New Jimny project - a few questions!

The weather was much better this weekend - so got quite a lot done. Unfortunately, by the time it occurred to me to take photos it was too dark for most of them to come out!

I moved the washer bottle to this side:


In order to fit a pair of batteries on this side:


I thought the batteries fitted quite neatly in that space. I had originally wanted to put them in the back - but was surprised how little space there was.

Other progress this weekend was to make a new transmission tunnel to accommodate the twin transfer levers. This is fairly crude - just folded Aluminium, riveted in place - but it will keep most of the water out of the cab hopefully.

I found that the Diff Lock actuator assembly in the front Axle was Fubar! The aluminium casting had cracked in several places. I made a new mounting plate which bolts to the axle and cobbled a rotary pneumatic actuator to it which seems to work nicely.

If any of you need the layout of the adaptor plate - I have it on the CAD. It made drilling the multitude of holes in precisely the right places easy. I measured the old bracket using a 3D probe in the mill so the hole centres are spot on.

Apart from making all the external cage and winch mounts, all I have to do now is make a new exhaust back box (and fit it) and connect the handbrake plus speedo adaptor. My plan for the speedo is just to drill a load of holes in the X-Brake disk and mount the sensor sufficiently close to use the disk as an encoder.

It struck me that this might be useful to other people - so I could get the mountings laser cut in at the outset? To that end, what is the most common tyre size for twin transfer conversions? i.e. how many holes do I need to cut in the disk for it to have wider use than me with funny diff ratios and 37" tyres!

Si

kirkynut wrote: So you're not entering this year's Challenger in it then Simon!?!

Kirkynut

All depends on when this is finished! I was thinking about entering the Challenger sponsored event at MudMonsters site. Entering their series seems to be fated to fail - the previous truck has never lasted more than a few minutes even though it was faultless at other events. I have a suspicion it's because they always make me competitor number 13!

Si

This was a weekend of much work and many mods to my Jimny. I had originally planned to take it to Slindon Off Road for a trial run on Sunday - but it was just not quite ready. Next month (March 2012) for definite!

First was fitting one of those X-Brake thingies . I'd had one fitted to the SJ Transfer box in my Vitara for a while but connecting it in to the Jimny presents a couple of different problems.

First, how to adapt the handbrake lever. The simplest I could see was to drill a couple of holes in the X-Brake bracket (supplied) and bolt these directly to the underside of the transmission tunnel. Conveniently there are two M8 studs, 25mm apart in the right place to bolt the bracket.



And fitted to the vehicle



Next there is the problem of the electronic speedo pickup. I had calculated that for the ratio and size of tyres I needed a pickup wheel / gear 33 Teeth (for 35").
I mounted the pickup to the X-Brake back plate using an M6x50 bolt and use a pair of lock nuts to set the position of the sensor.



Then drilled 33 holes in the disk. I'm lucky enough to have a CNC Mill which has a macro for circular bolt patterns - but it would be just as possible to mark out with dividers.

It seems to work OK. I set the sensor about 1mm from the surface of the disk.

I fitted my seats:


And a polycarbonate 'sun roof'


At some point I'll bend the edges of the polycarbonate to form it to the contours of the body a little better. As it is, with a flat sheet, it seems waterproof.

Here's a better photo of the engine bay, now wired with the twin batteries & split charge.


View of the rear showing my new Stainless exhaust (£40 on eBay). I have set LED Trailer lights into the plastic light housings which originally only had fog & reverse. Vehicles like this have the indicators in the bumper because the high level lights are obscured by the spare wheel when the door is open. Since I'll have no spare, all the light functions can live in the same place. I've put the orange indicator behind the clear panels originally for the reverse lights and will add a couple of X-Lite Azimuths for reversing.


Lastly, this is now all that remains on my To Do list. OK, some of the items will take a few days, but there's not much stopping it off roading.


Si

if i get some time ill have to get some photos of my x handbrake jimny setup, the speedo pickup is mounted to the sj mouting brackets and the pickup ring looks laser cut and is pressed onto the rear prop flange

looking good Simon
are you taking it to the show at Stafford?