[Witty Title] '95 SJ413 rescue

[Tango91]

Bonus 2nd Sunday Post!

Sally's gone to bed with a headache or something so what better time to do some electrical troubleshooting in the dark?

I've never owned a vehicle that's made me audibly go 'What the f**k?' so often as this one. I think it's about 3.5 WTFs/minute or so.

I'm running out of polite ways to say "the gentleman that previously worked on this automobile", so going forward, we're going to need a name for whatever previous owner inflicted his time, effort and DIY skills on this poor Suzuki. I think we'll call him Dave.

Anyway, Dave must have been having a good day when he cooked this one up. For whatever reason none of the backlights in the instrument cluster work. To this end, Dave has decided to screw and glue a trailer numberplate light onto the top of the cluster.

I pulled the cluster out and checked the bulbs... all fine.

Ok, let's follow the PCB traces back to the plug. So the top two connections on the smaller plug (bottom left in this photo) run the lights.

I switched the sidelights on and probed the connectors for power. No power. The top wire on the plug is red and yellow with blue rings or something. I followed it down the loom... it's been cut and there's a screw terminal (that Dave is evidently so fond of) which is connected to a green wire. I follow the green wire. two feet later there's another screw terminal with nothing in the other side.

Back up at the dashboard, in behind the hole where the ignition switch should be, there's a wire with the end exposed sticking out of the loom. Sure enough, it's red and yellow with blue rings. I probe it and it's got 12v. So I pull out the useless green wire and connect the two ends of the red wire together, and sure enough

WTF. Dave mate, what are you doing?

The eagle eyed among you may have noticed a bulb is missing from the idiot lights at the bottom of the instument cluster. Three guesses which one that one is...

It's flashing once, pause, twice, long pause. 5 seconds of googling informs me that
1) this is the code for 'Nothing's Wrong', and
2) it only flashes when... Only... flashes... when... ...Oh no Dave. You aren't that simple, right?

I removed the fuse from the diagnostic port (which prevents the cover fitting, it was in the glove box) and:

Jesus christ, Dave.


I also pulled the stupid temperature display off the top of the dash as it only told you the temperature in the cabin, and was connected into a wire that disappears deep into the air vents and is connected with twisted together bare wires laid across the top of the dashboard with some screw terminal blocks at various intervals for flavour. Also pulled the radio out, as it's got power but produces no sound through the factory speakers. Clearly, Dave's been at work here too.

The theme with this car seems to be 'the harder you look the worse it gets'. I look forward to unpicking this mess.

[d_r_1989]

Wow Dave, just wow.
Good effort and there's nothing more satisfying than fixing issues someone else didn't.
I think there's abit of masochism in all SJ owners, even I'm enjoying watch your hard work pay off

[Tango91]

I think there's abit of masochism in all SJ owners

Hurt me, daddy.

I drove the SJ to work this morning and it started bogging down and kangarooing at low rpms under load, like pulling away from the lights or coming off a roundabout. I did notice it on occasion before but it was way worse this morning. I figure a fuelling issue given it's recent history, and since i know the inside of the tank is clean as a whistle I thought I'd swap the fuel filter. I did order a new one back along but it hasn't materialised yet, so i nipped to my local motor factors over lunch as they had one on the shelf.

After work I pulled it in the shed and got to it. As with everything on the underside of this damn car the fuel filter was plastered in what I can only assume is crude oil or tar or something, it's a sticky brown mess that gets on your clothes, your hands and in your hair and will not come off unless you use nasty solvents like thinners or petrol. Either way, a bit of fighting with the banjo connectors and it was off:

and I found it was filled with Bisto™ beef gravy instead of petrol.

Either way, I purged the line using the fuel pump until it ran clear, put in the new filter, and purged it again at the throttle body, and it fired right up again and seems to idle better. Not that surprising considering...

I also sealed the threads on my steering box fittings with some PTFE tape as one of them was weeping a little ATF.

While I was under the bonnet I also tapped that spare hole in the manifold for my temperature gauge sender. I have to admit, I did bodge it a little tiny bit as the sender is M10x1 as opposed to the 1/8” BSPT in the manifold, but the thread pitch is really close so I carefully ran a M10x1 tap through it and it picked up the thread well enough. If it's a problem In future I'll drill it larger and tap for a brass adaptor, but we'll cross that bridge if and when we get to it.

I put a little PTFE on the threads for good luck, I hope that doesn't interfere with getting a good ground on the sender. I'll get around to fitting the gauge in the near future.

While I was under the bonnet I thought I might have a look at why the car has suddenly started sounding like something out of Max Power magazine circa 1998. I found a major blow where the down pipe clamps to the manifold as the pipe was at an extreme angle leaving a gap at the side of the socket.

under this there's a bit of rusty flexible ducting that had split in two places, i pulled that out.

I couldn't find anything of similar size so unfortunately I had to cut the good bit out of the middle and make it work. Luckily this actually improved the angle of the down pipe as the pipe was too long before. It looks neater now, less of an extreme bend in it. I cleaned up and reused the clamps after this photo was taken.

The rest of the exhaust must have twisted away and dropped from where ol' mate Dave intended it to be as it'd been clattering against the rear shock and varous other bits every time you went round a corner or over a bump. I'm a little ashamed to admit that XL zip ties were employed to get it roughly back where it should be. I ordered a full manifold-back system the other day, here's hoping it hurries up before I succumb to carbon monoxide poisioning.

I'd like to share with you fine people the whole cartwheeling, meat-hook abortion that is the exhaust system on this thing. Those of you with a nervous disposition may wish to look away now.

That flexible pipe from the down pipe heads into a mystery silencer

and then into another silencer followed by some flexible pipe.

I'd like to point out that there are no fewer than four hanger brackets between these two silencers, of which only one is in any way being used to suspend the assembly (which is twisting it sideways as they're offset.

We then head into random cut and joined angles and bends

Finishing in what appears to be gas pipe that's crudely hacked off not-square at the back bumper.

The whole thing is sealed up with tiger seal or sikaflex of some variety, and suspended with a combination of builders band, strips of rubber, hope, and random hardware.

Take a look at that bad boy. Custom.


You can see in the vicinity of this the awful bodge job up under the back of the cab mounts which will need sorting before the next MOT. This is on bioth sides and is what caused me to initially walk away from the car at it's original asking price.

And just about see where ol' mate Dave's plated over it from the inside. No idea how the MOT man is supposed to miss the jagged rusty holes around the body mounts though... Suggestions for tackling this without taking the body off gratefully recieved!

One odd thing I've noticed, which makes me wonder what kind of previous owner Dave was, is that at no point have i found a single zip tie on this thing, not on the wiring, not in the bodywork, chassis, interior, under the bonnet, not anywhere. I wonder if Dave had discovered zip ties what this thing would look like. Perhaps he was some old boy who only believed in screw terminal blocks and U-clamps.

It drove home quite a lot better (and quieter although it's still blowing like hell) and seems peppier, but it's still just a bit... hesitant? Sometimes it hiccups at about half throttle, lor RPM under load. Rolling on the throttle there's definitely a flat spot about halfway. Vacuum leak somewhere maybe? Timing?

I think I might change the fuel filter again once the other new one arrives, and in the meantime I wonder if any of the fuel treatments you can get actually work? Can you get proper seafoam in the UK?

Ideas and suggestions gratefully recieved. I'm off now to try and get this crap off my hands. And a tetanus shot.

Cheers!

[Tango91]

Just me in here then? Oh well.

Still chasing that irritating bog/stumble under power.

I pulled the EGR valve to have a look, gummed right up which couldn't have been helping much.

Cleaned that out as best I could with solvents, compressed air and picks and put it back with a new gasket.

Thought I might take a gander at some of the engine electricals as ol' mate Dave was so fond of playing with them.

Oh yeah, Dave's been here.

I can't think of any reason why you might cut one of the wires going to the distributor and join it using a screw terminal, but what do I know?

I joined the wires semi-properly with one of those crimp connectors with the heat shrink, and then wrapped the lot in loom tape and put it properly back in the cable hanger on the bulkhead.

Nearby was this, I have no idea what it used to go to I'm afraid. Ideas?

While we're sniffing around the distributor, the timing seems to be adjusted quite a long way off centre? I'll have to borrow a timing gun from somewhere

I thought I'd pull the plugs just to check they weren't fouled. They're brand new, which the service history supports, and the colour doesn't look too bad, although maybe a bit carbon-y. I must remember to post a photo for people who are better at reading plugs than I am.

One of the HT leads, #3, doesn't match the others and the wire came out of the terminal and the rubber boot came apart when I pulled it off the plug. I cut it back a bit and re-crimped it, but I've ordered a full set to be on the safe side.


I just about had time to tidy up some of the vacuum hoses that are flopped around the engine bay, with a variety of bolts and other fasteners blanking them.

This lot was all surplus to requirements, apparently.

And I thought I'd take a photo of the whole car, as it sits, for posterity as so far all you've really seen is rusty bits and crimes against wiring.

Cheers!

[ScottieJ]

The connector with the brown, brown-white and black should go to a noise suppressor according to the wiring diagram. Brown white should come from coil -, black is an earth and then The brown is the feed for the tach so that’s prob why your rev counter isn’t working (seem to remember you saying that didn’t work)

Note this is an US diagram so there are differences but a lot of it is the same.

As for the welding around the body mounts, you can attack it from above but you might need to cut out the step up into the boot floor to access the inside of the cavity there.

It’s not hard to pull a body or lift it off the chassis on some blocks of wood for better access. I can remove a body in around 3-4 hours but I have done it a fair few times

[Rankine]

Really coming together man, hopefully just the timing now and she will run braw

[Tango91]

Really coming together man, hopefully just the timing now and she will run braw

I wish that were true

As expected, the timing was miles out, ol' mate Dave had set it at around 20° BTDC, the spec according to the Haynes book of lies is 10° BTDC.

(The timing gun is set to 10° in these photos, so 0° is the target.)

Before:

After:

I pulled the inspection plug on the bellhousing but couldn't for the life of me see any timing marks on the flywheel, i turned the engine over by hand with a ratchet several times and saw nothing, so had to go off the marks on the crank pulley.

Interestingly, adjusting it back to where it should be made it run like crap for a few seconds before it came around. I wonder if the ECU had to adjust or something.

I also turned the idle up a tiny bit as it's been trying to stall when you come off the power and coast up to a traffic light or junction or what have you.

Some proper headlight connectors showed up in the post so I converted this:

To this:

with proper heat-shrink crimp terminals, and some proper automotive wire, kindly donated by the air compressor loom from my old Disco, through some rubber hose across to the O/S light. (a little thinner wire than i'd have liked, might have to re-do that in future.) The cardboard light angle adjustment device remains in use for now though.


I'm more than a little disappointed to say that it ran like a bag of utter shite on the way home, it was embarrasing going to pull away from every stop and have the engine cough and bog to the point of almost stalling, and having to rev the bollocks off it to pull away.

When I got home two bottles of seafoam had shown up, so I put 1 1/2 in the tank and dribbled the rest into the throttle body while the engine was idling. I also pulled the fuel line off the injector and squirted some back down the fuel line so it would go directly in. To my ear it smoothed out a bit so I went for a drive and though "wahey it's fixed and running like an excitable terrier that's seen a rat"

Unfortunately (again) this didn't last long and it gradually got worse and worse as we went.

I did notice this on the fuel injector body with no plug attached, I assume something to do with vacuum?

I pulled the fuel injection fuse when I was monkeying about with the seafoam, and I noticed when I put it back in the pump didn't cut in at all, I had to aggressively wiggle the fuse for the relay to clack and the pump to run, just a bit crusty but we now know, also not a cause of the problem.

I thought maybe a blocked breather on the tank or something, but there's no hiss upon opening the cap immediately after a drive. The fuel pump seems to be working fine as well, i stuck the pipe at the throttle body into a bottle and it must have pumped half a litre in under 10 seconds. The fuel coming out looks fine now as well.


If anyone has any suggestions or ideas I'm all ears!

[ScottieJ]

I’ll be honest I’ve never really played with the SPI system….. however having everything plugged in and plumbed in is probably a good start.

[Tango91]

Had a zen day in the workshop while Sally was at work today, punctuated only by the noise of a squeaky tennis ball, and my ever more frequent "WTF?"s.

Just let the pictures wash over you, and think about what a fine electrician and craftsman ol' mate Dave must be.


O2 Sensor wire cut and joined with a mashed up terminal block for some reason -

The other end of that mystery white wire was twisted onto a black wire which went through a grommet in the firewall and ended up in this bullet connector here (no idea)

I pulled that out for now. The terminal block I replaced with a shrink-wrap crimp connector and wrapped in loom tape after this photo -

No idea what this is supposed to have gone to, it's draped across the firewall from the battery end to the top of the charcoal canister. Looks like it might have had a fuse in it at some point? I pulled it out.

Here's the situation under the dash... grim.

This theme continues on the other side of the firewall

I wonder what that section of radiator hose is hiding?

Oh. That'll be the original positive battery terminal, then.

Here's ol' mate Dave's idea of a body ground wire

And his best estimation of what the main positive feed for everything that isn't the starter motor should look like

I pulled all the extra crap that was going through the main firewall grommet, some of it was for the isolator, some was for lights, I assume something in there was for the starter relay he'd fitted, and some I have no idea at all.

I took off all the wiring that wasn't factory in this area, and made up a new positive feed wire end, cut the old positive terminal off (mistake) and made up new, chunky and appropriate length wires for the starter relay, which I mounted on a bracket down on the inner wheelarch out of the way.

I ended up straightening out that original terminal connector, drilling out the remnants of the old wire, prising it open and re-crimping it on the end of the good wire after this photo. I only cut it off because I was planning to use the other one which was the type that has grub screws to clamp to the wire, but Dave had been at it with a drill for some reason and what was left of the bore wall was paper thin, so I tossed it.

That's a lot tidier, happy with that (reused positive terminal not pictured)

The pile of surplus wire was getting large by this point, dog was getting concerned.

I pulled out all the added extra switches and buttons from various places around the dashboard. If you look closely you can see where Dave's carefully drilled a 20mm hole for the horn button, before presumably deburring the hole with a 4 1/2lb club hammer.

If anyone knows roughly where I might locate the other end of the factory horn wire, I'm all ears.


I fitted a new ignition barrel and switch, and replaced the three door locks and the glovebox lock so they're all on one key. For less than £35, delivered from India within a week, and 20 minutes to fit, makes you wonder why Dave took the time to do it custom...

Gaping holes in every part of the dash aside, don't you think it tidies it up a bit?

Final (for now) haul of wiring and assorted tat:

Just the extra tail lights and the towbar wiring to exorcise now, hopefully. And get the radio going. And get the horn working properly.

I somehow also found time to pull the distributor out with the intentions of cleaning the points... No points, it's all electronic inside apparently. The rotor arm contact and the 5 posts in the distributor cap were a bit corroded so I hit them with some scotchbrite and some wet and dry paper to tidy them up. I didn't notice any apparentl change in the spark though, which is nice and fat, if a bit orange/yellow for my taste. We'll see what new plug leads can do when they get here.

I also reset the throttle position sensor as per the Haynes manual's suggestions on a whim, not sure it it made much difference if any.

I let it idle for 15 minutes while I tidied up then had a few laps around the industrial estate, in the hope that it would have magically fixed itself.

Initially it pulled well but as it warmed up more the bogging/kangarooing got worse and worse. I blocked off the vacuum hose to the EGR valve just to see but didn't notice any difference.

Waiting on parts now, an exhaust, the noise suppressor filter thing for the tachometer, as well as plug leads and some OEM rear door hinges instead of the gate hinge affair that's on there at the moment.


If you've any idea why it runs like sh** when it's hot, suggestions on a postcard, please.

Peace.

[Rankine]

Alot better looking in there now, not sure about the running tho. When I ran the spi was full loom I swapped in from the vitara and didn't mess with to much.

Good earth at ecu? Sure its a map sensor on them is it connected?