[timeslayer]

hey all newby to suzuki's and 4wd's in general here, but i know my way around a jap import or a bike pretty well. anyway so its time for a change of pace for me, as i seem to clock up the points way too fast.

ive just got myself an 81 SJ410 with an F10a thats been chopped into a tray back. not sure if im liking that yet it might grow on me. so i discovered it has no freewheeling hubs, and ive had to remove the front shaft at this point to get rid of the harmonics at 80km/h. the poor F10a cant push it any further it was shaking that badly and torque steering one way then other. the uni's are shot in both front n rear shafts and prob the main shaft too, and the tranf. case has a pretty good whine goin at 80k. the rear diff has a pretty good slpa to it between on and off gas and leaks from pinion seal aswell. front wheel bearings might need attn too.

so i gues this is bringing me to a conclusion of i might be better off to upgrade it all rather than repair and re destroy the 1 litre running gear. another cog on top the 4 would really useful too.


does the later model gearbox,transfer case and diffs go in with out to much effort?

can i just buy a freewheeling hub assy( the likes of what on ebay etc.) and fit it up?

theres a lot af variables if you start mixing and matching diff gears and transfer cases and gearboxes,

so is there any proven combination that works as an allrounder? im not looking for rock crwling gears as i want to be able to highway drive it aswell as get it off into some rough stuff and grab that low 4. i know this is asking a bit much of the 970cc block in there, but i havent decided what im gonna do about that yet. im thinking along the deisel turbs. thoughts

[DarkHorse]

Have a search for diesel threads, there's a few and they're not generally complimentary!

I know 2/10 of F-all about Sierras, but there are a lot of bits that are interchangeable across the range. Philosophically I'll always advocate upgrading rather than just replacing if you can.

There's a shiteload of knowledge here about setting up a Sierra for just about any use, but the more detail you can give when you ask questions the better the answers will be.

Get yourself a Photobucket account, then you can just post the [IMG] tags here.

...and welcome!

[timeslayer]

here we go

[zukmeista]

You made it sound horrible, that looks pretty good! What size are the tyres? Here is a thread on the 5-speed conversion.http://www.auszookers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=12322 The diffs from a Narrow Track/NT 1.3L Sierra will fit, but the diff ratios are 3.9 as opposed to the 1L's 4.1. Freewheeling hubs will bolt straight on once you have removed the drive flanges, depending where you are you might be able to swap the flanges for locking hubs, Gwagensteve and Sierradan are both chasing some flanges.

[sideways]

What you've got is a type 1 1l (SJ40), it's basically the worst combination of parts a Sierra ever came with. It's actually the same as what I've got, a 1981 soft top one, it was even that colour! And my transfer whines at 80, the back diff has a shitload of play and all the unis were stuffed!

If you can't sit on 100 then there's something wrong with it. When my motor was in better health it'd easily sit on 110, even with 30s and stock gearing.

The bartreads are cool, if you don't want to keep them I'm sure someone will want them. Just do yourself a favor and never drive on wet tarmac with them!

NT 1.3l diffs and transfer will bolt in but you'l have to use 1.3 nt tailshafts too as the flanges are different. The 1l motor wont pull the higher gearing of 1.3 stuff though. 1ls are geared much lower than 1.3s, they need to be pulling 5000+ rpm on the highway.

Freewheeling hubs will bolt on but if you get the whole swivel hub of a later model Sierra then you get disk brakes too.

zukmeista wrote:

Gwagensteve and Sierradan are both chasing some flange.

[303zuke]

timeslayer wrote:

I discovered it has no freewheeling hubs, and ive had to remove the front shaft at this point to get rid of the harmonics at 80km/h. the poor F10a cant push it any further it was shaking that badly and torque steering one way then other. the uni's are shot in both front n rear shafts and prob the main shaft too,

The lack of free wheeling hubs on it's own won't cause the vibration you describe. Yes, the drive flanges cause the front axle, diff and driveshaft to rotate even when in 2wd and do create some drag, but there shouldn't be any noticable vibration. And the rotation is solely provided by road speed, there is NIL drive from the transfer case in 2wd, so NIL torque steer. You weren't in 4wd on the road, were you??

The fact that you've taken the driveshaft out and it has eliminated the shakes shows that the shaft is the cause. You say the uni joints are shot, so replacing them would be a possibility, but you should first check that the unis are in "phase". This is probably the most common cause of driveshaft vibration. A quick look (or photo: hint!) will show if the shaft is put together right. The two halves of the shaft should be splined in such a way that the unis on both ends are aligned. Due to the number of splines, there is only one position where the unis are correctly aligned. If the front shaft is already out of the car, put it down on a flat surface and ensure the flat sides of each yoke sit flat on the surface together. If they dont, pull the splined section out and twist the shaft until they do line up.

And as for the Turbo Diesel idea, give it a miss. The F10A will (or should) provide enough get up and go with the gearing of the SJ40, although after stepping out of a Jap Import Drift car, it might seem to be a slug.

[timeslayer]

thanks for the info and sorry for the long absence.

ok i have sorted a few issues out with it and can now say it does sit on 105 km on a flat road on a not windy day haha. i beleive the timing belt when replaced has been set up tdc on the exaust mark. i cant seem to get the proper adjustment on the dizzy even if i pull it and go a tooth over. the dizzy is either at 10deg with no furter advance or you cannot retard it any more. cant get it in middle.

i cracked a screw on carby and all of a sudden it sucked through air and almost stalled and i had to adjust the carby again to get it to idle again and it runs a bit better now. not chewing as much fuel. at one point it used a full tank to go 180 km. getting round 300 now.

thanks 303zuke for the tip on shaft i am goin to check that now and put it in for a test drive.

sideways yea i agree it is a pretty combo and to make it worse someone choped it into a ute and didnt extra cab it. it seems shorter than the factory utes.
i know what you mean about the tyres on whet bitumen. got it crossed up once front sliding and all bit of excitement for me
i think i will keep the tyres though as if i put wider ones on the wind drag will increase.

ive just done a bluepac 2" lift into it, along with adjusting the wheel bearings and replacin an almost totally busted steering biscuit and it now steers better and doesnt get blown across three lanes by a truck.

a new exhaust system got rid of a lot of vibrations also, which surprised me.

ive just in the last 2 days noticed the spark seems tob e breaking down after ive been idling at lights and try n take off its coughs and farts and i have to take off really gently and slow. somehow when i use indicators it misfires and clicks the radio off for a second. im goin to start by removing the amp guage thats connected inline with one of the wires running to key. i have ordered new dizzy cap rotor button points condensor and coil. im hoping that will solve the issue and i can keep it goin until they turn up.

[Fatzook]

Looks like a pretty decent chop!

[mrw82]

What's with the metre long coil lead? That has the potential to arc out onto the body which will give you spark issues.

Your points may be burnt out as you are running no ballast resistor. If you have a ballasted coil the your coil could be stuffed from getting full 12 volts (ballast reduces input to 9 volt after startup), but the coil looks aftermarket and I'd assume its a non ballast coil, so 12 volts won't hurt it, but will hurt your points.

I'd recommend you upgrade to an electronic distributor from a 1.3 sierra, its a straight bolt in and needs a 12v coil (non ballast) which suits your current setup. I have done it recently and it was a very easy worthwhile mod. I got great gains from it because I had mechanical advance problems in the old dizzy. But you should see some benefit from a stronger more reliable spark.

[timeslayer]

i put a new coil with ballast resistor, new dizzy cap, rotor button, points and condenser on it today. snipped all the old spades of and crimped new ones on. shortened the ht lead from coil to dizzy. i have an old engine analyser i used to set dwell time to 48deg which is just below the recommended spec(52 +-3deg) from workshop manual and puts the points gap at .53 mm(just over spec of .40-.50 mm). then set timing statically, put the timing light on it and i cant see a mark. weird i thought but it sound good and free revving nicely so took it for a drive, and wow, different engine i did have to stop and retard the timing a little as i was hearing pre ignition when putting any more than a quarter throttle on, which took some of the new found torque away, but still a great improvement i shall have to check out the timing again tomorrow because i should see the marks on fly wheel with timing light. im wondering if the timing belt that was renewed not long before i got the vehicle has been set up on the cam exhaust vale mark or something like that? i think the dizzy could do with renewing as im not certain of the mech adv working properly and there is some slop in shaft. thinking i will do the elec dizzy upgrade. points are so fiddly to get just right and the engine was producing a lot more torque with the initial timing that i set statically, makes me think the dizzy is not advancing and by running 12 or so deg it compensates for it until it starts pinging under load.

also slotted a set of freewheeling hubs on damn that was easy lol. bit easier to get it rolling and it keeps rolling better too

liking the "little blue dune buggy" more n more and you guys have been great help with info still really wanted the extra cabin space of a tin top though.

[timeslayer]

well the state of these plugs is no wonder it wasnt too happy. ash deposit causes - oil, fuel additives, worn valve seats, running lean, or overheating.

i have i know i have symptoms one, three, five, and possibly the one time i put 711 fuel in i remember why i don't its shiit.. i wont be using it again. goin back to sticking with bp or shell from now on. thinking im just goin to keep fixing up everything around the head and see how long that lasts before the valve dies or the oil intake is no longer viable haha

4th adjustment of the points gap and timing and i think it got it right. dizzy shaft has some bearing crush i think its called or sloppy so with it stationary to adjust the points its pushing off to one side and once it spins up again it centres itself and the gap just shrunk by half

got some checker plate nice and free, so i have decided to make a box for the tray. cut out the basics to start with so far.

more on that once its done i repaint the tray and box hammertone grey. hoping it will look good against the blue otherwise i might paint whole car in it

[jonno_racing]

considered going to a 1300 dizzy?

[303zuke]

timeslayer wrote:

i think the dizzy could do with renewing as im not certain of the mech adv working properly and there is some slop in shaft. thinking i will do the elec dizzy upgrade.

Well, he has said that he's thinking about it!!!!

[Gwagensteve]

This is an interesting thread, and you're doing a tops job of documenting your problems and solutions, but I thought I needed to clarify something here. My apologies for the hijack

timeslayer wrote:

and possibly the one time i put 711 fuel in i remember why i don't its shiit.. i wont be using it again. goin back to sticking with bp or shell from now on.

There's two oil refineries in Qld, Bulwer island (BP) and Lytton (Caltex) From memory, pretty much every retailer in QLD buys from either one or the other. Together, they have more capacity than the QLD market requires, so I doubt there'e much room for imports. Odds are, if you buy Shell, 7-11 or anyone else's fuel in QLD, it's come from one of those refineries. I know this because I've worked on the additive tanks where generic fuel has each retailers specific additive batch blended in.

In Victoria, there's a similar arrangement - Shell and Mobil run the refineries and wholesale to whoever. Whilst there are imports, there's not much. Down here, Mobil supply to 7-11 exclusively.

Of course it's still possible to buy stale fuel, or fuel with water in it, but that's a risk down to the retailer and not due to who produces the fuel. In that regard, 98 octane has a much shorter shelf life than regular unleaded.

(Hijack off)

Just wanted to clarify that.

Steve.

[timeslayer]

Gwagensteve wrote:

This is an interesting thread, and you're doing a tops job of documenting your problems and solutions

thanks mate

shell must get their fuel somewhere locally? or just add their blend of additives? i know all the fuel comes from 2 or 3 refinery's, but it still doesnt change the fact that all 711 fuel i have ever bought has been crap. not just this vehicle im talking about the last 15 odd years. whether its the different additives used by different chains or the state of the tanks i dont know. the fuel being old could be the case also. glad that fuel is out now anyway

went for a look out to ripley rd. ya cant get in there anymore. at least not without a winch. some serious errosion on bottom side, and they have dozed big rocks and banked up the dirt at the top of hill. found another area to play. no recovery gear so im like dont get stuck. oops


lockers and i would have driven straight out. only happened because the angle was getting steep on the other side so decided to change sides of the ditch before it got deeper or i dropped the wheels in it and rolled it. didnt reverse far enough back and dropped the wheel in anyway haha. managed to lift the front up and kick a rock and a small tree in under the front wheel and rocked it back n forth till i got it out too bloody hot for lifting cars today lol.

[timeslayer]

grr one month old coil shorted across the LT leads

lucky i kept the old one in the toolbox. took me an hour to pick it as i kept thinking it musta been carb as coil brand new.

must be dizzy issue causing it as it has been running rough after any idle /low reving ie dwell ange is too high overheating coil. intitial reason i put a new coil on
dont like doin things twice. i had rectified the dwell too but obviously dizzy is shagged.

sigh.

anyone keen to buy? or swap for an 60;) will have a new electronic dizzy and matching coil!

not yet the bank is saying not yet unless the price is right