therealprotaco's 3rd Gen Towed Suzuki Samurai Crawler

I am, but I live in Arizona. It’s about a 2.5hr drive north through the mountains so should be an interesting drive. I have done it before but never when it was this hot out. We’ll see how the trans temp in the taco holds up!

 

Do both. Lift the mall crawler and buy the Samurai.

 

A little late​

 

Story of my life

 

Pretty much did just that. Very mild lift on the Taco though....

Here are some of the shots from this weekend's Zookapalooza trip! It was a BLAST. One of the guys who was there is a pro motorsports photographer so I can't wait for his photos as they will probably be MUCH better than these iPhone pics I took:















Turns out I need to drop to 3psi to get a bulge on these tires with this light Samurai on top!

 

3 psi

 

Holy crap never realized how far the sliders are from the frame

 

Yup, real low! Doesn't even register on either of my digital tire gauges. One of the guys had a real low range gauge so we were able to get it to 3 and started seeing a bulge. I had to pull the cores to get it down that low as the air was coming out too slow for any of my deflator tools.

Super long, tiny frame....big body lift. Beat up the front axle pretty bad out there so going to get a move on with the Toyota axle swap. Not sure yet if I want to 3 link it or stick with leafs. Either way, the body lift is coming off when the Toyota axles go in.

 

Had a great weekend with the Zuk. Pulled her out to the clean up with KeepOurDesertClean at Box Canyon in Wickenburg. The water was pretty high so the Zuk played ferry to some people who wanted rides across and also towed out a hydrolocked XJ. Also played with my rear end flex a bit to see if anything was actually binding. Spoiler alert....its not binding.....






Then I hung out for a couple hours at the BLM staging area by Lake Pleasant while I waited for everyone to show up after the clean up. I didn't want to drive all the way from Wickenburg back to Gilbert and then back to Lake Pleasant!





Then ran the first few obstacles on the back way to CK as a night run. We only made it through a couple obstacles before the 4runner buggy decided to roll and hydrolock so we spent quite a bit of time on a very sketchy recovery and pulling plugs/reinstalling plugs to get her running again. I had all of my good recovery gear with me but this girl decided she wanted to try her new winch......little did I know that her new winch was an old steel cable winch from the 90s with a busted hook and a half a tow strap. Never again.....








Getting all aired up to go home:

 

So here’s a buyer beware warning for everyone! When purchasing parts that you can’t inspect closely, assume that the internals are shot unless you REALLY trust the seller.

One of the spindles/brass bushings in that fancy front Toyota axle was very beat up:


Luckily the brass bushing is an easy and relatively cheap replacement and the mating surface on the spindle is fine.

More importantly, there is some rust on the ring gear in the front diff. While my plan is to just clean it up with a brass wire brush and run it, that is only an option because this thing is a trail only truck. If this thing was going to be driven on the street or the rust was on the rear diff it would be SUPER noisy or not work at all:

 

Well, wasn’t surface rust. There’s some decent pitting on the teeth but the bearings are clean and free from pitting, no change in backlash at any point on the ring gear, and everything moves freely. I’m going to go ahead and run it. Being in the front diff it should give me years of service even in this condition.

 

Did a thing today since the Toyota axles are probably a week or 2 out from being fully installed under the Zuk....



Just need to pick some tires now. I’m thinking 36” IROKs which are the same diameter as most 37s (36.8”)

 

Did another thing! 37x12.00! Will hopefully prevent spring rub on the 4.5” backspacing and tuck into the wheel wells with less cutting after the body lift gets pulled. Unfortunately there are only 3 of them in the entire dealer network and the 4th is approximately 45 days out. So now I wait...

 

Well.....I finished the front axle driveline.....filled her up with gear lube.....and had to see what would happen when it started spinning.....good news....it spins!



There was a little squeak at first but after a minute or so it all started spinning smoothly. I didn’t hone the new brass bushings as they slipped over the birfield OK. Seems like once the grease really worked itself into the nooks and crannies it all smoothed out. Now I just need to finish the front steering with the drag link from trail gear so I can get it turned around.

Probably need some tires too so I can put the wheels on. Otherwise if the tires still aren’t here by the time I get back from KY next week I’ll throw on a pair of wheels from the Tacoma just to get her flipped around.

 

Not every day you see a busted chromoly birfield cage.....

 

Made some REAL progress this weekend!

• Front end is fully assembled.
• Got the front and rear brakes all hooked up and bled even though I’m going to have to pull the rears apart again to add some retainer brackets.
• Rear shocks are in.
• Cut off the factory bump stop brackets and got the front shocks mocked up. I switched the direction of the rocky road shock mounts for now but will need shorter shocks or just to do my shock hoops and install the longer shocks I’ve been planning. I’m just so tired of fabrication for right now.

Still have a decent sized list though:

• Mount e-brake lines and extend for Toyota axle width.
• Get front driveshaft shortened.
• Drill rear pinion flange and driveshaft for Zuk’s Suzuki-Toyota driveline adapter.
• Mount tires on beadlocks.
• Decide what I want to do for shocks for the moment and do it.

 

Yeah that’s gonna need some cuttin....



At a minimum I’m looking at chopping the sliders, chopping the firewall, and chopping the fenders.

 

Weekend outlook

 

Damn she sure is majestic!



Also got the power steering linkage built between the samurai top and the astrovan bottom. Got the astrovan steering gear all mated up to the trail gear steering setup. Lastly got the pump all mocked in. Going to need to get some different hose fittings but that’s not a problem.