Offroad-Express

Hi everyone, I have been visiting this site for a few weeks now as a non-member, thought it was a good time to say g'day.

My name is Alex, I'm 28 and live in Whangarei.

I bought my 91 Escudo 2 days after Christmas with a cooked head gasket. It blew a heater hose and dumped the water and the owner kept driving it home. They started attempting the fix up, rounded out a head stud and then gave up and put it on TM for 13 hundy.





I've got it all fixed up and going well, it's still a ruffy but surprisingly capable for a standard vehicle, and a simple one at that!

Planning on a few modifications soon, spring lift, mud tyres, a/c air compressor, more supportive seats, new bumpers, strut hat flip, blah, blah, blah, so will probably have a few questions for you all...

Went up to Ahipara on the weekend and took it through the two tracks off Gumfields Rd. (Crunchie and whatever the other is called) and through the dunes, looking forward to many more trips around Northland in the near future.

Cheers.

welcome and congrats on your good deal. looks like it will do the job nicely.

Hi Alex, welcome to the site.Great car you have chosen theres is
no shortage of things to do to it and most of the "how to do" is on here,just use the search in the suzuki forum.Im in the Whangarei 4x4 club with my current escudo and have had 6 escudos if there is anything you need to know just give me a yell.
Al

yup nother whangarei'ite, nother Whangarei 4wd club member and yup nother Scud owner ... err tho mines got a little less skin than yours

hope to see you out on the tracks

Cheers guys, I'll be looking to join the local club soon, but figure there's not too much point joining until the vehicle meets the club rules. I have everything else covered, but I'm yet to figure out how to mount the front recovery hook, as there is not too much to mount it to on the front of the Escudos... Any simple ideas would be welcomed.

http://www.offroadexpress.co.nz/Forums/ ... front+hook

Here's one setup i have previously used ...
Similar to CCVC requirements (which are easily avaliable on the net)

91 Vitara Front

It has a 3mm? Box section chassis
Put a 5mm thick steel plate ?140mm long inside the chassis, with 3 nuts welded to it started out as same width as chassis, but notched pieces to fit round stuff so bit thinner now...

5mm Stainless Plate ?140mm Long on the bottom outside the chassis, roughtly 50mm wide or just wider than chassis... 3 holes in it

Standard 10,000lb rated tow hook, used bolts that came with it ?12mm (stamped hi-tensile) and spring washes to bolt through 1st two holes on hook/outside plate/chassis/inside plate/nuts (creating a sandwhich construction)
3rd shorter ?12mm hi-tensile bolt & spring washer bolted through the outside plate/chassis/inside plate/nut

Whole thing mounted a reasonable distance from the end of the chassis. hook facing down with retainer clip.

The inside plate once all set up was fed above the round tube in the end of the chassis and then droped down to the bottom of the chassis rail (to line up with the holes i had drilled in chassis (will make some sense to vitara owners)

Primed where possible with anti-corrosion primer and then sprayed, then painted hook enamal yellow

Note: Oh and i used stainless cos thats what i found that was about the right size in the scrap bin at the engineering place, and didn't realise till i got home. But it seemed like a good idea to use it anyway well it did untill i started breaking 12mm drill bits at $25 each and the drill (which was around the same price haha)...

i basically followed the above description. made plates 6mm instead of 5mm, 140mm x 35mm, and only made two holes for the tow hook instead of three. make sense?

Bingo! Yeah, that will work well, and is pretty minimal on materials/ cost too.

I have seen a few on the web that have welded pieces onto the rails and stuff, but IMO it seems risky in itself as the weld strength is a big unknown factor when dealing with something that you REALLY don't want to fail.

Thanks, I'll try to get it done in the next little while, maybe with photos if its a good looking job.

Big-AL wrote:i basically followed the above description. made plates 6mm instead of 5mm, 140mm x 35mm, and only made two holes for the tow hook instead of three. make sense?

Hi Zooky
Welcome to the site. I basically did the same thing but used 10mm steel on the inside of chassis but I tapped the holes for 12mm bolts and on the under side of chassis I used 60x16 flat with a bend in it so the tow hook sit level its very strong if ya would like some pics e mail me and I will send some. I aslo make steel bumpers for escudos have one for sale now. loppee.taniwha@xtra.co.nz
Cheers Woody

hey mate
after you have done the front hook thing i highly recommend getting a set of headers.I have a coby set on mine and 2inch system right thru.You WILL need the headers or you will find you will have a cracked head before too long,get them before anything else or you may regret it.!.(Think i was following you up Bank st this afternoon about 4.30?)
Al

suzookyman wrote:hey mate
after you have done the front hook thing i highly recommend getting a set of headers.I have a coby set on mine and 2inch system right thru.You WILL need the headers or you will find you will have a cracked head before too long,get them before anything else or you may regret it.!.(Think i was following you up Bank st this afternoon about 4.30?)
Al

Hi Al, yeah it already came with aftermarket extractors fitted, but a bigger diameter thru the rest would make quite a difference as they start to taper off in power noticeably at above 4k RPM.

Yeah, that would have been me, shiny wheels and stuffed paint, easy to spot.

hi Alex,
Welcome to the group. Good to see another Northerner on here, and one who hasn't been tarred into getting a whale. Like the Zuks you cant go wrong with them

Yeah, gotta love 'em. Cheap to buy, cheap to run and go better offroad than most Nissan/Toyota owners think they should....