Plz Help SJ body lift advice

[Richie]

Hi all im new to the forum
I bought my first SJ410 to try some off roading 2 months ago and loved it!!
Ever since ive spent all my spare time and money on moding it
It has a 2 inch shackle lift front and rear and a snorkle apart from that it was standard.
Just bought some vitara fat boy alloys and new 31 inch mud tyres which look sweet if only i could turn more than a quarter of a turn before they hit on the arch!!
Which brings me to my next point, i need to raise it by a couple inches.
I went through every option-
SOA - alot of work and needed to mod to many things
RUF with bedford rears - want to coil spring it eventually
AAL - hurd this makes the ride really hard + longer hoses etc etc

So i decided on a 2 inch body lift, the only thing i could really find on this forum about it was that a couple of guys did it in a hour from start to finish and it was really easy.

Lets just say i started it 4 days ago and im not even half way through
As far as i can see there is 10 nuts or bolts that hold the shell to the chassis.
2 bolts at front = np
2 bolts at rear = np
4 nuts under the chassis behind the front seats, the inside 2 i ground the heads off the studs and knocked them through. But the outside ones u can not see the tops of the studs. The only way i can see how to do this is to cut 2 massive holes in the panels inside the car to get to the heads of the thread as it sits between the inner wheel arch and those panels?? Ive allready cut a hole in the inner arch to see it and i cant get to the head lol guess i need to weld that up soon!

Also the 2 studs where the drivers and passengers feet would be, i can not for the life of me see where these go to inside the car. Have i got to cut the floor open here aswell and grind them off as i think its double skined??

Any help really appreciated as me trucks starting to look like frankenstein!!
Thx Rich

[ScottieJ]

What kit have you bought? With a properly produced kit there should be no need to cut out and remove any body mounting bolts????? The outer body mounts are enclosed so to replace them you would need to cut out quite a bit to get to and then weld it back up! That's actually the most complicated section of the entire body structure. I hope the kit didn't cost that much because its probably going to be more hassle than its worth to fit. The proper kits like the bits4vits one comes with bolt on extensions so it is 100% bolt on with no cutting involved.

How much clearance do you actually need at the front for the tyres? have you folded over the seam on the bulkhead? You could also just redrill the perches and spring plates to move the axle 20-30mm forwards.

I will be honest I'm not a fan of body lifts and would much rather do something else to get the tyres to clear. As you can weld I would just cut the bulkhead back where the tyres catch until they no longer catch and plate it back up.

[Richie]

Thx for reply, Its a bit of 2 inch tube 4 mm thick that ive cut into 10 x 2 inch blocks and i also bought 10 x longers m10 bolts and large washers.
Yea ive flattened the seams and welded plates alittle bit further back, well when i say i can weld... it looks more like a bird has shat all up my inner arch!! But atleast its on lol. The clearance i need is more on the top of the wheel arch so my guess was to go up. Im alittle to committed to give up now, if u saw my workshop u would understand lol. Unfortunatly i need to find a way to get it finished.

Do you think i could extend the studs and do it that way?

Also when the shell is raised there will be about 3 bits of each side of the chassis that are not supporting the shell, they were not bolted on there before hand the shell just used to rest on them. Will it matter if i only support the shell on the origional 10 mounts and leave the other ones with a 2 inch gap?

[ScottieJ]

What about welding captive nuts into the lift blocks so that they bolt to the existing body mounts and then bolting them through the chassis mounts? Like wolly did here

http://www.suzukiclubuk.co.uk/diy/19-bo ... -body-lift

I've never known anyone having any issues by not supporting those extra points.

[ferris]

This is a pretty good write up for a home made body lift..... http://www.nitromax.nl/SAMBODYLIFT.HTM