1984 Suzuki SJ410

[DavidB]

I’ve been driving this fine since I got it mot’d with a few problems.

Recently I was scootling along and noticed a sound that was like a knocking, kind of like pinking. The engine gradually got slower and more smoke out of the exhaust until it could not be driven any further.

I did a full diagnosis on it and found very little compression on pistons 1 & 2 - checked valve clearances, spark etc prior. Pulling leads off 1 & 2 plugs made no difference. Oil was spitting out of the plug bores as well when cranking the engine on the starter. It was definitely burning oil in the cylinder, and I think either the rings, valves and head gasket had gone. It’s barely done 1000 miles since rebuild so something was obviously wrong.

A few weeks later I spent about five minutes taking the head off and the problem seemed obvious:

There was a massive hole between 1 & 2, but not letting any oil or coolant in.

Pistons are heavily coked up, you can feel a good 1mm of carbon in the crown of pistons 3 & 4, and obviously 1 & 2 are too oily.

The valves look ok but I think I’ll change them for new ones and reseat them and also change the piston rings.

 

Is there any other way if oil getting apart from blowing past the rings? Carb and timing might be wrong, but I’m guessing over-fuelling and or oil has caused the weak point between cylinders to become way too hot.

[DavidB]

Built the engine back up and a quick drive home turned into a backfiring extravanza that had neighbour's curtains twitching and pedestrians ducking for cover.

I got sick of the engine being a fool, so when someone told me the 16v EFi engine from a 2000's Suzuki Alto fitted, I searched Facebook Marketplace for an example, and I found an Alto in Manchester with a slipping clutch, so off I went to get it. It was drivable, but there was an undisclosed knocking from the front, which turned out to be a cracked mount which had the wheel moving freely forwards and backwards, and I had 40 miles to drive home. Also had an engine light on, which turned out to be the lambda sensor.

Engine was quiet and nippy and couldn't wait to ditch the carb/choke combo. So the next day took the engine out of the Alto and the SJ, and got to work figuring out what I would need to get it all together. I intended to just use the ECU and everything. It was OBD2 but didn't have anything like wheel sensors etc to work.

Everything mounted perfectly, but there was 1mm of space between the end of the head's dizzy unit and the bulkhead, even with the gearbox spaced on it's mount 1cm, it wasn't going to make it any better and when I saw the RWD oil pickup pipe from the SJ protruded into the crankshaft and the sump overhung the block a bit, I just got the willies and reversed my decision and removed everything.

Also - bonnet wouldn't close! The thought of cutting a hole in it for a bulge finalised it for me.

I concentrated back on my F10A and found one of the retaining bolts on top of the valve had come loose and the clearance was about 20mm. I rebuilt everything, put the engine back into the Alto with a brand new clutch and subframe mount.
Most of the oil and gearbox fluid ended up on the floor, so I can't start anything until I get some of that stuff!

I spent a few days doing this, but I got two good* working** cars out of it in the end.

 

 

[bangernomics]

Madman.


Could it get any worse?

[grogee]

Yep, that's loco that is. 

Seriously though what an ungrateful bastard. I hope your fix stays fixed.

That Alto is a pretty little thing. Well done for saving it. 

[DavidB]

New engine/block time for the SJ. Have taken it out twice since I did all this, and it's pumping out greyish/blueish smoke from startup, and even more when under load.

I put oil in the cylinders before I put the head back on, and #1 lost most in a couple of days, with #2 coming in a slow second but the other two were OK.

The options are buying a new block (there is a new one on ebay for £30 odd quid, but 'history unknown'), a complete new working engine, or just rebuilding this block with new rings and bearings etc.

I think with everything else fixed, it worked out what could fail next that hasn't yet and went with the only one thing that I didn't bother changing on the entire car.
It's not such a bad job to do on these, but I really wish it would stop messing about.

 

I've been driving the Alto as my main car, and apart from a crunchy first and second gear when the fluids are cold, it's a really nice car to drive.

[DavidB]

I pulled my finger out and started to take the engine apart again!

I now see why it's not running properly:

Can't beleive it!

 

[DavidB]

Only joking, I've never done a piston out job before, but this was really easy.

I was told to be careful putting new rings in as they're really fragile with no give in them. My first go removing the old rings and I crack one - this was piston that was letting oil past the control rings:

I got the others out and everything was done in about 20 minutes and ready to put back in:

Should have got a ring compressor really, but can wait until tomorrow until I borrow one. I was looking at the bearing shells, and they look OK to me - no doubt I'll be doing them in two months when they fail, bah.

[Joey spud]

You need to de-glaze the cylinders with a honing tool or at least use some oiled 600 production paper otherwise the new rings won't bed in and you really will burn through the contents of the sump.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254057337358?epid=1842336445&hash=item3b26ff520e:g:r9YAAOSwiT1cM50I

[DavidB]

I did hone the cylinder walls with one of those drill honers, I got a piston ring compressor from Halfords for £5 as they obivously don't get people buying them anymore.
It took about half an hour to get everything back together again, engine started fine and has ran up to temperature without any blueish smoke from the exhaust so I guess the rings fixed that.

It has never ran higher than about 1/5 up the temp gauge, so I had it going with the fan taken off and thermostate out and got it properly hot to clear all the crud from the coolant system - popped a few dishwasher tablets in there and managed to get a lot out, and after flushing again have it sitting over night full of white vinegar. Will check later to see if it's dissolved the aluminium head. If it doesn't do anything I'll try central heating gunk flush stuff.

I didn't like the look of the new head gasket so will have to take the head off again at some point and put a new one on.

 

[DavidB]

I've done about 200 miles in this and it's been great. I took it to Southport and back (100 miles) and it was fine. There's a random clacking that sometimes happens when it's coming to a stop with the clutch down, it never does it in drive. I can feel it through the transfer box lever more, but no idea where it's coming from really. It stopped when I engaged locking hubs on the front wheels and when for a blast down Thurstaton beach on Friday - but eventually comes back. It doesn't sound terminal and I thought it was the spring on the handbrake mechanism catching on something on the TB?

 

[chris667]

This is impressive work. A credit to you.

[DavidB]

It has been a while since I updated this - I still have this, I can't believe I bought it in 2020 - I thought it was about three years ago!

It's been a bit of up and down with the SJ ownership.

I rebuilt the transfer box, as I suspect the input shaft was shot. There was a rumbling over something like 20 mph. It takes about 20 minutes to take the box out and it weighs nothing. You don't even have to jack anything up.

Looking at diagrams of this and my sphincter automatically clenched, but it really wasn't too bad. I bought a complete rebuild kit for about 100 quid, which contained a load of concentric bearings, needle bearings, seals, gaskets, etc.

I cleaned up the block and it looked really nice!

When I put it back in the car the rumble was still there! Argh. As is the case with this car, I've had to buy everything at least twice (it's on it's fourth or fifth engine), and got a working one. I sold the one I had rebuilt for £60, and fitted the one I had just picked up from Wolverhampton. The rumbling was still there! I then realised the rumbling was actually the new handbrake mechanism shoe which was too big and was dragging on the drum. Christ! Fixed that and it drives without and rumbling or farting or demands to buy yet more replacement bits.

I think I've done barely 1000 miles in it since I got it back on the road after the 'restoration', it always starts with the choke pretty much first time whatever the weather.

But instantly in warmer weather. I think this is down to me not really setting up the carb ever as I hate them. The last time I touched it, the backbox decided it wanted to be turned inside out

I ran inside and peered out of the curtains as the police turned up. The next day a neighbour asked me about the huge bang that the entire neighbourhood heard and I claimed I hadn't heard it.

I left it a couple of years until I bought a new exhaust system. I twatted it with a hammer until I sort of closed it which was hard work. That was a mighty explosion.

I was plagued with brake issues for about six months - the pedal just went spongey and every month or so, I would go out and bleed it and try and get some effort back into the pedal.

My tried and tested method of disassembling the M/C and washing it out didn't work even though it was full of crud, nor did replacing all of the seals, and nor did buying a new master cylinder!

I had loads of bollocks wives tales advice like:

1. these only bleed using pressure bleeding,
2. these only bleed if you open the bleed nipple that is closest to the master cylinder
3. these only bleed if you open the bleed nipple that is furthest from the the master cylinder,
4. these only bleed if you open all of the bleed nipples up,
5. these need to have the master cylinder 'bench bled',
6. these only work if you vacuum bleed it from the valve furthest away from the master cylinder, but pushing it through instead of sucking,
7. only works if you jack the front end up,
8. only works if you jack the back end up,
9. these only work if you park it up across a ley line, facing a south western direction at the stroke of midnight, and recite 10.6 from the book of Geoff of the Old Testament, while jacking off

After all that I waited until my missus got here and she just stamped on the brakes while I repeatedly opened the valves in quick succession and we got a solid pedal pretty much straight away. I want to stop listening to people on facebook groups as they are all idiots.

Over the summer I took it out a little bit on lengthy trips - one to the IKEA in Warrington and one to Llandudno, both about fifty miles, and both on 70mph roads. It sounds like it's screaming at that speed, but it handles it well.

I've had more troubles as it started leaking from somewhere. I've sealed the windscreen and the aerial holes on the a-pillar, and there is no other place water can be getting in. There is nothing apart from the screen and the aerial where water can be coming in, and I was getting a lot of water in both footwells - this is probably the most frustrating problem I've had with the car, and the advice was 'they all do that'. I'd love to know how it's getting in, it just doesn't seem logical, and there's a lot of water in there after a little bit of rain. More adivce 'it's the rubber heater drains on the bulkhead being blocked' - these don't have the same heater bungs as the SJ413 ... 'yeah, it'll be the rubber heater drains on the bulkhead being blocked'. argh

It didn't help my other car was also leaking, but it was obvious where this was coming from. Both as wet as each other, and in the winter they would both freeze inside.

The car is used so little, it looks a bit worse for wear everytime I remember I have it.

I noticed a tiny bit of rust coming through in places that I obviously didn't prep properly - a little bit on the guttering, and part of the bulkhead - I think this is where water is getting in, but it looks totally sealed to me.Ugh.

I managed to find time to start on this as I've been putting it off for about a year. I've never seen the point in just treating it as it'll come back, especially after the amount of work I've put into this bastard. Not nice seeing as it was resprayed a few years/1000 miles ago.  

 

Underneath the car is solid weirdly enough, I've had it out in the winter and snow when the roads have been covered in salt and it doesn't seem to be affected. And these like to RUST as well all know.

On the day it officially turned 40 (in the DVLA's eyes) and qualified for free tax (and no MOT's), two cheeky smackheads broke into it and tried to hot wire it to start it. Not sure what they were trying to achieve.

They got absolutely nowhere, the useless fuckers, but they did manage to cut a load of wiring. Once they realised they were too thick to even get the two crookloks off, they went off and left the door wide open. I'm still amazed how little they cared about ruining something this old, they are like insects. The police were very interested and helpful though and wanted to send forensics around to go over it. I had moved it by then into a safer area and no chance of finding anything.

They completely messed up the wiring, most of the fuses were blown, and I had to pull everything out to work out which was what as there was absolutely no power - the fusable link from the battery in the wiring loom had melted.

The plan now is to just tidy up over the next couple of weeks and sell as I don't use it at all. There are a load of little jobs that have been nagging me but I just can't be arsed with this working on cars thing anymore unfortunately!
Parts are quite rare for these - talk about rarity, they only made certain things for the van version, and they are completely different between the two model years they made the SJ410V (83,84). I've had no luck finding those bits I need as they just non-existent.
No doubt they will turn up once I've sold it!

 

 

[chodweaver]

Liked for your perseverance with it, and the TLC you've given it, not for scrotes fucking up the wiring. I'm not in the market for an SJ though sorry, lovely little things though they are. I really hope it stays in the parish.
GLWTS

[DavidB]

I've been cleaning this up a bit, I love it but I never use it.

There have been two mounts on the rear floor that I have never been able to remove. They are bolted into the floor underneath that holds the rear seat. Some maniac used some aluminium and the hardest bolts I've ever tried to remove in my life.

I bought new Parkside bolt extractors from Lidl as I broke my 20 year old set in there trying to get the bolt out. It's only in about 1/2 cm and it seized in the aluminium bar. It swivels freely around but you do it fully as it hits the wheel arch. Parkside bolt extractors broke!

I then bought a Parkside 20V die cutter - these are shite and as soon as you apply pressure to cut anything it slows down too much, and then it stops and switches itself off. Ugh. I ended up sitting there like a knobhead sawing it away for about 20 minutes until I could bend it off and then swivel it round to remove it. The other side I managed to drill the bolt out using five or six new drill bits and then whack it with a big hammer and it broke off.

I never got around to repainting the bit in front of the windscreen after it had a little fire, so I had to remove the wiper mechanism - one nut of the wiper shaft would not come off, and attempting to clamp the aluminium shaft just broke bits off. The Parkside cutting tool came in handy and it just cracked the nut off. I'll have to get a new wiper mechanism as this is shagged now!

Also cracked the screen getting it out. Have had this in and out about ten times in the past three years so it was only a matter of time. I will get a new screen when I pick up the wipers from a guy who breaks SJ's in Wolverhampton.

 

[warch]

I'd love an SJ but sadly have bought one of the shittier spiritual ancestors of the plucky little Japanese warrior in my Series One Landrover.

Notwithstanding that you can still buy the modern equivalent of these, I do love the era of small, basic light 4x4s designed for going off road in, not overspecced status symbols. These were so small and light they go where pretty much anything else wouldn't physically fit or would sink like a stone.

[bangernomics]

I would very much take this as a px on my 911. I have followed the thread for the last few years and love what you have done with it.