I've been trying to decide on a name for the Sambar now that It's in my hands. Here is the background for those who didn't follow when I was trying to import it.. https://minitrucktalk.com/threads/newbie-here-importing-a-sambar-or-a-hijet-soon.18495/ I live in Georgia and plan to use this as an off road vehicle 95% of the time mostly as a hunting companion to not only get to the deer stand, but also load deer, haul seed, fertilizer, etc around the camp in an enclosed cab with a/c and heat when needed. Since I'm in Georgia, I looked for motivation from various famous Ga vehicles in TV and movies, and although smokey and the bandit was one of my favorites, that would have to be more of a street rod theme. Then, I couldn't help but see myself jumping creeks, straitnin' the curves, flattnin the hills and staying one step ahead of Roscoe in this thing. I'm not planning on going full out with paint schemes and (potentially offensive) graphics , but just looking for something to get some spirit and inspiration from, while helping the sambar help me around the hunting camp. Here is how it looked when it arrived. It's a 94 KS-4 4wd, unfortunately no diff lock. My Initial plans are to: 1. Get it insured, tagged and titled 2. Install a new stereo and speakers 3. Install a winch on the front 4. Off road lights 5. Cup holders 6. Fab up a 2" receiver trailer hitch for light tow duty 7. Install a roll on/spray on bed liner 8. Install a winch/deer loader on the rear 9. Fix the A/C (suspect bad expansion valve) After that, I'm going to run it and determine whether I need larger tires/or a lift It currently has new 21" super diggers on it.
Got insurance from my local State Farm, no problem. Tag office was a disaster. The state decided to install a new computer system so no one knew how to get around on it and the lines were incredibly long. 3 hours later I got to the front of the line where I was given a form for a police officer to inspect the truck. With my little VIN # issue I was not looking forward to it. The officer looked at the truck from about 50 yards, ran the VIN that I wrote on the form on the radio and it came back as "no record/not stolen. He signed the form and back to the tag office. The new system wouldn't accept the address in Japan until the guy found the tab at the top that said other countries. Then it was accepted and my tag and title are on the way!
Winch is on! I went with a 2500# Harbor freight with remote control. It's rated for vehicles up to 1600# and was on sale for $50. I have a snatch block if I need a little more oomph.. I also painted the bumper with plastic trim paint while I had it off since it was pretty faded. I also picked up a pair of JBL 4x6 speakers and a $12 Blaupunkt Bluetooth/MP3 stereo (Oh how the mighty have fallen). It's quite the improvement over the AM. and hands-free is the law here.
I replaced the a/c dryer and that fixed the a/c overpressure issue. With the correct amount of R134a, it doesn't blow super cold, but it is cool enough and now it doesn't cut off and it doesn't take away as much hp as it was, so I guess it's good. I'll also take a wrap of gorilla tape off the fast idle as I don't need as much as I did to keep her running when it cuts on. I also got my tag today!
Could you go more into detail about the A/C overpressure issue? How did you determine that was the problem?
sure. I actually had two issues. First was the compressor wouldn't kick on at idle, only when I revved it up a little. I'm not sure whether it was low voltage or what. Once I found the a/c fast idle vacuum hose was loose, that was corrected. I only had the gauge for the low pressure side, but a friend had a set with both. You could see the low pressure side was around 40psi but the high pressure side would continue to build pressure and the high pressure cutoff switch would activate around 325-350 psi. It would take several minutes for it to return to the cut-on pressure (around 250). This indicated that there was a clog on the high pressure side which is typically due to the dryer or the expansion valve. I wasn't sure which, so I bought both along with all the O-rings. I replaced the dryer first since it is upstream of the expansion valve, right next to the cooling fan under the bed. Now when the pressure gauges are connected, the pressure is steady at around 32psi low and 200 psi high and it stays there and no longer cuts off. I didn't bother messing with the expansion valve since it seems to work correctly now. Disclaimer: all pressures stated are a best guess and could be off by +/-25 lbs or so.
I got a chance to take it out to the hunting camp to test it out on the trails and woods where I intend to use it. I decided to try to trailer it with the front of the truck in the front of the trailer so I could use the winch to keep it in place and not lose another rain visor (plus a few ratchet straps). I had to do a Bo Duke and climb out the window since the doors wouldn't open with it on the trailer that way. It did fairly well on the trailer and once I got there. It did scrub in a few places but it did fairly well in some of the muddier places that I was concerned about. I'm definitely going to need more ground clearance and I'd like a little bigger footprint so it doesn't sink so deep, so I'll get a lift and start searching for some 23x8 tires. The super diggers did fine, but I'd get another inch of ground clearance with 23's. Trailer hitch and deer hoist are coming in a few weeks.
I was about to start on the receiver hitch when I realized it would be wiser to get the lift and larger tires first and then put the hitch on once I get the final height figured out. I ordered the 2" lift kit from Michminitrucks and installed it Sunday. It was pretty hassle free. I was able to save quite a bit of time by removing the front bolts from under the cab instead of removing the seats and accessing them from inside the cab. I went from 7" of ground clearance to 9 in the front and 9.5 in the rear. I hope to make a tire decision tomorrow and once I get those on, I'll plug ahead. In the meantime, I put some rust converter on the rusty parts of the bed getting them prepped up for bedliner.
The rust converter that I bought from tractor supply wasn't nearly as good as the stuff I bought from Home Depot for other projects. It ate some paint in some places and took over a day to work. Also the lift kit extended my rear shocks past their limit so I had to make some shock extenders out of 1"X 1/8" flat bar. Not exactly a complete kit. (EDIT: don't extend the shocks unless you lengthen the axles or the tripod joint will pull out of the DOJ. I now know why they don't give you extenders with the kit) I ordered the 24x8 tires from GPS only to get a reply that they were out of stock, so I bought a single 23x8 all trail. I'll put it on the spare rim and measure for clearance in various turning situations before buying any more. If I don't like it, I'll use it as a spare.
I made some progress over the last few weeks. I ordered some T-rex spray on bedliner and since it has to cure between 65 and 80 degrees F, I had to spray it very early in the morning. It was pretty easy, but I wasn't expecting the overspray to travel as far as it did. I was wiping off garage cabinets 4 ft away! I think it turned out really well..
I also finally decided on tires and wheels. I ordered a Carlilse All Trail 23x8 and tried mounting one to the spare tire rim just to see how it fit. The guy at the tire store wasn't wild about mounting an 8" tire on a 4" rim, but he did it and said it might work. I tried it on the front and rear and the tire just barely rubbed the springs. I ordered a 3/16" spacer kit to fix that issue and said goodnight. The next morning It was completely flat. So I aired it up and went to work and when I came home it was flat again. So now I just give up and do what I should have done in the first place. I called G&R and ordered some 12x7 rims and ordered the other 3 All trails. I took them to the tire store and got them mounted. Well it turned out that the valve stem was bad on that spare rim and that was what caused the flat, not the rim. So anyway I now have a solid 10" of ground clearance with no rubbing. I've attached a photo of the new look as well as one when I just had one wheel done so you can see the difference.
Deer hoist is complete. It should be good for at least 300#. It can fold down into the bed or it can be easily removed without tools if I need the bed.
Off-road lights are on along with a "General" style push bar. I know it doesn't look centered, but it is. I guess it's the angle that I took the pic. As I look back at my list, it looks like all that is left is cupholders and the trailer hitch!
The trailer hitch was pretty difficult to decide on. I finally decided to use 3" channel and mount it on each side with 2 3/8" grade 8 bolts. My original plan was to weld the bumper to it,, but I decided to bolt it in case I needed to get full access to the rear engine hatch. The hatch opens enough to check or add oil and if I need more, it's just two bolts to remove the bumper. It should pull anything the truck will.
Well it looks like my list is complete. Time to run it and see if there is anything else that needs attention.
Hmm, I've tried not to think about it! I made the cupholders out of fiberglass and had the steel and hardware handy Front winch $50 Push bar/lights $50 Tires $325 Wheels $240 Tire mount $40 Lift kit $180 Deer hoist/rear winch $110 Trailer hitch $20 Stereo $12 Speakers $75 Bedliner $125 Cupholders $0 Plastic trim paint $8 Headlight relay conversion kit (for high watt headlights and change negative switch ground) $18 55w/100w Hella H4 bulbs $11 Misc electrical switches/diode (to allow radio to play and phones to charge with ignition off) $25 Total $1,239 ...and I just realized I need a gun rack!
That doesn't sound too bad but I realize there is a value of time not added in. Yes, agreed gun rack would be cool.
Yeah, I spent several nights out in the garage getting it done, but I enjoy it much better than sitting in front of the television doing nothing.
I will say that it was a smart move waiting until I got the final height before adding the hitch, it would have been way too high had I done it before the lift and new tires.
I took it out to the hunting camp last weekend and with the new wheels and tires, it was a very tight fit on the 5x10 utility trailer.. I got about a mile on it and it was doing great right before the DOJ tripod joint failed. I'm pretty sure this was due to the lift kit and my decision to extend my shocks 2" to make up for it. I limped back to camp in FWD and got it back on the trailer and back home. I'll have to do some homework to determine how much I'll have to trim it down so that the joint stays together. Anyone have a spare tripod joint laying around?
Yokohama said that Subaru no longer carries the axle parts. I was able to get a used one online and got it buttoned back up last night. I removed my shock extensions to prevent a repeat. Hopefully I'll run it through the paces this weekend.
The weekend run went really well. It went everywhere it needed to go, even across a small creek. I could hear the shocks hit the limit on nearly every bump though, and would lose traction when one tire would come off the ground in 2wd. I think I will make some 3/4" shock extensions to see if I can meet in the middle without messing up the tripod joint. After hunting season I'm going to likely re-extend the shocks and lengthen the axles so it will articulate like it should.
Well I made a 1" shock extension for the short shaft side and a 1.5" extension for the long shaft side. I ran it through the paces and everything seems to be good. Minimal full shock extension "clunks"and no tripod joint failures. On the downside, the radio quit. I'm hoping it's a fuse. I also ran it down the highway with the all trails to see what limitations I was in for. I got to 70 kph (80 actual with the increased tire size) before the unbalanced tires shook to an uncomfortable level. that's around 50 mph so I'll live with it.
