Project Pickle - over 4100km with a SJ410

Fourthousandonehundred (and change) kilometres in a 1983 Suzuki SJ410 within six months.

Which roughly estimates to around 52 hours behind the steering wheel. To get the obvious out of the way: No, not all that time was fun. As a matter of fact, a lot of times I very strongly (and loudly) questioned my decision. 

But let's start at the beginning: A Suzuki SJ410 is slow. And loud. And if you don't seal all the holes properly, it is also very cold or wet. Or both at the same time. Throw in a questionable alternator and you have a very steep learning curve ahead of you, meaning decisions like: lights, wipers or heater? But it is also the most raw and honest 4-wheeled vehicle I have ever owned. Nothing about a Suzuki SJ is pretentious. Your feet rest against the inside (or outside depends of the point of view) of the wheel wells. The roof? You see the inside of the sheet metal that is the roof and it keeps on going like this. Creature comforts? Well, it's got a heater and provisions for a radio and the gauges are there to inform you about the engine's vitals and what is mandated by the legal code for motor vehicles. 

When working on one it becomes rather apparent that some engineer took a very long look at a World War II Jeep and decided that they could do better. And better they did. Let's start at the very front under the bonnet: A "mighty" 970cc four-cylinder (F10A - also known as the "Yes, Daddy"-engine ), pumping out a rather modest 44hp and around 70NM of  not exactly a lot of torque. But this engine has a very different redeeming feature: Once dialed in properly it simply ignores the fact that it can only put out 44 horses. It also completely forgets the fact that these power-levels are reached at deafening rpm-levels. Pair this with a pair of short-geared axles and a (very nice) four-speed box and you have a little powerplant in front of you screaming at you at 5000 to 6000rpm until let you go of the throttle. Because that's the other thing, the engine is an absolute peach. 

A full grown car with about the overall dimensions of the original Smart, live axles and leaf springs is never going to be a Rolls Royce. Period. Once loaded with 100-200kg in the back the rear springs stop kicking you in the back and whilst still hampered by the short wheelbase, it becomes a lot more bearable. Still the stretch of Autobahn entirely made from concrete slabs spaced approx. the same distance as the wheelbase makes the whole car bounce like a wild bronco. (And made the exhaust split in half.)

So do I regret the Suzuki? No, not at all. A good way to describe it would be to call it a motorcycle with four wheels and a roof. It is surprisingly fuel efficient usually between seven and eight litres per 100 kilometres. It is (just about) fast enough to follow the lorries on the Autobahn and it can do so for several hours without overheating and in a world where everything has to move faster and faster it's a vehicle that will do more than just remind you that whilst it can keep up with most traffic, it's preferred speed is rather different.  

 

(Also there's more stuff coming again on the blog - no worries. 😉) 

Project Pickle - front axle overhaul (part 17)

There were some subtle hints, almost indiscernible signs on that front axle... who am I kidding: There was red RTV on the free wheel hubs and one of the dials didn't move at all. 

 Just in order to get an idea of the state of affairs and because I would have to do it later anyway, should I have to dig in any further, I decided to drain the oil from the axle.

 DID I DECIDE TO DRAIN THE OIL FROM THE AXLE. 

 (In the end I welded a large nut to the filler plug in order to open it and then drained the oil.) The mere fact that the wheelbearing nut wasn't even finger tight probably surprises no one at this point?

Also RTV is clearly the solution, when you actually have leaky axle seals and the oil-grease mix is leaking out of the hubs. 

Be overjoyed for the lack of smell-o-vision. 

Despite the look, the UJ cleaned up nicely (and so did all the other mucky bits), but it was obvious that water got in and did its thing. 

 Surprisingly the kingpin-bearings didn't have any excessive play and could probably have been reused. 

Once cleaned things started to look decidedly better. 

 The wheel bearings were definitely shot.

... and because they were so shot, the axles wore out the actual axle support, which in turn caused the leaky axle seal.

Even though I am well aware that the axle housings will be rusty again at some point, a lick o' paint goes a long way in making stuff look nicer.

 

One of the weird fails prior to the overhaul was a failed star-washer, which probably caused the locknut to come loose at some point. Also the cheap aftermarket ones had a tang which was too wide and wouldn't properly engage with the cut out in the axle. 

In order to get the little circlip in, the axle stub has to be pulled out - turns out that's what the little M8-thread in the end is for.

And that's the front axle overhaul done. Probably the most difficult thing to do was to get the green rubber seals over the balls, which involved putting the wooden handle from my hammer through one of the kingpin bearing seats and levering it over with two small tire irons.  

Project Pickle - rear brake upgrade (part 16)

Admittedly the little elephant has by now covered nearing somewhere close to 2500km, so this is a bit of a look back really. Because the original rear brakes were horribly stuck I had to turn them out to even just turn the little cube with wheels into something that could be rolled around in the yard. With this being a very early SJ410 it did not have self adjusting drum brakes, a feature which actually is quite handy. The other thing about later SJ413 drums is that the actual cast brake ring is much, much beefier.

And as you don't need specific 1983 to 1984 brake shoes, buying consumables is a lot easier as well.

And mine came with the run-of-the-mill 67mm wheel cylinders as well. 

So in order to remove the axles a simple adapter for my slide hammer had to be improvised from some scrap metal. 

 

Pull off the old drums with the other tool I made waaaaay back and get the axles out / old anchor plates off. Except one of the bolts holding on the bearing retainer plate was completely rounded off. 

Now the thing is, the SJ410 had a little trick up its sleeve that later models didn't and it's shown exactly in the picture above. On these early models, the retainer plate is a separate piece, which allows you to remove the axle, without removing the rear brakes. 

 

Old bearings and retainer were on nice and tight (no chance to get it off with a 20T press) ... 

... and the bearing nicely and utterly f*cked. 

 

So in order to recreate this feature on the later SJ413 anchor plate, the center hole had to be bored out and would from here onwards be centered to the axle solely via the bolts.

Press new bearings onto the shaft (measure the overall height of the old bearings to find out if you need the additional spacer or not)

 Put the drum back on and repeat on the other side. 

 

In retrospect definitively one of the best modifications on the SJ410 I did so far. Consumables are cheaper and easy to get, the self adjusting drum brakes improve the overall performance a lot, which is especially helpful, if you have an early one like me, without a brake booster. Lastly being able to pull the axles without removing the brakes will undoubtedly come in handy down the line.