Fred's 1998 Suzuki Wagon R Wide!

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Fred
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Re: Fred's 1998 Suzuki Wagon R Wide!

Post by Fred »

The thing with light cars and low hp is that although they seem fast through 1st and 2nd, it drops off in 3rd, and isn't there at all in 4th and 5th. At higher speed hp matters and mass ceases to (as much). I have a friend with an old KP starlet and a modern 1.8 van engine that more or less bolts in. Feels nippy as in lower gears, but struggles to accelerate past about 130 or so :-D Working hard on the ute so that it runs, at which point I can start on this thing.
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Re: Fred's 1998 Suzuki Wagon R Wide!

Post by Fred »

Fired up this thing tonight after finding the battery dead dead flat, and using multiple chargers to get it going. Smart chargers are only of so much use, it turns out. I had to put my dumb 1A trickle charger on it to fool the smart ones into applying some juice to the thing. Eventually they were away, and one is pumping it full rapidly right now. Yay.

Thought:

If I pull the plug and injector clip from the bad cylinder it should stop blowing bubbles in the cooling system, right? At which point it'll presumably pump water out into the dead cylinder as it warms up and builds pressure. This would be bad when stopped, but not bad while running. And could mean that it could run longer before overheating as it would retain all of its water instead of pushing it out.

And, if i put some stopleak crap in the water, it may even seal itself once flowing in the right direction (gas stops flowing through into coolant and coolant starts weeping back into cylinder instead).

This could save me putting it on a trailer to move it when I move house.

All thoughts welcome.

Fred.
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Re: Fred's 1998 Suzuki Wagon R Wide!

Post by Fred »

Thoughts were right!

Pulled it apart a little today, out with the plugs, one was dirty dirty, left it out, put three back in, dumped water, filled with stop leak and fresh water, fired it up, loud as hell, shut it off, strapped a rag over the hole to muffle the sound, fired it back up, beat the thing for 15 minutes, no overheating, another 15, no overheating, YAY, went out in the volvo and bought a pie, and a spark plug, and some ute bits, came back, installed the plug, ran on 4 for the first time in a year or more! Took it for a drive, goes pretty damn well! :-D Eventually got a bit warm, but I was giving it hell, so no surprise. Used it to pick up wife in the evening, 15 mins on 4 cyls, slightly too hot when I got back, but not bad. Will keep using it, getting it hot, shutting it off, topping it up, repeat, until it stops leaking and starts being usable.

Many lols in the suzi today. Including being hit with a frying pan. The back of it is full of house-things and wife's clothes in boxes. Hundreds of kgs of shit. With all that out it should be a lot of fun to drive! :-D

Excuse run-on sentence(s).

Fred.
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Re: Fred's 1998 Suzuki Wagon R Wide!

Post by Fred »

Hasn't been driven since that day. But I have fired it up and fully warmed it up and given it a redline from time to time. Garage takes a while to clear out after that. Sounds good, though. Itching to drive it again. Needs a steering linkage and WOF and new ECU :-D
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Re: Fred's 1998 Suzuki Wagon R Wide!

Post by Fred »

Fred wrote:Hasn't been driven since that day. <SNIP> Itching to drive it again.
Itch scratched! Twice! :-D

Also found the limiter up around 8400 RPM or so.

Need to log RPM with a precision instrument (FreeEMS) so I know where to set the cut when I do the install.

Looking forward to getting it legal and using it day to day :-)

Fred.
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Re: Fred's 1998 Suzuki Wagon R Wide!

Post by Fred »

Pulled some brackets out of the Suzuki tonight after pulling the dead battery out (36 month warranty, over 5 years old). The brackets were stained with rust water from the engine. Now clean and pretty. Need a new battery for it, but in the mean time, the Gearbox and steering need some love.

While I was in there I pulled the dizzy cap off and found this: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 6641761280

"Bad news on the Suzuki front. A special & awkward decoder would be necessary. Lantis & Volvo just jumped the queue."

So this one won't be getting FreeEMSed anytime soon, unless I get bored and motivated and get a bunch of other stuff done.

Fred.
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Re: Fred's 1998 Suzuki Wagon R Wide!

Post by Fred »

Tonight I set about scrubbing the engine bay clean. Why? Rust stains from coolant overflow everywhere. Got some good progress made, but still a fair bit of scrubbing to go. I pulled the overflow bottle and started cleaning the inside out, too. Much better, overall. More tomorrow evening if I get home early enough.

I also ordered a new battery for it. Not sure when that'll come, but it'll be nice not to have to jump it and so forth :-)

Fred.
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Re: Fred's 1998 Suzuki Wagon R Wide!

Post by Fred »

Looking forward to checking and, if necessary, fixing the gearbox noise. Then the steering. Then a WOF. Then an ECU :-D And, of course, daily driving. Exciting! :-)
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Re: Fred's 1998 Suzuki Wagon R Wide!

Post by Fred »

Battery arrived tonight! Thank you very much, you know who! :-)

The Volvo is currently occupying space in the garage to keep it dry, and to keep me from forgetting the lack of bonnet latch and driving it! I've been off sick today and doing very little, but once I feel better, I'll get the bonnet latch tidied up and reinstalled and the Volvo out of hiding, once again. At this point the Suzuki can go back in and I can have a crack at sorting the gearbox noise out. Once that's nailed, the steering linkage is next. Then it's WOF time! I seem to be repeating myself a lot in here, but I'm excited to get to use this car day to day! Bring it on!

Fred.
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Re: Fred's 1998 Suzuki Wagon R Wide!

Post by Fred »

Put it back together last night, after cleaning the engine bay extensively, and treating a little light surface rust with neutraliser and zinc. Took it in for a WOF this morning, failed on one fog light not working and blue tinted park lights. Solved those issues and got the sticker, picked up the wife, and a rego sticker, and cruised around in it all day. Such a funny car to drive :-D

Might have a CV joint on the way. The gearbox noise I heard hasn't re-appeared today, though, which is nice. I did have it apart last night, but didn't actually fix anything, so not sure why it quieted down. The noise might come back? Who knows. Needs an alignment too.

But it's legal, so it's out of the garage, and... viewtopic.php?f=55&t=1086&p=40556#p40556 the hotel is in the garage in its place!

So now I need a connector and a decoder! I have a few people lined up to code the decoder. I refuse to do it as it's a nice easy one and it'd be a good starter project for a new or old contributor to grab. I'll have to nag them about it :-)

Fred.
DIYEFI.org - where Open Source means Open Source, and Free means Freedom
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