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'94 Scrum / Carry lift completed

Discussion in 'Mini Lounge' started by JInman, Mar 14, 2017.

  1. JInman

    JInman New Member

    Just completed my lift...well almost! I need to do a little body trimming around the front wheel wells and finish up a few odds & ends. I am also going to lower the rear shackles by 1-2" to make the truck sit more level - but most of the hard work is done. It was done in the same fashion as many others have done before, it's been great to refer to other's posts on the topic.

    In the front, I made 4" strut spacers, used 250lb springs, 2x3" rectangle tubing on the differential and engine cross members. I lowered the steering pivot (and diff mount) 3" welding in a new round tubing and lowering bracket so the diff and steering pivot is 3" lower. The front suspension support arms were modified to drop 3" and lengthened about 1.25 inches to reach without moving the brackets. Pitman arm was extended using a fabricated 3" drop bracket. I extended the brake lines by using 6" premade extensions and female to female connectors from the local auto parts store front and rear.

    Mid-truck, I moved the e-brake cable mount with a custom bracket, (also moved the driveshaft loop), and lowered the rear trans cross- member 2 inches. Motor mount brackets were fabricated to keep the engine in roughly the same location so hoses, lines and cables reach how they are supposed to.

    In the rear I did the spring over conversion with new spring perches welded to the opposite side of the axle tube. The previous owner installed lift shackles but I will shorten them around 2" to bring the rear end down just a little. I used a hockey puck as a 1" rear driveline spacer as it needed to be a bit longer with moving stuff around.

    It now has a new set of 14x7 wheels (4" back spacing) and 27x8.5x14 tires. Doesn't seem to have any binding on the ground or when jacked up - neither CVs or drive shafts. That said, I have only driven it a little with minimal steering since I need to trim the body. Also have yet to dial in the front alignment but that will happen in the coming weeks along with a few other things. I decided early on that these changes weren't going to be easily reversible - but I am okay with that and have no intention of putting it back to stock. Next is the timing belt for good measure and maybe custom bumpers. It's been a fun project!
    20170313_170157.jpg 20170313_170117.jpg
     
  2. Acerguy

    Acerguy Moderator Staff Member

    Nice job. Looks like you're doing it right!
     
  3. allen0288

    allen0288 Member

    Looks good!
     
  4. KCCats

    KCCats Active Member

    I am planning about the same Body lift on my 91 Carry!
    I have a few questions?
    First what was the hockey puck used as ?
    Next do you have a pic of what and or how you did the front dif mount and pitman arm?

    And mostly, WHAT are those tires?
    I love the set up, I am planning a piece of plate steel across the entire front end, extending out to under the plastic front bumper!
     
  5. JInman

    JInman New Member

    The tires are Kumho 27x8.5x14 - "Road Venture" mud terrain. I purchased them new off Ebay but tire-rack has them too. The wheels are Bassett from Summit racing. The hockey puck was used as a rear driveline spacer (between the back of the driveline and the rear differential. Doing the spring over axle move in the rear caused the driveline to be too short, so that was an economical solution instead of having the driveline lengthened and rebalanced. I can take some pics of the front modification - the pitman arm is simply a piece of steel I made out of scrap that extends the arm down 4 inches to match everything else with the lift.

    I would say the most difficult part of the lift was cutting out the frame tube that supports the steering pivot and front diff. Not sure if your 91 is the same, but on my '94 there's a horizontal tube that connects the left/right sides of the frame together and both the differential and main steering pivot are mounted to this. I cut it out and welded a couple of 3 inch extensions to it then welded that to a new tube. Once that was all done I welded it back to the truck. Really wasn't all that difficult except for limited access underneath trying to cut / weld.

    If you search the forum you'll find pictures of others that have done it the same way in the front - in fact reading through here is how I modelled my lift - from reading through others who had already done it!
     
  6. KCCats

    KCCats Active Member

    I've tried to view the other threads but the pics don't work for some reason?
     
  7. KCCats

    KCCats Active Member

    And yes I have the same cross pipe!
    I still don't understand the coil over shocks and the puck?
    Didn't you just use a set of coil over shocks in the back to add capacity?
     
  8. JInman

    JInman New Member

    https://minitrucktalk.com/threads/lifting-a-suzuki.5/page-6
    https://minitrucktalk.com/threads/1996-suzuki-carry-lift-proj.8921/
    https://minitrucktalk.com/threads/25-grim-reapers-3-lift.6461/

    Not a coil over, in the rear it was moving the rear axle to sit under the rear leaf spring instead of on top of it - that gives about 3" of lift. It requires welding in new spring perches on the top of the axle and new u bolts. Once that's done, the rear driveshaft was too short, so the puck sits between the driveshaft and the rear end (where the shaft bolts to the rear end)...longer bolts between these two and the puck.
     
  9. KCCats

    KCCats Active Member

    Wow Got you!
    So in thereo you could do the rear dif over the leaf spring and add 3" of lift!
    Then move the rear lefs forward 2" maybe?
     
  10. Cole

    Cole Member

    JLnman. Would you be able to post some pictures of the front end work you did? I have a 93 carry coming and have been planing the same lift. Thanks!!
     
  11. JInman

    JInman New Member

    Sure - here are a few pics I took a while ago for someone else who asked. Lift1 & Lift2 pics shows the steering pivot extension welded to the frame. In the front - there's a frame tube that connects the left/right side of the truck, the steering pivot mounts to this along with the front diff. I cut out about 16" of that and welded a 3" extension to it and then welded a new piece of 16" 1/8 thick tubing to it to reconnect the frame. So the end result looks like a tube on top of a tube. The top tube is welded to the truck, the bottom tube (original tube) allows the steering pivot and front diff to mount to it.

    The extensions connecting the original tube and new tube are 2x3 rectangle (3/16" thick). Basically just moved the steering pivot and front diff mount down 3 inches to match all of my diff drop blocks. If you have a sawzall, a welder, angle grinder and cutoff wheel and other basic wrenches - you have the tools to do this part of the job. You'll need a 2' piece of 2" tubing (I used 1/8 inch thick - overkill), and some material to use as your block to drop it down - 2x3 rectangle tubing is what I used. I would say this part of the lift was the most intimidating part of the job - but really wasn't that bad. Maybe spent 2-3 hours total, once everything was out of the way. To hold that new "assembly" into place - I used some old wooden dowel rod on each side of the truck (inserted behind the wheel through the frame tube locations). This worked great to hold the new extension / tube into place while I welded it back into the truck. I covered wires & other plastic / sensitive stuff with wet rags. You'll want to remove engine, tranny and front diff in order to do all of this (you will have to).

    Lift1 pic also shows a hacked up drop pitman arm I made. That is just a couple more sections of that 2x3 rectangle used to bring the pitman arm down 3-4 inches too. I connected it to the steering using a piece of threaded rod - with nuts locking it in place above / below the pitman arm and above / below my new extension. in the pic - it's the big black object in the foreground - you can see the pitman arm attached to it.

    Lift3 pic is an example of one of my crossmember drop blocks. It's again a 4-6 inch section of 2x3 rectangle tubing - I bolted that to the frame using original bolts, then bolted the crossmember to the block using grade 8 bolts and nuts

    Suggest using a drill press, or a 1/2 inch drill - easier with a drill press. Titanium step drill bits work great for drilling holes in thick steel. You'll be doing lots of drilling (4 holes per block and a total of 6 blocks).

    If I didn't explain it already in the original post or elsewhere - here's the summary.

    For the front: 3" blocks under engine and front diff cross members. Dropped the front steering pivot (most difficult part of the job) as described above - 3". The truck had 2" lift strut spacers (not shown in the photo). I cut those in half and welded in another 2 inches to them using some 4 inch tubing - so my strut spacers are about 4.5" tall. I added new 250lb springs in the front. I used camber bolts to get my camber back to where it needed to be. I could have messed around with angles on the strut spacers - but for $20 on amazon, camber bolts seemed to work well and camber is lined up pretty good.

    Not shown - but the A-Arm stabilizer bars that connect to the front of the truck also need to be extended 1.25 inches longer and dropped 3" to match everything else that was dropped. Instead, you could move the brackets on the front of the truck down and backwards - I opted to modify the arms instead - I used some flat 3/16 inch steel cut in "diamond" shapes welded on either side (I could take a pic of those too).

    Also not shown - I made some custom motor mounts to keep the engine roughly at the same height as stock. I did that because shift cable, clutch cable, radiator hoses, wiring, etc. would be stretched too far otherwise (especially the shift cables). So I raised the engine back about 2.5 inches even though the engine crossmember 3 inches lower. That gave room for the front driveshaft to still stay clear over the crossmember. Others have simply modified the crossmember and not dropped the engine - I think if you search around on this forum you'll see pics of that option.


    For the rear: I ended up going with 2" crossmember spacers for the rear trans. Geometry seemed to line up better that way since I left the engine around stock height. I put the rear axle under the leaf springs (spring over). I had to purchase a set of spring perches to do that (amazon - $20). That lifted the rear 3 inches. I also used 2" shackles (they were already on the truck, but I drilled new holes in them to get them where I wanted - otherwise it was too high in the rear). Another somewhat complicated job in the rear is the rear brake cable mount. You will have to fabricate a new bracket for the e-brake once you do the spring over - the cables are too short once you do it. I could take another photo of that if you want, but I just used scrap steel and made a bracket to drop down where the cable mounts. Again I cut out the cable mount steel and just brought it down about 4 inches and then welded it to the truck. Once the rear is done - you'll need to move the diff forward, or extend the driveline. As I described above - I used a hockey puck for a 1" extension - it works great (you'll have to drill a big hole in the middle of it, and 4 notches to match the bolt locations - then buy some longer bolts or automotive studs and nuts - that's what I used).

    I had to purchase a total of 6 steel brake line extensions (about 8 inches each). These are pre-made brake lines with male connecters on both ends. 2 for the front, 2 for the rear and 2 for where the brake lines connect on the middle of rear axle - along with some female to female connectors. You could probably find some longer rubber lines and simplify this - but I found that not so easy. The steel metric lines are readily available at the auto-parts store, so it seemed like an easy / quick/ solid way for me to extend all of the brake lines.

    Overall - with the heavier front springs I have about 5" lift front and about 6 in the rear. I like the way it sits. I haven't driven it much yet other than on the pavement, because I ended up doing a complete engine rebuild while I had it out. I am now taking my time cleaning up everything and re-assembling, replacing all fluids and filters while I'm at it. Hope to have it done in a few weeks...it's a toy and I'm in no hurry, and I really enjoy tinkering with it.
     

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  12. Cole

    Cole Member

    Oh wow. Thanks so much for the info and pictures. I should be starting my project in a few weeks! I'll try to take pics and document as well, for others to see. Already have the Mattracks and planing on 4" of lift to rig it up for our Canadian winters!
     
  13. Cole

    Cole Member

    So I have started my similar lift with 300 lb coils, 3" spacers, driveline drop and axle flip. I have been working on a new steering pivot arm to eliminate cutting a welding the crossmember. I'll put up some pictures. I did have a question. Do you find that the drive shafts and u joints are at too severe of an angle? I haven't yet got all mine together but it looks like it will be steep.
     

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  14. KCCats

    KCCats Active Member

    So I wonder how you did the pivot for the steering?
    I saw the pic of the bracket.
    But how did it go together?
     
  15. Cole

    Cole Member

    So I have a machined cylinder which I can press the original bushing into. The two steering tie rods are being lowered to the height of the tie rod coming from the rack. This will lower the tie rods by close to 3" and not stress the steering system. That bracket wasn't completed it need to be drilled further and the taper cut for the rod end. I was just waiting for my taper reamer to come in. I will post pictures when I have it all together and then it will make more sense.
     
  16. KCCats

    KCCats Active Member

    How do you feel about making another one at about 2"?
     
  17. Cole

    Cole Member

    Umm well first off I like nothing better than to help someone out and I build things for people around me frequently. I need to test this one and make sure it works as I expect. As far as making another one we will have to see. Its one thing for me to make something for someone near me. I feel as if our geographical locations may cause an issue. But first things first I'll be testing this soon as the snow flies and we will keep in touch. I don't want to say no so I'll leave it at a maybe if that's alright!
     
  18. KCCats

    KCCats Active Member

    That's fine I haven't started mine yet. Im in North Central Illinois, where are you?
     
  19. Cole

    Cole Member

    So just a quick update. I will create my own lift thread in a bit. Sorry I don't want to hijack someone else's. But here is my new steering arm installed and it works great as an alternative to dropping the crossmember to relocate the steering post. This corrects steering geometry due to having a lift installed. It works great!
     

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  20. KCCats

    KCCats Active Member

    I love it! I want one!
     
  21. allochris

    allochris New Member

    hello! i have a da63t, lifted with grimports 3” blocks in the rear axle in addition to mini4x4 add-a-leaf. it’s probably a 4” overall rear lift. i notice that the front of the rear axle shaft is sitting further out/away from the transfercase. I think i need to extend my rear shaft. should i start with making a spacer to go btwn the rear 3rd & rear shaft, or lower the tranny x-member by 2” blocks?

    vibration and noise while driving in town is not as noticeable. but once over 70-80km/hr, the rear shaft / transfercase area sounds like it needs some tlc/improvement. Wiggling the joints by hand feels a tiny bit of slop from the rear shaft insertion into the transfer case.
     

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