Suzuki Club UK

Hello,

I've joined the forum as I'm thinking about taking on an SJ413 that is in need of some love and attention!

It's MY1986, and originally it was purchased by my old man from Belgium (as he wanted a LHD car to take to Spain and Belgium was the cheapest place to source back then). It was imported into the UK as a commercial vehicle (a plain tonneau cover with no windows) as it meant it could be imported at a lower tax rate! He has owned it ever since, so it's a one owner from new car and I'm pretty sure he has pretty much all of the original purchase documentation.

The vehicle was taken straight to Cambell Motors in Northampton where it underwent a fairly significant transformation. The windowless roof was removed and replaced with the standard window back, and then it was fitted with a long S stripe set, front and side bars, indicator bars, Aisin locking hubs, and the rhino rear wheel cover.

It served as a run around in Spain until about 1999 where it clocked up a fair few thousand KM's on the clock (over 100,000), but being in a warm dry climate and garaged all it's life it was is fairly good condition. I'm not aware of ANY rust which sounds like it might be quite a rare treat! The interior and roof suffered from expected and inevitable Spanish sun bleaching, but mechanically it was fairly sound. The only issues I was aware of when it was mothballed was there was a touch of blue smoke at cold start which to my mind is probably valve guides as it was never revved or driven hard (like a hire car). The brakes are seized solid, I'm not sure the carburettor was running optimally, and I bet it's not been turned over for 10 years so god only knows what will have happened to the engine, drivetrain / manual locking hubs etc. I'm heading out to see it again in early spring so will try and source a Yuasa battery to chuck on it and see whether it will fire up.

It ended up being garaged whilst the old man decided what to do with it, and it never surfaced again until last year. I went down to his shed to get some breeze blocks and found that it had been buried in building material

Given how well the car had served us over the year I was a bit put out that he'd treated it with such contempt, but I suppose it was more convenient than putting up a shelf

So my objective is to try and save it. The aim is to try and recover it to the UK this year if he'll agree to a price for it. And I'm going to need access to a lot of information on 'How To's' and where to get parts, inspiration for new ideas etc. I'm a lifetime (25 years) VW Group owner so I know very little about Suzuki's so I'm going to need all the help I can get!

So a few poor pics of the car to set the scene (hope these links work as I've not had any success trying to upload files):

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPnzCejgXKp/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPnzIbTAVqq/

Many thanks for reading, all feedback welcome!

Hello,

New here myself so I can't offer much in the way of experience or knowledge yet.

Your project sounds interesting, I'm keen to see how it goes, hopefully it makes it to UK as you plan.

Good luck!

to club uk.

Sounds like a brilliant project and you shouldn't find it too hard as mechanical parts are generally the easiest to find

There's a chance that my father actually worked on your fathers SJ as that's around the time he worked at Campbell and he told me about how commercials used to often be bought in and then fitted with rear seats and a normal roof. They would send the commercial roofs back overseas and have the roofs and seats sent over separately

Welcome to the forum!

Hello hope all goes to plan

ScottieJ wrote: to club uk.

There's a chance that my father actually worked on your fathers SJ as that's around the time he worked at Campbell and he told me about how commercials used to often be bought in and then fitted with rear seats and a normal roof. They would send the commercial roofs back overseas and have the roofs and seats sent over separately

Wow, small world!

I used to go to the same school as Hedley Campbell's kids drawing on another tenuous link!

I'm not sure how faithful to the original this restoration might end up. Given the world and technology has moved on 25 years since I learned to drive in this car I am in two minds as to whether I:

> Do the 1.6i upgrade engine if I find there is quite a bit of work required on the existing 1.3
> The front seat stitching is beyond repair, and the vinyl is pretty shot. I'm half tempted to fit different (read more supportive) seats
> There isn't much I can do to increase the compliance of the leaf spring suspension. As the car used to tow a fair bit it ran Monroe load levellers at the back, and some form of Monroe gas strut at the front. I think lower tyre pressures is likely the only option at my disposal (think we used to run between 18-20 psi)

Are things like the interior flooring and seats still available as a special order from main dealers or is it a case of hunting the online world and hoping to pick up the odd lucky find?

The 1.6 is quite an easy swap, and if you already have a 1.3 in there its not so much of an originality issue. I binned the front seats and fitted Audi A4 seats... much more comfortable and easier.
Regarding the springs, the only real way to make them better is fit longer ones, such as going rears-up-front or similar.
Also, 20psi is about right

Can't really get much from the dealers any more I think