Suzuki Samurai (1988) Walk Around (Almost Done With Build)

Just a quick walk around showing off my hard work. Its taken a summer to get it to this point and almost everything is done. I still have double tough front axles to install and the front locker but that will wait till spring '09
6/26/2012: This vehicle has been sold. Congrats to the new owner. You got a great truck! I have some family responsibilities and we are in the process of buying a home with 5 acres so I needed a tractor for mowing and chores. The money from the samurai was invested in a John Deere 790 4x4 compact tractor with a loader and other implements. Its a sweet setup too and I am glad that I had the opportunity to build the samurai and enjoy it for a while. :^)

[@michaeljohnstockton]

mate, that's the best rebuild i've seen, i spent a couple of years ressurecting my sj but it's still rough round the edges, rust and electrics etc. it's also my everyday car and every time i get out of it i feel worn out but then i look at it on the drive and can't stay mad at it, does anyone else feel the same about theirs

[@JavierMartinez-fy4rr]

Your Suzuki inspires me to make my own Samurai´s project, thank you, from Mexico!

[@spyder000069]

Thanks! Last weekend I got my Trail Tough double tough front axles (4340chrome moly) installed with my lockright front locker. Took ten hours with me and my ten year old helping. Had to pull the knuckles completely off to get the axles in. Supposedly I won't have to worry about breaking birfields now. I also built front and rear bumpstops for the springs and they turned out nice.

[@ZKorvin]

This has to be the best samurai I’ve ever seen! I’m trying to find one for myself right now.

[@fortuner123]

Wow, lovely vehicle. Great vid and walk-around. Thanks.

[@spyder000069]

No problems yet. Samurai springs are flat springs. My rears up front have slight positive arch and are a 5 pack spring made from top 3 leafs of the rears and bottom two of the fronts. The rears are new jeep cj fronts. They have a little more positive arch and actually I wish I bought used cj springs as they would have been broken in. :^) The rear has a traction bar that locks the diffs angle and eliminates axle wrap.

[@spyder000069]

I drove it on a freeway for 3 hours with my wife to lake michigan. Sunny day with the doors off and the top removed. Ran 65+ mph the whole way with no problems. Could still hear the stereo fine over the wind noise. Handled well on the road but stayed in the right lane and took our time. It was a great trip.

[@93hoffkenthomas]

Such an amazing Samurai! I'm a proudly owner of one and I'll be the happiest man on earth if I only had a 15% of the modifications you made, such a pitty that in spain it's almost impossible to legally modify so much ,again gorgeus car and Good Work!!!

[@Maxtowers71]

here in italy it's the same... we're stuck with stock tires and stuff like that... in Germany they can do all this stuff or at least pretty close... so and so for a united europe if you ask me...

[@smallhomeideas]

This made my evening! I LOVE it! Next to the Mazda MX-5, the Suzuki Samurai (Jimny) has got to be one of my favorite cars of all time....regardless of cost. Thanks for sharing!

[@Ironwind1972]

Good job. I always enjoy looking at someone else build. When you put it in action, video it for the rest of us.

[@spyder000069]

I'm not against a jeep. I've never owned one but probably will get one some day. If you've never owned a suzuki you are missing out. There is something to be said about simplicity and the sammy is VERY easy to work on by yourself. From dropping in the engine, pulling the transfercase for the gear upgrade, pulling the axles out and apart, installing the body spacers, ect. All done by myself in my garage. Its alot smaller vehicle and everything it fairly light and easy to get at.

[@jeffcarroll4219]

Wow, Lots of work into this. Gorgeous!

[@maxkenyon]

We got one in our Area and the guy putted a Audi 3.2 l VR6 Turbo inside!! Sick beast!

[@Thibault_95]

so sweet man you did a really good job

[@spyder000069]

That is the best part about a samurai. When I bought it the 1.3 was laying in the bay. They guy said he thought it had a bad rod. For kicks I reinstalled it and got it running and it sounded good but after a quick rev it threw the rod so out it came and in went the 1.6. I could pull the 1.3 and install the 1.6 in a hour and a half. :^) I have never worked on a vehicle so simple.

[@MajorJackass]

Awesome looking vehicle! Best looking samurai I have seen.

[@user-df3kt6ox1t]

Great Zuki. I hope the trains chill at night

[@spyder000069]

Mine was an 88. It was built middle of the year though so it has some of the older 87 features mixed with some of the new changes that 88 brought.

[@PigMine7]

She is a total beauty! Love the train, sounds exactly like my train

[@ShoeManReview]

Very nice rig! Be proud of your work!

[@Fire4FX]

Awesome mods & thanks for the descriptions too.

[@HowToForYouVideos]

Three jealous jeepers watched this video apparently. Props man, I have a 87 sami. Mine has quite a bit of work into it two, these things become your baby after a while, keep wheelin!

[@TheDitchPigExperience]

yeah dude that thing is sweet. very clean. i love the attention to detail.

[@nitinsunder]

Great job mate. Everything looks spot on, purposefully done and thanks for explaining it in detail as well. Me too have bought one recently, a new one, they still do sell it here in India.. it’s called Gypsy here. Once again a big thumbs up for such a neat Job 👍.

[@sudimaharaj]

used a stone guard protector coat on the whole vehicle, and painted in a flat black... lets face it...when we offroad, we get in hell,especially with a suzuki, cuz its just so much better. i have hit trees, rocks, fell off bridges,.and in every case,a hammer.a puller, and more flat black. it is also helpful when, and i say when,you have to spot weld on the rusty zones, or ripped zones,more flat black. in any case, we suzuki guys always appreciate...well done

[@spyder000069]

I didn't do any extra measures for waterproofing except change out to a electric fan with a switch in the cab that I can cut its power. That way if I ever cross a stream I can shut the fan off so it doesn't burn the motor out and blow water back. Most people add on a snorkel and you can build one fairly easily. I am planning on going into anything deep so I skipped the snorkel for now. You also have to consider the breather holes on your axles. Some add tubes to prevent water entrance.

[@djustice5252]

Very impressive Bill! I really like how clean all the work that's been done

[@spyder000069]

Who is Bill?

[@crpth1]

+spyder000069 - Maybe djustice is Norwegian, than "bil" would be a "car". LOL :-)

[@chadocoonfoop]

DUDE!!!! i freakin love you!!! i just bought my suzuki samurai and i have been customizing it much like yours!!! thnx for all the info.. i am really lookin forward to fixin up my first car!! just turned 16 and bought it.. it is an 87 samurai.

[@graham_fm5764]

Damn ten years, if you don’t mind me asking how was it as a first car, just asking because I’m looking into them and turn 16 in 6ish months. 👍

[@zukisidekick]

What a great looking Sami! Built the right way....Love all the small details you put into it! I hope mine turns out half as good as yours has. Great job! That dude in the train is crazy about the horn...Holy crap! = - )

[@spyder000069]

However, you can just get two front diffs from a 90's tracker/sidekick that has a manual transmission. The front diffs will swap into the sammy axles and use the same spline axles and they are 5.13 gears versus the 4.73's that are stock on the sammy. The transfer case is a quicker install but its nice to have gearing in the diffs because it takes stress off the transfercase. With transfercase gears you have to buy a reinforcement cage otherwise the case will crack.

[@CalZukiWorks]

Kewl well balanced rig! Thanks to you I put all my money into my Zuk.

[@spyder000069]

I'm apologize. I went to reply to your second comment and I must have hit remove which youtube happily did without a confirmation message. Anyway, yes the vitara would be a good cheap ride for you. Two things to consider. There are two 1.6v engines. One with 8 valves and one with 16. The 8v has about 15 less hp but its a non-interference engine so if the timing belt breaks there is no additional engine damage. The 16v will kill the engine. So if you go that route change the belt 1st.

[@zr2trackerjoe]

When I saw this sold-I about cried.

[@MTBgiant2009]

nice clean sammy.....btw getting one soon...with a gti swap....37 boggers on...get that thing in the woodss....YEAH!!!!!

[@samuraio73]

beautiful car man !congrats

[@lopezmabin]

Nice Samurai, very clean! nice job.

[@gfeuchte]

Wow State of the art master!!! You put serious money and time on it 😃

[@shinglehillclimber88]

thats really awesome I wish I could have one like that! nice job

[@ruffypoo]

Very nice rig! i added it to my fav videos

[@jamesbaird01]

good iookin sami cant wate to see that hard work in action.

[@767dag]

i am a older guy , and i got to say that is one sweet ride , i likes it

[@supermick83]

thats too good to take of road! great work gorgeous sj

[@MonteGould]

Nicely done! Beautiful, a lot of really cool work and effort. Skill bro, skills. What I would like mine to look like.

[@spyder000069]

Oh, its dirty right now. :^) My family has 6 acres in Iowa and they had plenty of snow in the fields to play in. My impression was this would be unstoppable but apparently 24" in snow is enough to stop it. :^) I have 20" of clearance to the bottom of the frame. No pull points for the winch in front of me. Was able to back my ranger up and strap it out. Made another go at it from the other side but this time hit 2nd gear and got some speed up and got through. It was a blast.

[@spyder000069]

The 16v besides more horsepower often is reported to get better milage too. With my tracker which has an 8V (same as this samurai) I get 26 mpg and sometimes up to 28 on a long highway trip. Same engine in this sammy and I get about 20-22 cause of the additional weight and horrible aerodynamics. I believe the 16v can regularly get 27-30mpg. The other bonus with a vitara is the front part of the roof folds back for a sunroof without having to remove everything.

[@turbohusque]

Well damn, that's pretty snazzy! Before I decided not to bother with the 1.6 conversion, your setup is exactly what I was going for. I initially wanted a TDI VW diesel, but you cant even buy a totalled one for less than 10 G's. Now we're in the process of doing a Buick 3800 V6 conversion(screw that oil leaking turd 4.3 Vortec). Only have one disparaging comment--That air cleaner is ass. That engine REALLY comes alive when you put a K&N or other filter on it. NicE!!

[@spyder000069]

The curb weight of a samurai is just a hair over 2000 lbs. Mine has alot of extra steel though. That front bumper is probably 100 lbs. The winch sitting on it is around 90lbs. The rear tire bumper and tire carier adds another 100+. The 31's and steel wheels add a couple of hundred lbs too. It really adds up quick. The big issue is the lift which sticks it up in the wind and how flat the body is which gives the wind a nice wall to push against. Short wheelbase doesn't help. :^)

[@Zander201111]

Looks like a good set up there.

[@spyder000069]

They are for the suzuki. You won't find them on the bushwacker site but you can find them on popular samurai parts sites such as lowrangeoffroad, trailtough, and rocky-road.

[@tesoridellasia]

nice work very professional

[@spyder000069]

I have since added the rock4x high clearance transmission mount and cut out the original crossmember so the front driveshaft can drop without hitting anything. I also put back my stock rubber mounts on the transfer case instead of the solid aluminum mounts and it got rid of 98% of the vibration gear noise that sounded horrible in the cab. I have a KAD front driveshaft on the way.

[@spyder000069]

Welcome to the club. :^) Lift on this one should be 4 inches for going spring over axle and another 2 for going with front cj springs in the rear and samurai rear springs up front. I bought HD shackles from petroworks because they were the shortest I could find and then drilled them to lose another 3/4" of lift. In my first video the samurai had 3" samurai lift springs SPOA with 1" lift shackles and it was way too tall. I am pretty happy where its at right now and the cj springs ride better

[@raptorcreature]

nice work!! love it!

[@thelonehighlander]

Nice Job man, looks great

[@mgrella63]

Truck is Sweet!! You did a Great job!! Go SUZUKI! Ive owned 6 suzuki products

[@spyder000069]

@one2killu The shocks are from rocky road. They have alot of travel but are stiffer than I would like. The spoa was a rocky road kit as well. I used the rears up front with a extra leaf added (from the original fronts) and cj fronts in the rears and missing links on all fours. Then fabbed up new bumpstops myself to keep the springs from going to much into negative arch.

[@spyder000069]

I probably spent close to $12k total. A lot of that was in tools though. I needed an engine hoist, bought my first welder, bought a better welder, ect. Then I had a problem because I am picky. Things like when I bought a set of 3" lift springs and it sat too high so I sold those and got about half my money back. Reused the rears up front and bought a set of cj fronts for the rear. Shipping costs ate up alot of the parts cost. The small things add up quick.

[@naraviti]

Looking NICE!!!!!

[@zer0brakes83]

Amazing job!

[@alexjohnson4048]

Had to see it again

[@spyder000069]

Once you remove the third member I marked all the caps and the adjuster rings so that after I put in the spool I wouldn't have to redo the gear lash. The rear took about 3 hours to install. The front took longer because you have to pull more stuff to get the axles out and I replaced the felts while I was at it. There are good write ups online. I found a walk-through that had pics. It was probably on either zuwharrie, izook, or zukiworld. Those were by build reference sites.

[@sebastianknorr9406]

GREAT JOB.. NICE SAMURAI!!

[@spyder000069]

@gsxrbuckeye I like jeeps. Never owned one though. What drew me to the samurai was how light weight they are and how simplistic which makes them easy to work on. Plus the wide support of parts. It took me an hour and a half to completely pull the old 1.3L motor and about the same to install the new 1.6L one. That was by myself in my home garage. Its been a fun project.

[@jlawlor7560]

Absolutely beautiful jeep

[@williamheinsinger7390]

Excellent job 👍

[@Dan-jo6pp]

great job mate. but thoses bloody trains

[@spyder000069]

The disadvantage of the vitara is the independant front suspension which means alot less trail ready upgrades. But again they are pretty capable right out of the box. You can stick 235/75/15's under a vitara on stock rims with little rubbing and with coil spacer lifts you can get more clearance. The nice thing about the suzuki's is they are so easy to work on and pretty straight forward.

[@killerbee10ify]

beautiful build i must say

[@Eden-canales]

Looks really cool

[@bowmaster24]

hahah dang man! Id say the reason being it is so simple is because you are obviously a great mechanic :)

[@achrisofalltrades5620]

Excellent build

[@XxClemsonTigersXx]

Dam nice job dude...im not a big fan of the little vehicles, but that's is a real nice looking purpose built vehicle....my hat is off to you

[@amethysturanus6351]

Great job bro

[@spyder000069]

My samurai handles really well. The only time I worry is in high cross wind situations. The trick is to get the caster correct. I took a few different shims on my springs until it was right. If I remember it was aroun 3 degrees positive caster. The wheel does a great job of self centering. Initiallity it was practically at zero caster and the wheel was light and had that floating feeling. Beside the caster I do have power steering as well so that helps.

[@spyder000069]

The transfer case gear I had installed by Trail Tough. They had a "free install" sale. In my case I had bought a fully installed transfer case for around $1k from them and then I sent in my transfer case as a core and got something like $200 back. I had a problem with the one they sent me as it was a sj410 case that they installed the gears and it chewed up the speedo gear as it was a mismatch. After many phone calls they came through and sent me my transfer case back with gears.

[@HotHeadCJ]

Clean as whistle nice work man

[@spyder000069]

I am not sure what you mean by mega mounting system. Maybe thats a transfercase mount. The one I have is the mighty kong mount. It wraps around the tcase and it is built seriously tough. But like anything it then moves the weak point on down the line. Originally I was sold solid spacers with it to avoid the rubber ones from ripping apart. The solid ones directed all that noise right into the cab. It was horrible. Sounded like my truck was falling apart. Went back to new oem spacers.

[@nukatrail_adv]

good job guy!!!

[@spyder000069]

I don't recommend them for a daily driver unless your only driving is in town and under 55mph. For a first car I would suggest the suzuki sidekick (geo tracker) which replaced the samurai. You will get power steering, the bigger engine, smoother ride, but still retain 4x4 and cheap lift options like coil spacers and body lifts. I have a tracker as well and use it for winter and fun trips so I don't have to add miles to my truck. I think the tracker is more reliable because of the EFI.

[@spyder000069]

Thanks. It was more than I intended putting into it. Its easy to justify though as these are really easy to work on and I spent an entire summer working on it so I consider it a form of entertainment. I probably would have spent that much bbqing for friends otherwise. :^) The sammy is fat free. I taught myself welding too in the process so at least at the end of this "class" I got a neat truck.

[@spyder000069]

Those 31's feel like they weigh twice as much as my 235's though when I stack them. You can tell the TSL's add alot of extra rolling mass that the engine has to get going. I had them on a tracker (same size engine) for 4 months before this samurai and the tracker ran them much easier. Since they have some aerodynamics and it wasn't as high up it didn't dog down as much. The TSL's are awesome in the snow and mud. Rougher ride though. Everything is a tradeoff. :^)

[@spyder000069]

I like the flairs. Bushwacker also offers them in 4" as I recall. These are the 6" ones. They are needed because I run wheel spacers as well as a 3.75" backspacing on the rim so it widens the stance. In order to stay street legal the tire has to be covered not to mention it keeps some of the mud out of the cab. :^)

[@TheWheelLifeChad]

Sweet Samurai man! I'm hoping to get a beater for off road in the future. After all that work I would be afraid to dent that thing LOL

[@spyder000069]

The tracker diffs you can snag for around $50 a piece if you look around. Only issue with them is that they are out of aluminum. I think some have had them break under severe use but for most I think they work fine. It is the whole third member that you pull. So you don't have to set up the gears at all.

[@spyder000069]

Those are the 6" flares. At first I thought they would be too big but because I am running 1" wheel spacers with a 31x10.5x15 tire they are just right. They look great. I had them on order for 4 months from rocky-road but they never came through so I canceled and ordered them through trailtough and got them in less than a week.

[@uribobo]

wow nice upgrade love it

[@danesderelicts]

i love your sammie too cool that train is really anoying though.

[@vangettivangetti4643]

That train horn in the background garhhhh lol

[@THrex_offical]

Wow, very nice!

[@F4izzle]

very nice rig man

[@brads3111]

Way awesome! luv it dude..

[@pablorosalesgonzalez4692]

Felicitaciones ...hermoso Sazuki.... nice

[@spyder000069]

Thanks. The wheel spacers were as thick as I wanted to go especially cause the rims have a lot of offset/backspacing/whatever. I know the more you have the more pressure it puts on the wheel bearings. The next step would be toyota axles but that is more work than I want to do. I was trying to keep it all suzuki with the exception of the cj front springs in the rear.

[@driojal]

I love your freaking awesome Samu

[@spyder000069]

It keeps the axle from twisting forward and backward under acceleration and saves your spings from doing a S curve. You can tell driving it that it really stiffens it up. If you jump the clutch it doesn't give and jerk forward instead of the springs absorbing some of that.

[@bhennessee01]

looks like you droped some serious coin on that thing, i am a jeep guy but that little thing is bad ass

[@kingofalldoughboys]

Bad-ass, Dude! I want it!

[@jeffmoto711]

Hope you've wheeled that thing by now. Nice build!

[@spyder000069]

She's back in storage for the winter. I'll get some vids up when it wakes up from hibernation. :^)

[@spyder000069]

I really was short on play time this summer but the videos I have up were when I took it to The Cliffs Insane Terrain which is in Marseilles IL. Lots of mud there (understatement). I'd like to try the Badlands in Indiana after winter. Then if I can scrape up enough money Colorado or moab.