kws

The Marina I've spent so much time and effort on the Rover that the Marina is way behind where I need it to be.

This is what it sounded like upon return from said drive, at idle. Noise slightly amplified due to being against the wall, but its still really loud.

Well, since my last update, it's all gone downhill. I left the last update on a high. The car was running well, the engine was quiet, and Lucas had just flown through a WOF check. To celebrate this success, I decided it was time to deal with the thermostat. Lucas was running cold on the gauge (about 1/4, where it should be just under half), so this was the logical starting point. I also had a bunch of new hoses to fit as everything was a tad neglected and perished. I started by making a mess by removing the top hose from the radiator and draining as much coolant as I could. Followed by removing the hose completely, which revealed this mess I knew this hose had been weeping from both ends at various times, but this build-up was just gross. The other reason I wanted to do the thermostat is that it is easier to replace the hose that resides under the housing, which goes to the back of the waterpump. This had an intermittent leak and no amount of clamp tightening was stopping it. I gently removed the two bolts holding on the thermostat housing, which when removed unleashed another torrent of coolant, this time going straight down the valley gasket and appearing down the back of the engine where it proceeded to pour onto the ground, with some hitting the drip tray that lives under the cars. The housing was horrific once removed, so much gunk everywhere. The gasket had also been supplemented with too much of what looked like bathroom sealant. There was a thermostat fitted, which was a good start. It was the wrong one, unsurprisingly. It was some sort of American one, and once the freedom units on the back were translated to normal units, it was about 82c, not the 88c the EFI cars should run. I don't know if it was stuck open or not, I wasn't too bothered by that as I had a correct 88c thermostat ready to go in. The replacement also had a jiggle valve, which the old one didn't. With the housing removed, I had access to the hose under it. This wasn't as bad as I expected, but it was swollen and the ends were cracking. The clamp on the manifold side was very rusty, which seems to be a common theme for these. The replacement hose, ERC2278, was slightly longer and needed a bit of a trim to fit nicely. The stub it goes on in the manifold needed a clean up too as this was quite crusty Speaking of cleaning, I chucked the housing in the vice and attacked it with a spinny brush of death on the drill. It came up pretty well, especially the mating surface This meant that after running the bolts through a die and a tap into the mounting holes to clean the threads up, I could install the new hose and reinstall the housing with the new thermostat and gasket. New thermostat installed. As my past experience has taught me, use a thin smear of sealant on both sides of the gasket, and make sure the thermostat is seated correctly and doesn't slip down to get caught between the housing and gasket... You can just make out the new hose under it, with new stainless clamps A new top radiator hose was then fitted, with a thin smear of Hylomar on each end, just to seal any pitting in the surfaces. Speaking of hoses, while in the area I wanted to replace a couple of hoses that I knew looked horribly perished. They were the two Extra Air Valve hoses. You can see these in the above photo, to the left of the thermostat housing. The first hose, right above the thermostat, was missing a clamp and was badly perished. It looks like it hasn't had a clamp for a looong time. This wasn't too hard to replace. I did have to undo one bolt that secured the air rail under the throttlebody, so I could move the air rail away from the EAV and get more space to slip the hose in. Other than that, a lot of silicone spray and on it went. The other hose, that C shaped one on the left, was a bit more of a pain. It came off easy enough, but you can see how much it had swollen This meant the new hose was a very tight fit over the fittings. In the end I soaked the hose in hot tap water for a few minutes and then used silicone spray on the fittings to squeeze it into place. It's a big improvement though With those hoses installed, I filled the cooling system and bled it. The trick I found, in my vast experience of replacing coolant in these things, is to remove the two screws holding the expansion tank and place it on top of the battery. This raises the high point of the system and bleeds air into the expansion tank. You can really notice the difference the moment you lift the bottle up, air immediately starts to bubble into it. You can just make out in this photo that the hose from the tank to the radiator is above the radiator now, usually it's below the radiator outlet This bled the system very well, with lots of air coming through, and the thermostat opening nicely. It didn't seem to make much difference to the temp level on the gauge, so who knows. I tested the gauge and when it's grounded out it goes to the full range, so maybe the sensor is wrong. As long as the temp is stable, and it's not leaking, I'm happy enough. As one final job for the evening, I wanted to replace the distributor rotor and see if it improved the higher RPM stutter. I removed the very original looking Lucas cap, to find a very original Lucas rotor arm Now, this is where it went wrong. Much like the RV8 trick of not draining the oil with the filter removed, there is a trick with these rotors too... if they are stuck, don't pull them. What happens if you do, is that you end up lifting the upper section of the distributor out of the mechanical advance weights, which buggers the whole thing. The advance won't work, and the rotor now sits too high. Basically, I had immobilised the car. It's not the end of the world though, the car came with a spare distributor... (oh no) I made note of the rotor position, and removed the distributor. Here the removed one sits above the "replacement" Because the wiring has been messed with (the distributor should have an ignition amp on the side of it, but someone has rewired it to work with an HEI unit mounted on the strut tower. More on that later) I had to swap the altered wiring to the replacement distributor. I didn't realise at the time that you can swap the wiring complete with the pickup between the two distributors (even if one was designed for the external amp and the other wasn't), so I cut the wiring and soldered the connector on. I then fit the new rotor to the replacement distributor and fit it to the car. I got it running, timed it up with the timing light, and it ran like trash. Odd. In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to what I was putting in the car. I later discovered the replacement distributor was trash. It was broken, everything was loose, and I don't even know why it was included with the car. So, what now? Well at least I could move the car again, so that night I kicked it out of the garage again, to think about what it had done. Needless to say, at this point, I was beyond fed up with the car. Going from the high of the car running, driving, coming to temp nicely, the heater working, no leaks, and then being slammed to the ground face first by the car suddenly being broken again... it's not easy. Oh yeah, it wouldn't be me working on an SD1 without the floor looking like this. You can see the outline of the tray... it tried. The next day, I set about stripping and repairing the original distributor. This was the problem. The main shaft was sitting too high. The trigger gear/reluctor ring in the middle should be sitting down, with no gap under it. I have already removed the pickup in these photos; this would attach to the two threaded posts. The rotor was cracked, even before I started I had nothing to lose then. The general advice is to smash it off, instead of trying to pull or pry it off. Out came the hammer and chisel. It's off! And this is why you always grease the inside of the rotor before fitting. It was rusted solid. Next is to remove, or break, the little plastic retainer (if it isn't already broken). This lives down the center of the shaft, and is meant to hold the two sections together. Mine fell out. Next, remove the circlip retaining the reluctor ring. Under this is a washer, and then a very flat and very hard o-ring. I had to cut the o-ring off to remove the reluctor ring. Now gently lever the reluctor ring off, followed by removing the three standoffs that retain the advance plate below it Now you can lift the whole advance mech free. You will need to unhook this from the vacuum advance lever. This lever just slots over a pin on the bottom of the advance plate. This will leave you with the bare shaft and mechanical advance. Now the fun part, removing the shaft from the body. Use a punch to hammer the roll pin out of this hole The drive gear will slide off now. I marked the shaft and gear so they installed the same way around. I don't know if this was necessary, but I did it anyway. Now the whole shaft should slide out the top of the housing The advance doesn't look happy. The springs should be flat. Do note that the two springs are different and must remain in the same positions. One is thicker than the other. So what happened? Well, when I pulled hard on the rotor, if lifted the top half of the shaft up. If you're lucky, it might slip back down and be happy. If not, it could do a couple of things that mine did. First, there is a black plastic piece under the fixed plate on the bottom of the top shaft. This plastic piece (orange arrow) is meant to fit perfectly on and lock into the metal plate (green arrow). Mine was out of place and stuck under the plate, stopping it from sliding down into place. The other issue is more simple, the advance weights get caught under the lower plate. Neither is really recoverable without stripping the distributor to some degree. What I also didn't realise initially, is that the top half of the shaft should move pretty freely. Mine was seized solid. This more or less means the mechanical advance hasn't been working, as the shaft needs to be free to rotate for that to operate. I unhooked the springs with some levering, and after much wiggling and some prying, the top shaft started to move. There was a buildup of old grease and dirt under it. I removed and cleaned everything up, making sure the two shafts slid together and moved freely. I retrieved the plastic piece, which was thankfully undamaged, and fit it onto the upper shaft. Here you can see how it should fit together. I guess the plastic piece is a kind of bushing. I gave everything a light coating of grease And reassembled the two halves Now it was just a case of refitting everything back into the housing, step by step, not forgetting the roll pin on the drive gear, Once everything was back together, I installed the pickup, and using a thin slip of plastic from some packaging, created the required air gap between the pickup and the reluctor wheel. The pickup is magnetic, so you need a non-ferrous feeler gauge. In the end, it took three distributors to make one good one. I had to steal some bits from another spare distributor I have (which has a locked mechanical advance for use with an aftermarket ECU), as the "spare" that came with the car was in such bad condition I couldn't even scavenge that for much. I fit the rebuilt distributor to the car, with a new cap and rotor, and timed it up to the 8 degrees BTC, and the car was running nicely, idling smooth and sounding good. The throttle was nice and responsive, and the timing light showed that both vac and mechanical advance appeared to be operating. The old cap, was a bit old. The final thing to change was the coil. I had done some reading about the HEI ignition amp that has been fitted to this car, and realised it's designed to work with a low impedance type coil, despite not having a ballast resistor fitted. I still had the old GT40R that came with the car, So I refitted that. I also finally figured out something that had been bugging me. There was a wire jammed into a relay holder under the dash, running through a hole in the firewall, to the coil. It turns out this was a bodged switched 12v feed for the coil... This wasn't my sort of bodge, so I set about fixing it. I knew from when I got the car that there was a standard, unused, connector right next to the coil; I don't know what it was meant for, but it has a switched 12v feed in it. When I got the car the aux cooling fan on the trans cooler was powered by this (and running all the time the key was on). I pulled the wire out of the relay holder, pulled it through the firewall and cut it shorter. I then crimped on a bullet terminal, and popped it into the relevant socket on the plug. Works a treat, and now isn't running into the car through a relay holder. Nice. I also removed the HEI unit to check that there was thermal paste under it, as they run hot and need cooling. No, there wasn't, just dirt. I wire-brushed the paint back to bare metal and used some thermal paste before reassembling it. The engine was now running great, so all that was left to do was to take it for a decent run and get some heat into it. Before leaving the garage, I popped this spare standard chrome grille trim on And then it was time to enjoy the sun, and take the car for a run. It was a leisurely run, I was out for a cruise, not a race, but I did test the higher RPM performance once or twice, and it was silky smooth to redline now. Obviously something I had done fixed the stuttering. The engine was running awsome, everything was doing what it should, and the exhaust sounded great. Arm out the window, enjoying life. I got about half way around my usual test course, about 5km into a 10km trip, and I noticed it. Tick. Tick. Tick. Just once or twice, mostly at lower RPM when slowing down. Tick. Balls. By the time I got to the photo spot, the engine was clattering away like a champ. The "fix" lasted almost exactly 100km. Clack Clack Clack Clack. Oh well, I was there anyway, so I took some photos. The drive home was one of shame. Trying to pretend like the noise was coming from the car next to you, not the old British clunker you're in. Everyone looks, but not for the right reasons. I was gutted. I am gutted. I got the car home, and sure enough, the noise is deep in the middle of the Vee, so it can only be something related to the cam or lifters. It's worse when hot, but can be heard intermittently when cold. Clack. Clack. Unfortunately, that is it, that is the straw that has broken this camel's back. Not only do I not have the time, money or space to replace or rebuild the engine, I'm just over it. It's been hard. This car kills motivation. For every success I have had, it's been almost immediately followed by yet another failure. I replace the power steering pump, and the replacement is broken. I replace that, and the coil dies. I fix the coolant issues, but the distributor dies. The replacement distributor is rubbish, so I fix that. I finally get it running well, try to enjoy a drive, and the engine starts clacking again. It's a soul crushing loop. What it needs is someone with the space to just rip the engine out, and fit a different one, going through all the other systems at the same time and just sorting it all once and for all. Doing it bit by bit clearly hasn't been working for this car. So, with that, the car is for sale. I hope it goes to a good home, I really do. Lucas deserves it. It's not his fault that previous owners have been neglectful. I feel like it's a bit of a failure. I haven't had to sell a car because it's gone over the line I have drawn in the sand. Sure, Lucas is a LOT better than when I got him, but he is still broken and I don't like that. Who knows what the future holds now. Watch this space.

and for having people stop to let you out of a park

My wife was failed years ago because only one of two fitted reverse lights worked. We were told "if its there it must work", much like fog lamps. But saying that, I have also had cars pass where neither of the reverse lights have worked (dodgy inhibitor switch).

You'd be hard pressed (heh) to find much that is modern with oil shocks, most will have (or had) gas in them. I believe the last ones I had were on my old Classic Mini and even then they offered a lot of resistance to pushing and pulling the piston rod. Check the stamped markings on the strut housing, ones with gas in them will usually say not to cut or heat.

Looking at the photos I'd pick the one in the RH rear is already bad (hasn't fully returned like the LH rear one)

I love that this little car has captured the imagination of the worldwide media. In a world of chequebook car builds/supercars, this is what I'm here for.

Very. My Rover was leaking water into the foot wells, over the door seal, because the tape on the bottom of the plastic had lost its stick. The moisture also soaked into the door cards and caused them to distort and warp.

A lot of OEMs use non setting butyl to stick them on. You can tell its this stuff because its black, soft and sticks like shit to a blanket. I think i got my last lot of butyl rope from Aliexpress. Rover used duct tape though, so if its good enough for them, its good enough for me. If you use black plastic, it does make it surprisingly hard to locate the holes you need to poke in it...

After the last big update, not much has happened with Lucas, except for me setting a deadline to have the car on the road again. I decided a couple of weeks ago that it was time for Lucas to go for a WOF check, with the plan being that at least then I would have a list of what I needed to get the car on the road and could chip away at it. A couple of obvious things I knew about needed to be sorted, one was the passengers door card which had been sitting on the roof of the Marina for a few weeks waiting for me to refit it, and the other was the power steering pump. The door card was easy, it just clipped back into place and a couple of screws later it was done. The back edge no longer caught the seal since I had used the PVA glue to hold it into place and reshape it. Unfortunately I later found that the window switch on that door wasn't working, despite me cleaning it... I had forgotten to plug it back in. Damn. The power steering pump was more of a pain. I wanted to try changing to a spare pump that came with the car because the current pump makes loud groaning noises and surges in assist when at low speeds. I tried sucking the fluid out of the pump and replacing it when I got the car and it made no difference. The pump lives down here, and although it's very visible and quite accessible, it sucks to change. Access is best with the air filter removed, but you'll still find yourself bent almost upside down trying to lean down into the engine bay to get at it. I can only recommend a proper flare spanner for the pipe fitting, and ratcheting spanners for the mounting bolts, it would be an even worse job without them. When refitting I suggest starting with one of the two adjustment bolts (closer to the engine) than the outer pivot bolt, as they seem easier to line up without the pivot bolt in place. I drained the pump, unhooked the two lines, removed the three bolts, removed the belt and pulled the pump out. Swapped the replacement in, fitted it all up, filled it with fluid and started the engine to bleed the pump. In the garage, lock to lock, it was stiff but seemed to work. The pump was nice and quiet, but wouldn't you know it, once outside and not on the smooth garage floor, it had zero assist when stationary. It was perfect once moving, but without that assist when at idle you had to really tug on the wheel to turn. It wouldn't pass the WOF like that, as one failure condition is if the Power Assisted Steering system isn't working correctly. So that was that, I ripped the pump out and refitted the old one. It's still knocking at idle when under load, but no longer surges as it did. Let's just call it a good flush for the PAS system then... Since I was there anyway, a new correct air filter was fitted to the original canister and refitted You can see how the correct one above, differs from the incorrect carb filter when fitted I also swapped the fuel filter out since it was looking a bit old and I had no history on it. I was surprised to find the filter wrapped in sandpaper under the retaining strap. No idea why, it was the correct part number filter, and the replacement fit fine without that extra grip wrapped around it. Finally, I replaced the viscous clutch for the fan. The one that was on the car was locked when cold, and actually seemed to unlock when warm, so although it wasn't overheating, I had no faith in it. The fan looked weird, and I was lucky to have the offset 32mm fan spanner as this cleared the fan which seemed to be sticking further back than I remember from previous ones I have worked with. A couple of quick taps with a hammer (remembering its reverse thread) and the fan unscrewed from the waterpump. The fan was indeed weird. It's mounted to the back of the viscous coupling, instead of being inside the hub of the fan I expected it to look a bit more like this (from Effie) Neither fan are correct for an EFI car, it should be an 11 blade fan, but it'll still do the job with the right viscous coupling (which Effie didn't have, originally). As it turns out, from my research, the fan I have is for an Air conditioning spec car, whilst the one on Effie was a non-AC carb car. For whatever reason, the AC fan is mounted further back from the radiator, despite the coupling still being close to the radiator. The new coupling was the same P/N as the one on the car, so was a direct bolt-on. You can tell it's a correct EFI spec coupling due to the big single female nut for the waterpump on the back, and the bimetallic spiral locking coil on the front. With that installed, the engine bay was looking mostly the same, but with a couple of nice new shiny bits if you know where to look Of course, being Lucas, you just can't make this up. I went to start the car to bleed the power steering pump (the original one after being refitted) and was met with the sweet sound of repeated cranking and no signs of firing. A quick check with a spark tester showed I had no spark. It turns out, this bastard, the GT40 coil, has failed. I had previously dug out a spare Lucas coil, just in case, and sure enough it was sitting ready to be fitted. I popped the replacement coil in and the car fired up on the first turn. I don't know how or why the coil failed, but I'm glad it did it in the garage and not when it was out and about, especially either driving or when it goes for the WOF test. There were a couple of other small nice-to-haves that I wanted to get done. First was to finish reassembling the interior, and tidying it up. This included the boot, which for months had been full of bits I had removed from other parts of the car. I emptied it out and refitted everything, but before I could finish putting the boot back together I wanted to secure the spare properly. A previous owner had done their best, using a manky old ratchet strap. But from my spares I produced an original strap, so cut the ratchet strap off and fitted this instead Now I could put the boot boards and carpet back into place. The carpet is very stained, so I might see if the spare I have is any better, but they all seem to end up in this state. Of course I couldn't leave the weird mismatch of wipers on the car either, as that really bothered me A nice new pair of matching 400mm blades were fitted. Unfortunately for some reason the drivers one is shuddering badly on the downwards stroke, but it's better than nothing. And there we were, ready for the WOF inspection, well, as ready as I thought it could be. To celebrate the work I gave the car a much-needed clean, for the first time in my ownership. I will say, it shines up alright. I forgot how nice the lattice wheels are to look at, but how horrible they are to clean >_< I need some more Mag Monster to try and eat the old baked on brake dust. Obligatory petrol station shot, gassing up ready for the WOF the next day. Oh, so what happened with the WOF today? Well, much to everyone's surprise, Lucas just went and got himself a clean sheet WOF! Or near enough clean sheet, anyway I haven't changed the old service sticker yet, which says it was due for its next service over a year and/or 1000 miles ago, so I don't blame them for thinking it was overdue a service, and it's British, of course it has an oil leak. So there we are, a couple of days over 5 months to the day that Lucas arrived on my drive on the back of a truck, no reg, no wof, clattering like a bastard, with rust in the floor and electrics that didn't work, we have a Rover SD1 that is running, driving, road legal and everything (almost, damn window switch) works. We've come a long way. I took Lucas for a bit of a drive around town this evening, and the engine and trans are working great. The engine does seem to stutter and break down at really high RPM (near redline), but I think it's best just to not rev it that high. A new distributor cap and rotor are on the cards anyway which might help. His first trip on the open road was a surprise too; dead straight and smooth at 100kph, he just glides along. The engine still taps a bit when cold and the oil pressure is slow to come up, but when warm the oil pressure is good, and the engine makes no noises it shouldn't. Obviously it's enjoying having a bit of care and attention spent on it, and I'm sure not sitting around being neglected is doing wonders too. I still have some more work to do on the car, regarding things like the injection pipes and thermostat, but otherwise, I will just be using the car as much as I can over summer. Once the Marina is on the road, I will likely start looking for a new home for Lucas, but we will cross that bridge when we get there.

Agreed. The early TVR Tasmin had no surge tank and the pickup for the pump was at the front of the tanks. It was a real pain in the arse having all the fuel surge to the back of the tank, away from the pickups and lose all power when accelerating.

This listing appears to be for a 1AZ avensis box, if it helps with the bolt pattern https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223480998601 Dumb question, but the starter is removed, and there isnt a rear mount bracket attached to the box or anything?

No, the Swift didn't pass its WOF first try, but I kinda knew what it was about to fail on. I took the car in for its WOF check, and sure enough, I get the call; "it failed". Turns out it was two things I kinda had my suspicions about, but didn't expect it to fail on; low rear brake pads (causing excessive handbrake travel) and a failed RH side engine mount. The rear pads I thought might be an advisory (as mentioned in the last update), as when I had the wheels off I noticed they looked low, but still had a few mm of material left. I thought about replacing them that day, but decided to leave them for another time. Oops. The engine mount was a surprise though. I had replaced the other two engine mounts in the quest to get rid of the shunt coming off and on the throttle, and it had helped a lot, but it turns out the drivers side mount was completely shot. I picked up some rear pads from the local parts store for $40, and ordered an engine mount from a local Suzuki dealer. It was reasonably priced, but would take a couple of days to arrive. With the new pads in hand, I jacked the rear of the car up and put it onto stands, removed the wheels and had a look at what I was up against. It all looked very old and untouched. These aren't Brembo levels of easy to replace the pads in, but still very easy. Remove the two slider bolts (counter holding the hex on the other side of the bracket if needed) And lever the caliper off. Mine was very stuck on the pads, so took a bit of prying. There was no sign of any lubricant around the pads, they were completely dry and very dirty. The pads were low, but not dire. Old vs new. I suspect the old ones are the original pads. Before I could fit the new pads I needed to compress the piston in the caliper. This was well extended to make up for the lack of pad material. The moisture in the photo is brake cleaner. For front calipers and some rear calipers (ones with handbrakes that don't act on the piston) you can just push the piston in with a clamp, but calipers, where the handbrake acts on the piston, need to be wound back into the caliper as they are on a treaded rod which rotates as part of the self-adjusting mechanism. They cannot just be pressed back in. For calipers like this, you either need a tool to turn the piston, or sometimes you can get away with using a pair of pliers (at the risk of slipping and tearing the boot). I bought this little block a while ago and it's great for winding the pistons back. Each side has a different set of studs to lock into the piston. In this case it was these two that fit into the cross on the piston. And you just use a ratchet and short extension to rotate the piston. You do also need to keep an eye on the brake fluid level in the reservoir as winding the piston back will force fluid into the reservoir and could make it overflow. I had to remove a small amount using a syringe. I wound the piston in so that it was flush with the housing, taking care not to twist the boot. One thing to be careful of is that the piston is the correct way around when you stop turning it. The cross needs to be perfectly straight, with one slot completely vertical. The rear pad (the one with the wear indicator tab attached, if fitted) has a small stud that is used to stop the piston from rotating as it self-adjusts. This needs to lock into the slot. Before fitting the new pads, I gave everything a real good clean and then used some copper grease to lubricate the areas the pads rest on. There is a lot of opinion on copper grease, so I won't go into it, but it's what I have used for years. Do your own research before using. I should also say that all my slide pins were free and still well greased, so I didn't regrease them. If they were seized or dry, they need a thorough cleaning and grease before assembly. Now the pads were fitted and the caliper reinstalled. I torqued the bolts up and moved to the other side. This was exactly the same to work on. To adjust the handbrake, which still had a bit much travel (needs to be 4-9 clicks, according to the manual), you start the engine and pump the brakes a few times to pump up the piston, and then actuate the hand brake lever a couple of dozen times. This should set all the self-adjustments. If it still has too much travel, the cable needs to be adjusted at the lever. I removed the center console, which is held in with two clips at the rear (one on either side) and then it is hooked into place on the front edge. The adjuster is at the back of the lever. Tighten the nut to remove slack from the cable until there is a slight drag on the rear wheels when on a single click, and it fully engages between 4 and 9 clicks. With new rear pads they will need to bed in before the handbrake is fully operational and the pads get really bitey. After a few good hard stops, the handbrake now holds perfectly on my steep drive. Before letting the back down again, I had one last toy to fit; A Cusco rear swaybar. These Swifts run a twist beam rear axle setup, where the rear beam acts as a kind of torsion bar, and can twist to allow the wheels to semi-independently move over bumps. From factory there is no rear swaybar, instead relying on the beam to do that job. A rear swaybar is a very common addition to Swifts to stiffen up the rear suspension and resist that twisting motion of the beam, which like in a multilink setup, helps reduce roll and moves the handling balance slightly more towards neutral than understeer when cornering. This was a very easy install, consisting of two plates that bolt to the spring perch on the beam, and the bar bolts between those. It is used, so it's not super pretty, but looks good under there along with the stainless MonsterSport muffler With all that back together, the rear wheels could be refitted, along with the 20th nut which arrived promptly from the supplier Speaking of wheels, notice the nice new Yokohamas that the workshop fitted whilst it was there. Much better than the old perished rubbish. Look forward to cornering hard without worrying they will let go. I finished the day by giving the interior a quick wet vac, the seats, mats and carpet in particular. I bought the car from a teenager and the amount of what I can only presume was Coke (the drink, not the powder) through the car was nasty. I removed so much brown water from the car, especially the carpets. I really should have done this months ago when I got the car, but I just never got around to it. My hand was forced now though as I noticed the various spills had started to grow mould from the car being parked up and baking in the sun. It's done now though, and after leaving the car in the sun with the windows down for the afternoon, everything has dried nicely. The seats still have stains, but I'm not sure anything short of a waterblaster will fix that. Now, the engine mount. I ordered this on Wednesday, checked it hadn't arrived yet on Friday morning, which it hadn't, and then called on Monday to see if it was there yet as I was running out of time to have the car ready for its recheck that Wednesday. In an interesting and frustrating turn of events, the mount had arrived that Friday around midday, but no one could locate the paperwork to allocate it to me, so it was sent back on a courier to the main distribution center about 200km away that same afternoon. I bailed on that dealer as they couldn't guarantee they could get the mount back again overnight. Thankfully another dealer, Mexted Motors, came to the rescue and had one in my hands the next morning. Probably the same one the other dealer sent back... So with the recheck booked for the next day, I had to get the mount installed after work. This turned out to be really easy to do, with all the work being done up top. First I needed to use the jack under the sump to carefully take the weight of the engine. I used a block of wood on the jack to spread the weight. The mount in question is located here With the jack taking the weight, I removed the three bolts holding the top mount bracket to the engine, and the one nut from the top of the mount And removed the bracket. Some people get away with leaving the bracket in place, but I didn't see the point in that when there is so much more space with it removed The mount is secured to the car with three bolts Remove those and the mount just wiggles its way out I wondered how they knew the mount was stuffed, as I had a quick look at it a while back and didn't see the telltale mess under it like the R53 Mini had when that mount failed. What I missed was that these mounts have weep holes, and sure enough it was weeping What's it weeping? Well, due to noise, vibration and harshness requirements these RH mounts are fluid-filled, generally with some sort of silicone oil. When they fail, the fluid all ends up in places it shouldn't, but in this case, it hadn't made a mess on the body. I suspect it also shouldn't do this, as the new one didn't (the new one was solid as a rock) The old one has sagged a considerable amount when compared with the new one. The rubber is right at the top of the new one, and there is a large gap on the old one The new one just bolts in, and after a stern torquing to, its job done. Today was recheck day and sure enough, I got a fancy new sticker on my windscreen giving me 12 months of road-legal motoring. So how does it feel to drive? The mount has made the biggest difference. Even with the other two replaced, the instant change in the car, once the RH one was replaced, is quite remarkable. The car feels more solid and doesn't shunt when coming off and on the throttle now. It also no longer bangs and thumps when you do a particularly hard shift. Well worth doing. I haven't really had a chance to test the swaybar in anger, but the car does feel quite sharp on the road. I'm taking it to work tomorrow, which gives me some time on a few fast twisty roads, so hopefully I get a clean run and should be able to see how it goes then. The Swift was already really good, so it will be interesting to see if I can tell the difference.

Wasn't sure where to put this, but I'm looking for a good mobile auto glazier in the wellington/Hutt region that can remove and refit the windscreen/rear qtr glass from the Marina. Any recommendations? Car isn't mobile so needs to come to me and be experienced in old car rubber seals, not bonded in stuff.

Started this old girl up for the first time since Feb. Took a lot of cranking to fill the carb with fuel, but after a couple of coughs it fired straight up and ran great. Took it up the drive and spun it around so I have better access to the passengers side, so i can finally tackle the rusty outer sill. It'll sound stupid, but god i love this car, it just makes me happy, even if its just firing it up to go up the drive and back. The current fleet of toys (excluding the daily Honda)

I've had a persistent cold starting issue with Lucas, where it could crank for AGES cough a few times and when it finally catches it would be lumpy and run on less than all 8 cylinders for a minute or so. I had my suspicions that because the car is parked on a steep incline, nose down, with the low fuel in the tank (about 10 litres) it was sloshing to the front of the tank and starving the pump of fuel until it returned enough from the lines to suck back up again and start. I had to start Lucas today and move him off the drive for a bit, and sure enough, with another 25 litres in the tank, after a couple of turns to build fuel pressure he fired straight up and settled in a nice stable idle on all cylinders. Good to know it was a simple fix, and not the first time I have been caught overlooking something as simple as making sure there was fuel in the tank.

Hub is pressed into the bearing and I don't have a spare wheel bearing if it gets messed up pressing the hub out. The car needed to be in and out of the garage the same day. I can't see anything in the virm that would fail someone taking a grinder to the knuckle. What I ground off was mostly a casting mark. It's also behind the brake caliper, so it's not that obvious. If it fails I'll just grab a second hand knuckle/hub and swap it over.

It has been a bit quiet on the Swift front, but with the annual WOF check looming, it was time to get it into the garage and get it ready. The quietness has been both in terms of working on the car and also driving it. I put quite a few KM on it when I first got it, but recently it's been parked for weeks at a time without being touched. One of the main reasons for this was that the rear tyres are bad. I ignored them long enough and then decided I needed to replace them before I drove the car again as I can't trust them. They aren't even that old, date stamped 2015, and they're Falkens not some cheap ditchfinders, but the sidewalls are perished and cracking, there is cracking in the tread, and somehow there is a big crack/gash round the whole circumference of the tyre. This is all present on both sides. The tread is just above the wear markers too, so it's time for them to go regardless. I had originally planned to get some different wheels, going so far as to buy a set of Nissan Skyline R32 GTST alloys, which look ace on these cars, but once Lucas came along I had to reign in the spending (they needed to be refurbished, repainted and four new wider than stock tyres) so they were quickly onsold and a pair of Yokohama ES32 in the stock size were purchased. There is a bit of a shake in the car at around 80kph, so the plan is to have the rear tyres replaced, and all four wheels balanced. That plan fell to bits when I replaced the clutch, as, during my use of a sledgehammer to free the axle from its home in the hub, I clipped a stud and made a slight mess of the threads. To keep the car on the road, after that work I just went full send on the rattlegun to get the nut back on. I know, I know, that's a horrible thing to do. It was only temporary; a new stud was purchased, but with Lucas taking up all the garage space recently it's been hard to find the time to replace it. I couldn't in good conscience take the car to have the tyres done knowing one of the studs/nuts was buggered. So, Lucas was outside again after all his work, so there was free space in the garage this weekend. It was Swift time. It helps to have a deadline; the WOF is booked for Wednesday. I wanted to start with the job I knew was the most important to do, but would probably be the most annoying to do (little did it know...); the stud. The nut came off fine, but there is an awful lot of metal in the thread of the stud I removed the caliper and then tried to remove the disc, only to find it was rusted to the hub. Thankfully like Toyota, Suzuki has threaded holes in their rotors too. A pair of M8 bolts were sourced and threaded in A couple of uggas and a single dugga with the rattle gun had the bolts press the disc off nicely With the disc off, it was time to remove the damaged stud. Having done this before, using the balljoint press, I set about doing that method again. Then its all turned to custard. Most cars have enough space, or maybe a small cutout, behind the hub in one spot to allow you to remove the studs on the car. This isn't the case on the Swift. The stud quickly ran into a solid lip once I had it moving. You can see my solution to that in the above photo, I used the cutoff wheel to chop off the head of the stud off and it hammered out fine. The next problem was getting the replacement in; obviously I cant just cut the head off that and hammer it in. The first modification applies to the stud itself. Using the bench grinder I flattened off one side of the head to allow it to pass that lip. Some studs come like this factory, to allow this work to be carried out on the car; not Suzuki though. The second modification was the rotor backing shield and hub. I cut a section of the backing shield away, and using a flap disc took a small amount off the side of the hub to allow the stud to slip passed it. It didn't need much, but it was just enough to slip the stud into place and use the balljoint press again to wind it home. That took so much longer than it should have, and I'm glad only one stud was damaged as It was a pain in the arse. In hindsight, when using a BFH on the axle, pop some wheel nuts on the studs to protect them. With that shitty job done I moved on to the next task; removing the front struts and replacing the top mounts. I had quite a bad clunk from the front end when going over bumps, and the most common reason for that seems to be these top rubber mounts. They wear out and allow the strut to move up and down slightly. I purchased a pair of replacement mounts and bearings and set about replacing them. First, you need to remove the wipers and plastic cowl trim. I found quite a lot of built-up junk on one side of the scuttle panel. It was completely blocking the drain on one side, so that's not ideal. A quick vacuum opened that up again. The otherside was clear, but it's a rubbish design. I removed the two lower bolts to the knuckle, the brake hose, ABS sensor, and swaybar link. That left only the top nut holding the strut in. Once that was removed, the strut wiggles out of place. The top mount is the big doughnut of rubber on the left of the strut. Annoyingly, to remove this you need to compress the spring (well, youtube will show you don't have to, but I value not taking a mount to the face). Thankfully there isn't much tension on the spring, so one spring compressor did the job fine. Then the top nut can be removed. You will need to use a hex key to stop the shaft from spinning. It's just a matter of removing the old mount, removing the bearing, and fitting the replacements. I found this job was made a lot easier by using offset spanners. I only bought these recently after years of never using one, and they're becoming a regular part of my tool kit now. The passengers side wasn't a happy strut. Everything looked original, but when spinning the top mount to see how the bearing was, I noticed this wasn't spinning the shaft as it should and was actually undoing the main nut! I wouldn't be surprised if this was the source of the clunk, as the strut definitely wasn't tight. The bearing on that side was also cracked, probably from moving around when going over bumps. Just as well it was being replaced. With the struts out it was easier to do another job too. When I removed the hubs from the lower ball joints to remove the axles when replacing the clutch, at some point both of the balljoint boots got pinched and split. I tried to seal them up with sealant, but I knew it wasn't going to work, so new boots were ordered. The ball joints were still in good condition. This one was still leaking grease Once the retainer clip is removed the boot can be pulled off I put a small amount of grease inside the boot and carefully fitted. The retainer clip is a real pain to install, but I got there eventually. The strut could then be refitted, followed by the brakes. I noticed with the calipers that there was no grease on the pads at all. The sliders were free, but everything was dry and dirty. I cleaned the brackets and lubricated the pads before refitting. After a whip around with the torque wrench, Job jobbed. The next job, since the car was in the air, was to replace the gearbox mount. I replaced the rear mount when I had the gearbox out, and probably should have done all the mounts at the same time. Since having the car back on the road there was a noticeable shunting when coming off and on the throttle. This mount is quite easy to do anyway. Just support the gearbox with a jack, and remove the mount with the bracket on the gearbox. The through bolt for the mount was easiest to access from the top, with the intake duct removed and the coolant overflow bottle relocated The old mount wasn't good. Cracked/torn in a couple of places, and sagging. You can see how much the old one was sagging compared to the new genuine mount With the mount replaced the last job before refitting the wheels was to bleed the brakes. I had bled the fronts when I did the clutch, but the rears hadn't been touched. I flushed through all the old fluid, but it really wasn't too bad considering. The rears will need new pads very soon, but hopefully, it scrapes through the WOF and I'll order some for next time it's in the garage. As a treat, I fit the wheels with the new wheel nuts I ordered to fit with the Skyline wheels. I think they look good; subtle but different. Unfortunately one out of the 20 was a different tread pitch (M12x1.5 instead of 1.25), so I'm seeing if the seller will send out another one, in the mean time I have had to refit a standard nut. Finally, with the wheels on, I could move on to the interior work. First was to replace the cabin filter. This was honestly one of the worst I have ever seen. It was completely clogged. I yeeted that quickly into the bin before I caught something from it, and fit a nice new white Wix filter It's such an overlooked maintenance item. Quick and easy to change, but so often no one bothers. It's not like it's what filters the air being blown at your face and circulated around the car or anything... Something I had been keeping an eye out for was next; a throttle controller. One of the guys on the local FB group was selling off some parts, one of which included this JDM AF Siecle TREC Premium throttle controller. Naturally, I snapped it up. Pretty easy to wire in. Plugs into the throttle pedal and intercepts the signal, and just needs a switched 12v feed. I mounted its control box on the top of the knee trim, and mounted the controller above my left knee, where it's out of sight but easy to change the settings. On the quick test drive after all the work, I found that although I know the car isn't faster, it feels faster, because of this. What it's doing is ramping up the E-Throttle, by making it open the throttle body more for the percentage you press the pedal. For a simplified example, if previously 1/4 throttle was 15% TB open (I believe it's not linear like a cable throttle), depending on the setting, now 1/4 throttle could be 25% open. I have only had the dial up as high as half, and already it's pretty aggressive. Makes rev-matching on downshift a lot easier. Looking forward to more seat time with this to test the settings. The final job for the (long) day was to replace the steering wheel. When I got the car the wheel was manky as and had never been cleaned. I cleaned it, and in the process revealed that all the perforated leather on the RH side of the wheel was almost gone, and it had developed a hole in the leather. Even after a thorough cleaning, the wheel was sticky too. This is how it was after a cleaning So, off with the wheel. I had located a better condition used one from a wrecker. It wasn't perfect, it still had damaged leather, but at least it was intact. The airbag needs to come out, so make sure the battery had been disconnected for a bit, pump the brake pedal and then use a T27 torx bit to loosen the two screws that retain the airbag. I find the easiest way to disengage these captive screws is to loosen both, pull on the airbag and then keep unscrewing one of the screws until the airbag comes out. Disconnect the black horn wire spade terminal, and then using a small pick, lift the yellow locking tab on the airbag connector. Pull the connector out and remove the airbag. The steering wheel is held on with the single nut. Straighten the wheel, undo the nut, but don't remove it, and then pull on both sides of the wheel sharply on alternating sides until the wheel pops free from the splines. Hopefully the nut has stopped the wheel from clobbering you in the face. My side trims were in better shape than the replacements, so I removed the two screws holding on the back plastic and unclipped it The side trims are then held in with one screw each I swapped them over, reassembled the wheel and refitted it. A quick clean followed by some leather conditioner has the wheel looking better. The gloss should wear off as the conditioner soaks into the leather a bit. So that should be the car WOF ready. It's already booked in, and they will swap over the tyres and balance the lot at the same time. I'm looking forward to having it back on the road again and driving it more. I have one more mod on the way which is meant to be quite a good upgrade; a rear swaybar. I'm also constantly looking for a tidy Recaro seat to fit to the drivers' side, but it seems everyone only wants stupid money for them now.

Thanks, I haven't. I don't have a search set up for Roovers Will have a better look when I'm home. Shame they are never close enough for me to go up and pick it over myself.

That does look real tidy, other than that awful steering wheel

I don't quite follow what you're saying, but I believe the theory behind the fan restricting airflow at speed is something to do with the powered fan causing a difference in air pressure and the ram air effect of driving at speed can't overcome it to flow smoothly through the radiator. The air stalls and doesn't pull away the heat. In contrast if the fan isn't powered it'll just freewheel or remain stationary at speed and the ram air will flow through the fan unimpeded. I'm not a scientist though, I just remember being told it a few times in my travels. Might be an old Barrie's tale.

Just picking up on something you mentioned; can't running a thermo fan constantly cause issues with cooling when moving as it disrupts airflow through the core?

Also check it's solid core wire and not flux core (unless you're going gasless, which you shouldn't, because it sux) and you should be golden. Don't forget to match the tip with the wire too. Go with the big rolls if your machine can take it. I use the 5kg 0.6 from bunnings because it was easy to get and I'm lazy.

I have that welder, and use the mig gas from bunnings. Goes hard for what it is. Takes a bit of setting up the machine for a noob but once I was using gas and not flux core the welding seems pretty consistent. I paid about $600 for the welder, plus mask, gloves etc, so that's a pretty sharp price with that welding table too.