Ownership Verified: Roadtrip car/Japanese Open Air

There are few, yes. But the 3cyl is probably the most common model, so the gearbox from one isn't exactly a rarity. But as it usually happens there's none on offer nearby just when I'd need one. :p Or, there was one, which would've been a perfect donor car (gearbox, better seats, central locking, power windows..). And I missed it because I couldn't get transport for it in time. :mad:
 
there's no similar site in finland? the one i linked is all the scrapyards in Norway, putting out what cars they got in stock, and what parts those cars have left, so you can send a request to the junkyard to check the state of the part, and have it sent if it's a usable grade, most go for grade A.
 
2017 update, 1 of 4.

It seems I’ve dropped from the forums at the end of 2015, pretty much. Stopped updating all PYC threads, didn’t put up any meet pictures etc. I’ve still logged most things that have happened, so here’s an update to this side of the forum at least. :lol:


Right, continuing from the start of the roadtrip.. In 2015. :lol:


Tyres for my new GTi wheels just made it in time, to be mounted for the trip.

Before/after

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Things went very well from here on. As far as the roadtrip goes, Swift managed the motorway drive to Helsinki, for the start of the “official” part of the trip and the motorway trip to first twisties. Then, 300m after I had Fairlady as a passenger, main seal on the gearbox gave up, emptying the box of its fluids. She seems to have a magic touch, as my camera broke during the previous icetrack meet after she had used it.. :p Few phone calls later we towed the poor thing with AdrianVan to my friends place somewhat nearby and continued the trip without it.


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One roadtrip and Ringmeet later, it was time for a rescue mission. Since it broke down, the point of failure at least couldn’t have been much better. As it was close enough I first went lift the car up to see what the actual issue is. After the seal issue and inability to hold fluids in was confirmed, I got a dolly from a co-worker, to tow it back to my place for a gearbox change.


Quite a combination, especially around here.

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Might’ve been running a tad rich

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DHL did an excellent job with the original gearbox, as it was still at Benis garage. After waiting for couple of weeks, the hunt for the package begun. It seems it did quite a tour of Germany while figuring out a way to Finland. Beni himself had time to visit and leave Finland in the meantime. Had this been known, it could’ve come along as luggage, it’s easily small enough. :D This is also the point where the DX story began.


At this point I was still rolling on German plates, as I was originally planning on returning Swift to Germany, as it had some valid TÜV left. But since it wanted to stay in Finland, I sent plates back to Ingo and we started the official process of me buying the other half of ownership as well. Posting papers around took its time, but that was hardly an issue. As the gearbox took so long to arrive, I left the swap and import toll & taxing process to next spring. I wasn’t going to drive it in the winter anyway.


For once I took a intentionally early start with this process, instead of procrastinating. Not that it was necessarily a good thing, as I seemed to be as frozen as the weather was still. But anyway, I started the import process, which gave me temporary plates and a timeframe when I need to have the car inspected. After spending way too much time getting the leaking gearbox off, the old trusty box went in in no time. Before tightening everything and finishing the process a test prod of the pedal brought bad news. Or rather, it did nothing. I don’t even remember why anymore, but I had no time to disassemble & reassemble, so I dropped it down from the lift and 1st geared it back to the backyard. It stayed there for a good while again, before I had time to re-do the whole thing. At least this time the whole process was complete in couple of hours. I still have no idea why the clutch wasn’t working, but like with Windows, uninstall - reinstall worked. :D But of course everything didn’t go perfectly. Now I had a clunk in some bumps, which was audible pretty much inside the car only (despite it being a cabrio). Also, I think input shaft bearing likes to sing (squeal) when revving the engine. Otherwise it isn’t really speed dependant.


Spring! GO time!

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Professional setup

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The clutch is MASSIVE

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Aaanyway the import process and inspection went well after the car was running again. Smell of gearbox oil was quite apparent when the car heated up, but that’s what you get for coating the entire underside with that stuff. It’s not exactly the easiest oil to clean off.. Meanwhile, some news creeped in from Germany, that Swift had been spotted there. That is to say, the area where it was parked before I drove it to Finland was apparently saved to Google maps. :D

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Onwards to spring/summer of 2016, seeing as it had failed last summer and that I had some extra noises from the gearbox, I didn’t drive too far at first. Eventually I did short trips, like completing the drive where it broke down during roadtrip. Then I took it to my grandfathers cabin, on a short 1000km roadtrip, to see how it goes. And despite the new noises the Suzuki is back to its dependable self. And on the way back I noticed it can deal with quite a lot of rain if the speed is right (high). :D

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Plates arrived in their good time, and it seems the government hoped it to be a Peugeot or something.


After some fairly regular activities in August, Benelli stayed in Germany, so Swift continued its hobby unit duties all the way to November. One reason for this was the increase of rainy days around this time and the fact that the other latch of roof lock mechanism wasn’t working.


Weather-wise, 2017 summer wasn’t the greatest, so it was mid-June, before Swift returned to duty. And even then I lended it to my sister for a roadtrip around Finland. Straight from winter hibernation to 4000+km trip. It’ll be fiiine. Which it of course was. The roof latch needed to be fixed first though.


I know I took some pictures of new parts I made to fix this, but of course I can’t find them atm

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After that I once again found the humour to drive the thing myself and ended up using it whenever it wasn’t raining, despite other prevailing weather conditions. This time I could extend the season to about mid-November and late October, early November was showing some signs of a winter for a change. Hasn’t been the case for few years.. Two things in this. Being light and small it’s good fun to play around on ice. I had no trouble keeping up with traffic, with people panicking how winter has come and idling along with their new winter tyres. And the lowest temperature I got to test cabrio life was at -8C or so. Swift gets noticed in traffic anyway, looking out of place and my cool/cold weather drives didn’t lessen this. :mrgreen: At this point I did at least usually have long sleeves and gloves on, even if gloves were more to protect me from burning my hands with the very adequate heater of the Swift. :D Seems like the optimal speed in the cold would be around 90-110kph, Dropping back to town speeds from that I could feel the warm area level dropping with the speed.


Autumn pose

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Lovely morning for a top down drive.

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I kept it on the road to the end of the November, as I would’ve wanted to do a last drive just before the mandatory winter tyre season began, but it was too rainy so during one of the less rainy days Swift got a nice wash and moved under a hard roof, to wait for next summer.



A bit of polishing to clear some rather persistent grime.

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Good, any progress on the plans to drop in the gti engine in the meantime? Did you find any of the missing parts?
 
Since there are other silly things appearing, this needs an update as well.

Toy car has been up from hibernation as well. I was planning on being on the road as soon as the weather is dry enough, but lacked time for such activities. When I finally had time for some hobbies, we already had some actual spring weather. And since I was late to start the season, inspection date had passed already. In the end it didn’t need anything done to pass inspection, but strangely enough driver door handle stopped working during winter. It’s working again though, didn’t do anything to it. :D

Lovely weather for a top down drive
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Heading for inspection, nice spring weather already
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Around mid-May I had a time to go for a proper drive. Pretty much the first time after Icetrack meet. 14” wheel setup seems to work really well with the excessively hard suspension. It’s still firm and bouncy, but I was rather surprised it doesn’t catch air on our very uneven side roads.
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And since the spring and early summer have been dry and sunny I do most of my driving with it. And finally, some bodywork needs to be done at some point. It did pass inspection, but I’d rather do something before things get too bad.
 
Bump, even if there's not much to report. Great cabrio weather continued well in to October and there was even some Swift track action again.

Excellent photos by @Raparperi

Light weight, low power class
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"You sure this is a good idea..?"
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And I could keep it on the road right up to the legal limit (compulsory winter tyres from December to February and I don't have/need such things). My town got some nice new lighting, so I could celebrate the last drive, before heading to the garage for the winter.

Somewhat new retro wave. 8)
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