[honour]

Hey all!
I have done a fair bit of water crossing work, however only recently I found myself in a little bit of a 'deep' situation, which resulted in some very wet legs and interior, simply because of my stupid over eagerness.

As a result I have replaced the clutch, bearings, rear main seal, alternator, starter motor, etc etc.
Upon having everything pulled apart, my mechanic brought my attention to how vulnerable the underside of the Jimny appears to be. Holes in the bell housing etc.

So my next move will be diff breathers as a start, but can anyone else suggest some further ways to prevent damage from water crossings?
Don't worry - I won't be going that deep again. Haha.
Cheers!
Scott.

[striker99]

A 'water bra' would be a good start... stops water entering into the engine bay as easily... Ofcourse if you watch a video of 4wds crossing a river with the bonnet open you see that the speed you go makes a massive difference to the amount of water sprayed up from under the vehicle.... the slower you go, the less water will be sprayed upwards over the engine bay...

[henno]

I'm not familiar with Jimnys, but also be careful of the fan "gripping" the more viscous water (compared to air) "pulling" the blades forward and chopping up the radiator.

[honour]

Yeh, always wary of the fan pulling itself in, but with most crossings so far I've been able to get a pretty good bow wave, so hasn't caused any issue. The main concern is if I (like I did recently), get stuck, then the water has a lot more time to find it's way in. Also gave me a little concern regarding sand driving - how much fine sand is finding its way into the bell housing?

[watermouse]

Water itself is not that damaging, just deep sloppy mud holes. Mud will always kill alternators, starter motors and exposed seals on every part of your drivetrain.

If you can go around a mudhole. go around it... replacing seals and bearings gets very tiring as I discovered myself as a newbie in a Jimny at Loveday a few years ago.

[honour]

Sounds all too familiar, Watermouse - except Jakem Farm was the culprit.
But mud is just too much fun to drive around!!!! Haha

[Jezza86]

Door handles let water in. Gromits in the firewall can be filled with expandable foam to stop water coming in. Theres a dust flap behing the left hand reverse light. You can silicone that mostly shut.
Then if your door seals are good and there arnt any extra holes in the floor cabin wise your right up to the door handles

[alien]

Stopping water coming in to the cab can have very negative effects also - if i don't have my floor plugs out in the sierra, it floats! The issue, is that it drifts off the line i was trying to take, often it will "twist" as it sinks slowly and put me slightly diagonal to where i was aiming, and off to the side a bit. Not great if you were trying to cross flowing water as you'd go way off course!

RE: Holes in bell housing etc - they let the water out just as much as they let it in. Keeping stuff more open is probably better than trying to seal it shut and trapping water & mud inside.

IMO - water/mud are the devil and should be avoided. (not that peer pressure hasn't got the better of me in the past though).

[Jezza86]

alien wrote:

RE: Holes in bell housing etc - they let the water out just as much as they let it in. Keeping stuff more open is probably better than trying to seal it shut and trapping water & mud inside

This is also the theory I applied to my snorkel install. If you silicone it to the fender it cant breathe.

In a jimny the low slung abs <edit i am retard, was on Q&A last night couldn't think afterwards due to government mind control. im talking about the AIRBAG sensor, sorry>

sensor isnt in the best spot for leting the cab fill up.
On floating, the bum will float first. A jimny on or near gvm dosent have much traction coming from the rear wheels. Also why i vote air locker air compressor in the cab. They dont go much good drinking water. A slow leaking locker probably helps purge moisture in the air of the diff ousing via the breather tube

[zukenutter]

Where did Suzuki mount the ABS sensor?

[honour]

Very valid point, Alien. Hadn't thought of it that way. I guess it's just natural to want to seal it all up.
Yeh I definitely felt the car floating, I think that was the trouble in the first place.

[alien]

here's a pic of a jimny that floated off course and drowned - luckily the driver and passenger were ok:



The story:

dm90 wrote:

bahaha, well i missed this.

yeah i drowned it.

it was on our last AZ camping trip, just after ninjamoses went home we decided to look for a river crossing, the book we were following promised a river crossing so we went for it.

tuns out it wasnt what we were expecting but there was a river and a track did go through it.

there was a deeper part and i went through first, it was fine, bloody deep though, we walked it first, lockie666 was in the water on front of me so i could see how deep it was. i went through nd headed towards a really deep section, planning to turn off before hand. unfortunately when i turned it was a bit too late and the engine had started taking in water meaning my revs couldnt stay as high as i had hoped.

i turned and was almost out but the car stopped and wouldnt go forward. the rear left wheel drifted over the deep part, the momentum dragged the rest of the car, and before i knew it all four wheels were off the ground and i was completely floating.

foot flat, and nothing was happening, by this stage iw as completely shitting my pants, lockie was still laughing his head off and the other guys werent doing too much.

it was then i started abusing everyone, really badly, and one again guys im sorry.

the water hit our ankles and my cousin jumped out the window leaving me.

the water started to rise and the wheels finally hit the ground again. but by that stage the engine was really struggling and stalled straight away. i was fucked, well and truly fucked, freaking out and abusing people i sat in the car as lockie was swimming underneath the car to unwrap the snatch strap from the bar and hook it onto the recovery points.

dave07 hooked up his vitara, but without the full length of the strap was pretty useless. also he got bogged/stuck straight away. again i abused the fuck out of him, and his 'gay' vitara. sorry dave.

the water had passed my cock and it was shrinking rapidly, it was pretty cold. soon it was about to hit the ignition. being the hypochondriac i am, i seemed to think it would electrocute me when it got to the dash. it didnt hahahah. its only 12 V anyway

the water was flowing in the windows by this stage and the sight really was something else, i really wish someone could have seen my view, i couldnt see the dash, at all, only the top curve of the steering wheel.

anyway, dave pulled away with his car, and vermin attached the jimny, we got me out of the water to the point where the water level in the car was higher then outside, so i opened my door and let all the water out, all my shit floated down the river

with the jimny pulling hard with the rear locker in, vermin almost pulled his ARB bar off and it needed to be put back on properly when we got to perth.

lockie attached his coily and with the two cars they pulled me out.

it was a very very cold night, my swag was wet my guitar needed water poured out of it and i had no dry clothes.

thanks to everyone that let me where their clothes, narniebish, i still have your pants

anyways i might try find a few pics of it.

from: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10563&start=60

[honour]

Monolithic.

[Marko_SJ]

honour wrote:

Monolithic.

#1 tip if you value your car:

Let someone else go first.

Edit: I want to make it clear that this is no slight on dm90 by the way. That must have been a hard thing to go through.

[Jezza86]

windows up holds more air in. and keeps more water out
i know in deep fast flowing water they say keep a downstream window down, but these are jimnys, deep fast flowwing water is probably 45CM deep. keeping the window up makes a big difrence in my experience. i do have windy windows, no electrics but. so may not be safe for everyone.
only time ive had water in he cab was when i drilled holes in the floor and forgot about it... i sat here with my dog for 2 minutes completely calm while my mates got organised. then a trickle of water at the toes made me confused. look out the window amazed and wondering how water was getting in. normally if im in water deep enough to come into my cab i cant get bogged because i'm almost floating.

[pete_79]

My rule of thumb for water crossings in the Jimny;

If in doubt, walk it first.
If your balls get wet when walking it, do you really need to cross it?

[honour]

Pete, I think the balls theory is a good one.

[zukenutter]

Depends how tall you are or how low they hang

[honour]

Im not a tall man. I'll leave it at that.

[Jezza86]

why i dont walk it...

[pete_79]

Chicken....

[alien]

And when you consider some crossings look like this in the dry:

(notice the left side is about 2m lower than the crossing? the water flows right to left!)

And then in winter it looks like this:


You really don't want your car to float AT ALL when its like that =)

[Chop]

pete_79 wrote:

Chicken....

They like chicken

[pete_79]