I managed to get a second car seat for the little-un so the pathetic amount of hot air that came out of the Suzuki’s heater and the resulting minus degrees inside the car became a problem that, even more than before, needed to get fixed.

I’d been putting it off, because, like most cars it appeared that the car was built around the heater and it was going to be a real sod to get out. And so it was. In the end, after much brute force and a quantity of broke plastic, I gave up and decided that I would have to dismantle it in situ.

When I finally seperated it, I was left in no doubt about the source of the problem.

I seems this car has spent an amount of its life parked under a birch tree (thats the heater matrix btw)!

The water drain on the air intake was’t much better, this time pine needles which had actually composted quite nicely.

Putting it back together was the reverse of dismantling and just as much fun (including some super glue and gaffer tape to repair the damage I caused getting it out)!

Now, with the additional extra warmth from an 88 Deg C “winter” thermostat instead of the 82 Deg C “summer” one I foolishly had fitted, it’s like a sauna in the car and you even have to turn the heating down!

Ever since I got the car, it’s jumped out of 4wd High ratio (back into 2wd). Low ratio works fine, so as long as you don’t need to go more than 50Km/h then you can use 4wd. Kind of irritating as it would be great to be able to drive along the snowy/icy back roads with the added security of 4wd.

So, I decided to bite the bullet and take the transfer box off and see what I found inside.

It had been suggested to me that the 4wd selector ring and forks were the most likely candidates, so I started by taking off the front drive housing.

The selector fork looked like it could be worn and slightly bent, but wasn’t really all that convincing. Feeling as though there was no other option I decided to change both the fork and the ring. Naturally enough, when I removed them a little ball and spring fell out that I couldn’t get back in without seperating the box. Which I couldn’t do until I’d got a new gasket, which had to come from Japan and took a couple of weeks.

Putting it all back together, and installing the new selector fork and ring was pretty easy.

As was bolting the whole shebang back on the car.

Pity, it didn’t fix the problem though. I’ve really don’t know what to do next. If anyone has any suggestions, they’ll be greatfully recieved.

Late is better than never, so I’m continuing my write up of Octobers work on the Suzuki.

After taking apart the first side I decided to change the following parts on both sides. Top and Bottom Swivel Bearings, axle oil seal and swivel seal.

As you can see, I used genuine Suzuki parts. Suzuki is very close to my work and I must say I’m really impressed by their parts department. They’ve got a parts book for the SJ which shows every part of the car in detail, with seperate part numbers for every single nut, bolt, washer and so on. Even better, everything is available, although sometimes you have to wait for it to be sent from Japan! Prices are not too bad either.

The first challenge was to get the top and bottom bearing carriers out. I didn’t like the look of this job, because there is very little of the inside of the carried visible.

Amazingly and luckily my Sealy 24mm impact socket fitted perfectly.

And the carriers were out in no time.

Then, once the oil seal was changed, it was a case of cleaning up the pile of bits.

And bolting it all back together.

On the other side it was clear that the axle oil seal had failed, still, at least the UJ had sufficient lubrication!

I had to borrow a 50mm socket from the Neighbour to adjust the wheel bearings. All in all not a bad job to do. I guess I should take it apart again every few years and pack bearings and UJ’s with new grease, if I can be bothered.

OK, it’s late in the season, but with the Suzuki of the road for a couple of weeks, and with the weather holding I decded to use the Spitfire to get to work at least once.

I’ve been worried about that quantity of oil in the differential, so I topped that up. It took around 1/4 of a litre, less than I expected and not enough to stop the back end rumbling and complaining.

I’ve also had a set of EBC green stuff pads sitting on the shelf for ages waiting to replace the cheap pads I put on the car when I put it back together. We’d overheated these going down a steep hill in Luxembourg, fully laden and they’d never been much cop since.

Every thing is still new, not seized and clean enough that it’s a pleasure to work on the car and the pads were on in no time.

I took it pretty easy on them on the way to work, despite the “brake-in” coating I though I’d best bed them in a bit. They seem promising, unlike the back end, which is seriously noisy and suffers quite a lot of vibration at certain speeds. I guess a diff rebuild/replacement and some balancing is on the cards during the winter.

Pretty much ever since I got the car a year ago it’s been suffering, with varying degrees of severity, from wheel wobble between 70 and 80 Km/h. It also has made a nasty “craunch” noise when turning to the right and over speed ups, suggesting some part of the steeing swivel housing arrangement was not as it should be.

So, with the car in the garage, and without further ado I set about taking the drivers side swivel housing and driveshaft out. Other than the disc brake instead of drum and the CV joint instead of the UJ it’s pretty much identical to the LandRover, so it all feels very familiar to work on!

First the calliper had to come off

To allow for removal of the hub,

Then the back plate and hub carrier came off

To expose a rather dry looking CV joint, then once the sealing arrangement around the back of the swivel housing was removed and the steering ball joint was spilt, it was off with the king pins and removal of the swivel housing.

This exposed the top swivel bearing which was totally dry for grease, full of sand and rust and seized more or less solid, hopefully the culprit!

Having generated the first list of bits I needed, the next phase was to remove the transfer box and see what I found wrong in there.

As happened last year with the Volvo clutch, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and get on with the list of jobs on the Suzuki before the winter sets in and it gets unpleasantly cold and difficult the get heat in the garage. Other than a new centre section for the exhaust it’s been really reliable and had hardly any attention for a full year and 16000km. Really can’t complain and considering it’s over 23 years old it deserves some TLC.

Since the Suzuki is my main transport for the 50 mile round trip to work and who ever is at home with the baby needs the Volvo, no time is a good time. I’ll be relying on the Landy and Spitfire until it’s back together.

So, on Monday evening I started the process of getting the car in the garage, only I couldn’t because it looked like this.

A quick, “Move things away from the middle and out to the sides tidy” and it looked like this.

Just as well the SJ is small and it’s not the Volvo or the Landy I’m working on, I don’t think I’d even manage to get them in there. Really must get round to a proper tidy soon.

Then it was to work, here’s the list of jobs that have piled up.

1. Sort out the wheel wobble between 70 and 80 kmph (seems like there’s play in the top swivel bearing)


2. Stop the 4wd Box jumping out of 4wd high ratio (back into 2wd)


3. Change the Cam Belt and Tensioner


4. Fit new bushes on the rear springs


5. General service


6. Fit a new battery

Then when I’ve finished that I hope to change the cambelt and back springs and shocks on the Volvo so that’s ready for the winter too……

The Lambda Sensor warning light has been telling me that somethings wrong, pretty much ever since I swapped the engine in the Volvo.

Due to both a mental block and a lack of time I hadn’t done anything about until a couple of days ago. When I asked at my local autofactors if they could read the code for me, I was informed by their Volvo expert that our car most likely had a built in fault code indicator.

A quick internet search and a more detailed read in the Manual and I found out that what I was looking for was located on the front of the LH side suspension turret.

All I had to do was,

1. Take the lid off


2. Plug the flying lead into hole number 6 (for ignition faults)


3. Turn the ignition on.


4. Press the button for 1 sec


5. Count the number of times the LED flashes (Three groups of flashes giving a 3 digit number).


6. Then Turn the ignition off, plug the flying lead into hole number 2 (for Fuel system faults) and repeat.

Doing this gave me code 143 for Ignition and 111 for Fuel system.

111 is no Fault and 143 is knock sensor.

So off I went to the original block, removed the knock sensor and set about swapping out the one on the new engine, only to find out that the lead had fallen off and can’t have ever been plugged in properly. Not surprisingly, after plugging the sensor in the fault vanished and the light went out!

After fetching the replacement engine, I had little time to phaff around getting it installed, so I started on the job the very next day.

The engine came out pretty easily since the head was already off and things were easy to get to. Disconnect the myriad of hoses and wires to the inlet manifold was a bit of a job, and can somebody tell me why Volvo had to use 18mm bolts on the bell housing! If I ever have to take engine/gearbox out again (and I sincerely hope not!), I’ll buy myself an 18mm spanner first!

Next challenge was to get the engine out the Landrover and up to the middle barn, I didn’t do the job in the normal garage as I decided the extra space and height up there would be an advantage. Now, the easiest would have been to ask the Neighbours to come round with one of their tractors with a pallet forks on the front. The would have happily done that, but it was only 3 days earlier that I had borrow one of their vehicles to fetch a plough so I felt I needed to manage myself this time.

So with the David Brown, a few ropes, some help, a little risk, a wing and a prayer we got it out the back of the car.

It was given a quick scrub down and driven up to the middle barn.

The only things we did in preparation were to swap over the clutch that I had changed late last year, swap the water pump which was pretty new and even Kid sister, visiting from Ireland, gave a hand changing the engine moutning rubbers (I figured it was a good time to replace them).

So, new engine, old engine, all one needed to do was get one out the way and the other in the car.

I had been very lucky in acquiring an old 1/2 ton electric hoist from work. It was one that they didn’t have use for and since it hadn’t been tested by the people that test lifting things couldn’t use if they wanted too. It’s even got 2 speeds so it’s really controlable, way better than a hydraulic engine crane. The David Brown could have done the job, but the risk of disaster would have been high. The only downside was the the hoist was fixed to the steel beam above so to get the engine onto the hoist meant moving the engine and to adjust the relative position of car and engine meant moving the car. I’ll invest in one of those upside down trolleys one day.

The David Brown, and a few bits of rope were just the job to get the engine onto the hoist. Just like this…

One

two

Three

T’was the usual hassle getting the input shaft to engage with the clutch and the spigot bearing, but I’ve had much worse! The only unexpected hitch I hit was when I found out that the inlet manifold had a bigger butterfly and my airhose was too small. Bit of a pain but it didn’t take too long to get the manifolds swapped over. By early Sunday afternoon the engine was in and running. The block mounted engine heater, which had been butchered when the took the engine out leaked water. A quick session with a hacksaw, blow torch and some solder sorted this out, much easier than putting a new core plug back in!

The only issue left now is the Lamba warning light is on. However, despite this, it passed it’s emissions test and got a 2 year ticket so it can’t be anything to serious. I’ve installed a new Lamba sensor, that didn’t help, soon I’ll start swapping sensors over from the old engine to see if one of them fixes it.

You would have thought that a Volvo 740/940 engine or head would have been as common as rocking horse manure over here in Norway. Which, of course they are, unless it’s a 16V B234F red block.

The discovery of a crack in the head of the Volvo confirmed the need for either a new head or a replacement engine. The search was frustrating. There didn’t seem to be any 16V engines in Norwegian scrap yards. Volvo said that they could offer me a new head, complete with valves and springs for a mere 17000 Kr, £1700. However, after we had decided to bite the bullet and buy it, when I double checked it turned out that it was without valves. no way I said.

So, in final desperation I turned to our neighbours.Volvo’s own, Sweden. Here there was more hope, but obvious logistical challenges. In the end, I bought a complete engine out of a car that had burnt out at the back end it and arranged for it to be shipped to the nearest post depot to the border. Then it was ust a question of a 200 mile round trip to fetch it. In the end I had no option other than to take the Landrover, according to the Swedish postal system I was fetching 200Kg on a pallet, which I knew would fit.

Fortunately I had the sense to put the spare wheel back in the Landy before we left, I had needed the extra space the last time I fetched something. Sure enough, for the first time in this Landy, we got a puncture.

No problem, with my best Witworth sockets and high lift jack, we were on the road again in no time.

Maybe I’ll take the oppurtuninty to get the punctured tire off the rim, try out the sand blaster at work and paint it. It’s about time I began tidying those rims up.

In no time we were at the border, pretty safe to say that this was the first time that this Landrover had been in Sweden during it’s 45 years. 35Km further on, the post office was very helpful loading the engine into the car

and before we knew it we were on our way back, mid engined Landrover anyone? More picutres of the “Journey” here