Friday, February 27, 2004

Frog Fun

Remember our "new" long body Samurai that we bought in December? (check the archives) Well, we haven't driven it much, 'cause there were stripped and missing studs in the axles, non-functioning brake parts and other odds and ends that tended to make it "Unsafe at Any Speed", to quote someone from the '60s who still seems to be popular on the college lecture circuit.

I got "new" brake drums, and rotors on eBay and a friend brought down a lot of new OEM small parts like seals, studs, and nuts. It took a few days to take things apart without destroying anything but I've got the back end all rebuilt, except for the brake shoes, which are shipping from the States next week.

I've done one side of the front end and will attack the second side this weekend. There was all sorts of gunk and grit inside the steering knuckle, and a bad kingpin bearing. I was able to get a replacement bearing here on Bonaire! And I replaced all the seals and gaskets just in case. My resurfaced eBay brake disks and some new pads from the Suzuki dealer here should help with the stopping performance, which had been even more leisurely than the acceleration provided by the mighty 970cc engine.

Here is a photo of the front end all torn down. Notice the dead washing machine in the background that Udo is fixing. That funny thing on the axel is a birfield joint. It is sort of a poor man's CV joint. Here are the parts I took off and cleaned up. They represent hours of work with degreaser, wire wheels and wire brushes. Countless cleaning rags have also given their all during the course of this project. Udo happened to have a second dead washing machine hanging out in the shop, which I pressed into service as a handy dandy work stand.

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