Suzuki 4WD Club of Victoria

Sorry for the lack of updates- there hasn't been a lot of progress to look at. I have some new photos on the camera, I might be able to get them up on thursday night.

Here's the lowdown though.

The battery has been relocated to between the rear shock mounts. this has moved the weight rearward, down, and into an area where we had to raise the floor a little anyway to clear the shock mounts.

The body is off the chassis.

The rolling chassis has been pressure washed, the fuel tank pulled, the radiator is out, and all the engine mount bolts are now loose.

The Machinist hasn't really made any progress with the tailshaft adapter. I took it back off of him and welded it myself, and I ave given it back to him to finish machine.

although there's not much progress to speak of, now the body is off all the jobs are now easy.

Steve.

And here's the progess photos, including some detail shots of the shock mounts installed a couple of years ago.

An update on the tailshaft housing. The machinist quit, but one of the techs at work is a jet turbine tech by trade and he's pretty handy on a lathe, so he's swung onto the job. He made more progress in an hour than the qualified machinist made in the 6 weeks he had the job on his bench, so we're all on track to have it for next w/e.

Steve.

We got a pretty good day in today.

We carefully measured the position of the gearbox output shaft so we can keep the auto in as close as possible to the stock position.

The chassis was stripped of all unneeded brackets from the cab mounts back.

The rear crossmember was cut, a pintle mount fabricated and a sleeve installed to put it all back together.

We have confirmed there is *just* room for the exhaust beside the Vitara fuel tank.

The sump was modified to accept the crank angle sensor from the baleno sump.


Here's some photos. Please note the welding is not complete.

Little bit of progress this weekend.

Michael has chosen a colour - It's a colourbond colour - "Woodland Grey." He's had 4 litres of equipment enamel mixed by protec paints in Preston. The colour is much darker and greener than it looks in the photos - the very blue light of the flash is making it look very blue/grey when in reality has quite a military green look to it.

He's chosen satin, and it's going to come up a treat.

I've finished the sump, and the fuel tank is mounted.

Here's the photos.

Some more:

Ok, more progress this weekend.

Michael and I machined the transfer adapter last week. Unfortunately, neither of us are much chop at machining, so the "press fit" we were looking for was a bit looser than that but some hard gasket cement has retained the bearing solidly.

It all fitted up nicely though.

Today, the oil pickup was fitted which allowed us to install the 1.3 sump onto the 1.6 bottom end, which required the dipstick tube to be swapped too.
The water pipe off the rear of the pump was swapped too, ironically, the old 1.3 one was in lovely condition.

The engine mounts were transfered onto the 1.6... then we tried fitting the flexplate. After trimming the flywheel bolts, cleaning everything up, and going for the install, it was clear that the flexplate wasn't centering properly on the crank, and there was no way it could (vitara flexplates don't have a locating dowel like manual flywheels) I got on the phone to guru Cj, and he confirmed that there are flanges on BOTH sides of the flexplate - and we don't have them. I didn't have them with the trimatic I got from Mick about 1000 years ago either. Thing is, the vitara FSM doesn't show these, or, in fact, the flex plate at all.

We were dead in the water with reassembly at this point, so I moved onto engine and gearbox mounts.

The DS mount fitted once the holes had been opened up to 1/2" (there is a small difference in bolt spacing between the 1.3 and 1.6)
The PS mount required the top two mounts to be shimmed out 6mm.

I was ready to sling it into the chassis. After measuring, mounting, measuring, rechecking, it's done. The DS chassis mount had to come back 30mm. The PS mount didn't move at all. The gearbox mount required 15mm cut off of it, and the mounting holes moved back 15mm. The stock cast gearbox mount was cut down and welded onto the gearbox cover plate. I Think it will be OK, MIG welding castings shouldn't work, but I have had some luck in the past, and it has been well gusseted. We'll see, but as it sits, it was an easy solution as the mount is stock sierra.

The gearbox was located to line up with the transfer once the transfer comes up 50mm.

Here's the photos.

More piccies:

Another weekend, another update.

I dropped into Micks last week and he had the correct flanges for the flexplate on the shelf - hooray! I think they might have come from the car the gearbox originally came form, but never made their way to us.

I wanted to make a start on the water pipe and check the starter motor (after fitting the flexplate properly) but the wiring was a real mess and in the way... and one thing kind of lead to another.. anyway, now the loom is properly tidied and installed in a way that can't be done in the factory. It's much neater and the engine looks more "mechanical" now without wiring all over the place. There's no wiring all over the front of the engine now either.

It was a few hours work, but it was a nice non-physical job to be doing in thew shed on such a hot weekend.

Steve.

More photos...