1984 Suzuki SA310 - Adventures with Rust

Hi everyone

I am the second idiot involved with this project.

I have a selection of photos to upload to show our progress so far:



This is the first time we had jumped her, soon after rolling the old girl out of the garage [in gear mind you]. The Mighty £250 Micra helped out.



Most of these pictures are a walk around focusing on a few of the rough or interesting parts of the car. This is the state of the doors - pretty decent condition overall, door cards are in good condition although the cheap plastic window winder has faded. No door speakers on this car either - very economical, but the speakers we did find appear to be decent Clarion drivers that are mounted behind the plastic panels for the boot. You can see a little bit of the surface rust that this little car suffers from on the bottom of the door.



A close up of the bottom of the door, quite nasty but hopefully not too bad. Panels and trim parts for this car are increasingly rare - unless you want to import them from somewhere far flung like Ecuador or Australia.



The actual door sills are pretty decent. This picture is before we cleaned the car. You can also see how the 'two-tone' effect is achieved (poorly!). Fear not regarding the fuel filler cap, the seller actually managed to source the original part from Suzuki years ago.

So the car came with some awful generic wheel trims (do nice generic no brand wheel trims exist?). The good thing is that removing them revealed some nice steel wheels underneath along with some very cool OEM (?) branded center caps. The bad thing is that this has been a home to many spiders over the years. Also we only have center caps on the front wheels, they are missing on the rears.



Matt looking like a true mechanic at the mighty 3-pot engine. As we are both novice with this and learning this is a common position to be in with an outstretched finger going 'what on earth does that do?'. You can see here that the engine bay is in pretty decent condition, a few of the components are rusty but everything appears to be working.



This might be one of the worst body panels on the car. Hopefully we can restore it instead of replacing it, which would probably be a challenge just in sourcing a replacement.



This is the worst part of the interior. The vinyl has torn so will need replacing and restitching. We might take this upon ourselves or look to an upholsterer to complete. No tears, burns or any other mysterious marks on the cloth interior.



Here is the rear of the car. Few minor bad points. The plastic tailgate handle has faded and developed a mighty strange texture. The rear number plate is beginning to delaminate and needs to be replaced. The very 80s style 5Speed sticker has also seen better days but hopefully we can re-produce. The most difficult issue here on the rear is that the driver side rear tail light has got a big hole in it - still on the look-out for a replacement.


Holds air surprisingly!




So the other day we began the processing of removing as much as we could, cleaning while we go. We are trying to find and document where the corrosion is and how bad it is, so we can get a good idea of whats ahead. We started on the front of the car. Luckily most of the front features (headlight surrounds, grille and bumper) are plastic, these are just faded but a few of the fastener straps are snapped. Most of the bolts on the bumper snapped when they were removed but we were expecting this fate. Here is how she looks at the moment from the front. I think the ol' girl looks quite mean. The headlight bulbs are glass so no worries of fading, but the housings are at one with the frame now (all screws completely rounded).



Due to fading light after wasting half an hour trying to remove the passenger seat (I am not a smart man, should have thought to move the seat forward!) we had to stop. We had managed to remove a lot of the interior including the rear seats, carpets and the plastic trim (revealing a nice set of Clarion speakers, probably aftermarket?). We confirmed that the floor pan was in very good condition, with the odd nasty spot - one behind the drivers seat and one near the seat belt brace.

That's it for now. Hopefully in the coming weeks we will have more development.

Mum bought a brand new one a long time ago. It was a kind of handy van. A 2 seater no rear seats.
She had it for about 3 years. It never missed a beat. It was very well maintained and never abused.
The next owner, my wives best friend, bought it quickly when mum sold it to buy a new Nissan Sunny.
Anyway my wives best friend loved her new low kilometer Swift. Till the automatic gear box went followed by being
T boned after and rear ended after that one. Then the motor gave up and so did our (still) best friend.....

Some picures of mine...

camac NC80, even the tyres are retro !

I'm really digging the bed quilt seat covers here!

Most of these pictures are a reference for us to remember how the car goes together.

This front valance (?) is easily some of the thinnest metal I have ever seen - no wonder modern many cars opt for these to be made from plastic now. However we managed to get it off without warping it too much and in one piece, however it is so far probably the one piece of the body that we probably would rather replace; however we will give a solid attempt at trying to make it more resilient. The metal is coke can thin and bends with the slightest of force.

Surprisingly all of the fasteners here came out without too much hassle - just took a liberal coating of WD40 and a careful wrench hand.





From above, as below. This is without a doubt the worst we have come across in the engine bay. Our main worry is that this isn't a flat piece of metal, which is amusing with how square the rest of the car is. For complete novices when it comes to body repair, I can't lie when I say that this worries me the most. It is pretty much a given that this area has to be cut out and replaced. Again if we had a doner car this wouldn't be too much for me to sweat over, but all those odd contours and moulds worry me. However aside from the battery box mounting points I couldn't see much worry if we went for a slightly boxier replacement here.




Evidence of previous repairs. Like I said it doesn't look like accident repair as the rest of the panels appear to be straight. Probably was an attempt to stop tin worm from starting. This is on the opposite side to the problem area from above. We also are coming across this strange black sticky stuff - possibly some kind of rust prevention applied?



This is where we left off. Looking at the car here with its hood off and bumper removed - it's not bad. I've seen Fords that are 15 years younger that look worse. We are hoping to work on it again soon, continuing our investigation stage and beginning a shopping list / repairs list. Removal of the engine may also have to be considered to ensure we can clean/repair all parts in one go - however our space is limited.

I will be taking off my OEM radiator soon off my white mk1 Gti.
If you want it, I can send it to you when I take it off for postage cost!
Or if you tell me where you are based. I might be able to deliver it to you.

Cheers
Atchi

I checked my mk1 service manual but yours looks like Suzuki Fronte setup.
My Red Gti died from similar rusts.

My mk1 Gti now has mk3/4 Justy floor so that I can AWD drive train!
Subaru justy floor pans are only 10mm wider than mk1.
3 pots enigne sounds like bit short of V6 so you will enjoy it!

Cheers
Atchi