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How far would you go with a rebuild & Su carb conversion

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2014 6:33 pm
by gamble63
Hey guys some may know that we are doing the Mongolian rally in our Sj so have way to many question ill need your help with :salute:

ive got myself a 1.3 engine and we have started to rebuild it so we know where we stand with the 20,000 mile round trip, my questions is, how far would you go with your re build

stripped the engine down to this:

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The pistons have now been removed leaving the crank in. Plan is to re hone the pistons,new rings gaskets etc, then over hall the head. Would you go as far as removing the crank and replacing those bearings and seals. Everythging ive taken off so far has been in good nick, big end bearings were all fine but will replace. water pump was fine and looked great.. nice starting point for an engine. What would you do?

Also the plan is to convert to an SU carb and i did find an awesome post on here i think about doing the conversion but cant for the life of me find it again when i try searching. could anyone help me out with that please?

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Does the manifold need modifying where the 2 inlet holes are or is my understanding that you make an elbo plate that bolts onto this and adapts it to the SU carb all that needs doing with that.

Thanks in advance guys :doublethumbs:

Re: How far would you go with a rebuild & Su carb conversion

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2014 7:49 pm
by trotter

Re: How far would you go with a rebuild & Su carb conversion

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2014 10:01 pm
by donkeychomp
I probably wouldn't have gone that far! If it ran fine and had good compression I would have just serviced it and taken spares. If the big ends are fine why change them?

If it ain't broke etc, and 20,000 miles is about 2 years of normal driving...albeit not on dusty trails!

Re: How far would you go with a rebuild & Su carb conversion

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2014 11:28 pm
by gamble63
Yeah completely agree with you but it was one of those if i don't check it and we get a 1000 miles into the trip and it eats itself because of something like warn end bearings or shite in the piston then i would have kicked myself for not doing it.

Cheers

Re: How far would you go with a rebuild & Su carb conversion

Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 1:50 am
by Anton
Personally I'd do the full rebuild, but not so much because of the 20k miles as the fact that losing an engine in Kent is bad enough, losing one in the mountains of Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan is something else altogether!

Also - I'm kinda jealous! Have fun!

As for the carb, I had pics of my "elbow" conversion, but for some reason Facebook has screwed up all the links and doesn't seem to allow hotlinking anymore!

If you've got the money for it, I'd go for a Richard Wattam (rockwatt) manifold - much better, and no carb icing (which you're going to have trouble with in some parts of the Mongol rally).

Re: How far would you go with a rebuild & Su carb conversion

Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 4:56 am
by Jordi
if it didn't rattle or knock or smoke i'd have serviced it and packed spares.

Re: How far would you go with a rebuild & Su carb conversion

Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 11:05 pm
by gamble63
Yeah most of it is for piece of mind and to know where i stand with the engine, Its also good to show the other 2 guys on my team who are not so mechanically minded whats what.

i was all up for the full rebuild and then i started to find it really hard to even find re build kits for the engine. Each time i look or ask others i cant seem to find kits like you would with say a rover v8 or something ( obviously they are more common to rebuilds etc i know)

found some kits from middle east that will ship over but no idea if that is a good idea or not.

i Mean what do you think of this?


Click Here for Ebay Listing



dont think id use the pistons and gudgen pins but the rest i would.

As for the manifold, we have next to no budget for anything so was going to machine my own and incorporate a water jacket round the elbow as a second skin after i saw a similar one as a build on here.

Cheers guys

Re: How far would you go with a rebuild & Su carb conversion

Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 11:39 pm
by Anton
Unsurprising that it's from India, they still build Samurai's over there with G13 engines. If those are genuine Maruti pistons, they'll be good solid parts. Ask if they are.

As for the manifold, the water jacket idea is a solid one.

Re: How far would you go with a rebuild & Su carb conversion

Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 11:43 pm
by donkeychomp
I agree with Anton. You've gone this far do the whole thing now, and when you do start this epic adventure keep us all updated!

I'm jealous too!

Re: How far would you go with a rebuild & Su carb conversion

Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 11:47 pm
by Anton
Yes, pics and videos please!