Here is the video of the descent. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqgatqhREBE

I used to have to ride the brakes all the way down this hill with the old gears, now it holds itself back pretty well. If the trail was rougher it would still be too fast, but this is fine for 95% of situations. This is also an exceptionally steep hill.

Did another trip up to Silvern Lakes with my wife's cousin and his 100 series LX. Both vehicles did pretty good considering the rocks were wet and the trail washed out a fair bit in the 6 weeks since I was last there.

No matter how much time I'm out there, it never seems long enough



This is looking out of an abandoned mineshaft


My son exclaiming about the tunnel! He's fascinated with tunnels and trains right now.

Had another great trip up to Silvern Lakes on the long weekend. Weather was perfect, sunny, 10 degrees, and a light breeze. Here's a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h58Qnm-BDQ&feature=youtu.be

And the pics...
lunch time |removethispart|@ tree line:


The path ahead


As far as we got. Some side by sides were parked across the trail and the owners had continued on foot, but I'm not sure we would have made it much further anyways because it was getting pretty steep, loose, and narrow. It'd still be fun to try another time, but not too likely on such a fine day again this season.


We are about level with the peak of Mount Evelyn. Schufer Lake is down below.


A nice little fox


Did a small amount of spelunking, since this time we remembered boots and lights:


Heading back down

Looks like you need to bring a mine cart up so you can do some real life Minecraft.

Olija do you have a locker in either diff on your rig?

Nope, just running open/open.

 I'd consider running a welded diff in the back but I'm not sure I'd want to ruin the driveability of the vehicle like that, specially since it does all right without lockers. I've never driven a vehicle with a welded diff but my last 2 Zuks had a Detroit in the back which I would guess was almost worse than welded for parking lots and tight turns. At least with a welded diff you know it will always behave the same, but with that Detroit it was a guessing game as to whether it would buck, lurch, lock, skip, or jump as you tried to park without attracting all kinds of odd glances.

I have also considered running welded in the front and open in the back, since I have manual hubs and normally just drive in rear-wheel-drive, it wouldn't affect the daily driving of the vehicle unless on snow (which we do have for about half the year here, but I park the Zuk then). I thought just driving with the driver's side hub locked and the passenger side unlocked would make it bind less on turns, and if I needed the extra traction I could get out and lock the passenger hub too. I thought maybe this would make it ok for gravel or snowy roads too. But I asked around and alot of people said it wouldn't handle very nicely with one hub locked and the diff welded, (my bro-in-law has a front locker and manual hubs in his Xterra so he could confirm this), and I'm also not sure if it's a great idea with the big tires, 3:1 low range, and 185hp V6 all working against that puny front diff. It's not the aluminum one but it's still pretty small. And same goes for the CV's. I also drive pretty conservatively so maybe all my worrying is for nothing. Tough to say without trying. If my vehicle was strictly a bush buggy I'd weld the back up right away and get some cheap Chinese mudders and give'r!

After reading about the issues others have had and you described with some of the lockers out there I have wondered the same as you, just weld it and know how it is going to behave every time.  I have an 03 XL7 parts rig and have been considering swapping in the rear diff since it is a beefier unit than the Kick, but was thinking the Lincoln Locker was the only option for it.

A mini-spool in the back is way nicer then driving with a Detroit.  One issue is on ice, it's only happened to me once but I had the rear end decide to walk my rig about 10 feet to the left when I hit an icy patch.

If your not going through a lot of mud an open diff is more then enough for most exploration.  If your worried about it I would spend the extra and put an ARB in rear so you have the best of both worlds.

Drone637, there are NO lockers available for the XL7 rear diff. It's not the same as a Grand Vitara, Vitara, or Sidekick. It's bigger and stronger, uses a 3-bolt CV-style rear driveshaft to connect to the transfer case, and has bigger brakes than the other Suzukis as well.

Options are: stock open diff / stock diff welded / swap axle for something that you can get a locker for

Last month we visited my folks down-province and spent a day four-wheeling down to the Hale Creek beach on beautiful Harrison Lake. Had a nice weenie roast in the sun and the kids enjoyed the surrounding nature as well.


A little log that gave us some big trouble when combined with a bit of a steep hill and loose boulders. A few well-placed rocks and the Zuk was up and over.




And then on the 12-hour drive back to Smithers we explored a new spot for lunch near Spences Bridge as you exit the Fraser Canyon

I just joined the forum and am hoping to convert my 2006 XL7 from a road princess to a Trail King. I live in Gig Harbor, WA and hope to check out the local forest roads on the Olympic Peninsula.

I read your build thread and am hoping to get advice on parts when I start my build. All i have really seen are the Old Man EMU kits, but I assume there are other brands out there. Hopefully we can bounce ideas off each other.

Hey, cool to see a fellow XL7er. There aren't many of us out there. If you want some first class Suzuki advice, I would highly recommend joining BC Suzuki Club on facebook. It's a great group and very helpful and they welcome members from a broad area of the Pacific Northwest, including BC, Yukon, NWT, Alaska, Washington, and maybe the odd Oregonian. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask here or there.

If I had to do my lift over again, I would probably go with the 4xFour Art 3" Extreme kit (the extreme one has the control arms that move the front wheels forward and the rear wheels rearward, for tire clearance). It's similar to what I have from Alter Ego, but I wasn't overly impressed with the customer service from AE, and all the reviews I have read about 4xFourArt are excellent- excellent service, excellent product, excellent shipping times from Turkey, of all places, and they have an excellent 10-year warranty. Compare that to 6 months from AE. Check out beatthezombie's GV build thread on here; he's got a fair impression of the Turkish kit.

Otherwise, if you are doing just a minor lift and don't want to get too carried away, there is a guy in Kelowna, BC, who is also on the BC Suzuki Club, who machines his own lift kits. He just opened up his own shop, I can't remember the name of the business, but if you join the club just ask around for a guy named Shane Rathjen and he can hook you up with a nicely made lift for a few hundred bucks.

Hey, cool to see a fellow XL7er. There aren't many of us out there. If you want some first class Suzuki advice, I would highly recommend joining BC Suzuki Club on facebook. It's a great group and very helpful and they welcome members from a broad area of the Pacific Northwest, including BC, Yukon, NWT, Alaska, Washington, and maybe the odd Oregonian. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask here or there.

If I had to do my lift over again, I would probably go with the 4xFour Art 3" Extreme kit (the extreme one has the control arms that move the front wheels forward and the rear wheels rearward, for tire clearance). It's similar to what I have from Alter Ego, but I wasn't overly impressed with the customer service from AE, and all the reviews I have read about 4xFourArt are excellent- excellent service, excellent product, excellent shipping times from Turkey, of all places, and they have an excellent 10-year warranty. Compare that to 6 months from AE. Check out beatthezombie's GV build thread on here; he's got a fair impression of the Turkish kit.

Otherwise, if you are doing just a minor lift and don't want to get too carried away, there is a guy in Kelowna, BC, who is also on the BC Suzuki Club, who machines his own lift kits. He just opened up his own shop, I can't remember the name of the business, but if you join the club just ask around for a guy named Shane Rathjen and he can hook you up with a nicely made lift for a few hundred bucks.

Great. thanks for the advise. I will check out the FB Group too.

Well, it's now March, so as any northerner knows, it's getting high time to finish up on the ol' winter "to do" list. My throwout bearing had been making noise off and on since last February and I finally decided to do something about it. I ordered a Luk RepSet clutch off RockAuto for $290 shipped, which was almost half of what the parts stores in town were after so it was well worth buying online this time around. It took somewhere around 12 hours to do the whole job. I found getting the 02 sensors unplugged and the bolts on top of the bellhousing was a bit tricky, can't imagine how much more difficult it would have been without the 2" body lift! I also replaced the oil in the tranny and transfer case since it has been about 3 years with lots of off roading and water crossings. The tranny is a little noisy in 5th so I mixed some Lucas oil stabilizer (basically like snot) about 50/50 with the gear oil to quiet it down. I contemplated upgrading the friction disc to the racing one from 4x4art but it would have been another $200 and I never had any problems with the original setup so I didn't see the point.









I guess if this clutch lasted 17 years and 265,000km that's pretty good!

I've been thinking hard about the future of the little Suzuki and my family's needs. I was tempted to sell it and go for something bigger like a Land Cruiser or Sequoia but decided to make it work for another year or more. It's hard to resist the mechanical simplicity and thrifty economy of this little rig, plus that it fits where nothing else does. So, to make it a little more family friendly for my family of 2 adults and 3 kids, I removed the passenger seat on the middle row (the 40% side). This makes it alot easier to get the two older kids into the 3rd row, and frees up some cargo space where the seat used to be since the 3rd row basically eats up all the cargo space in the trunk. I also decided to make more room in the cab by building aspare tire rack to hold the cooler, just like I've seen on many Jeeps in the magazines over the years.

I started with this ATV rack ( from a 1980's Suzuki, of course)


After some grinding and welding and more grinding: