I am new to Samurai's and Off Roading.  I bought this from a friend for $3000.00.  It had a crate Buick V6 installed,Chromolly welded front axles and thats about all I know about it.  I do not know anything about Suzuki Samurai's, so if you guys could watch the video and tell me what all has been done to it, how good of a job was done, what you think I should add or change.  This will be for mainly driving around town and going down to the river occasionaly which is all sand and light 4-wheelin.
 Never realized how much of a hick accent I had until I listened to myself on video.    In Western Oklahoma

The whole psychadelic (sp?) video quality will change, it asked me if I wanted to fix the shakiness so I selected yes.  But that about made me dizzy watching it like that.  As soon as it reverts back to the original it will be better, shaky, but at least not nauseating. 

Thanks

Samurai.mp4

CUE,
       I think you got a good deal. It depends where the PO got the V6 swap but it is a common swap into a Sammy and way more expensive than you paid for the entire trk! Just a few companies that sell this conversion:

www.rocky-road.com   Some people r unhappy with their customer service but I have always been treated good.

www.suzukiconversion.com  Never dealt with them

 I am surprised nobody has commented on your buy, also I would run a pre-filter (sponge type wrap around) to keep that Red River dust out of the engine.


                                                                                                                                        Pete

I also think you did well on the buy. Most importantly, is that YOU feel you did well. Sombody put a LOT of work into that Sammy, and if you fix all the little stuff, leaks etc, you'll have a pretty nice rig, imo. Hell, the tires are worth plenty by themselves! BTW, you don't sound like a hick at all. 

It sounds like even without knowing much about samurais you have a good idea of what's stock and what's not. It looks to have a home made shackle reversal up front, spring over axle, and your right about the disk breaks not being stock. That truss on the front axle dosnt look great, I would think it would do more harm than good, at least offroad. Value on these things is hard because prices vary so much, with the stock motor I would think $3000 is high but I think that motor swap does add value. The disks in the rear are nice to have and like said above tires ain't cheap.

I would think you can find a ok paint job that would make it "look good" for less $ than the line x. In the meen time could you just use a car cover in the driveway? Anyway it looks like a fun little rig.

I will get the pre filter
Car Cover sounds like a good idea, never thought about that.
Any comments on the front knuckles?  Just the seals or rebuild the entire knuckle?

Thank you for the comments

by the looks of your seals you might as well just rebuild the entire knuckle, that way you wont have to further down the road. i was close to spending well over 3k to put a 4.3 in my zuk, but found a built turbo 1.3. for half the price. btw what is the chain hanging off of on the engine? i had to watch that part of the vid a few times to make sure i was seeing that right! 

They are on both sides of the engine, bolted down to the frame.  I guess to brace it against torque?

They are on both sides of the engine, bolted down to the frame.  I guess to brace it against torque?

Or possibly to keep the engine from breaking free in case of a rollover.

I agree with the others on the truss comments.  Looks pretty bad and non functional.  The traction bar in the back isn't much better.  There is also some sort of add a leaf in the spring pack and the leaves appear to be stacked backwards.  Something a little screwy is going on there.

All in all, it doesn't look too bad  , but it could definitely use some cleaning up on the fabrication work.

FYI, before the 4.3 V6 became a more common swap, the Buick 3.8 seemed to be the V6 engine of choice.