Search the Community

After selling the Alto Works, there was a tiny little nugget shaped hole in my life, so I had no choice but to fill it with another Kei car. If you were following the previous Alto from the start, you might remember this one from here. Long story short, there was an auction (maybe an estate sale? Can't recall) a couple of hours north of where I live, and when browsing through the list of what was going to be available, there happened to be a Suzuki Alto Works listed. Weird thing to have in a barn, I thought, but hey I'm keen. I went up to view and bid on the car, and as soon as I saw it, I fell for the little nugget. Who couldnt love that little face. It'd been off the road for 11 years at that point, and had been sitting the whole time. The interior was foul The exterior was also filthy, top to bottom, so it was hard to get a good gauge on the condition. Poking around with my torch though, I found a couple of spots that needed attention The front of each sill, where the jacking points should be, had some rust, including this hole on the passenger's side. The boot lip had been trapping moisture under the seal too, and rusted along there (and causing a leak into the boot) The only real damage to the exterior, other than a couple of small dings, was this dent in the front guard. I suspect since the door hinges are bent, that the door over extended forward, damaging both But otherwise it appeared fairly solid, and most importantly, mostly complete No one knew if it had run, when it last ran, or if it was previously a good runner. I found the keys on the keyring in the car next to it, so moved them to the Alto, but otherwise it was all an unknown. The auction rolled around, I did my best but ultimately got outbid. For me, the risk of the unknowns at that point were just too great, so I kept my top bid reasonable. Fast-forward almost two years, and I get a message from a friend saying, "I put out looking to buy a Kei car, and got offered a car I read about on your very blog. It's too much of a project for me, but do you want me to put you in touch?" Heck yeah I do! So he passed my email on and the owner dropped me a line "Hi, I have a Suzuki Alto Works for sale, would you be interested in a project" Of course, I held back my excitement and asked for more details He came back with a couple more details, but more importantly a couple of photos Undeniably the same car, car club sticker and all. Unfortunately, he also mentioned the engine was rust seized, and had been sent off to a rebuilder to be stripped and assessed, which resulted in it being declared completely kaput (and a "$10K" quote to rebuild it). I replied asking for more information about the engine damage and condition of the car and heard nothing but crickets. Me, being me, couldnt leave it well enough alone. The damn thing was rattling around rent-free in my head, so 7 months after I heard nothing back, I flicked him a quick email asking how he was getting on with the Alto. "Good timing, I was just thinking I should do something with the car or get rid of it" After a lot of back and forth, the stars aligned and on my way to the track in the BRZ the other weekend I detoured an hour or so out of my way and went to look at the little nugget. It was pretty well as expected; the front of the car was all in bits, the engine was spread across a few shelves, and the car was looking a bit sorry for itself. On the plus side, he had cleaned the car inside and out, and honestly, the interior clean alone was worth having him win the car in the first place instead of me The engine was pretty dire, but we'll get back to that later. Anyway, it all checked out, everything was there, the rego was still on hold, and after going away and doing some more research into what on earth I was doing, I made an offer. We settled on something in between what both of us were thinking, and a friend of his was roped in to bring the car and multiple tubs of parts down to me. Yesterday the car arrived. Here is my latest project, Nuggie, the 1990 Suzuki Alto Works RS-X CN21S I had been super anxious all morning, but actually seeing the car roll up on the trailer, looking ridiculously small, just wiped all the anxiety away and replaced it with excitement. Whilst discussing the transport with the transporter beforehand, we had been coming up with plans to get the car off the trailer and down into my garage, since my driveway, although short, is very steep. I think in the end it was going to be a case of using the winch on the van to winch the car down into the garage. But thankfully that didnt matter. As it turns out, not only does the handbrake work, but so do the service brakes. So with a little push, the Alto was off the trailer and I gently guide it down into the garage using the handbrake to control it. We unload all the parts, and after bidding farewell, I stand back and see the Alto in its new (temporary) home Theres a couple more spots of rust than I could see at the auction (one of them is the front edge of the bonnet in the above photo, seems to be a common spot), and the paint is flat as anything, but it will hopefully polish up nicely. I won't do that yet, I want a good before and after in the sun. I couldnt help but check out a couple of the cool little things about the early cars. One of them is visible in the photos above; the vertical door handles. These were only on the early cars, as they later replaced them with normal boring handles when they decided safety was more important than being cool and added side intrusion bars. This even necessitated changing the quarter panels since they have cutouts for your hand on the vertical handle cars. Cool handles Boring normal handles and "safe" doors. The front seats are pretty wild too. Such late 80's vibes You can actually quickly remove and flip the shoulder support on the backrest, for either higher or lower support Another early feature I'm a big fan of is the super retro dash and the gauge cluster, both of which got "modernised" in 1991. Moving on, spread across the tubs were all the engine components, and now that I had time to have a decent look at them, it was grim The main journals on the crank are very unhappy There are a couple of less than happy valves too. I suspect even if the engine didnt drink a bunch of water that it wouldnt have run very well with a burnt valve But the block is the least happy I'm looking into options currently, and have a potential lead on a complete engine that would be a better base to rebuild, otherwise I could bore this block out and use oversize forged pistons. We'll see. Either way, I want it running fairly quickly (without compromising too much, I want it done properly), so have a roughly 6-month plan to be back on the road, and I want it out of the garage within a month or two as I'm very limited on garage space. Parts have already been ordered, and I'll be making a start on the rust soon. Plenty more to come. Keep on moving.