Starting my mods this weekend, a few questions please!

[kernels]

No, left the cvs on, think it probably would have been a bit easier if I removed them. I undid the top of the strut because I did the strut mount flip at the same time. Probably about 2 hours to the driver's side with strut mount flip, could do it a bit faster next time round, was just taking it easy and double checking everything as I did it between 8pm and 10pm on Wednesday night!

[kernels]

A bit more progress this weekend, getting pretty close to showing the old beast some mud now.

* Fitted the lifted rear springs - trivial, took about 30 minutes to do both sides. Didn't manage to fit the longer commodore springs because I need some new bushes for them first, will pop round to Wairau suspension tomorrow morning and see if they have some I could use.



http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/aarm/shocks_large.jpg

* Removed the A-arm and replaced the bushes, the rubber ones very well worn and very soft, the A-arm had about 5mm of sideways movement in it!!!



http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/aarm/bushes_large.jpg

* Fabricated a 1 Inch A-Arm spacer from some Aluminium I managed to score at work. Came out pretty good, was a mission cutting the 40mm hole through the center though! Only have a cheap little drill press and some crappy holesaws at home. Got it through in the end!



http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/aarm/spacer_large.jpg

I also started bending up some 20mm x 5mm steel to make the frame for my fuel tank bash plate, will be bending the skeleton out of rectangular bar then weld the actual bash plate to it.

Thinking of using 3mm steel plate for the bash plate, any comments ? What are you guys using ?

[kernels]

Got a new set of bushes for the longer VL commodore shocks today, so they will be going in after work if the rain holds off. Pretty good deal, $30 for all the bushes, washers, sleeves and nuts for 2 shocks from Wairau Alignment again.

[Dr_PC]

Got a new set of bushes for the longer VL commodore shocks today, so they will be going in after work if the rain holds off. Pretty good deal, $30 for all the bushes, washers, sleeves and nuts for 2 shocks from Wairau Alignment again.

Sounds like you are getting some good deals, keep it up we are still watching this thread

[Pico42]

Does anybody have any tricks for getting the springs out easy ? Thanks!

I used some tie downs - hooked through the center of spring, looped a coil or two down from both ends. Enough to get them seated while the arm was at full droop, then levered and held them in place with two big screwdrivers while the other half slowly jacked up the suspension arm.

Worked well.

[kernels]

Hi Pico, that sounds like a pretty clever plan. Wish I had thought of that, use the car to compress the springs for you then just lock them in the compressed position. Ill use that on next time!

Update: I found that the four bolts that bolt the A-Arm to the rear axle have metric fine thread, so couldn't just pick up some bolts from any old supplier. I called around a bit and found "The Bolt Shop" on Archers road in Glenfield, they have a huge variety on the shelf and really good prices too. They are also open on Saturday mornings which is handy when your doing this kind of stuff.

The original bolts for the A-Arm are M10 * 30mm long * 1.25mm thread pitch. You want to buy some bolts that are 30mm + your lift amount long. (Assuming your spacer is the same width as the amount you lifted the rear) I got some 50mm and some 60mm ones as they did not have any 55mm ones. Paid around $3.00 each which I didn't think was too bad considering I only wanted four bolts and they are 8.8 High Tensile.

Will post another update sometime over the weekend when I've fitted the A-Arm spacer and the new shocks, will also post some pics of the improved down-travel of the rear suspension.

Cheers
Hein

[kernels]

Made a little bit more progress this past weekend, nothing major, but got the longer shocks and the a-arm spacer in finally.

These first two pics show the maximum down travel of the rear suspension with the standard shocks and with the VL commodore rear shocks. The springs are still completely captive with the new shocks, but they are about 5mm away from touching the top seat. Is this ever an issue for certification / warrants ?


http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/new_shocks/downtravel_before_large.jpg


http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/new_shocks/downtravel_after_large.jpg

One thing that you need to remember with the longer shocks is to fit a longer diff-breather tube, mine popped off pretty quickly. The brake lines look fine though.

This is a reasonable pic of the A-Arm spacer that I fabricated and installed with the longer bolts I got last week. For three of the bolts I used the 60mm bolts as the thread goes right through, for the last one I had to use the 50mm bolt because the 60mm bolt was bottoming out. Was pretty nighmarish lining up the four bolts and getting them all started in the thread. Might be a better idea next time to install the four bolts for the ball-joint and then install the two big bolts that hold the A-arm to the chassis.


http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/new_shocks/a_arm_spacer_large.jpg

And just for those people who tell you that the best place for a suzuki owner to put a high lift jack is "in the workshop" - it did a great job here.


http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/new_shocks/hi_lift_large.jpg

If I have enough time and money over the coming weekend I will head over to "Steel North Shore" and pick up some steel plate and bar to start bending and welding up the bash guards for the bottom. Also would like to get round to 4WD bits and get a set of 5 nice new white 15x8 -19 rims.

Cheers
Hein

[lincooln]

looking good.

Your progress is coming along way quicker than mine

man I miss driving mine, haven't been off road since queens birthday

Keep up the good work

[kernels]

Picked up some rubber material that seems like it would be great for flares today. I got this stuff from Para Rubber on the shore, it's 4.5mm thick and 100mm wide and I got 5m of it. It seemed like a good compromise between being stiff yet flexible.


http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/flares/rubber_large.jpg

It was about $12 per meter, so not super cheap, but also not too bad if I can do the whole car for $50

The other good thing is that it cuts pretty easily with a decent pair of scissors, so should be pretty easy to cut and shape as required.

[niblik]

i know a chap that used some commodore shocks in his lux cos they had extra travel but never ended up standin up to the abuse the offroad conditions subjected them to.. so hence they never lasted too long.

just somethin to keep an eye out on..

[kernels]

i know a chap that used some commodore shocks in his lux cos they had extra travel but never ended up standin up to the abuse the offroad conditions subjected them to.. so hence they never lasted too long.

just somethin to keep an eye out on..

Thanks for that, will definitely keep an eye on them! What shocks did your friend end up switching to?

[kernels]

Well, the weather wasn't quite as bad as advertised this weekend, so I got a little bit more done. I was hoping to finish replacing the plastic cover on the rear door so that I could fabricate some mounts for the hi-lift jack and spade, didn't get it quite finished though.

First things first ... I had to open up all the doors and waterproof them again, with the amount of rain we've had I've got a substantial amount of water coming in. This is because I took the doors apart when I first got the Vit to clean out all the sand inside them and never replaced the butyl sealant when I put the plastic shields back on. This time I cut out some new plastic bits and also put some butyl sealant on.


http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/rear_door/door_large.jpg

I then started making the replacement rear door card, I decided to make it out of ACM (Aluminium composite material) I got some on Trademe ages ago and it's great stuff to use. It's light, strong and cuts easily with a jigsaw!


http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/rear_door/door_card_1_large.jpg


http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/rear_door/door_card_2_large.jpg


http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/rear_door/hilift_mount_large.jpg

Also went for the first proper drive tonight since doing the lift and fitting the new tyres. Handling is fine, a bit bumpy with the stiffer springs, but not too bad. The brakes work fine too and the rear end is much quieter with the new bushes!

Hein

[De-Ranged]

Just a wee tip watch the bolts on your "A" arm spacer we had a few drama's on Wheemsy's escudo they kept coming undone till we replaced them with grade 12 caps and torqued them down with loctite

you planing on a body lift ?? not something I'm normally into but worked well on his truck allowed us to lift the tank up between the rails and improve the depature angle alot

Cheers Reece

[kernels]

Hi Reece,

Thanks for the heads-up, will check those bolts regularly. I did use some spring washers, so hopefully they will stay in place.

Not too sure about the body-lift yet, weighing up the pros and cons. I've gone to a lot of trouble to increase my track width to make it more stable, adding height for little reason doesn't sound like a good idea. Getting that damn fuel tank out of the way is a pretty good reason though.

Cheers
Hein

[kernels]

Finally a bit more progress over the last week or so, it's been slow going lately, too busy and now the garden is starting to take over also

Anyway, got a nice shiny new set of 15x8 (-19) rims fitted on Friday, unfortunately they are so white they make the rest of the car look even dirtier, but they are nice and wide!


http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/tool_mnt/tonka_large.jpg

Also finally managed to get that rear door hi-lift holder finished and installed, came out looking pretty good. The aluminium panels just happened to be anodised dark blue which was pretty lucky.


http://www.andante.co.nz/projects/vitara/pics/tool_mnt/rear_door_large.jpg

Next thing on the list is definitely the bash guards and recovery hooks. Hopefully it will see some mud this coming weekend!