Custom LED Headlights on a New Jimny!

June 08, 2022

Yes, the standard lights are bright, but they are boring. Every other Sierra Jimny has the same headlights, and I like to tinker. So I've swapped the headlights on my white Jimny to a set of the awesome Stedi Carbon Black Headlights. Fitting them is not as easy as you'd expect, I've had to get some light housings made and some wiring wizardry is needed. Due to the negative stitching lights I've had to make use of the Stedi Canbus units, too. The bits that I've needed to use... H4 Plugs and Jimny Piggyback Adaptors I've needed to add H4 to the back of Jimny Piggyback Adaptors, to link the Canbus to the car. I needed two of these piggyback plugs, one for each side. Stedi Canbus Units These are sold in pairs, and I just needed one pair, one for each light. These plug in between the light and the car wiring. These are basically just a big resistor to tell the ECU/car that there are lights there, and that they are using some power. Headlight Housings This is the hard part, these housings are essential, because the factory Jimny headlight is a big solid unit. I've had these housings made (bottom photo) and they're ideal, they even have the headlight tilt adjustment built in.  The factory headlights in the Jimny have automatic levelling, which is based on a sensor under the car, above the rear axle. These lights don't have that, so the headlights just end up working like any other car, without the auto levelling. If you're wanting to install custom headlights on your Jimny, we have a few Stedi options HERE but the mounts may be more difficult. As I write this, I do have some spare mounts here that are available, but not many. Email me for details (HERE).

Getting Drive to the Front Wheels

April 26, 2022

When lifting a Jimny way up into the air (200mm higher than they are originally), you can imagine there are a few issues that crop up. The driveshaft was a real issue. It makes sense right? You lift the car higher, but the diffs stay at the same height, down low with the wheels.  The Rear Driveshaft The rear driveshaft just needed a couple of 25mm spacers, that's easy sorted. The transfer case points almost straight towards the rear diff, so there are no really funky angles to fight with. The Front Driveshaft The front driveshaft though, that was a whole different story. Sure, we needed a longer driveshaft, but this wasn't even the hardest part. The challenge was the angles that we need things to turn. As mentioned above, the transfer case kinda leans back, with the front spline almost pointing up! So we needed the drive to then come down, and square into the diff. This has been achieved with a whole new custom built driveshaft, including a CV joint AND universal joints, to help keep all the angles working nicely.  Because the angles are so crazy, we couldn't run these kinds of UJ angles at high speeds, due to the risk of them getting too hot. So grease nipples were also added, to help us avoid the CV and UVs from overheating. The Crossmember You'll notice in the picture above, that we've used a funky Neoplot crossmember to ensure the driveshaft isn't smashing into the factory crossmember.

The Awesome Avoca River, May 2022

May 23, 2022

Located right in the middle of the South Island of New Zealand is the mighty Avoca River. The Avoca River feeds into the Harper River, which flows into the Wilberforce River at the top of Lake Coleridge, which then flows into the Rakaia River. We've been up into the Avoca River twice before, and both times we've faced challenges getting from the road, through the Harper River and up to the base of the Avoca Valley. The first time we tried, there was too much water. The second time we tried, we tried to go up the wrong side of the river, which was rocky and tough going. More about that trip HERE. This time though, we were prepared with better equiped vehicles, and some solid experience.   The party was made up of just Paul and myself. Two very capable Jimny's and two very enthusiastic explorers. We arrived at the Harper River on Friday morning, where it was raining fairly consistently. We promptly crossed the Harper, which was deeper than anticipated. I went first, with a Lightweight Camper trailer on the back. I glanced in the mirror while I was going through, and the trailer was floating sideways! Those plastic bins make great floatation devices. Now that we know the best way to navigate the Harper and Avoca rivers, it didn't take long for us to get to the other side of the Avoca, where we headed deeper into the mountains. As we did, the temperature dropped and the rain slowly turned to snow. As we arrived at Basins Hut, the snow was coming in nicely. As we were the only people for miles, we made ourselves at home in the 1970s. As the snow kept falling, we cut some firewood, lit the fire and warmed the hut. The following day started white and cold, and turned into a beautiful day. We set off, heading further into the mountains. We faced a some moderate river crossings and some tracks that were fairly well surrounded in matagouri - lucky neither of us were too worried about scratching our cars. On our journey we came across this cool we climb off to the side of the track. Steeper than the video makes out, this was more challenging than I anticipated!  At the end of the track, as far as we could go, we found a very cool wee camp site, with a small bonfire in the middle. It'd obviously been used by hunters over the years, it was fairly well sheltered and made for a great spot to stop for lunch. On Saturday night we stayed at Basins Hut again, and had a great bon fire.  All in all, a very successful trip. Damage was minimal, the weather was great, and simply being surrounded in these amazing mountains is almost spiritual.

Lee's Valley Trip - April 2022

March 29, 2022

Our latest trip on April 10th took 14 Jimnys and a Jeep Gladiator up into the Lees Valley for the day.  It's an easy track, a few gates to open and close, but generally an awesome day out seeing the glorious foothills of the Southern Alps. We had no recoveries, nobody flooded their Jimny's, and we didn't get lost, it was a fairly uneventful trip overall!