Not to forget the rear of the car, I moved on to replacing the shocks there, too.
I knew the rear shocks were stuffed the day I had the car delivered. I noticed it sank a lot when I sat in it, and this is what happened when I bounced the rear end
With the car up on stands, I whipped the rear wheels off and had a look around
Still had the original red shocks
The fuel tank just in front of the rear axle
Solid rear beam and a panhard bar to locate it
The other side is much the same, but with the addition of the brake hose and grotty muffler
I did unfortunately notice that the rear trailing arm bushes are split, so I have ordered Monster Sport replacements for them too
I did have plans to whip the drums off and replace the shoes, but I am going to pick my battles for now and wait until I have driven the car and worked the brakes a bit before messing with those.
Otherwise, it all looked pretty good. Lots of light surface rust from sitting, and a bit of dirt, but nothing too major. I’m very happy all the shock and spring mounts are solid with no signs of rust or cracks.
The shocks were very easy to replace, since it’s a divorced spring setup, not a coilover.
I jacked the rear beam up a bit to take the tension off the shock bolts and stop the spring from forcing it down once the shock is removed
The shock is held in with two bolts, one on the bottom going into a captive nut
and the top one, which is a long bolt going through the chassis rail and through the shock. Remove the nut, and the bolt can be slid towards the outside of the car to remove the shock. Offset ring spanners really helped due to a lack of access (or just remove/lower the muffler…)
Removing the old shock showed that it was there for decoration only. It had no resistance to compression or rebound
As usual, before fitting the new KYB shocks, I made sure to compress them fully twice, or priming them, as is recommended.
Refitting is just the reverse. Bolt in one end of the shock, compress it slightly and bolt in the other end. Tighten bolts to spec, job done.
The new shocks do look quite nice in there
Finally, I needed to replace the old brake hose with my new braided one
This turned into a real pain. The top fitting came undone easily enough
But the bottom one was stuck fast, and I knew I was in trouble when the flare wrench started to round it off
Sure enough, it rounded completely off without coming loose. Thankfully its a small section of pipe that leads to the RH drum, so I undid it easily from the drum and removed the whole pipe with the hose
It wasn’t pretty
I ended up locking it in the vice, and using a big spanner on the metal hose fitting to finally break it free and remove the hose
It turns out the pipe was corroded into the hose fitting
It didn’t help that the flare nut was corroded to the pipe too, and resisted turning. I cleaned up the corrosion and freed the flare nut off from the pipe. I did think about making a new pipe, but it turns out that Suzuki will sell you a new little pipe for $15, so I have one on the way.
In the meantime, I refitted the old pipe. There was still enough shape in the flare nut that a standard open-ended spanner could tighten it up firmly. It looks good with the new braided hose and should give the pedal a nice solid feel
I’ll need to do it again when I replace the pipe, but I flushed and bled the system. It now has fresh fluid from end to end
I need to drop the fuel tank next and have a look inside that, and work out why I didn’t hear a fuel pump running when I turn the ignition to ON, so that should be fun.
The block is still with the engine builders, having the crank machined for the new oversize bearings. Hopefully, I will get that back soon, and I can get on with building the engine.
Parts Used
Rear Shock Absorbers – KYB New SR Special – NSG8006A x2 – Yahoo Japan
Please note these parts are specific to my car and may vary. Please check before ordering.