[calcod]

Hey All,

About to take on my grandfathers old 91 Suzuki. I’ve had a lot of experience fixing up my own Pajero for the last year and a half and would consider myself pretty mechanically capable, however I know very little about the old zooks. Just after some information on the first things I should be testing and issues I should be looking for that go wrong with these cars aside from the rust that has definitely started making its way around the old girl.

The more info the better as I said I’m very new to the world of the zooks.

Cheers legends

[sideways]

Welcome to the forum!

1991 SWB 1.3L or a LWB 1l? I'm going to assume it's a 1.3l in the following... They're simple machines and not much goes wrong with them aside from rust. It may be worth your while to get a few cans of tectyl or Knockout Rust and treat inside the sills behind the plastic sill covers, bottoms of the a pillar from under the dash, the cavity under the headlight buckets and thoroughly wash out between the front 1/4 panel and where the door hinges bolt on to the main body. This fills up with crap over time and rots them out around the hinges.

1.3l Sierras often have carby issues, usually brought on by someone stuffing with something they shouldn't be. The system is needlessly complex with a lot of vacuum gear. Get yourself a copy of the Holden Drover Factory Workshop Manual, you should be able to find it s a pdf download. it has the right information/diagrams for the vacuum hoses and carb (overseas models are different). If it runs good it's probably best left alone. If it runs poorly I'd first check for vacuum leaks. You can do this by spraying some brake clean on suspect areas, if the revs change you know you have a leak. Beyond that it's general carby trouble shooting, maybe report back to us.

Lots of people chuck the stock carby and fit a 4k corrolla carby from ebay. I've done a couple of these and they really need jetting down and quite a bit of stuffing around. IMO it's a better solution to get the stock carb working properly but many are beyond economical repair (internal corrosion from water, flogged throttle shaft, idiots crankling down the idle mixture screw ect)

Your vacuum advance diaphragm is likely busted, pull the hose off and suck on it to check. It should hold vacuum. The vacuum advance doesn't make much difference but it's another vacuum leak and it's no good having the dizzy under vacuum on an offroad car.

The transfer case shifter bush will likely have disintegrated, this can result in the stick slipping through the rails and getting stuck gear (often neutral). It's an easy/cheap part to replace and you should put it on your list but for now when you shift the transfer don't push down hard on the stick, just push it across.

Make sure you don't overheat it, these motors really don't like getting hot and it often results in a blown headgasket. Often the deck of the block is warped which results in subsequent blown headgaskets. I'd suggest fitting an overheat alarm but if you see the temp creeping up it's best to stop and let it cool than running it until it boils. To cool it down stop and hold the revs up a bit.

For me most of the problems I come across on Suzuki's are age/neglect related. For most people these are a second car, they're cheap and they're considered reliable so they typically don't get maintained as well as they should.

The factory workshop manual has good troubleshooting sections.

[losfer]

the vacuum advance makes a huge difference.. without advancing the timing it causes excessive combustion temperature and literally causes head gaskets to fail. and if it isnt working is when people usually state "cant get to 100kph on the highway". so yeah for me , making sure the dizzy is doing its job is a first.