Himuzulux - The best of both worlds...
I bought this truck in December 2004 for a few reasons, none of which involved any serious 4WDing.
My wife had always liked the shape of the MU, and having recently driven one, she was determined to have one... and since I liked the look of them too I was happy enough at that. So when a friend mentioned his business partner had just bought a late model one to either wreck or sell on I thought I'd better go look.
On arriving I had a quick look over it only to find it didn't have a single straight panel. The previous owner had been rough... Apparently it was a very expensive 1996 straight-and-shiney off the yard perfect glowing example of a hard-to-find 5-speed gen II MU only 18 months before - now it had no warrant of fitness and would need some serious work to get one. Bits of trim had been unceremoniously ripped from the side of the truck around the rear quarterlight windows, the tailgate 
opened about one attempt in 5, and occasionally opened itself when driving on a rough road, there was no handbrake at all, the horn didn't work, it had a chipped headlight and a smashed indicator, the aerial wiring had been torn from under the guard by tyres too large for the truck, every panel was both dented AND badly scratched... need I go on, it had been destroyed... in 18 months.
But, I looked it over and thought, "a quick buff and a bit of touchup and it'll be perfect" (Never let my overly enthusiastic optimism and a large sum of money come in contact with each other... bad things can happen). So I rang the wife and told her I'd found her MU... but I had to make a snap decision as there was another guy on his way to see it and it was waaay too cheap for anyone else to pass up, let alone me. She told me to decide, so I did... and here it is sitting in the drive after bringing it home... which is where it stayed since the bodywork was apparently far too rough for her to "bond" with it properly. Sigh, women... Oh well, I needed a new vehicle anyway.
On closer inspection, another thing I found was that the rear suspension was totally shagged, and both rear springs were badly bent just behind the front mount. I managed to find a second hand pair in reasonable condition and replaced the rear shocks with some cheap new ones while I was there... that improved the ride no end, and lifted the back end close to level, which after having spent a few days of driving with it sitting on the rear bump stops was a welcome relief!
The handbrake problem turned out to be the rear axle seals failing and filling the small inner handbrake assembly (shoes inside discs) with a mixture of oil, dirt and grease. I thoroughly cleaned out both sides and quickly re-assembled it to see if that would work - no joy... Off to Isuzu to price up some new bits. Now at this point I was starting to wonder what on earth I'd got myself into - Having mainly worked with Toyotas I was used to paying small prices for things like this... but Isuzu parts prices were nothing close to what I was used to.
Apparently Isuzu parts are made from some special rare materials found only on other planets, because seals ranged from $17 to $28 each, the brake shoes were $247! And he wasn't sure, but he seemed to think that would be PER SIDE! and the wheel bearing kits were $100 each side. Now on top of this, the truck had ABS. This meant I had to buy new retainer rings for the new wheel bearings (which had to be replaced as the inner seal couldn't be got at until the bearings were removed) because the retainer ring was also notched for the ABS sensor but was not provided as part of the wheel bearing kit - $97 per side... holy crap! This was getting out of hand.
I made an executive decision - replaced only the outer seals, cleaned the brakes as well as I could (which included my uncle very patiently and carefully blowtorching each shoe to cook out the oil), re-assembled everything and tested the handbrake.. it worked! Woohoo... I'd worry about everything else later, but was starting to think a Toyota rear axle under there would be a great idea.
Then I plugged the horn back in - the wire had fallen off - so that it worked, and glued a bit of old broken Hilux indicator lens over the hole in the Isuzu one (god knows what one of THOSE would have cost) and shot down for a WOF - which it passed... WOOHOO! Legal for 6 more months.
Then I started driving it, and I actually really liked it. It drove nicely, and the 3.1 turbo diesel engine is a great little power plant - it pulled along really well. I must admit I was pretty impressed with its power, even coming from a straight-6 Supra powered Hilux. But the handbrake started to fade again after about a month and I knew what was coming so I gave some serious thought to selling it on - which I tried to do. But it seemed everyone who looked at it had obviously been talking to my wife and no-one wanted a truck that looked like it had been through a cheese grater...
So I was stuck with it... which I guess I didn't really mind since it had kind of grown on me at this stage... and I had been having the beginnings of an idea based on something I'd seen on an online forum in the US... The final straw came when I parked beside a Rav4 and discovered my MU was lower. Modification was called for, and no 50mm lift kit was going to scratch my itch - it was time to break out the angle grinder...
