[danai89]

Hi everyone,

new to the forum and to the suzukis, so feel free to correct me (though i ride suzuki bikes).

For a while now I have been looking at either getting a cheap sierra or vitara that I can
leave at my missus farm in brisbane and build up slowly to use for the bush and beach, as time and money allows it.

So last week i ended up getting myself a stock 1997 swb 2.0 softop vitara with 170.oookms for cheap in melbourne where i am currently residing.
Seems to be no rust nor major damage to the car. Soft top is in poor condition and needs replacing, bit of flaking on the silver/grey
bumpers and needs new tires all round. Interior, mainly dash has sun damage/fading.

Plan is to drive it up to brisbane to the farm before easter.

Have been reading through Stueys build thread and love his car, however i can only dream to get that far with mine.


I made a list of a few questions that gave me a headache after not finding my answers on the web/forum:

1) From reading a lot of posts on the forum, i could gather that the this model was built for a limited time and is a bit different to the other vits?

2) I am keen on putting a bullbar and towbar on, but read that they are quite limited in availability, unless one mods a different one?

3) The vit currently has 16'' alloy wheels with bridgestone dueller h/t 215/65/16 tires. Wondering what tires will fit that are decent on the stock setup?

4) When steering there is a faint rub/knocking sound (dont know how to explain it), could it do with some greasing or a power steering fluid flush?

5) In the engine bay i can see the same alarm siren as in stuey's car, however all i got with the car was one bare key. What is the function, does it have an immobilizer, how to activate etc?

6) Lastly, on the right, there where the side mirror switches are, there are a bunch of other original switches, cant find any function that they have. What are they for?


Apologies for the amount of questions, thought i got myself a good buy there, but after realizing that this model was only produced for a short time, i got my doubts haha.

Cheers

Here two not so good pictures for now:

[DarkHorse]

Relax, you got a good one.

The SVs were made for a few years - they were basically an update/upgrade of the original SE series, with more power, wider wheel track, nicer interior and slightly tweaked exterior design. The rest of the drivetrain and mechanicals are pretty similar, to the point where many parts are directly interchangeable.

Towbar shouldn't be too hard to find. Bullbars are quite uncommon, although you can adapt a few different model bars using custom mounting brackets.

Alarm siren is likely just an old install that has been deactivated. Factory key is just the bare one you have. It'll be cheaper and easier to just get a fresh unit installed.

Other switches would be for rear foglights (in the bumper) demister... I couldn't be bothered going out to the car to find exactly what, sorry.

[danai89]

Thanks Darkhorse for the reply.

So any towbar from a swb vit should bolt straight on or only the ones from the widetrack ones do?

And after looking at a few more vit photos i realized that one of the switches is for the demister on hardtops just like you said

What a relief to know that this model aint that bad haha.

Hopefully i will get her registered soon again. First step is to drive her up to qld in two weeks time, guess the vit will have to prove itself then

[got_bar_work]

No a 1.6 tow bar will not fit as the chassis is wider on your car. It might be similar to a 2l lwb
Might have a busted cv and a hub stuck in 4x4

[Daly87]

got_bar_work wrote:

No a 1.6 tow bar will not fit as the chassis is wider on your car. It might be similar to a 2l lwb
Might have a busted cv and a hub stuck in 4x4

So to confirm the 1.6 16v lwb chassis is smaller than the sv420 chassis?

So the only chassis that the sv420 swb is the same as is the lwb sv series? Iv been searching this for some time and can only find people saying the sv420 matches the lwb but can't find what lwb they refer to.

[got_bar_work]

Yeah thats right .all 1.6 had narrow chassis