vitara for fun

[mudflap]

i have a old 1.6 efi 16v lwb jlx vitara. shes a mot fail and i only paid £40 for her that was for the petrol already in the tank. has anyone done a bobtail or cut away up to the b piller and sorten the back of the chassis. as i was thinking of doing this for some fun. and adding a roll cage. and making a diy lift kit for her. As i say this is for a laugh. to use at my mates farm and maybe a pay n play day if i was aloud???

e.g. yer feel free to make fun

[wrecker]

carnt see it being to hard mate,

have to the move tank somewhere elce,i was thinking of doing it to mine b4 i wrote it off :lol:  :lol:

keep us updated tho,love to see it being done

[Bunnie]

what does she look like normally?

also what did she fail the MOT on?

with our zuki there is some rust patches on the rear seat mounts so we just took the seats out... no problem passed mot straight through. so now with the roof off she looks like a little truck.

however there are a few guys on either 4x4 without a club or themes valley 4x4 that have some made little zukis..

theres a few pictures in my gallery under Fulmer and Speen..

[Evilgoat]

Watch body mounts etc, not sure where they are but Suzota and Gen-X will be able to tell you. Also you'll need to do something about the fuel tank etc.

You will only have failed on rust if its near seat/body mounts or something obvious and easilly fixed...

Or the chassis is rotten.

Remeber that your car is going to take more of a pounding offroad then the MOT ever takes account for. If you have rotten chassis components fix them, after all, if it folds up its your life. Using it as a playtoy doesnt alter the saftey aspects, you still need belts that arent going to tear out of the bodywork and chassis members that arent going to cave in.

You may be better breaking it. A vit engine is worth about £200 notes!

[generation-x]

wot about something like this?


simon

[mudflap]

MY BAD

sorry i was justing the wrong words "im think of a tray back" so called.. shes got to small holes in the chassis at the back and the back end of the shell is rotten. drivers seat has gon down in and out the bottom of the floor so ill heave to bilud that back up. we will have too see how much it lifts up with no back body too as itll have to have a diy lift. i have some half worn MTs 15 tyres. we have to put it together and see how gooed it realy is before i inbarise myself at tixover with it!!

ive added pics again

[Evilgoat]

Go over that chassis with a fine toothed comb, as I said, remeber the stress you are going to put on it. Anything near a load bearing point will need to be patched properly. Loose a sring mount going a steep hill and it could be bye bye if it flips. Same with loosing one on a side gradient.

Theres a fair amount you can lop off the back but rebist the crossmember you'll be removing. Stay away from anything structural though as you might case things to deform. I'd see if you can leave as many body mounts intact as possible too.

[mudflap]

chassis fine under the body were gona mount body toe chassis in some other places as the rear mounts dont look that good. heres the pics below

[Tazxx]

looking good m8 can not wait till it is all done it is going to look mad.

[mudflap]

she taken a turn for the worse

last night we finish welding the rear member in its new place. reconetected the battery and i tryed starting her there was no fuel. fuel pump wasnt working after checking the wiring i fount no earth?? we hand tutch the wiring all day why?? so i made a earth to the chasis then we pump pump would prime.. started fine and ran for a good 3-4 mins and died! tred starting it again. fires up died. tryed again and now all i can get is a fire from a couple cyls and it dead again? why o why

[Evilgoat]

she taken a turn for the worse

last night we finish welding the rear member in its new place. reconetected the battery and i tryed starting her there was no fuel. fuel pump wasnt working after checking the wiring i fount no earth?? we hand tutch the wiring all day why?? so i made a earth to the chasis then we pump pump would prime.. started fine and ran for a good 3-4 mins and died! tred starting it again. fires up died. tryed again and now all i can get is a fire from a couple cyls and it dead again? why o why

Air in fuel system?

Re-earth the chassis, remeber the vit has (had) lots of earth bod points, you may have upset the pump with one of these. Check the harness for damage etc and check all connectors. the ones at the back corrode pretty bad. On a carb engine you have a mechanical pump, check this and all your fuel hoses for air leaks.

You also have an ecu up under the dash behind the fuse box, you did disconnect the battery before welding didnt you?

[wrecker]

i agree with the welding part,

you must remove,undo the batt when welding mate becouse it can do some reall funny thing to cars :o  :shock:

[mudflap]

battery neg lead was off all the time. yer seen bad things happen with batterys and welders. . im going to change the sparks plugs to night as i havent since i got the car check dizzy air in fuel didnt now that petrol suffer from this but the fuel return pipe i let runn of in to a can theres a good flow. theres a 3rd pipe witch i belive to be a breather. small thin pipe enters the tank on the pass side front. where the othe two mount on the pump plate. that wasnt contected. i will blead the fuel at the front of the car. check the cyl for injection and spark too. was going to try and run pump of a 12 sorce in case it wasnot powering up corect to. as for the loom and plgs there all taped up and corr free. fuses are ok too. will report back laters

[generation-x]

hi m8 take off the fuel filler cap see if that sorts the cutting out

simon

[mudflap]

she running again. there a brake in the loom to the pump when i runs the brake shorts and turns pump off. rewired pump to relay in dash and added more petrol as i wasnt primin to presure. all sorted.. anyway here the pics from last night!!

as you can see we fited the rear door back on and cut them down to make it look a little nicer

[mudflap]

diffs

would i be a good idea to weld up a diff e.g

front
front and back
back

and can they take the presure?

[generation-x]

rear will take the pressure
front will explode in great style

simon

[mudflap]

great ill look at geting a second dif then if i make a mistake welding it i can still roll on. thanks for the help

[mudflap]

right we got down to the roll cage at the weekend. all is going well. apart from a lack of box steel. i have a couple of scaffolding poles around the yard are these safe to use. i got told there no good???

please help!

[Evilgoat]

Not if you want to walk away should anything go wrong.

Do a search for scaffold tube on the forum.

[mudflap]

The vitara is ready for a day out testing her....
lots more can and will be dun but i wana test her out this weekend new clutch and exhasut on sat to help things along...

harness are in and all safty item are fitted now

[Evilgoat]

Whats that strut on the floor bolted to?

I have to be frank and honest mate, roll that and you are stuffed :(

[hrh_dave]

Personal thought on the "cage", I for one would not get in that and advise to anyone else not too........

[mudflap]

why??? can i ask

bolts to a second plate under side of the cab the cab is then bolted mounted to the cassy with bolt and mounts and the frame is mounted to the b-pillers so if the up rite from the back colapse they can help it

[Evilgoat]

why??? can i ask

bolts to a second plate under side of the cab the cab is then bolted mounted to the cassy with bolt and mounts and the frame is mounted to the b-pillers so if the up rite from the back colapse they can help it

Seam welded box section. It will collapse, I would put bets on the fact I could probobly bend that with my weight.

You've welded the bend in on that upright, the weld gives a failure point a part thats going to be under extreme load should you roll and will fail, leaving a nice sharp edge flapping around in the breeze when you dont need it.

Bolting the upright to the body and then replying on that alone to support the roll cage misses the point. I've rolled a vit at speed and the body takes a pounding, the plate will just tear through the floor. It also looks like you have compromised the integrety of the body anyway. I'm not trying to ruin your fun and kudos to you for trying but its really not as simple as cutting the car up.

Take a pic of the side of the car and look at it upside down. All the weight is at the top and is pressing the roof into the ground, work out where the force lines are and look at a SWB soft-top like mine. You'll notice some major differences, eg Roll hoop and double thickness of the b-pillar.

Theres a lot of people on the forum that know how to do roll-cages on here, ask.

[mudflap]

the floor plates are mounted like my boss's mk2 esscort race car cage. plate on upper and lower. see the point of the front a piller bars. most the cage is made of 3'x1.5' box. i havent cut the body near the b piller there a beam fron them under the roof side to side and we didnt tutch that part. and the floor runs up to the 2nd set of mounts under the body. thats how the rear door are still there.

oh well ill just take it to the scrap yard

[wheelspinner]

If you are going to scrap it take the 16v motor out they make half decent money at the moment.... i know a few people after them.

[Evilgoat]

the floor plates are mounted like my boss's mk2 esscort race car cage. plate on upper and lower. see the point of the front a piller bars. most the cage is made of 3'x1.5' box. i havent cut the body near the b piller there a beam fron them under the roof side to side and we didnt tutch that part. and the floor runs up to the 2nd set of mounts under the body. thats how the rear door are still there.

oh well ill just take it to the scrap yard

The problem is, in an escort there is structure there, remeber your Vit has a Ladder Chassis, the Escort is a monocoque.

You havent cut the B pillar but look at the difference between yours and mine ...


The pillar is a lot thicker and is straight, wehere yours supported the doors its not a straight run and will buckle at those points. You should also have a box section from pillar to pillar whereas what you have there is a C section. Granted, the girder you welded in there does negate that a little :)

The back section also no longer has any crosswise regidity, if you roll sideways it'll deform, assuming its a square cross section  now you'll end up with a parralellogram. Cross sectional bracing and a proper bulkhead will stop this.

If pressed I have to say that you really wanted to do this and figured it would just work out alright and didnt really do your research before you started it. I've done that before on other things, you just want to get the power tools out. Age and experience will teach you not to :)

If I had to turn that into something safe. I'd pull all the box secton off, go back to the basiscs. and fit a bulkhead. Remove that roof flap and do it properly, I have seen tailgates used for this job and with crossbracing that will help. Weld the edge of the roof to get the box section back or build one in. Thern start on the cage with goood non seamed tubing and bend rather than weld and then dont bend it its not needed. Where the frame meets the floor it needs to be on a chassis member or an outrigger fashined to meet the chassis. A crossbrace on the back where you fram slopes down will help too and you may even want to think about going dukes of hazard stylee and weld the doors and fit side impact bars. Drop that fuel tank and gof for a plastic marine tank. its smaller and easier to mount out of harms way.

I'm open to being wrong to but my aim would be for something to walk away from when it all goes pete tong.

OR look at a Blitz

http://www.blitzworld.co.uk/content.php?categoryId=146

You have most of what you need already. I've seen them about and they look good as well as removing a lot of the limitations of the vit.

[StuartL]

I know that what Evilgoat is saying could come across badly but do listen to what he says.  It's important to get it right and that involves spending a lot of time on the design, a lot of time on the implementation and a bit of cash on the right materials.

You have the base for an excellent offroader and obviously the motivation to make it something special.  Trust in the guys here, a lot of them have rolled vehicles and seen what happens if it's not built to spec.

[Tommo]

scaffold is not the right stuff to use really, although it is very strong. designed to hold massive structures and a lot of weight.