suited to 33" tyres in my opinion. Even then spoa can be too high for the width of 410 axles and it can get a bit 'tippy' on side slopes so you need to widen the track to make it more stable.

What sort of offroading will you be doing? Mud, hills, rock crawling etc. Will the sj be used on the road a lot as well? If its not going to be seeing much tarmac then you could.always weld the rear diff so its permanently locked.

[Potohar]

Not sure about the tire size. But what you've said makes sense. I'll be around mostly hills and some mud most probably. And it will be a daily runner too so welded diff is out of the equation. What could be the options for widening the track? Two that I've seen are wheel spacers and 413/Sammy (?) axles. The axle replacement would come with a longer to-do list though...

Can't help it if I sound noob+dumb, that's because I am noob+dumb when it comes to making cars (or other machines) run the way I want to

[ScottieJ]

yeah basically wheel spacers, some wheels with a big offset or sammy axles are the 3 ways to widen your track, swapping to sammy axles is quite easy if you can weld all you really need to do is move the spring perches in.

You will be amazed at what a stock sj will actually do, they are very capable with just some mud tyres, perhaps it might be worth you thinking about getting something a little bit more aggresive than some all terrains like some maxxis buckshot or bighorns, kuhmo KL71s or BFGoodrich M/Ts they are a lot better in the mud and still perform pretty well on road