History - Page 2
With the Samurai parked in the garage I decided to just strip all the broken pieces off and just go from there. The roll happened right at the start of my week and a half vacation from work so I guess the timing was good. The stock roll bar and windshield had held up good, luckily it was a slow roll. A full roll cage moved to the top of my priority list but first I had to make the Samurai look nice again. I pounded the drivers side front fender out, acquired a new hood and pushed the tub back into shape with a porta-power so the doors would close right. Since the body would need some paint I decided to shave the fender flares and decorative door sill flares off at the same time.
After
a lot of prep work the time had come to pick a color. My wife wanted
yellow, I wanted silver (when in doubt, always make the wife happy).
This was really my first big project on the Suzuki and I was
pretty happy how it turned out. The only decision I was unsure of at the
time was selling the hardtop. That was the one thing that gave my rig its
character and the first thing most people commented on. In the end the
decision came down to my realization that I wasn't going to run any easier
trails. Once I put the cage in I knew I was going to try harder stuff and
there was no sense in keeping the hardtop on there only to destroy it in another
roll. Shedding nearly 200lbs up high wasn't a bad thing either. For
more complete rebuild information, go
here.
The Zuk proved as versatile as ever. It rockcrawled really well and proved to be a great trail rig capable of driving in any condition.
At some point the rocks seemed to get taller :) I had a friend, Shane Garrels, build me a 6 point roll cage and later returned to him to eliminate the front fenders for more clearance. With the new front end on, my trusty 32" BFG Mud-Terrains were looking a little small and out of place. I found a set of 33 x 15.50 TSL-SX's for sale and jumped on them. Their width and aggressive tread allowed me to tackle harder trails which inevitably leads to......
...... the next weak link in the chain. My first and last Samurai axle breakage. Bigger axles moved to the top of the upgrade list.
As luck would have it my Samurai had seen it's last pavement miles a couple months before the breakage. Since I no longer had to worry about driving the rig to the trail I could try some more extreme modifications.