Suzuki Samurai restoration project

Next few pictures might not be in exact order but it won't reply matter. The body was up on blocks which made it tricky to get out of the shed. Many weekends were spent trying to think through how to get it out. While that was being thought through work was still being done!

Lovely clean gearbox:)



Gearbox off.



Transfer box off too.



Then myself and a friend/boardsie worked at taking the shocks off. Bonus points of you recognise him,



Then myself and (mostly) the same boards above come up with an engineering solution to get the body out of the shed. We disassembled the engine crane and then lowered the body onto the base trolly bit. It was a bit touch and go lowering it onto the trolly for a while with the jacks but the 4 of us there managed to keep it under control.

Here it is lowered onto the trolly



And another.

Time for some more updates!

It was finally time to pull the body out. This is the setup that was used;

Rope tied to the trolly




Some sort of 166/pulley setup




On it's way out





Finally the shed is empty



The amount of dirt that fell off the car was unreal.




Chassis moved back into the shed.



Floor washed and chassis back in. quadrifoglio verde ruining the photo



Axle stands actually under axles :eek: That's not a common sight since victorian times



Brake fluid was drained, really rotten looking. Probably there 10 years at least.



That's you fully up to date on the progress so far! The plan for next weekend is to;

Take the brakes off.

Then check the condition of the differentials, I'm a bit worried about the amount of "slop" in them. I'll check the manual and if it's within the allowed service tolerance I'll leave them alone. If they are outside the allowed limit then I'll have a headache! If all is good I'll drain and replace the diff oil in the front and rear.

Next on the list if I get that far is to dismantle the suspension.

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

Exciting times and very ballsy progress!

Got sad when I seen the 166 and all the perseverance that went into it, then got really sad when I seen the red MR2, because MR2...

The red mr2 was bought with a broken smt gearbox. It was bought by my dad to break and sad as it is it has gone on to save many mr2s in the country. Then the green mr2 was bought with a knocking bottom end. The engine from the red car went into the green one to save it. Sadly the engine from the red car is burning a lot of oil so the green car isnt saved yet. The engine runs great though. Not sure how the project will end but that red car wasn't nice enough to be worth saving.

As for the 166. That was sad alright especially with the unbelievable amount of work that went into it. It's donated a lot of its parts to my current 166 though so in a way it lives on too.

I agree that it is a sad end for them but both have kept at least 1 other car on the road so it's worth it really

Are you fvcking joking me! The fvcking post didn't post!!!! And that was after photobucket sh1t all over itself!

I'm not an angry man but that has tipped me over the edge!!! I'll try post it again tomorrow.

Here's what arrived. I can't put into words how excited I am to be getting new shiny bits and to be very close to the stage of putting it back together.

GvidoR wrote: »

Nice advertisement. :P

I swear they're not paying me :pac:

I'm going to spend about €700 on parts over the next week (probably won't go anywhere near as far as I expect :rolleyes:) but things should really start to happen!

Hello everyone! Just blowing the dust off this thread. This project has got a bit neglected for the last couple of months but I've just ordered a few bits! My aim is to have the chassis rolling again by the end of next month.

If the stuff gets delivered during the week I might take next Friday off to get started back into it

Bigus wrote: »

I bet you're glad you didn't strip the engine now unnecessarily on top of everything else.

I'll be glad as long as it doesn't start telling knock knock jokes within the first 1000 miles :pac:

Here's what has arrived so far. Hopefully the chassis will be back rolling again in the next couple of weeks. I still have to get the dampers and figure out what I'm going to do with the steering linkage. At the moment all of the ball joints are tight and the boots are intact so technically they are fine... But at the same time I would like all new parts... What do you think I should do?

My plan for this evening is to have a good read of the manual and see what exactly I need to do with the axles.

YbFocus wrote: »

I'd say go the whole hog, especially if it was sitting up.
They would probably deteriorate rapidly once you have it on the road!

I think you might be right. I think is about 2005 someone put a lot of work into it. I think that's when the springs axles and brakes were painted, the clutch is also dated 2005 and I think the belt was done then too. I suspect the steering linkage might date from then.

Just realised I forgot to buy Jizer and black paint :rolleyes:. Back to Auto Care in the morning I suppose!

YbFocus wrote: »

Hey you're progressing far better than me
Fair play man I'm enjoying following this thread

Just set your alarm for early in the morning and start swinging spanners at that E36!!

Picture as promised! Not as many as I thought though, stupid new phone and camera did weirdness. Anyway.

Just as a reminder, here's the body as it stands.



The chassis is still in the shed, completely untouched since the last picture you saw of it Thankfully things are happening again



Mostly there is surface rust on the chassis, The plan is to remove all of the surface rust to prevent it from developing into something serious. I used a cup brush on the angle grinder to remove it.

Before:



During:






After of a different section:



I used a regular old hand wire brush to get into all the little areas, The arms are hanging off me this morning :pac:

After finishing cleaning off the top side I turned the chassis over to do the underside too. It's mad how light the chassis is! it can comfortably be picked up by 2 people.



During the process this little rust hole was uncovered. I suspect there was a manufacturing defect here from day one, the weld wasn't fully completed. I've yet to decide how the repair will be done.



I also did a spot of masking in preparation for painting.



The plan for today now is to clean the shed and the chassis so its as close as possible to a dust free environment for painting. The plan is to get the chassis in primer today.