The simple task of removing the body from a Suzuki SJ Part 2

The story so far. We took one innocent and un-abused Suzuki SJ413 away from the farm it had retired to 11 years ago with the sole intention of taking it apart and discarding all the pretty bits to enable us to rebody the chassis into something more interesting, namely a replica of a 1930’s open top sports car. This is day 2 and aside from a few wires, cables and bolts the task is all but done.

The first job of the day was to get the chassis and the body separated. The theory was the six bolts would come undone with little or no persuasion and we would place chocks between the two parts, this worked a treat on the front as both chassis bolts snapped off in the chassis, the other four surrendered a lot easier but there things started to go awry. Despite a fair deal of brutality the body wouldn’t part. The angle grinder was called in to action and despite the removal of the offending bolts, everything stayed put. At this point common sense would dictate that there had to be more bolts somewhere. Unfortunately there was 1/2 a tonne of Buckinghamshire on the underside of the car. After a few minutes I was wearing most of the mud and two more bolts had revealed themselves. With some relief the body finally separated and we were back under way. The remainder of the work passed without hitch, it just seemed never ending. As lunch time arrived we were in a position to take the body to the metal recyclers. The easiest way was to strap the body down to the chassis and take it lock and stock, get them to remove the body with their forklift and return the chassis home and for once everything went as planned.

(If only I had actually taken a picture of the body coming off then we would have something interesting to put here, in absence of something interesting, here are the pictures of the before and after.)

Once home the final job was to remove Buckinghamshire and return the chassis to the garage. We had some fun with the pressure washer and stood back to admire the results.

(The two blue bags in the background contain the swept up mud that was attached to the chassis)

Time was getting on and Connor had a train to catch so we shot round to the garage and then we hit upon the bit I hadn’t really planned properly, or indeed, at all. Getting a now non running SJ back into a seriously uphill garage. Things started out ok, we got it squared up and it was moving pretty freely right up to the pot hole one metre before the door. Try as we might we couldn’t move it further. I tried to use the towball of my car against the chassis, which seemed like a really good idea to me. The fact that Connor didn’t think it was should have warned me of the dangers as Connor rarely thinks. Ten minutes and one dint in the bumper later, the SJ was at the bottom of the slope with my towball hooked under the chassis. After much cursing and a trip home for resources (a lump of 4×4) I was just strapping the wood to the chassis when a nice Polish chap turned up and set about manhandling the car into the garage pretty much single handedly. I couldn’t thank him enough but I am now pretty afraid of getting the car out the garage again.

As the monthly car budget has been spent, there won’t be much work done until after Easter but I do need to rig something up to get over the mountain in front of the garage. I think I will look at rigging up a winch system or for the time-being seeing if the starter motor will stand up to the task. I cetainly won’t be experimenting without reinforcements, just in case it won’t.

The Simple task of removing the body from a Suzuki SJ Part 1

After waiting three weeks for the planets to align and the Dalai Lama to pop round and bless the project I found myself unable to delay things any longer. The time had arrived to remove the body from the SJ. First things first, this is occurring on our drive, with no special tools, just large amounts of foolish confidence. The logistical issues started even before the battery was disconnected as my roll cab had to be manhandled from my workshop to the front of the house. This necessitated a ramp to be made and moving most of the workshop around to get the tools out.

At the crack of nine o’clock the first spanner was wielded in anger. The bonnet and the rear door offered no resistance, the same could not be said for the doors. Somebody somewhere in Japan must be pissing themselves at how they designed the door hinges to be held on with large cross head bolts and no amount of persuasion caused them to yield. As the hinges are needed for the rebody the easy option of cutting them off was unavailable to us so the next best option of welding nuts to the bolts was called into action. This required the welder being unearthed from the bowels of my workshop and manhandled up the garden in a wheel barrow replete with punctured tyre. Oh the joy of it all. The joy continued as the welder’s shroud collapsed and the tip melted. This happened to be the last tip and the first road trip began to buy some welding supplies. Eventually all the bolts surrended and the doors parted company with the body.

After that is was merely a case of removing everything that looked like to was attached and didn’t want to be. The wiring loom was removed and carefully marked up. The last time I built a car the wiring proved more complicated than Sudoko after a Tequila tasting session and I was mindful not to suffer a repeat. .

Dinner was enjoyed from the comfort of the SJ’s seats

The afternoon was spent in the same vein as the morning, going through the endless list of parts that needed removing. None of it was particularly taxing, a number of parts really didn’t want to budge but were made to do so, I had to create a puller to remove the steering wheel and it didn’t half go with a crack. A number of the redundant parts were perfectly serviceable and hopefully they will bring a few pennies back into the pot as will weighing in the body at the local metal recycling plant.

I am feeling quite nervous about the next stage, as I am not exactly able bodied and it looks quite heavy. I can’t quite get my head around how it will play out  I guess I will have the answer by tomorrow night.