I may have a problem. Yet another unfinished turbo Sami?

[Joe_the_ice_man]

I know of one guy running a 1.3 with full 1.6 16v head and fuel injection in the ultra4 stock class in his samurai. impressed alot of people with his performance at last years king of the hammers

I would love to update it to fuel injection, as a guy who rebuilt carbs for a living for 2+ years, I'm not really a fan. I've been keeping an eye on all the local wreckers for a Swift GTi, cause I'd be all over that for a swap, but a 16v 1.6 would be tempting too. Don't think I want to do a 2.0 in this one.

[Joe_the_ice_man]

Tore the front axle down for a gear swap today, also looking for a wierd clunking that just showed up...

Stole the gears from the Grand Vitara I have...haven't decided what I'm gonna do with that thing yet, so I stole a front axle cause I didn't feel like shelling out for a picknpull 3rd.

Interesting thing I found out today, while sidekick gears require something to retain the diff cross pins, the 4.88s out of a Grand Vitara do not, for some reason they have the same ridge as the Samurai gears to retain the cross pins. I have a set of 4.55s around somewhere from a 4 cylinder Vitara that I want to look at to see if it's just a GV thing, or if its Vitaras in general. Even though I'm tripping over the rear end all the time, I don't know where I stashed the front....

[Joe_the_ice_man]

Whatever I did, I got rid of the clunking, then I could hear a new one...oh well, knew the Tcase was loose anyway, threw a bearing kit in it and it tightened way up. Maybe ball bearings just dont like helical gears?

Stupid little needle bearing in the front of the output shaft stumped me for a bit, finally looked online for some old machinist advice. Used modeling clay to hydro it out, and was honestly surprised at how well it went.

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Tcase seems much tighter now, and I'm down to one oil leak, just the oil pan gasket. I'll get that on the next oil change. Still need to take it for a test drive post Tcase rebuild, but I assume it's better.


Kinda in a time crunch for being "done". Leaving Sunday morning for a week of wheeling/hunting and I don't want the one guy with a Jeep to be able to make fun of me.

Also realised I need a trailer hitch, so last minute committed to building a rear bumper.

[Joe_the_ice_man]

Put some more bumper together today, should just be able to punch the holes for lights, knock off the sharp edges and splash some brush on Tremclad in the morning, cause what kind of dirty buggy doesn't have brush on Tremclad?

I decided to weld the bumper straight to the frame, which I am not super happy about, but I was also too lazy to figure how to make bolt on mounts. I can stick a snipe in the receiver and bounce on it, so it should be more than adequate for the little tub trailer we have for dragging game out of the bush.

[Joe_the_ice_man]

And the finished "ish" product.

Needed to find an electronic flasher at 9pm on a Saturday, so I did the right thing and stole it from the old man's. I'll track one down later.

I intend to come back to this and box in the lights better so they don't eat rocks from behind, and add a place for mudflaps that come off with spring pins. But this will have to do for the time being.

Further down the road I want to add a tire/jackall carrier and make it wrap around as far as wherever I cut my fenders to.

I took it out for a very quick spin last night and I *think* all the clunking and grinding is FINALLY gone. It's not like I rebuilt everything except the front driveshaft or something...I guess my valves are still pretty loud, might try to sneak a quick lash adjustment in today...I would just turn the radio up, but I already ripped off the antenna tooling around the back yard...it hasn't even been proper wheeling yet...

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

Bumper looks legit.

[Joe_the_ice_man]

So, as much as I don't like fender flares, I think I need some. Windows do not stay clear for hunting, and side mirrors eat too much gravel.

I did get high centered once pulling out the one guy with a jeep the second time. So that was fun.

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Them tires preform pretty good for price point, chew mud and grass good, seem to have enough buoyancy to float a Sami over partially frozen muskeg. Sidewalls so far are holding up better than the old Wrangler Territorys that were on the old man's buggy last year . I think they call them Comforcer 3000 or something like that. It's just another ching chong mud tire.

This think is capable of climbing hills I am very uncomfortable with, but I gotta keep the Jeepers in their place...

[pointsnorth]

The comforcers are a legit tire. Bought a seacan of them back in the day and we got twice the life out of them over a nitto or toyo on our fleet trucks. to bad the price increased ten fold. I was paying 50 bucks a tire for the ones you are running and 85 for a 35x1250-17 e rated tire for all our 1 ton trucks

[Joe_the_ice_man]

The comforcers are a legit tire. Bought a seacan of them back in the day and we got twice the life out of them over a nitto or toyo on our fleet trucks. to bad the price increased ten fold. I was paying 50 bucks a tire for the ones you are running and 85 for a 35x1250-17 e rated tire for all our 1 ton trucks

And here I thought I was getting them for a steal. I paid 850 for the set of 4 in Edmonton. Any name brand was double that. It's good to hear other good reviews about them tho.

[Joe_the_ice_man]

Took advantage of a Black Friday sale at the wrecker and picked up an injected 1.3 with harness and ECU.

I'm not super happy with how it starts with the carb, I dont feel like figuring it out, and I'm just a fan of EFI. Hoping to get this swapped over this winter so I can work on the green one again.

[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

Man, I wish the wreckers here did sales. That's going to be a nice upgrade though.

[Joe_the_ice_man]

Well, 5000 km later the coolant is starting to turn dark, plus cylinders 2 and 3 dont kick in till its warm...seems like head gasket is going again, I'm calling this motor shot. Time for the EFI swap. Going with the SOHC 16v 1.3 I pulled in November.

I think I have the wiring figured out to make the ECU work, honestly this one seems pretty simple. Just need to solder it up and try it.

Motor mounts on the block and bellhousing look identical, it should just bolt in providing the flywheel bolts to the crank, which I assume it should.

I have a high pressure fuel pump from Amazon, looks like it's based on the late 80s F150 pumps, but has hose barbs rather than the PITA quick connectors.

Exhaust is a minor detail for the moment, Samurai manifold looks like it has a very different bolt pattern, so Imma have to run a Swift one, I dont think it will line up with stock exhaust, so its gonna be basically open headers for the time being. Which is fine.

Looking at the water pump, it may or may not bolt up to the stock mechanical fan, however, the ECU I have is from a FWD car, so it is set up for an electric fan, which is amazing.

And that sums up the easy parts of the swap by my calculations.

[Joe_the_ice_man]

Now for the harder parts. Oil pan and coolant piping.

Originally, I was gonna run the Samurai oil pan and pickup, but upon looking at the Swift, there is a crank sensor bolted to the oil pan...so that ain't gonna work. I'm either gonna have to modify the Swift pan to make a rear sump, or build my own pan. Fortunately, I have enough lift that I could just throw the Swift pan in for the moment to keep it moving around the yard. This will be that last hurdle I overcome, also i think the smaller of the two big ones.

Now. Coolant piping...
As the Swift is a FWD car, there is loads of space at the rear end of the head and engine in general, so both rad hoses come off the back of the engine...not gonna work for me.

The lower coolant pipe leaves the water pump the same way as the Samurai, so I *should* be able to just switch the coolant pipes, and run the Samurai one. If I'm right, the lower coolant piping should be easy. If I'm wrong, imma have to modify the Swift pipe to make a 90 to meet the Samurai hoses, which shouldn't be the end of the world.

And, best for last...the upper coolant pipe and thermostat housing.

Apparently someone decided that it should come straight off the back of the head. That ain't gonna work for me cause I got a firewall there. Also, I decided I wanted to be able to change the thermostat without pulling the engine, so relocating was kinda important.

Conclusion I came to was a 90 degree abomination of a thermostat housing base (or whatever you call it). The thermostat housing is going to bolt on and run another 90 degree bend around the outside of the intake manifold and end up roughly where the stock samurai thermostat housing is.

[Joe_the_ice_man]

And this is as far as I got on my thermostat housing base yesterday afternoon.

As my first real aluminum TIG project, I decided that welding 1/8 plate to 1/2 plate was a good idea.

I machined a seat for the thermostat into one of the 1/2 plates and put a hole in the other, then just kinda plated in around them to close it off. Still need to drill and tap holes and clean up the edges on the 1/2 plates. I should be able to use the stock gasket on the back of the head and a stock thermostat to seal it. And I figured 1/2 plate was safe enough to use, cause not even I could put enough heat into that to warp gasket surfaces.

I still need to add a bung for the temp sensor and the heater core hose.

I wanted to keep the thermostat near the stock location for this motor, so it would work as intended, I figured 2 feet of aluminum piping might mess with it, so I wanted to keep it at the back of the head. With this base the thermostat should be easy enough to access, it will end up roughly around where the stock samurai fuel pump is, or the EGR if this motor had one.

[Joe_the_ice_man]

Worked on a coolant pipe / thermostat housing a little more last night, just need the last section which will neck down to the rad hose size. That will go in once it's in the the buggy.