My Chiffon Ivory JB74 SZ5 - blog/mods/build thread

300bhpton wrote:

Drool....red bits of shiny new metal...looks great and a little bit better position further up the car.

Bit of an impulse buy. But these turned up from Jimnybits today.

Super speedy service. I was really wanting to get the transfer case skid plate and the radiums arm chassis end protectors. But both were out of stock. And the tree sliders sorted of beckoned to me!



They arrived in two huge boxes and very well packaged. Instructions are basic, but sufficient.

A couple of the bungs hadn't been removed. But were easy enough to sort.



Fitting is straight forward, if a little fiddly. There are 3 separate brackets to attach to the vehicle. The front and rear go on the bottom of the body mounts. Then a bracket in the middle. You then attach the slider to the brackets and align it all up before tightening all the bolts down.

Found it easier to fit the front and rear brackets as per the instructions to the vehicle. But to then mount the middle bracket to the slider and usher the entire thing up and then locate the middle bracket on the vehicle. And then attach the ends of the slider to the other brackets.

All finished.




Reckon they look pretty smart. Although they do obviously hang a little lower than the stock sill does. This isn't like adding sliders to a Defender 90, where the slider replaces the sill panel. These hang underneath.

You also notice they are there getting in and out, as they make it wider, so you are likely to rub the back of your calf on them as you ingress and egress from the vehicle.

So my Jimny is in with the dealer still about the transfer box. They have had it since Monday morning.

I've had a bit of an update, but I'll wait to update this thread until we have an agreed way forward. Have been given a brand new Ignis as a curtesy car. Probably not a bad car, but not my sort of thing.

Interestingly, I'd say it has more road noise and is less refined than the Jimny however!

In the meantime I've been keeping myself occupied with a couple of my other 4x4's

300bhpton wrote: So my Jimny is in with the dealer still about the transfer box. They have had it since Monday morning.

I've had a bit of an update, but I'll wait to update this thread until we have an agreed way forward. Have been given a brand new Ignis as a curtesy car. Probably not a bad car, but not my sort of thing.

Interestingly, I'd say it has more road noise and is less refined than the Jimny however!

In the meantime I've been keeping myself occupied with a couple of my other 4x4's

I feel your pain. Dealer has had mine for 2 weeks and expected to have it for at least another 2 while they wait on parts from Japan to fix an issue they caused when replacing TC parts.

crash486 JB74W

300bhpton wrote:

Lambert wrote: Sorry but I don't get why you have done this, I understand that it improves the approach angle that I get but why the bull bar on the top, what are you anticipating is going to hit you that you need that level of frontal protection? Also just out of curiosity, what have your insurance company said about having that on the front of your car? If you hit a pedestrian at any kind of speed with that you are going to inflict life changing damage.

I don’t really understand why you are so negative. Is it not meant to be about accepting that people like different things. And critically that this isn’t your vehicle.

As for insurance. Loads of vehicles have Hd bumpers and like fitted. Many as factory items and as if evident by the vehicles at Westcost Off Road, as aftermarket market additions.

That's turned out very nicely 300! The Iron Man bumper looks like a really well engineered solid piece of kit, I think you made the right call going for that opposed to the ARB bumper.

I see both sides of the argument, you're absolutely right about older vehicles and new commercial vehicles being equally as dangerous. However I also appreciate that the Jim is a modern passenger car vehicle which has been safety tested and approved for use in Europe. The Jim has been built in the last year and you've changed the design intent with an aftermarket accessory. At the end of the day mate it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, it looks superb and providing your insurer has been notified and is happy that's all that matters!! As said previously I've got family in AUS, the rules out there are slightly different with regard to bull bars. Their main use on SUV's & 4x4's is to protect the vehicle and passengers from kangaroos jumping out onto the fast open highways. Hence the name Roo bars! Us brits might encounter the odd squirrel or badger.... :lol:

Awesome progress on the Jim so far, excited to see what you've got in store for us next.

Lots of deer round this way, although I hope very much not to hit one. Roe and Muntjac. The LED headlights have well served their purpose for this several times.

Transfer Box Update 2:

So the Jimny is still in with the dealership. They have stripped the transfer box down and while unable to confirm any issues, decided they wanted to replace some parts. Sadly these are all on backorder as 5-6 weeks. So the dealer has decided to source a new replacement transfer box instead, which should be here early/middle of next week.

Fortunately this isn't really impacting me too much at the moment. So I can survive with the curtesy Ignis for a bit. Hopefully will have good news and reports later next week when I get the Jimny back.

What are the defective parts do you know?

Lambert wrote: What are the defective parts do you know?

They weren't really very specific. They said they couldn't see anything obviously wrong, but thought there was some play in one of the shafts (don't know which one) and bearing. They also wanted to replace the selector fork. But there might have been more bits, I didn't get an inventory from them.

TBH I'm more happy with them replacing the entire transfer box. I know it won't tell us what specifically what was wrong, but should hopefully solve the problem from a customer point of view. Or at least rule out the transfer box being the issue (which I presume would only leave the physical level in the cabin as the culprit).

It does make me wonder if this is a completely isolated case. Or if just not enough people have used the vehicles off road enough to detect the problem. I'm pretty sure just trundling across a field or even the majority of green lanes wouldn't have shown the problem. The terrain needed to be a little more severe with plenty of cross axle action to get the TCS working.

Lots of Jimny's with plenty of solid off roading here in Oz so hopefully just isolated case. Doesn't help you except a replacement will hopefully have you fixed.

I wonder if this is indicative of a lack of spares availability in the UK. So few cars means it's not worth Suzuki GB stocking parts (and certainly not any dealers).

Nah that is just an artifact of the modern Just In Time parts supply chain. Virtually no one in any supply chain holds anything like a significant local stock of anything anymore instead relying on the perceived efficiency of the distribution industry to get parts to the customer in a timely manner. It means that the likes of a dealer is able to offer more space in their facility over to sales space instead of warehousing. The only problem is issues at the supply and manufacturing end of the chain. I'm too impatient for it, if my car is not working I am not working, I miss the days of going into the parts counter and waiting 10 minutes for a shop coat to wander into the shelves and return with the parts I needed in hand.