A little summer fettling

[maxaret]

Hey we actually had some warm dry weather in Perthshire over the last week so I decided to do a little peripheral tidying on our 2005 Vitara
I started off by cleaning and colour restoring all the Plastic trims etc - I have some Simoniz 'Back to Black' in a plastic bottle which I have had in stock since the 1980's (hey no hurry on cleaning etc).So we now have nice looking Back Bumper 'Step',Roof Rail Fairings,Door Mirror Mounts and Plastic Scuttle Cover.
Whilst looking round the car I realised how rusty the wiper arms had got,so I dug out some rattle can Etch Primer and Matt Black left over from a previous job some years ago,because it was a little windy for spraying - I had to spray much closer than the instructions - which means we have a finish somewhere between Satin and Gloss - but (miracle of miracles) No Runs .



Before Pic - you can see the rusty Wiper Arm and very grey scuttle plastic panel/grille





After Pics - weather has now gone back to normal and it is a dull drizzly day so the pics are not great but you can see much improved Arms and Black Scuttle panel/grille






I also did the arms on our 'other' car 2008 Sportage

[maxaret]

I made the mistake of looking at the back of the car as well and found a rusty old wiper arm with a rusty old blade attached - also the spare wheel mounting was looking a little sad.






A little work with rotary wire brush and some wet 'n' dry paper and then treated with some Bilthamber



That looks a wee bitty better

[maxaret]

One of my near neighbours has installed an electric car lift in his garage (he is a semi retired motor mechanic) and I asked him yesterday if I could put the GV up on it to change the diff and transfer box oils - he said - yeah bring it round now.
I already had the oil in stock for the front diff and transfer box - so I started on them while my ever helpful partner walked up to the local filling station to see if they had any 80w90 GL5 oil for the rear diff.
I had to do the front diff and transfer box with a large syringe - once I managed to get the fill and drain plugs out (they had been seriously gorrilla'd in LOL),always make sure you can get the fill plug out before you drain it.
The old front diff oil looked brand new (we don't do much off roading) ,the transfer box oil was quite dark but both drain plugs were fairly clear of metallic debris.
Luckily the filling station did have gear oil in stock at not too bad a price (thanks Luv)
Luckily my neighbour has a pump for gear oil so I filled it up with fresh 80w90 and did the rear diff,the old oil was of course very dark and the drain plug had a fair bit of sludge on it but not too much metallic debris.
I used Millers TRX synth 75w90 for the front diff and transfer box - with Comma 80w90 GL5 for the rear diff.
Whilst I was under the car I had a good look round as we have had some metallic rattling recently,the only thing I could see was one of the rear exhaust hangers was fouling a chassis cross member so it got judiciously 'adjusted' with a metal tube (heave !!).We will find out if it is quieter on the next cold start

[maxaret]

Just to update this towards the end of the year.
Back in may/june we decided to spend a couple of grand on some preventive maintenance on our 2005 G Vitara.
A very low mileage car so still had original exhaust and suspension etc,I was too tied up with medical issues and my mate was snowed under with work
at the time so could not get GV up on his ramp, so decided to outsource work to a trusted indy garage in the next village who do work on classic cars etc.
So anyway - new downpipe and cat,new front brakes and springs/shockers and a few other bits and bobs underneath + whilst having a shufti around they found that the rear u/j on the rear propshaft was worn so they replaced that.
We got the car back the day before we were driving 500 miles south for holiday so decided to use our other car in case of any problems post quite extensive work.
We did not use the GV much over the next couple of months and all local fairly slow roads,on the first long distance run we found we had a 'rumble' at 55mph which had not been there previously LOL
A neighbour has installed a car lift in his garage so I had a look under and found the 'new' u/j had some play in it and no signs of the grease nipple having been used.
My mate did not think it was the cause of the rumble but I could not see any other issues + I also I reverted to aircraft tech method of 'what was the last work done that could have caused the problem' - so eventually got hold of a u/j kit and we changed it - yep rumble gone .
We had also found that one of the 4 little circlips which hold the u/j bearings together had been broken - although it was still locking the bearing ok - not a good sign.
I reckon he had given the job to one of the 2 'shop boys' (to use an old aviation job title) as I do not believe the boss or senior mech would have let that go.
The Lord only knows what the boy had done to the new u/j,but I suppose they are fairly easy to damage as there are lots of little needle roller bearings in there and one must use a little finesse to do the job without damaging the bearings etc.

[maxaret]

Forgot to add that whilst under the car investigating the 'rumble' I had a quick look at the front propshaft - the u/j's on that look original and the rubber seals are very perished so I have bought another set of u/j's and will change them when I can get the GV up on mates ramp (he is still snowed under with work).
There is no play apparent in the front u/j's but they could be deteriorated in other ways I guess.