OverEasy

Well, being that I have gotten some questions, nice comments and some have shown interest in my Samurai that I've posted in a couple spots I think I'm going to share my build I have going on. Its been an ongoing thing since I got it. I'm pretty excited because its almost finished (for now) and my Cherokee will be paid for in a couple months so when one is finishing up another can start!

Here we go.... It will be a couple posts...

After I traded my 89 FS K5 on 40" TSLs for a Samurai that had sat in a field for two years I wasn't sure I had done the right thing. The family I got my Zuk from had used it as a storage building for the two years it had sat. It had about three / four inches of sunflower seeds all through it, microwaves, old shoes and other random junk in it. The smell alone made you want to get sick. The Zuk had mold all over the outside from where it was in the shade under a tree/bush thing. . . I still wanted it.

K5 I traded. Yes I was on a car. Its a pic of a pic but you get the idea.


After cleaning for two days, vacuuming and the sunflower seeds out, tearing all the carpet up, sanding it down and laying a coat of flat black on it it looked like this...



Yup, another stock Zuk huh! It used to be a kinda nice silver with a factory decal down the side. Well silver no more! I don't like shiny.

I wheeled the tiny thing for a while like this and had a blast out of it. I put on a set of 28/29" tires on the stock wheels and drove the wee outa it!

I did the normal stuff like a new radio, new cb, bought some mild recovery equipment and just had fun!

OverEasy

Well after wheeling and daily driving it for like a couple months it started to get kinda boring to me. I wanted to do more.

I thought it out for a couple of weeks and ended up going with the RockyRoadOutfitters full 6" SPOA lift , OTT steering, and DTech shocks. After putting the lift on I went ahead a few weeks later and bought the 31"ltbs with 15x8" wheels from 4WP. While waiting for the tires to show up I did a few things.

I mounted some lights on the hood, little more paint (orange stripe), did the door conversion so I could take the doors off, drilled some holes in the hood for vents, used some old CJ hood latches for my hood. Then once the tires showed up it was on!!!

With the tires and lift put on...



Went up to Shoe Creek (a local trail) and checked out the new capabilities of the new mods...





Was fun for a while but still wasn't enough...

BajaCrawler

that is a fine lookin ZUK. I miss my 86 JX. they are so much fun. And by not enough you mean your gonna make it enough to satisfy the difference of size between it and the huge k5?

OverEasy

So after putting on the new lift, tires w/wheels I wheeled it quite religiously! It somehow started to get a bit boring again. I was going where I wanted to but not as easy as I wanted. I had wanted to do a rear locker but some other problems arose before I could get one.

For one my clutch started to let go a little. When I'd hit the trails I would start to smell that nasty burnt clutch smell. Then my Alt. started to die on me.

I went ahead and replaced the stock clutch with a Centerforce Stage ll clutch, got the flywheel resurfaced. It now grabs pretty well and allows a little slipping for the needed off road slippage.

As far as the Alt. goes, I bought and replaced that with a stock one from Advanced Auto. After replacing with the new one still had a prob. with it. Replaced that one. Still had a prob. The stock Alt. wasn't putting out enough to handle all the things I had added. So to fix that I added the GM 2 wire Alt. upgrade from Trail Tough. Also added a Yellow Top Optima Battery. I have had no problems since. : )

Wanting to do more... A good friend of mine talked me into cutting off my front bumper and adding a new one that would someday have a winch on it. We went for it! Off went the crappy front factory bumper.

The same friend also had just bought a new manual tube bender. and having a few piles of "scrap steel" laying around we made a front bumper.

Wanting something that one day will lead to a front exo. and also being that the Samis are so light in the rear on downhills I wanted a front stinger. Stinger we made.

Started with this...


Then bent this up and cut to fit the square tube...


Starting to get the idea?


While it was only tacked in place we mounted it to Robbie's Sami he was building to check the angle out.



Liking the angle it was welded in place!



Painted it black and bolted it on and went wheeling!

OverEasy

Thanks! LOL, well not quite! The K5 was tons of fun but really didn't fit in the trails I like. Plus after fully driving over a car.... Nothing was quite the same after. Hahaaa!

OverEasy

OK, So after a new clutch, battery, alt., and front bumper things progressed from there pretty rapidly.

After a few months of wheeling open/open (F/R difs.) I finally wanted more in the traction area! Being that I have a friend that can't keep anything on his Zuk for more than a month without changing it I bought the center sec. from him and swapped it into mine! The rear is now locked with a Powertrax No-Slip locker.

Still wanting more, I figured with the help of a rear locker that some T-case gears would help out! So I went ahead and ordered my T-Gears from SpiderTrax! I ordered the 5.14s.

Just a few install pics of the locker.


The cool part about ordering the gears was when I called, Tom the owner of ST took my order! I thought it was him when he answered and said his first and last name but I had to ask... He was pretty cool guy and sent me some freebies!!!! Always Good!

So now with Gears on the way and a rear locker in the itch of doing something was still there. What to do? How about a rear bumper this time! Well being that my friend Robbie is a pretty good fab guy I went to him again! We started on some ideas and came up with this thing!

Off goes the stock rear bumper.... POS


Only thing I asked for was the light style and D-rings, Robbie did the rest!


Each D-ring has a total of 6 welds on them. 3 top /3 bottom!


After it was done he cut the angles on the sides and capped them. We painted it black, bolted it on, wired up the lights and there it was!

OverEasy

Sooo..... the t-case gears finally showed up. they were on back order so when I finally got them, happy wasn't the word!

Got the gears installed in the case and put the transfer case back under the Sami. Wow, gears do wonders for a Sami! Well they do for anything but if you have ever driven a Sami on 31" tires and a semi stock drive train you know where I'm coming from!

So after the gears went in I played a little at Robbie's house.


So after getting the gears I thought it would be a good investment to go ahead and get something to cover the bottom of the Zuk. I called up Trail Tough and talked to Linda and ordered two of their skids. I bought one for me and one for Robbie. I owed him anyway!

Skid plate from Trail Tough. How it showed up.



How it went on. Remember I don't like shiny.



After wheeling the Sami for a while more I still wanted more! I went ahead and installed a front locker. Holy crap did things get a little bit easier. One locker was fun but locked f/r opened up a whole new world to me!

So at this point...
6" SPOA, OTT steering, 31" LTBs, 15x8 steel wheels, CF stg ll clutch, GM. alt upgrade, Yellow Top Optima, Home made F/R bumpers, 5.14 t-case, lockers f/r and now a belly skid!

I wanted more....

OverEasy

Now that I had lockers, gears, lift, decent tires and now a belly skid I found myself getting into rougher and rougher spots.

After taking what felt like a really hard hit on my passenger side rocker I thought it was about time to put some rock sliders on. I had a friend ordering from ShrockWorks. I asked if I could put my order in with his. So they were ordered.

They finally came in the mail (Shrockworks makes really good parts but a little slow in production).

Slider installation...

Stupid stock plastic rocker cap.

Plastic cap off.

Slider installed!



I am VERY pleased with the ShrockWorks sliders! They are really beefy and wrap the whole rocker! The angled kicker tube and mounting points are great also! Love them! One of my best investments!

OK, so now that the rockers are now straight and squared away I was wheeling in spots that were a little insane to say the least. Doing things that I never would have thought a vehicle would go close to touching! I thought about self recovery..... Time for a winch!!!

I went by the local Northern Tool & Equipment. They were having a sale on all their winches and most winch related items.

I went ahead and purchased a Ramsey 8.5e. Figuring that was more than enough for the Sami. I also bought a roller fl for it. Soooo I called Robbie and the fab work was done to the front bumper and the winch was mounted. You can't really tell in some of the pics but the winch is actually recessed into the grill a bit. We cut the grill out so that it sat flush to the Sami and gave it a cleaner look.

Winch on the front with the RF.

After installation I had no where to put my Tag. So I went and purchased the Mag light clips and screwed the clips to the tag and cliped it to the RF. It worked!


In between the sliders and the winch I went ahead and installed rock lights on the corners of the Sami. I used 4 of the 3 1/2" tractor lights that I picked up from Norther Tool! Picking up the lights is where I noticed the winch sale that was going on!

OverEasy

So after doing all this to the Samurai, it being a daily driven Samurai just wasn't really working out. I started to have a little problem with the stock radiator in the Sami. I used a little of that "stop leak" stuff and it seemed to work for a bit. (If I knew then what I know now....)

So being the wear the lockers were starting to put on the tires and just the wear and tear from trail abuse .... I decided to go ahead and do one of the biggest mods I could have done to help the Sami out. . . . . . . . . . I bought a 01 Jeep. I've always loved these things and finally had the chance to own one!

The Cherokee had a decent price on it, low miles and was only driven by a older woman who never did anything with it. She had ordered it with options that I would have wanted so it worked out. I still even have the window sticker from the original dealer.

Pics of the El Stocko the Cherokee the day I got it home.



So I can't at least not have a little fun with it!
Not thinking that I WASN'T in the Samurai I had to pick on this rock! Well, the rock almost won... It came really close to being a bad day! "Steer left and throttle out" was all I remember hearing! LOL!


Wheelin a stock Cherokee with street tires! Woot Woot!!! Hahaha!



Well now having a daily driver I was free to do whatever I really wanted within reason to the Sami now! I got the Cherokee with the majority of the reasoning that I could trailer the Samurai with it and have a decent DD and one day do a mild build on it also.

Well the Samurai had been getting wheeled and driven some around the town and started to have issues. The radiator started leaking again, the Sami had always smoked a little but it started to get really bad, I started to loose power. Now when I mean loose power, I mean in something that's underpowered anyway... It started to bring the SUCK.

Some changes were made to help this out!

OverEasy

OK, so after all the things I had done, I wheeled and was having a good O'l time! The Zuk started to smoke a little more and I kept noticing that it would lose power going up hills and on the trails. Not that it was the most powerful thing out there in the first place. To top it all off the radiator took a crap on me. Now back a few posts I had used some of the "stop leak" stuff and it worked pretty good for a little bit.

Not to mention all the oil leaks that I had started to deal with every time I drove the thing, and all the smoke behind me.... WOW, wasn't good.

Well anyway, I wasn't going to get someone to fix/weld the radiator when it wasn't that much to replace it with another one. I called up Radiator Barn and just ordered a new one. A all metal replacement. It came in three days later! They were great to deal with!

So after pulling the radiator out the Zuk Robbie had stopped by to see what was going on and we had a great idea.....Lets pull the engine out!

Not knowing really what was all to it and having no lift, Oh well out it came!!!

Vid of us pulling it out... Nothing to it!

All empty...


Dirty and junky...


So being that its out and on the ground at the whim of a thought .....NOW WHAT? Not every thing is thought straight through all the time!

After a couple weeks of planning and figuring the best way to go about it I decided to go ahead and build the stock engine (With some changes). I had wanted to do a 1.6 swap but just decided against it.

Being that I am no mechanic when it comes to these little things I handed it over to a good friend of mine. Hes all into building the Honda's and "import cars". He has TONS of "know how" with high horsepower 4 cyl. motors. Plus a lead mechanic at a local high end shop here in town. It was in good hands.

How he got it....


So the first thing he did was take it all apart and clean up everything.

After tearing it down came into a small problem. I had noticed the last time I had put plugs in the Sami that the one closest to me didn't feel like it threaded all the way back in... I wasn't sure. Didn't feel crossed up and the one that came out didn't look all tooo bad to me....

Well come to find out the head had started to melt. Yup, that's right... started to melt. My friend wasn't really sure how I went the places I did with how the internals looked. Luckily I had another head that I had bought because it might come in handy! (well it did)

My valves had started to mushroom and were crusty. Pistons were a bit burnt and rings were gone...as in done for. Lets just say he was amazed it ran like it did... :shock:

OverEasy

After wanting to go ahead and do the Tracker engine swap but not wanting to spend that much money I just decided to build the factory 1.3ltr. Couldn't be that bad, right?

I originally was just going to rebuild it. I mean its a tiny little engine. What could you do with this right! Well I learned a few thing with this process!!!

First after finding out that the original head off my motor was melted in one corner ( and I had no idea ) and being that I already had a replacement my friend Aron tore the other head down and cleaned then sent it off to the machine shop. I got the head shaved quite a bit. I can't really recall the measurement but it was right much.

While the head was at the machine shop I went ahead and ordered a torque cam. It was the only one I could find that wasn't on back order for three months at the time. At the time I settled for it but now happy with my decision.

While I told my friend that I ordered the cam he suggested that I go ahead and get a header also. So being that Calmini had just came out with their new stainless header I called them back and added that to the account!

Header.



While waiting for these things to come in my friend cleaned the engine block, and did his "special" things plus a bunch of blah blah blah..... He also took it upon himself to go ahead and paint my valve cover and air filter plates. He also ordered my new valves, springs, rockers, rods, pistons, rings, bearings blah blah blah....

So after he got the head back from the machine shop, got my parts in the mail and the stuff he ordered showed up, it all went back together.

Before he started the build we had talked about one day maybe doing a small turbo setup on the Sami so before he started he told me he would build it now so that later we could do the turbo setup without having to change much. I can't really recall what all was done to the little engine because I just told him when he got it to just do it with what he thought would work power wise. Ohh boyyy!

Old and beat.


New freshness!


LOL @ the puny 1.3!!!

With the painted valve cover.


After prepping everything and getting ready to go back in a week later the engine made its way back to the Sami!!!

Bling!


After getting it all installed back in the Samurai and buttoning up everything and making sure it was all back together right we primed it and started it for a few...

HOLY CRAP!!! This thing sounded great!!!! I couldn't get over a little O'l 1.3 liter engine with mods could sound like this!! The cam hits so hard it shakes the whole truck!

Vid of the Sami after it ran for a bit. The Vol. is kinda low you may need to turn your comp. up a bit.

I was a bit amazed and couldn't wait to drive it! Going from a estimated HP of around 55-65hp Aron thought the gain to be around 110-115hp. Suited me! I just wanted to drive it!

Drive it I did! Wheeled it and had a blast again!!!

The fact that I had a Header that fed straight into a exhaust resonator got kinda old real quick. A exhaust was needed! STAT!

Sami at idle without exhaust Vid.

I got another friend of mine that owns a exhaust shop here in town to put a exhaust on the Sami for me. I just asked that he keep it high and tight. The fact that he knows I wheel this thing also helped out. I think he did a great job with it! Turned out great I thought!

With new exhaust Vid. I know it sounds like it rattled but it was the way the exhaust is aimed down and how the camera makes it sound.


Hahaha, If you look in the last vid you can see how beat the Sami was starting to get! The belly skid looked kinda rough also!

OverEasy

So after getting all this done to my Samurai I was getting ready to head up to OakRidge for a U4WDA event. I had taken a really hard hit at ShoeCreek a bit before and put a nice size dent into my front dif. Being lucky that I didn't poke a hole or push it into the gears I thought I would go ahead and invest in some dif. guards. So once again I called up Brent & Linda at TrailTough and ordered a set of theirs! Got them welded on and Headed off to OakRidge!

So while at OakRidge I was having a ball! It had rained and snowed and was just a big blast to be wheeling with all kinds of different makes and models! I hit up the vendor sec. after coming back from one of the trail rides and decided to go into the tent that said Independent4x4.

Being that I know they are a local shop here in the state and having stopped by there a few times after some BigDogs events I had to check them out! Ohhh Boyyyy why'd I stop in there!!!

I talked a bit to the owner and another guy working the tent and we talked about some new recovery gear. Being that I had a winch now and some new mods my old gear was OK but I needed a few more things.

Old recovery gear...


My old gear was the Jansport bag, jumper cables, 2 d rings, a 4''x25' strap (a tractor strap), some ratchet straps and gloves, rain ponchos.

After talking to the owner of Independent4x he kinda built a recovery kit for me with one LLEH OF A DEAL!!!

New stuff...

The new stuff w/ some old.


I got a GREAT deal on all I bought!
The new stuff that I bought was :

Large ARB Recovery Bag
One 3''x 30' ARB orange recovery strap
One 3''x 10' ARB green tree strap
ARB tire air down tool
One 3''x 16' tree stap (yellow)
One Warn 1900lb ****** Block
Two Warn 3/4 D-rings
A Warn winch lead (even though I have a Ramsey Winch :smt080 )

I still have all the other things along with the new stuff! Also have a HighLift, Oasis Trail Head tire valves, small shovel, extra rain ponchos, hand tools, extra winch remote, extra wireless winch remote ( Yes my winch is also wireless), Blah blah blah.....

I like to use the Warn motto when going off road " Go Prepared " because when you don't. . . . It can get bad quickly.

OverEasy

Now kinda catching up to date with this . . .

The plan is as far as right now goes is to do a Jeep YJ spring conversion on the Sami. I acquired a full set of YJ springs from a friend that works at a local shop here in Lynchburg. The guy brought in his Jeep to lift it and my buddy called me up and said " I got some springs for you, come get em''!
So with no plans at the time to redo the lift on the Samurai I figured it would happen sooner or later and went and picked them up.

Being that I already have done a 6" spoa lift on my Zuk I already have quite a few things that I don't need to buy.

I already have....
Extended brake lines F/R
Front lower shock mounts
Rear lower shock mounts
Rear Upper shock bar
Drive shaft extensions
Over The Top Steering setup (OTTS)

Things I ordered .....
Front YJ spring setup w/ missing links (revolver style shackles)


Rear YJ spring setup w/ missing links


Front upper shock mounts (ford truck shock mounts)


Adjustable spring perches


Two sets of YJ spring bushings


Already had these but since I'm posting pics.....


I just need to figure out what I'm going to do about shocks. I'm not really sure what I want to go with since there are sooo many options out there now.

Now its the sit and wait process for the big brown truck to show up!

OverEasy

Waiting on the brown truck to show up I bought some tires. They are in the 34x10.5x15 flavor! They'll be going on my 15x8" wheels.

A friend's dad was wanting to go bigger so he sold me these for a steal. They have a few rock rash spots but are relatively brand new. The first step on the inside lugs is still there!

My new feets!

OverEasy

So after on waiting on what felt like forever I came home from a busy day and found a box on the porch! My parts were in!!!

Brought it into the house and checked it all out.


All's good!


Through the paint booth! Hahahaa!


All painted and ready to go!




Now that the parts are in time to put them on and in the mean time order the t-case gears! Then I'm back in business!!!