kws Posted March 30, 2022 Author Share Posted March 30, 2022 Swift, The car for learners that can't drive. Not even the K11 suffers that fate, that's a real drivers car. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegreatestben Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 https://www.turners.co.nz/Damaged-Vehicles/Damaged-Cars-for-Sale/suzuki/swift/21993447 wheels + car attached 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post kws Posted April 18, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 18, 2022 Bunch of parts are en route to make this car better, but in the mean time I pulled the gearbox out to find out why the clutch was being a dick Ah, oodles of clutch dust in the bellhousing, and a clutch release lever and bearing that barely move. That wont help. And an aftermarket Exedy clutch that had been shredded to the point its almost at the rivets and the flywheel has piles of clutch fibers (not dust) on it. Im guessing this is from the previous owner trying to learn to drive in it with a clutch that doesnt completely disengage (due to the missing clutch pedal bracket bolt and the seized clutch release arm). 9 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shrike Posted April 18, 2022 Share Posted April 18, 2022 Hows the flywheel looking? Lots of hotspots? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kws Posted April 18, 2022 Author Share Posted April 18, 2022 1 hour ago, shrike said: Hows the flywheel looking? Lots of hotspots? Pretty cooked (but not as bad as expected). It's off getting skimmed today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post kws Posted April 23, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 23, 2022 The clutch was still playing up, so it was time to find out why. The work I did on the clutch hydraulics, and adding the missing bolt to the clutch pedal bracket, helped the clutch issues a bit, but it was far from perfect. It was drivable now, but the clutch still bit right off on the floor, had a really long engagement, almost no feel in the pedal and would drag if you didn't keep your foot planted on the pedal as hard as you could. Not to mention the engagement was a bit on the soft side. I ordered an OEM replacement Exedy clutch kit, a new clutch fork (pre-empting a potential failure point), new fork bushes, and bolts for the flywheel and clutch cover (you can probably reuse the cover bolts safely, but the flywheel bolts must be replaced each time). Last weekend I got stuck into removing the gearbox. The first job is to remove all the gubbins around the gearbox in the engine bay, so first the intake ducting comes out, then the coolant overflow bottle, followed by the battery and its hold down. Next, the battery support needs to come out. There are three 10mm bolts on the base, and then the ECU can be disconnected, The ECU can remain attached to the support. The ECU plugs have a latching lever to lock them into place. The shifter cables were next to go. These were a bit of a pain, and different to the videos I had seen of the UK cars. First, this clip needs to be removed (partly removed in photo). You need to lift the end the arrow is point to upwards to clear the locking piece, and then the clip can slide out, allowing you to lift the cap and cable off the shifter mechanism. The other cable just levered out. It has a soft plastic bushing inside it, which remained on the mechanism for me, so I levered that off and inserted it back into the cable. With the cables disconnected from the shifter mechanism, I needed to remove the cables from the gearbox. They are retained in this bracket. This seems to be where the JDM cars differ from the UKDM ones. The cables on the JDM cars are retained to the bracket via a pair of metal clips with tangs that stop the cable from coming out. I used a tiny flatblade screwdriver to press these tangs in so they were flush with the clip, and the cable could then be removed. I later bent the tangs back out before refitting. With everything up top sorted, the engine was supported by my engine support brace (which was a pain on the Swift, as the engine bay is very short, so it had to almost go on the slam panel and gave very little space to work up top). The axles were then removed, which was also a pain as the outer CVs were seized in the hubs and needed to be smashed out with a sledgehammer. Before the axles were removed I was sure to drain the old gearbox oil, which was very dark, stank and was about as viscous as water; far too thin. Finally, all the various (excessively tight) nuts and bolts around the gearbox, including the rear and LH mounts, were removed and the gearbox gently manhandled down to the ground, using my belly as support. With the gearbox out it was immediately obvious what the issue was The bellhousing was packed with old clutch dust, and the release fork and bearing barely moved by hand. It was all binding badly. The bearing was also really rumbly; no Bueno. I removed the clutch and flywheel next. Interestingly the clutch was already an Exedy, so either they are an OEM supplier, or the clutch has already been changed (from my research it appears it could have been the original OEM clutch plate; its slightly different to the aftermarket kit I got and the pressure plate has no markings) You can see in the photo above that the plate is heavily worn, and almost down to the rivets. There are no signs of the diagonal recesses in the friction material that they have when new. The flywheel had clumps of fibrous clutch material on it Whilst the surface the clutch plate runs on had some bad heat spotting During the week I sent the flywheel off to be machined, and it came back looking really nice I also took the time to knock out the old top bush and remove the clutch fork. There is a special tool to remove this bushing, but I don't have one. So I made do with what I had. The same job can be done with an old 5/8" spark plug socket, cut in half and the end with the square in it cut off. A section of pipe of the same OD would work too. Combine this with a hammer and punch And you can drive the seal and bush out This high-tech tool may scratch up the surface of the clutch fork, which I'm replacing anyway, but do this at your own risk. With the bushing removed, the clutch fork can then also be removed and after a clean, thoroughly inspected. Due to a bad design where the welding is only halfway around the rod, they are prone to cracking at the ends of the weld, causing many issues, since this is what translates the movement in the hydraulic system from your foot, to actually moving the release bearing and pressing on the clutch pressure plate (which takes a lot of force). Mine wasn't cracked and would probably be fine to reuse, but I wasn't taking the risk since I was already here. I had a replacement genuine part on hand, and it's good to see that Suzuki realised it was a flawed design and superseded it with a newer design that is fully welded. I can only really come up with a couple of conclusions as to how this issue happened. The obvious one is that over time the factory fitted grease that should be on all the pivot points, but is now completely missing, wore away and was replaced with high friction clutch dust. This issue was compounded by the leaking slave cylinder, and the flexing pedal bracket which failed to allow the clutch to fully disengage, which caused even more clutch dust, and just bound up the fork and bearing. The alternate theory is the same, except when the clutch was replaced, the mechanic failed to grease the pivot points and it's been operating dry this whole time. I don't know if the clutch was replaced, the car has no service history, so we can only speculate. I cleaned out the bellhousing, and cleaned the lower bush. It appeared ok and cleaned up well, so I chose to reuse it rather than try and work out how to remove it. The replacement fork had a new roll pin fitted both bushes were lubed up, and the new fork fitted I used the old bushing and another 5/8" spark plugs socket (complete this time) to drive the new bush in Followed by the new seal Lots of the fancy purple Exedy grease was used on the snout, input shaft and contact patches of the fork, and the new release bearing was fitted The clutch fork more or less flops about and takes no force to move, which is a huge difference from how it was before. While the gearbox was out, I took the opportunity to also replace the rear engine mount. There was some movement in the engine when coming on and off the throttle, and there would never be an easier time to get at the mount than now. The old one wasn't cracking or torn, but had slumped slightly due to the weight of the engine. Once that was loosely in place (it cant be fully installed until all the other bolts around it are tight, as it and the bracket that attaches to it are in the way) the freshly machined flywheel (with new bearing) was fitted. My paint pen is rubbish, but the marks on the new bolts indicate I have torqued them to spec. The new clutch getting ready to fit And here you can see the recesses that had been worn down on the old clutch. That's quite a lot of material to be missing from the plate The kit came with a spline type alignment tool but I prefer my old style universal one. It seems to be quite accurate. I tested the spline type one once the clutch was fitted and there was enough play in it that I could see it being annoying to use. Now the gearbox could finally go back on. I tried the reverse of removal and lifted the gearbox up onto my torso and tried to bench press it into place, but it was getting hung up somewhere and my lack of upper body strength was starting to show, so I moved on from that technique. The tried and true jack it up and slip it on technique was the winner here, after a few tries. I found that it was easiest if I used the support bar to lower that end of the engine down about as far as it would go, as this put it on a steep angle and gave me more room to fit the gearbox in. Eventually, after some wiggling, the input shaft found its way through the clutch and it all slid together nicely. All that was left was to do the reverse of disassembly. Install lots of annoying to get to bolts, line everything up, and refit all the gubbins. I made sure to clean and grease the splines on the outer CV joints when I refitted them so they come out easier next time. Don't forget to fill the gearbox with your favourite flavour of GL4 oil in about 75W90 weight. Mine is Penrite, it just tastes better (and is a lot thicker than what came out). Before I wrap up the clutch job, there are a few other things I was doing at the same time. One of them was to pull the front off the car and make it look far worse than before. The bumper comes off really easily. Four bolts and two clips up top above the grille, three bolts on the underside, a few clips for the front guard liners, and then a screw on each side in the wheel arch going into the bumper retainer. It then unclips from the retainers and basically falls off. There were two reasons for this work. One, was to replace (or in this case, fit) the ambient temp sensor as mine wasn't working, showing as a series of dashes on the temp display, and a lack of average fuel consumption display (it's a weird thing to be joined). I can't stand things that don't work. It should be here, attached to wires that should be coming out of this sleeve. The sensor clips into that oval hole. The wires are still there, thankfully, but either torn or cut off I grabbed a sensor and a section of the loom a while ago from Pick A Part, so set about joining a new plug onto the remains of the loom. I cut the sleeve back, and stripped back the wires The sensor just clips in And because I'm lazy, I used these solder joiner sleeve things. The wiring here isn't critical, and will be wrapped in tape, so should be ok. A final wrap in some loom tape, and zipped into the little zip tie fasteners, and it all plugged in nicely. A quick test with a jump pack balanced precariously in the engine bay, and we finally had an ambient temp display (and on the test drive the average consumption came to life too) The second task was to replace the headlights. Mine were very cloudy and very yellow. Didn't look too bad in photos but was horrible in person. They were also a bit dubious for the warrant check in a few months. I came across a pair of black housing halogen lights like mine on a local Facebook group, being sold due to upgrade, and they looked spotlessly clear, so I snapped them up. These were the old ones. They are worse in person. They are only three bolts each to remove And the replacements. It's not hard to see the difference. The only little quirk is that these are from an NZDM Swift Sport, which obviously didn't have electronic height control (via a dial, not automatic) as these didn't have the height control motors, and it looks like they couldn't be retrofitted. Not an issue though as they work fine as manual lights, and I hate the height control thing anyway as I never use it (designed for if you have a heavy load in the rear of the car, so you can dip the lights down further and not blind traffic). I'll get a blanking panel and pull the dial out of the dash at some point. The bumper was refitted (as were the wheels, and being lowered to the ground), and it looked like a car again. So, back to the clutch. With the car still up on the Quickjacks I checked that the clutch worked, and all the gears could be found, which they could, so on went the wheels and down onto the ground the car went. It was test drive time. The first drive was just a short one around the block to make sure everything worked and nothing fell off. It was a good start, as the clutch felt good right off the bat. The pedal had a nice spring to it, and a bite point was dead center in the travel. Full disengagement was obtained way before the pedal was fully pressed, so no chance of the clutch dragging anymore. The new rubber pedal stop cushion makes for a nice gentle stop, as opposed to the old one which was completely mashed by having to press the pedal right to the floor and then some. A quick spanner and leak check at home, and then another drive to get dinner. This time I covered a few more KM, and it's all working very well, as it should. It's taking a bit of getting used to as the clutch bites a lot firmer now, I didn't realise just how soft the old clutch engagement was; you could basically dump the clutch as quick as you wanted between gears. I still have 500km or so to bed the clutch in, so oh noooo, I will have to drive the car as much as possible and try and get the miles on it; what a shame. Even with the new clutch, mount, hydraulics etc, it still cost me less than it would for the next cheapest Swift Sport in this condition, mileage and year. I have a couple of modifications to fit soon, including a new rear muffler and some wider wheels. That'll come in the next instalment of Swifty fun times. 20 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
84Corona Posted July 26, 2022 Share Posted July 26, 2022 Love your detailed build threads. Cool to see you bringing this back to good health. I’ve just recently got myself an ‘06 Swift Sport with a few extras (aftermarket springs/shocks and a HKS rear muffler). It’s like a little go kart and goes quite well. Do you plan on modifying the intake at all? I wouldn’t mind a little induction noise on mine. Looking forward to seeing what you do next! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kws Posted July 26, 2022 Author Share Posted July 26, 2022 2 hours ago, 84Corona said: Love your detailed build threads. Cool to see you bringing this back to good health. I’ve just recently got myself an ‘06 Swift Sport with a few extras (aftermarket springs/shocks and a HKS rear muffler). It’s like a little go kart and goes quite well. Do you plan on modifying the intake at all? I wouldn’t mind a little induction noise on mine. Looking forward to seeing what you do next! Thanks. They're huge fun and great value for money. Mine is still in regular use, not needing much more than keeping the tank full of 98. The new clutch has been bed in for a while now and is lovely to use. I toyed with modifying the intake, and my previous one had a Suzuki Sport intake/pod filter on it and sounded great. On this one I decided to keep the costs down and just whacked a K&N panel filter in it when one was on sale. No change in noise, but im thinking of removing the intake resonator and seeing it if makes a difference. The airbox has little to no restriction, so im happy to keep it in terms of performance. Aftermarket parts pop up on facebook from time to time, but you need to be quick as the demand is high. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kws Posted October 1, 2022 Author Share Posted October 1, 2022 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. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beaver Posted October 1, 2022 Share Posted October 1, 2022 Sorry for being Captain Obvious, but is there a reason a person with your clear mechanical ability didn't just pull the hub off to replace the wheel stud? Would have been child's play no? Or is the hub pressed into the carrier and what not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajg193 Posted October 1, 2022 Share Posted October 1, 2022 Are those grinding marks on here something that could get you kicked back come WoF time? Maybe worth hitting it with a wire wheel to get rid of the grinding texture 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kws Posted October 1, 2022 Author Share Posted October 1, 2022 2 hours ago, Beaver said: Sorry for being Captain Obvious, but is there a reason a person with your clear mechanical ability didn't just pull the hub off to replace the wheel stud? Would have been child's play no? Or is the hub pressed into the carrier and what not? 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. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post kws Posted October 12, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 12, 2022 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. 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kws Posted February 13, 2023 Author Share Posted February 13, 2023 Unfortunately, as much as I enjoyed the Swift, over time my attention span/ADHD forced me to start looking for something else new and shiny, so the Swift is gone, and replaced with a C30 T5. They are completely different cars, and I'm not going to lie, I only got the Volvo because I haven't had one before, so it likely won't be around for long. 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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