Well not such a good day out. It poured with rain at Broxhead today and we got soaked through. Very quickly after arriving we were going to climb a hill in the mud run when there was a bang from underneath and we lost 4WD. Once we had winched out a quick inspection showed that the drivers side front wheel rotates happily on its own, so either the halfshaft has snapped or the CV joint has failed. I would put money on the CV joint as this is the weakest part and the steering gets very stiff on full right lock. I unbolted the freewheeling hub to ensure nothing could jam and we drove home very carefully!!! Also disappointing were the brakes, they were extremelt spongy and the handbrake was very poor. I guess I still have some work to do somewhere on the brake conversion.

Barry Harper has sent in pictures of his Jimny.

Jamie Crossley is about to lift his 2007 Jimny. He has sent in a few pictures to show the "before" state of the Jimny. Of particular interest in these pictures is the different chassis ends on the later Jimnys visible in the pictures. It has Maxxis Trepador 250/75/15 tyres on it and re-inforced transfer box mounts.

Watch this space for the lift to occur!

I found these wireless winch remote kit on Ebay from a company called "Winch-It", they seem to have a collection of reasonably priced accessories.

The dual control wireless remote will enable both myself and James (the co-driver!) to operate the winch in a number of situations. Often the person outside the car has a better  view of the winch situation so, although I already have dashboard switches fitted, this will give extra capability (and its a bit of a show off as well!)

There is a fair bit of information around about the Jimny "Death Wobble". Followers of this website will know that I am a firm believer in sorting out the Kingpin Bearings and Wheel Bearings as a main source of problems with wobble. However, this is not the complete cure in some cases. I know from other websites that people have rebuilt the front end of their cars and yet still suffer from wobble. This has reached the point where Suzuki have brought out a kit to help reduce the problem. Suzuki apparantly say that the Jimny was designed for small wheels and that larger wheels change the loading on the bearings and result in "harmonic wobble". This is partially born out by the number of instances of wobble in Jimny "O2" variants - with large factory fitted alloy wheels. Suzuki has now brought out a kit for vehicles affected by this and (as only Suzuki can) charge a fortune for it.....