Suzuki 4WD Club of Victoria

It's been a couple of weeks without any updates, but here's where we're at.

The chassis has been painted. The hard lines on the chassis have been removed, cleaned, straightened (they were badly distorted)
The Engine and gearbox are bolted together, the cover plate between the motor and bellhousing was fabricated
The TV cable (Kickdown cable) has been fitted. This was a F$%#% nightmare as it only has about 5mm of travel and has to take up at exactly the right point. It doesn't only control kickdown, it also controls line pressure under hard shifts so it has to be right.
Urethane transfer mounts have been fitted, raising the case about 35mm. A straight Passenger side transfer mount was found.
I fabricated a water pipe, but it ended up needing to be reworked - see the photos.
The Baleno throttle cable will work

Greg came up on Saturday, and we painted the cab underside and inside and threw it on the chassis, where a couple of problems showed their heads... but nonetheless, lots of progress has been made

Photo's-

Oh, the fuel system is done too.

Last one...

Big ups to Mitch who came and and leant a hand yesterday much progress is being made, update to follow later.

Steve.

Michael and I put in a big day today - lots of jobs ticked off the list- I'll post more photos tomorrow. The body is back off the chassis ATM for a clean up underneath after the tunnel widening and to build the exhaust. Body should be bolted back down for good tomorrow.

Steve.

Right - a proper update.

Lots has been happening over the last couple of weeks. I'm on holiday and have been spending my time in the shed, mostly.

The cuts in the floor have been plated up and painted, and the tunnel has been smoothed and painted from the underside as well.

The low range shifter was bent and welded to clear the auto shifter

The auto shifter was mounted and a shroud built. This was a MASSIVE PITA as the shifter we had (and most suzuki shifters, as it turns out), "pushes" the cable towards park. The trimatic needs to be "pulled" towards park. Normally, this can be achieved with a rear mounted cable, used by most GM autos, but in a sierra, there is no room to have a rear mount cable, so we had to modify the shifter to make a new pivot.

The water pipe was reworked to turn the thermostat housing through 90˚ and lower it, and then turn another 90 and point it at the front of the car. This is all complete now. It will be fairly hard to change a thermostat, but not impossible, but the way this ended up was miles neater than running down the side of the valve cover as has been done before (and the factory do on the 2.0 motors)

The auto dipstick needed to be reworked to clear the water pipe, and all sorts of stuff on the driver's side of the motor. This was a win - cut the tab off, turned the stick around, made a new tab to bolt it to the cam position sensor housing - viola! all done.

Auto trans cooler was mounted and hosed. Straightforward. We mounted it as high as possible to keep it out of the mud.

Muggins (ex Cj) extractors were cleaned, painted, swapped to a 2 bolt flange, and mounted. a very nice fit once a small section of motor mount bracket was removed.

The jackshaft was professionally shortened and balanced by Ken Hastings balancing in Chifley drive, preston. It was fitted with new unis.

The tension transfer mount (passengers side) was lifted another 20mm, this removed nearly all the jackshaft angle.

The exhaust was built. It runs 2" up to the resonator and 2.25 after that, (only for aesthetics and to lower the note) it runs a generic 2" cat, a straight through muffler and a resonator. we'll see how loud it is, but it should be OK. It's all mandrel bent, runs flanges and is painted. nothing is below the chassis. It sits in three stock suzuki rubbers.

The fuel filler needed and elbow built to clear the chassis rail - done.

Basically, wiring, paint and reassembly remain. The end is in sight!

more....

even more...

but wait....

and here's the steak knives -

One thing I forgot to mention - we started laying the cable in for the relocated battery. We have fitted and isolator on the tunnel and contrary to normal practice (and remember this isn't a comp car so we don't have rules to contend with) we have wired the NEGATIVE through the isolator. it was the easiest way we could think of properly killing the electrical system. As you may be aware, cars can still run if the alternator charge wire isn't also isolated, even if the battery is removed from the circuit, but as far as we could reason, if the negative is isolated, no circuit in the car can be complete, so everything will stop- anyone hav any experience/comment on this?

The isolator is visible next to the handbrake.

Steve.