Suzuki 4WD Club of Victoria

My two cents with little knowledge would be the Cherokee or 5 seat wrangler.

BZOOK wrote: ↑Sun 26 Jan, 2020 6:04 pm My two cents with little knowledge would be the Cherokee or 5 seat wrangler.

Have already given up my manhood driving a Pajero, so wouldn't hurt lol

I was wrongish about factory rear lockers in gen 3, that is an overseas option. They have the same Torsen style rear diff the gen 2 have.

I'd have a good chat to Jono165 about XJ's. I think you'll be impressed at the cost/capability ratio and the price of parts. There also light and compact, have good low range gearing standard (2.7) and flex well.

They have their downsides (tall geared small axles) but the solutions are common and a very well trodden path. There's a mind boggling array of upgrade parts and aftermarket support.

I was wrongish again. Later and same model as mine came in a non air bag variety but still ABS.
ABS did kick in once on mine, on an oil slick from a leaky bus. Quite a weird feeling.

Jimny autos are rather rare

XJ Jeeps are still imperial I think, would I have to buy a new tool kit?

You could buy a roll cab full of fractional inch tools for the price of a second hand Jimny auto transmission.

It's not a forgone conclusion that jeep is all fractional inch. Like land rover, you may well find a smattering of both. Most US manufacturers are now all metric, but do consider that we're used to JIS bolts. Outside of Japan, the conventions for bolt head size to bolt diameter are quite different.

The M8 bolts that hold the seats into the discovery have 10mm heads and 13mm nuts, for example.

Ford use all sorts of odd bolt head sizes for their metric bolts.


In any case, you'll get by - 10mm = 3/8, 13mm = 1/2, 14mm = 9/16 17mm = 11/16 19mm = 3/4 - the fit won't be ideal, but it will do in a pinch. Lots of socket sets don't even include both 9/16 and 14mm as they're only 0.05mm different.

I really like my Cherokee, it's as close as I've found to a do everything car. Power, size, weight, parts availability, easy to work on.

They are getting a bit long in the tooth now thought and finding a clean one is very difficult, and whatever is available still requires some time spent on it. They do use a bit of fuel but no big deal for me as I don't drive it every day. Possibly similar to a petrol Pajero anyway.

Parts are very very cheap from the states and all the issues that have are well documented. They do suffer from a small engine bay and heat soak - I've just rebuilt most of the engine loom on mine as they go brittle over time and I had a broken wire from where I had moved the loom to do other work.

The engine is mostly imperial and the body mostly metric. There's no hard and fast rule though.

Thanks for that, much appreciated