Start of Project "Wheeler Dealers"

[MG Autos (Mark)]

Well not sure if anyone else ever watch's Wheeler Dealers on the Discovery channels but I quite enjoy watching Mike Brewer buy over priced heaps and then dumping them on poor old Ed China and saying crack on, get this t*rd polished & lets flog it on

So after many evenings making the obligitory "what the f8ck have has he bought that thing for" type of comments, I thought I'd have a bit of a go myself.
Now I know it's not a Fronty, but I started off roading in little Suzuki's many years ago so know they are pretty good so when I was offered this K plate Vitara Fatboy for £150 I couldn't refuse





So the plan is to turn this into a baisic offroader on an extreamly limited budget. I've allowed £500 in total but that's for everything including the cost of the car.
Now the Vitara still has MOT & Tax until Jan next year so all good there but there is some rust as you would expect on a 17yr old car.

Now this may well be a slow transformation due to the budget and a general lack of free time. Finished article needs to have a 2" suspension lift, off road tyres, winch or at least a heavy duty front bumper and maybe a body lift as well if there's any money left in the budget.
So to help with the budget I decided to sell the rare bolt on hard top, the Fat Boy wheels & rear seat belts / passenger seats as I won't need them as I only want it as a 2 seater.
Managed to get £250 for the hardtop
£70 for the wheels & tyres
£10 for the rear seat belts
So that's another £330 in total generated so as it stands, it owes me absolutely nothing and at this point I'm actually £180 up.

Now to start sourcing my suspension lift componants, winch bumper, tyres, etc. I feel a few hours scouring E-blag coming on

[mega-fronty]

mark if you need any zook info let me no cut my teeth on them for the last 10 yrs

Simon

[gregster]

Might have a set of 4trak steels up the workshop Mark, tough as old boots and nice offset for a Zuke...

Look forwards to seeing this evolve...

[mega-fronty]

and sell the bull bar mark shud be good for £50

Si

[Retro Pedro]

Mark - you've got no chance - how on earth are you going the match Ed's reasonable labour rate at £0 (zero) per hour then add to the ill equipped workshop facilities that poor old Ed as at hand to work in and has to finance - cause it's always allocated into the profit margin - NOT.
Only taking the p1ss out of Mike Brewer trying to portray what a tasty gezzer he his at selling cars that have no labour rate in the build.
Seriously though mate - good luck with it.

[MG Autos (Mark)]

Cheers gents, just fancied somthing a bit different and that wouldnt take up much space as this is pretty much half the size of SWB Fronty, I can easily stick it out the way if I'm busy.

Did stick the bull bar on E-blag but no interest

Now on the look out for a cheap set of 215 or 235 R15 Muds if anyone knows of any for sale

[MG Autos (Mark)]

Well ended up with a fair bit of spare time today thanks to a customer who was a "no Show". Why people can't just pick up a phone and let you knw they can't make it, I'll never know

Anyway, stripped out the rest of the interiour including the carpets and treated the little bits of surface rust here & there and then painted the whole of the exposed floor pan in some Black Hammerite as there will be no carpets to make it easier to just hose the mud out.


As the runner's on the front passenger seat where shot and the drivers seat had a large spring sticking out that I kept catching my leg on I had a drive over to Southhampton where I did a bit of a deal on some used spares. Parted with £120 and got a nearly new soft top with all the frame & fittings, pair of front seats, starter motor, drivers side window regulator (current one sticks at the top of the window) and a fog light switch.




Starter motor in the Vitara's a bit hit & miss so will fit the other one in the next few days when I get some more spare time.

Did manage to get the new seats in and the soft top fitted though. Even found some old seat covers in the garage.


Just as I was packing up for the day these arrived.

£25 for the pair, their brand new and for the Mk2 Astra but are a direct fit for the Vitara and have an extra 2" of travel over the Vit shocks so should aid with the budget suspesnion lift

[gregster]

Looking good mark....might be worth loosing them 10j arches...before the trees do!..They make good money sold individually on ebay, and a set of the narrow ones can be picked up really cheap (just dont do a wheelerdealer SJ special and fit defender arches wonky like they did...cos they look poo!)...
Tube bumpers look good on em too, and are easy to make....check out off-road-armory's website for inspiration if needed...
If you loose the rear bumper (deffo gotta go mate to make way for a length of tube)...you need to do something with the lights...
We did a conversion on my mates vitty a few years back and drilled the plastic housing where the upper lights are located to take some LR Defender rear lights and indicators, which are really cheap and look good...easy peasy to do too and the lenses are only 50p each if you bust or loose one...

[MG Autos (Mark)]

[gregster]

Frenchin is cool....old school mods, a man after my own heart...
Sadly getting mud out of frenched bits is never fun though
Will try and find some pickies of my mates one with the lights up top...so easy to do, just pop out the plastic fog light surround, drill above and below the fog light for indicator and stop/tail...and run a couple of wires and job done...

Didnt realise the arches were furbar'ed matey...

Is that a Jap or spanish one Mark...this spanish front diffs are weaker than fronty 2.0i front ones!!!

[MG Autos (Mark)]

[gregster]

Good thinking mate....
Vitty's aint got the gearing for big tyres without spending lots...and 31's even hammer the clutch...but something not to aggressive will allow it climb with plenty of wheelspin, saving clutch and stopping too much strain on the chocolate bits...

[harrisp]

A mate of mine is running 265/75/16 insa turbo special tracks. He can change a diff in under an hour without rushing.

[mega-fronty]

wonder where mark got the idea about Astra shox

all vitara front diffs are made of chocolate dont matter if spanish or jap tbh

you can lift it by 6" dont matter as long as
1 the front diff is lowered
2 not to agressive boots

its all good fella


Simon

[MG Autos (Mark)]

[MG Autos (Mark)]

[mega-fronty]

any use mark?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 3D1&_rdc=1

[MG Autos (Mark)]

[MG Autos (Mark)]

Well some of the bits that I'd ordered for the Suspension Lift arrived this morning.



Got some 2" spring spacers from a seller on E-blag (not convinced about the quality though I'm afraid ), B4V front Shock spacers which as always with Dave's bits are all very well made, some 30mm wheels spacers and a set of camber correction bolts.



Well these are the spacers I bought as it worked out cheaper than having a one off set made up by the company that makes my spacers for me, there made of a nylon derivative but the machining is very rough and they have a bit of steel tube hammered into one end to secure them in the top of the coil spring????????
Really not quite what I was expecting to be honest
Never mind, there here now and I'll fit them but this set up will have to a fair few road test's both on & off road before i'd feel comfertable selling it on...


Vitara spacers (grey) next to the ones i have made (white one) for the Frontys, as you can see there's a fair differance in their physical size but also worlds apart in terms of the machining

[mega-fronty]

hi mark
hope they were cheap m8

have to say dont look very good to me

hope they work out thou

Simon