Newfie-Zuk
Well-known member
Congratulations on a trouble free run down . [approve]
Awesome looking Samurai !!![[thumbsup]](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f44d.png "Thumbs up [thumbsup]")
P
Awesome looking Samurai !!
P
Back To My Roots: A Suzuki Samurai Project
- Thread starter stuntnuts
- Start date
I have been very busy cleaning out my parent's house, which I inherited, and I came across some gold. In fact the only gold of its kind....the only known pictures of my original Samurai from the Winter of 1991-1992. They were taken by my father with no intention of showing the vehicle, just the amount of snow we got from that storm. However, they do provide a glimpse of it...
I also found some old paperwork from it, that my father kept. I found the name of the person that I sold it to in the Spring of 1993. I looked him up on Instagram and saw that he was still local to me. I sent him a DM, knowing full well that it had long since left his possession, just to get a bit of its history, after me. He told me that he had it repainted the same color, shortly after purchase, and that he put in a "booming system" as well. Regretfully he said, he traded it in for a Nissan 240SX about a year later, at the local Nissan dealer. He realized that his new commute on the highway was nearly unbearable, so he took action. He said that he may have some pictures of it somewhere, and if he does, he will pass them along.
Now back to the current Samurai....Not much going on as far as time in the shop, but I am out and about, putting as many miles on it as I can. Here's a few from about a week ago...
I also found some old paperwork from it, that my father kept. I found the name of the person that I sold it to in the Spring of 1993. I looked him up on Instagram and saw that he was still local to me. I sent him a DM, knowing full well that it had long since left his possession, just to get a bit of its history, after me. He told me that he had it repainted the same color, shortly after purchase, and that he put in a "booming system" as well. Regretfully he said, he traded it in for a Nissan 240SX about a year later, at the local Nissan dealer. He realized that his new commute on the highway was nearly unbearable, so he took action. He said that he may have some pictures of it somewhere, and if he does, he will pass them along.
Now back to the current Samurai....Not much going on as far as time in the shop, but I am out and about, putting as many miles on it as I can. Here's a few from about a week ago...
I took the Samurai to its first public appearance a couple weekends ago, the local to me Vacationland VAG Fair. It gave me an excuse to spend a decent amount of time cleaning and detailing the interior, for the first time. 
I didn't get a chance to take any pics at the show, but I did find one of the Samurai on Instagram...
I drove the Samurai about 40 miles each way on the highway. It was its first real road trip and it averaged 25.5 MPG's. Although it has plenty of power to go faster, I kept the speed to about 55 mph, any more than that for a long period of time and I feel a little uneasy and I find myself white-knuckling it.
New body stripes is the next project. Stay tuned.
I didn't get a chance to take any pics at the show, but I did find one of the Samurai on Instagram...
I drove the Samurai about 40 miles each way on the highway. It was its first real road trip and it averaged 25.5 MPG's. Although it has plenty of power to go faster, I kept the speed to about 55 mph, any more than that for a long period of time and I feel a little uneasy and I find myself white-knuckling it.
New body stripes is the next project. Stay tuned.
It's been a while since an upate, so I hope this one will be worth the wait...
If you recall, the Samurai's 36 year old body stripes were in pretty rough shape. They were faded from the TX sun, dried out from the TX heat, and cracking and peeling in many areas. No matter how hard I tried to pretty up the exterior, it always looked old and weathered. Well, now is the time to change that.
I love the factory body stripes and didn't want to alter them whatsoever, so I started by taping paper to the body and tracing the existing stripes. Once I had all the the "linework" traced, I scanned it all and saved it as a PDF. From there I imported this into AutoCAD, traced over the PDF, cleaned up all the radii, etc. I now had a vector file of the stripes. I then had to track down someone who could take my file and cut new vinyl accordingly. I found that most places prefer Adobe Illustrator (.AI) files, so I converted my AutoCAD file to that, to accommodate them. I was recommended on Instagram to reach out to @fourdoorphill and have him do the cutting. He was more than capable and great to deal with. I sent over the file and had him make me two full sets, knowing that since this is my first time applying vinyl, I'd screw at least one of the pieces up. About a week later, the stripes arrived at my door and I got to work.
The first step here was to see how "easy" the existing stripes would pull off. I chose a test spot with a small run of stripe and got to peeling. Interestingly, the maroon decals peeled MUCH easier than the gray ones. I used a heat gun on low and was able to remove the maroon in short pulls at a time, until it would tear. Then I would have to start again. Eventually, it all came off. The gray did not peel, it, for some reason, had deteriorated much worse than the maroon, so there literally was nothing to grab onto and pull. I used a special blend of rubbing alcohol and lacquer thinner to remove these, all while trying my best to not take the 36 year old paint off with it. It was a stressful challenge, but it worked out.
The one nice thing in all of this is that there is a defined line that you can clearly see at the location of where the old decals were, so that eliminated the guesswork in placement of the new. The problem is when I applied the slip solution on the body, I could no longer see these lines. So I placed blue tape on the edge of them to use as a guide while the body was wet.
My first try was a success. I was quite relieved!
SPOLIER ALERT.....I chose yellow and orange for the colorway.
From there things started to get more difficult. The peeling of the larger portions was quite the challenge. These maroon pieces did not peel nearly as easily as the straight thin stripes did. It just tore into tiny pieces. I decided to scrape with an old credit card. It took FOREVER, but eventually it all came off.
It looks like I'm peeling red onion here...
I decided that I would focus on full removal of existing before I got back into installing the new stuff. So I grabbed my Sears Gift Card with a $25 balance on it and started scraping again. In this pic, you can really see just how bad the gray decals were in comparison to the maroon ones.
Finally, one side was fully cleared of the existing...
At this point I was over peeling old vinyl, so I decided to do a full install of the driver's side, before I started to peel the passenger's side. More of the same, eyeball the existing line and place blue tape there to use as a placement guide.
Bonus Info....this is the only piece that I screwed up. But more on that later. Spray the solution, line up, and apply.
On to the front fender....
If you recall, the Samurai's 36 year old body stripes were in pretty rough shape. They were faded from the TX sun, dried out from the TX heat, and cracking and peeling in many areas. No matter how hard I tried to pretty up the exterior, it always looked old and weathered. Well, now is the time to change that.
I love the factory body stripes and didn't want to alter them whatsoever, so I started by taping paper to the body and tracing the existing stripes. Once I had all the the "linework" traced, I scanned it all and saved it as a PDF. From there I imported this into AutoCAD, traced over the PDF, cleaned up all the radii, etc. I now had a vector file of the stripes. I then had to track down someone who could take my file and cut new vinyl accordingly. I found that most places prefer Adobe Illustrator (.AI) files, so I converted my AutoCAD file to that, to accommodate them. I was recommended on Instagram to reach out to @fourdoorphill and have him do the cutting. He was more than capable and great to deal with. I sent over the file and had him make me two full sets, knowing that since this is my first time applying vinyl, I'd screw at least one of the pieces up. About a week later, the stripes arrived at my door and I got to work.
The first step here was to see how "easy" the existing stripes would pull off. I chose a test spot with a small run of stripe and got to peeling. Interestingly, the maroon decals peeled MUCH easier than the gray ones. I used a heat gun on low and was able to remove the maroon in short pulls at a time, until it would tear. Then I would have to start again. Eventually, it all came off. The gray did not peel, it, for some reason, had deteriorated much worse than the maroon, so there literally was nothing to grab onto and pull. I used a special blend of rubbing alcohol and lacquer thinner to remove these, all while trying my best to not take the 36 year old paint off with it. It was a stressful challenge, but it worked out.
The one nice thing in all of this is that there is a defined line that you can clearly see at the location of where the old decals were, so that eliminated the guesswork in placement of the new. The problem is when I applied the slip solution on the body, I could no longer see these lines. So I placed blue tape on the edge of them to use as a guide while the body was wet.
My first try was a success. I was quite relieved!
SPOLIER ALERT.....I chose yellow and orange for the colorway.
From there things started to get more difficult. The peeling of the larger portions was quite the challenge. These maroon pieces did not peel nearly as easily as the straight thin stripes did. It just tore into tiny pieces. I decided to scrape with an old credit card. It took FOREVER, but eventually it all came off.
It looks like I'm peeling red onion here...
I decided that I would focus on full removal of existing before I got back into installing the new stuff. So I grabbed my Sears Gift Card with a $25 balance on it and started scraping again. In this pic, you can really see just how bad the gray decals were in comparison to the maroon ones.
Finally, one side was fully cleared of the existing...
At this point I was over peeling old vinyl, so I decided to do a full install of the driver's side, before I started to peel the passenger's side. More of the same, eyeball the existing line and place blue tape there to use as a placement guide.
Bonus Info....this is the only piece that I screwed up. But more on that later. Spray the solution, line up, and apply.
On to the front fender....
The other side of the driver's front arch...
Last was, of course, what I envisioned to be the worst one...
For these long pieces, it helps to make it a two-part process. I taped it to the door in the middle of the length and only applied one half at a time...
Time for the last piece on the driver's side! In this pic, you can the full sized template I printed out beforehand so that each piece could be identified BEFORE placement.
If you notice in the few pics above, where the two fat pieces meet at the door edge, they don't line up very well. I blame this on a couple of things. Number 1 - there is a few MM of door sag and Number 2 - I just didn't nail the alignment on the quarter panel piece as well as I needed to. The combo threw the alignment out a few more MM's than I was happy with, so I adjusted the door hinge a bit and then redid that portion to meet at the door piece better. I'm not afraid to admit my screw ups and post them up here. After all, this is why I ordered two full sets.
The following weekend, I moved on to the passenger's side and spent the better portion of my Saturday doing this....
But eventually it paid off and I had a cleanly shaved passenger side and a useless Sears Gift Card as a reward. All the Sears stores in my area have been shuttered, but I still got to put it to good use.
On Sunday I tackled the install. Starting with the easiest pieces first and finishing off with the most challenging ones.
And that was my install. Since I'm sure everyone wants to know how long this whole ordeal took me, the answer is just about 20 hours. It's safe to say that 75%-80% of that time was dedicated to peeling the existing vinyl. I do not plan to keep the new decals on for 36 years, so I'm hopeful that if I do decide change the colorway of these at some point, the removal will be much quicker.
Last was, of course, what I envisioned to be the worst one...
For these long pieces, it helps to make it a two-part process. I taped it to the door in the middle of the length and only applied one half at a time...
Time for the last piece on the driver's side! In this pic, you can the full sized template I printed out beforehand so that each piece could be identified BEFORE placement.
If you notice in the few pics above, where the two fat pieces meet at the door edge, they don't line up very well. I blame this on a couple of things. Number 1 - there is a few MM of door sag and Number 2 - I just didn't nail the alignment on the quarter panel piece as well as I needed to. The combo threw the alignment out a few more MM's than I was happy with, so I adjusted the door hinge a bit and then redid that portion to meet at the door piece better. I'm not afraid to admit my screw ups and post them up here. After all, this is why I ordered two full sets.
The following weekend, I moved on to the passenger's side and spent the better portion of my Saturday doing this....
But eventually it paid off and I had a cleanly shaved passenger side and a useless Sears Gift Card as a reward. All the Sears stores in my area have been shuttered, but I still got to put it to good use.
On Sunday I tackled the install. Starting with the easiest pieces first and finishing off with the most challenging ones.
And that was my install. Since I'm sure everyone wants to know how long this whole ordeal took me, the answer is just about 20 hours. It's safe to say that 75%-80% of that time was dedicated to peeling the existing vinyl. I do not plan to keep the new decals on for 36 years, so I'm hopeful that if I do decide change the colorway of these at some point, the removal will be much quicker.
Yesterday, I finally got a chance to wash the Samurai and take some pics of it outside of the garage, and here they are.....enjoy!
Overall, I'm super happy with the results. The truck no longer looks old and weathered, no matter what I did to it on the exterior to try to eliminate it. The colors really make it POP, and you just can't help but feel bright and cheery when you look at it now. I do have the file for these stripes, so if anyone out there with a 1986 Samurai would like to give theirs a facelift, let me know and we can work something out. These are 1986-specific decals. There are some reproductions for later models out there, but these are the only 1986 repros in the world, that I'm aware of.
Overall, I'm super happy with the results. The truck no longer looks old and weathered, no matter what I did to it on the exterior to try to eliminate it. The colors really make it POP, and you just can't help but feel bright and cheery when you look at it now. I do have the file for these stripes, so if anyone out there with a 1986 Samurai would like to give theirs a facelift, let me know and we can work something out. These are 1986-specific decals. There are some reproductions for later models out there, but these are the only 1986 repros in the world, that I'm aware of.
melbakid
Well-known member
Well, I dare say it looks gorgeous!!!! With that being said you have now officially turned it into a garage Queen!! [lol] Because you will never take it off road looking like that, it will be relegated to a mall crawler/trawler!! So in the interest of saving you any embarrassment I will make this one time offer of allowing it to be inducted into the GarageMahal "Hall of Fame for Outstanding Suzuki Samurai's!" (Which will be opening soon) Where it will be proudly displayed in a prime viewing area of your choice and accompanying documentation of the entire build process with a plaque proudly proclaiming "Built by Stuntnuts"
Outstanding job by the way!!!!!!!! I have enjoyed reading about your build through the entire process and all the photo documentation. You are a credit to the DIYer's of the world. Now you need to start a new project so I will have something else to look forward to. Thanks for taking the time to post all this info and sharing it with the rest of us.
This is the GarageMahal in case you thought it was some fly-by-night outfit. Located in the "Seed Heart of America", Melba, Idaho.
With that being said you have now officially turned it into a garage Queen!! [lol] Because you will never take it off road looking like that, it will be relegated to a mall crawler/trawler!! So in the interest of saving you any embarrassment I will make this one time offer of allowing it to be inducted into the GarageMahal "Hall of Fame for Outstanding Suzuki Samurai's!" (Which will be opening soon) Where it will be proudly displayed in a prime viewing area of your choice and accompanying documentation of the entire build process with a plaque proudly proclaiming "Built by Stuntnuts"Outstanding job by the way!!!!!!!! I have enjoyed reading about your build through the entire process and all the photo documentation. You are a credit to the DIYer's of the world. Now you need to start a new project so I will have something else to look forward to. Thanks for taking the time to post all this info and sharing it with the rest of us.
This is the GarageMahal in case you thought it was some fly-by-night outfit. Located in the "Seed Heart of America", Melba, Idaho.
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