By DAVID LOVEJOY

Earlier this year an old friend rang me up for one of his regular chats, his name is Chris Daniell, a man whose name has been synonymous with RTV trialling and off road ‘Challenges’ for well over a decade. For most of that time Chris has spent his time quietly winning trials in a Series 11a Landrover that resembled a pile of junk than a vehicle, even down to entering Warn Challenge events without a winch and coming within the top 10! After a brief sojourn with Plus Fours Off Road Eventing Team, which was cut short by lack of funds and the ill health of its founder member, Chris found himself without a vehicle. The basis of this phone call was to tell me of his latest purchase and to ask for help.

Chris had bought a 1983 Suzuki SJ410 mk1 for the princely sum of £120.00 with ten months MOT. For all you colonials not in the know, an MOT is a farce we practice in the UK where when a vehicle gets to three years old it must be tested to a set series of parameters to make sure that for one day a year for the rest of it’s natural life it is legally safe to drive on the Queens highway – needless to say despite there being many honest test centres, it is still possible to buy a certificate without moving your vehicle off your drive! The Suzuki that Chris had just bought was either one of these or had been tested by a man with all six senses surgically removed.

The end result

Chris wanted help to create this mobile cheese grater into a class winning trialler and Randoneer (navigational rally held in Europe). Mt first suggestion was to pack it into a lorry and bring it down to Castle Lovejoy where a local rally specialist would look at it to see if what Chris wanted was possible. Two weeks later Chris appeared, looking very sheepish, with a small curtain side lorry, in the back of which was a very sorry looking SJ410 (a vehicle that you colonials over the Atlantic never had the pleasure of - basically a 970cc version of the Samurai with a narrower track, lower gearing, transmission handbrake and semi-elliptic springs).

My first opinion upon driving this little mite where two fold, the first being "Oh *&%! – No brakes", with the second being "Hey this has potential…"

When Steve of SD Edmunds fame (01884 266718) saw it I thought he was going to turn and run but instead, like the bishop said to the lady of the night, he said "Its got possibilities, there’s always a way if you try hard enough".

After a budget price had been agreed (to budget as it turned out in the end), Chris and I left the SJ at Steve’s and headed home to practice some team drinking (Chris was once in the British team for the Beer Olympics and was giving me some coaching).

The idea behind the preparation of this vehicle was to use the varied experience of all the people involved to produce a simple, reliable and effective vehicle that looked good enough to promote Chris’s 4x4 training school, Chris Daniell Off Road Training (01249 892444). What follows are the ideas we used and some that didn’t.

Suspension

Standard SJ410 springs are just about perfect, especially before they slump, so to save cost we kept the original springs and simply lubricated the contact areas with silicone grease, the front hangers where replaced but only with standard length units – however we intend to replace these with D&R greaseable shackles at a later date. Just a quick note here, fitting lengthened shackles to an SJ is a waste of time unless you have the time and money to re-build the transfer box with lower ratio gears to allow bigger tyres to therefore clear your wrecked approach angle. Fitting gas shocks was initially a premium but we were asked to try out some of the budget Pro-comp ES1000 units (£26.00 each inclusive), theses are strong, cheap, reliable and effective, they are also 2 inches longer at the front without having a longer shock body, this means that, as the shocks on an SJ govern the droop of the suspension, you get better articulation without compromising the upward movement as usually found when fitting longer shocks. They look nice too. Please note that there were no anti roll bars fitted to the SJ410 and if there were I would have junked them.

Look at all the other Performance Saloons being worked on at the same time!

Wheels and Tyres

Early SJ’s have reversible wheel rims as standard, so over the last few years we have perfected the welding up of the original valve hole and the re-sighting of a new valve hole – interestingly enough the very early rims with the hole in for adjusting the drum brakes have a slightly greater positive offset as standard so therefore provide a better negative offset when reversed. Please note that the only reversible rims are the eight spokes version with the wheel nut chamfer on both sides. The greater negative offset will also reduce the turning circle once the lock stops are adjusted.

Despite the SJ410 having the lowest ratio transfer box of any of the SJ range and despite many articles to the contrary, the biggest tyre size you can use on an SJ without effecting the low ratio gearing is a 195/80X15, however this makes for an excellent compromise on gearing and ground clearance and gives about a 12% increase in tyre size from standard. We used our favourite off road bias re-mould tyre, the Colway MT, as this is more than proven to do the job and is a very reasonable price with a good build quality.

Roll Cage

Chris wanted roll over protection and as the original roll over hoop was a mass of tin worm it was junked in favour of a cage. Regulations on roll cages change the world over but I would say that the UK has some of the most stringent rules and regulations governing cages anywhere in the world, as such we decided to follow as closely as possible the RACMSA (The ruling body for Motorsport here in the UK) ‘Blue’ book and the AWDC rule book (the UK’s biggest off road club). Despite this precaution we did come across a number of discrepancies in the AWDC hand book, when referring to the ‘Blue’ book, for example when detailing metal thickness and tube diameter, so be wary. In the end we discovered that a Safety Devices FIA approved cage fits perfectly with very little modification apart from the construction of new out riggers. This cage also comes with adjustable door bars, which was a bonus.

Rigging it up for Rolling Road Tests

Engine

One of SD Edmunds claims to fame is there ability to improve on the BHP and torque figures over works team vehicles at a sensible price. It was decided to keep the standard carburettor, manifolds and exhaust system in order to keep down costs and make spares sourcing simple, so Steve opted to go for a simple improvement of the head finish, aiming at better bottom end response and more torque. Remember this is a 970cc inline four so its standard output figures are less than impressive, remember as well that those figures are flywheel measure, so even on a relatively efficient drive train like the SJ’s you will lose at least 25% at the back wheels.

The manual quotes 42 BHP for the little SJ, so by my rough calculations that makes a standard SJ around just over 31 BHP at the wheels, after what amounts to very little modification Chris’s Suzuki was measuring over 40 BHP at the wheels, which amounts to almost 55 BHP at the flywheel – we also found, that on the rollers, it would pull in fourth gear from 800 rpm up to 70 mph.

You may be laughing at 55 BHP but here are a couple of things to remember:

Firstly American BHP is a lower measure than Imperial and secondly the SJ now ways in at about 900kgs, a 2200kg Range Rover 3.9 EFI puts out 190BHP at the flywheel and loses 48% of that at the wheels which equates to approximately 45 BHP per tonne whereas the SJ equates to 44 BHP per tonne and it gets 34 mpg!

Body

What a nightmare, 2 days welding turned into 200 hours of welding and fabrication, but in the end it was worth every minute. Chris chose JCB yellow for the body, with black Smoothright for the cage, bumpers, interior and underside.

Both standard bumpers were removed and the front was replace with a tubular unit to which a winch mount will be added, the rear is protected by the tow hitch frame, which has been cut down somewhat and has had weld mesh added.

The rear lights have been moved up to the rear door, as has the number plate and the spare now resides on a mount inside the rear body tub.

Fitting the windscreen trim

Interior

Basic is the word of the day, with virtually no soundproofing, standard clocks, a cycle computer to act as a trip-meter and standard seats – why change what works?

Conclusion

Chris is as happy as happy as a dog with two tails and as this is written is preparing to leave for a 750 mile Randonee in France, so next month I hope to bring you the story of how he got on.