Lada Niva Mini Expedition Project

[griffdog]

Hi Guys,

Thought I would introduce myself and the project I am about to undertake with my newly acquired 1992 Niva. Cost was 800 Australian dollars on the road.

Firstly some context. Most of the year I live on a small island in Bass Strait. It is hard to get cars here and hard to remove them. Total population is around 1200 people in an area 70km x 25. It is a harsh and rugged environment. The Island has a tar road “spine” running from one end to the other, but all other roads are either graded dirt or sandy tracks. Some of the tracks are what would be considered perfect 4wd tracks with a mixture of sand, rocks and mud.

I run a school program for kids in year 9 who come down here for 9 weeks at a time in a group of 40 and during this time they do 14 days of bush walking, lots of surfing, snorkeling and outdoor based stuff. Our school is based in Ballarat in Victoria, Australia which is where my actual home is, even if I only spend about 4 weeks of the year there currently with my wife and 3 kids. This is also a fantastic place, with lots of great country within an hour, including the Grampian's national park and the Otway ranges and Great Ocean Road. Our house is actually in Buninyong just outside of Ballarat and I have thousands of acres of bush within about 5 min of my house.

I am actually going to be running two major projects over the next couple of years. One will be setting up a landcruiser for a twelve month trip around Australia when we finish our stint on King Island. This will be a family tourer that will be aimed at getting us as a family to places like the Kimberly Ranges, Simpson Desert and Cape York. My personal project will be the Lada, which will be aimed at being set up to be the perfect vehicle for King Island, but must also be a capable lightweight expedition vehicle.

Both the vehicles will be based on a couple of principles that come from my background of doing lots of solo motorcycle touring. Basically these are:

- Form follows function – it will look good if it works good.
- Keep weight to a minimum – avoid the trap that 95% of Australian offroaders fall into.
- Mods should be based on simplifying the vehicle.
- The best form of recovery is not to get stuck.
- Any change should be based on maximizing reliability.

As I am seeing this vehicle as an alternative to an off road motorcycle, it will be very simple and I am not looking for creature comforts. As I am used to packing all that I need for an eight day hike into a single backpack. What I do want is something that is capable, reliable and simple to fix if something does go wrong. I don't want to spend a lot of money, but I do want to have fun tinkering with something as I find it good therapy when the rest of my life is dealing with 40, 15 year olds 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 9 weeks at a time.

Some things I am pretty committed to at this stage are:

- Foam roller paint job with killrust paint. Mission brown and white mixed by eye to get close to the original chocolate brown. I have been researching this a lot and feel it will be the perfect solution to keeping the car looking tidy while allowing easy patch ups of both dings and the rust which is inevitable when you are on an island.
- Front and rear bumpers made out of PVC pipe filled with expanding foam. These will be tough enough to deal with scrub and low speed knocks and have enough flex that they should absorb most whacks without breaking, and if they do well that will cost about 20 bucks to fix. They should actually look ok too.
- Mild lift – it has 215/75r15 tyres at the moment, but my preference is to go for 195/80r16 tyres on standard rims – I am not even stressed with 175/80 for 95% of the time.
- I am hopeful that I can find some 4.3 diffs somewhere, maybe!!
- Transfer case mod to create low low range – best way not to break things are to make sure you can control pace.
- I already have an over centre latch fitted to the rear, but will replace the front bonnet catch with two rubber bonnet latches. I think I will remove the rear lock mech completely as well as the rear wiper.
- Major tidy up of wiring with a new fuse box. Get rid of any wiring I don't need and make it super simple.

I have established that there are at least 3 other Niva's on the Island that are not on the road. I am going to have a look at two today. Aim is to get a store of parts from these, including gearboxes, steering boxes, transfers, diffs and any other bits and pieces that I can potentially use down the track. I have unlimited space to store stuff so can easily go for my life with this.

I will try and document my progress and will start with some pictures today of my starting point. I will also document costs in Australian dollars as I go along to give an idea of the cost of each stage.

Sorry if this a long winded introduction to the project, but I always love to get an idea of what people are actually trying to achieve with builds and why. I am thinking that given that this is a pretty international forum, that people might be a little interested in learning a bit about King Island as well.

Below is a picture of my old landcruiser swb which the lada and 80 series will be replacing, and my current work vehicle, a Holden Colorado which is essentially a Izuzu Dmax

Cheers

 

[griffdog]

Why a Lada? Well the fact that I could pick a pretty solid one up for 800 bucks was a big factor, but the reality is that they are a very good jigger. They have a five link rear end which gives very good articulation, and the even though they are IFS they have long wishbones and actually have very good travel in the front end. They are constant 4wd with a centre diff lock and they have a good low range. They are made of .9mm steel and so while they are a monocoque they are very strong and solid.

They were very succesful in the dakar, just missing out on the overall in 1981,82 and 83. They have a 60's designed engine based on a fiat which is very strong if a little underpowered.

In countries where size dos not matter so much they are very popular still and as in another post recently you can still buy pretty much the same model as mine new, save for fuel injection instead of carb.

I like the idea making the lightest simplest expedition vehicle that I can. I am using the philosophy developed from solo motorcycle touring and hiking, where gear is kept to a minimum, and things are only added if 100% needed. I feel that with this approach I can keep the car light, and have space for fuel and water without having to constantly beef things up. I will be making this car as simple as it is possible to make a car in the modern age.

I have already been able to score for free a good transfer case, gear box, diffs, wheels, steering box etc etc. These cars are worth nothing and so I can build up a goo store of parts to ensure that she should be able to keep her going for the long tem, but also set up reliably for the next to nothing. I think I will set myself a goal of getting accross the Simpson desert solo, for under 2000 Australian as a first challenge.

 

[SRN]

Awesome. I love these things, I wish we could get them in the States.

 

[Scott Brady]

I love the Niva. They were everywhere in Central Asia and Mongolia.

Keep us up to date on your progress!

 

[Christian P.]

Welcome!

Check this thread:

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55076&highlight=niva

 

[griffdog]

Cheers Guys,

I sense that there is a fair bit of interest starting to develop for lightweight expedition vehicles. i think the cost of new machines that are capable off the tar is becoming pretty prohibitive for many people. I hope to show that there are still really good options that bring back the real sense of adventure that existed before everyone had a gps, sat phones and every type of recovery gear you could imagine.

The Lada will really spin a few people out who have not had a lot of contact with them.

They are so good off road that most people see them as a cheap weekend toy now, but I reckon that as a super simple and capable machine for one or two people they are the goods.

 

[griffdog]

I've got a bit of a thing for making pvc front and rear bars filled with expanding foam. I am thinking that they would be light and cope with a fair whack without putting any stress on the body as the Niva does not have a seperate chassis.

This is my first effort - needs work.

 

[griffdog]

Simple things first

One of the cool things about Lada's is that they are constant 4wd. They have a transfer case with a diff lock and high and low ratio. The unique bit is that the gearbox and transfer are joined by a rubber donut and universal joint. This allows the transfer a degree of independence from the gearbox. Lada's are prone to getting vibrations when the transfer gets too far out of alignment from the gearbox. This is adjusted by loosening the transfer mounts, putting the gearbox in 4th and the transfer in neutral and letting it rev to 3-4 k for a while. This allows everything to settle in its own place.

I hade vibes which became really bad at about 90kph. Spent a fair bit of time doing the transfer case alignment, but still there. Then it hit me that the problem seemed speed related rather then revs. Clutch in at 90 = same vibes, so I am thinking that it is either a rear wheel well out of balance or maybe rear prop shaft. Reminds me to always consider the simple things first…

Here are some pics of the lada system for those that are interested.

 

[griffdog]

Another cool thing about Niva's is that you can get high res pictures like this.

 

[griffdog]

Traced vibrations to a slightly bent axle housing in the rear. Luckily I have a spare rear assembly so will refurbish the brakes and change the whole rear end in. and all should be sweet.

Niva's have a fantastic rear end design which gives them molto travel even in stock form. With a spacer on top of the springs, longer shocks and trimming of the bump stops they can be unbelievable and is the main reason that even with IFS they are pretty unstopable off road.

Here are some pictures of the front and rear systems. Note the long front drive shafts and forged wishbones. Very strong.

 

[griffdog]

I am currently tidying up any areas of surface rust that I find. It is actually surface rust on a Niva as they have sheet metal that is just under 1mm throughout. This means that you can generally sand down to clean metal. Remember that I am doing a foam roller paint job, witht he equivilent of what you guys call rustoleum, so I am not aiming for a perfoect job, but something that is servicable.

I have got new lenses and bits and pieces to replace the faded originals. The cutting of the front guards is to allow full travel with bigger tyres. 215/75 15 at the moment. As you can see, even without a lift there is a lot of clearance at the rear. One of the good things about a low powered/lightweight machine is that you can get away with smaller diffs. The actual diffs on these are strong. My axle housing issue can be rectified by reinforcing the new housing with some angle iron, which I will do.

 

[fjatheart]

Sweet Project!

 

[Lajning]

Love it.

Are you gonna replace the sills with square tubes?

 

[griffdog]

Love it.

Are you gonna replace the sills with square tubes?

The sills are actually quite sound at the moment and so will no replace with box section at this point although though this is a pretty common mod for hardcore Niva's. Because I am keeping the weight right down, I am just going to adapt a jack to make a mini high lift off the current jacking points. As this is more a mini expo truck rather than a hardcore offroader, I think the sills will be fine at present, but if I had any rust it would be box section all the way.

Someting like this from an old truck would be sweet with a few mods, it would be heaps smaller and lighter than a traditional hilift jack, but still be able to get the wheels up high enough to effect a recovery.

 

[Basement Yeti]

Man, what an awesome little vehicle. I'll be adding this to my list of builds to follow. Good luck.