The Suzuki: A Retrospective
I've been very dormant in regards to my car, lately. I've bought some junkyard parts for the big brake upgrade and finally ordered new bushings with anti-clunk adapters from AWR's store, but felt that it served as too little of an update to write about. In short,
things are happening, albeit slowly. I'm definitely looking forward to my next AutoX event here in two weeks, though!
So, to provide some form of content, I've decided to look back on my previous car. Hope this little segment conveys how much I loved that thing.
The first vehicular love of my life...I've learned so much from it. It was tiny, rattly, handsome, and lifted with over-sized tires, and introduced me to
really fixing cars.
The family van began breaking down frequently. I was stranded far too many times: the fuel pump failed at one point, the crankshaft and cams were wrecked at some point (not sure what happened), the starter died. I had enough, and needed something I could depend upon.
Yet, my boyhood got in the way of the "dependability" part. I had the option between a Corolla and the Zook, and instead of picking the car that would probably still be running now, I snagged the box on oversized wheels.
At the time, I thought I hit the jackpot. It was a boy's dream; fun, light, and could climb up rocks and whatnot. It ran, and it had the machismo jackpot:
manual transmission. I didn't know how to drive stick beforehand, but that didn't matter. I'd learn.
After perhaps a month and a half of puttering around neighborhoods and parking lots, killing the poor thing and grinding its gears, it clicked. The bucking and dumping stopped, and I could finally drive the thing without killing anyone or myself.
I began to drive the thing in some of the off-roads around the city. I couldn't believe how easy it was for me to go over the various terrain!
How ironic it was that the first debilitating break would occur in a pedestrian parking lot outside of the gym. The clutch-cable went out with a snap, and the car was stuck. Luckily, a family friend well-versed in car maintenance lent a hand, and we got the thing up and running again in no time. Really, it was the first time I was under the car, and it was nowhere near as busy as the other car I owned. Didn't seem so scary.
I eventually became much more familiar with simple maintenance, such as changing oil, inspecting brakes, checking vacuum lines, so on and so forth. In fact, I had to adopt a habit of checking all the fluids once a week, since the car had a really bad rear-main oil seal leak coupled with what may have been a bad valve cover gasket. I didn't know then, but that more or less explains the black residue all around the engine.
And then the boyhood antics came back. I heard of a fancy technique known as "heel-toe shifting", and looked up guides on how to do it. Several attempts of making myself look like an ass eventually came to fruition, as I finally got rev-matching and using the clutch to slow me down/put me back in the power band. I could
totally race now, lmao...my car didn't seem to complain.
Well, until it did.
About the fourth or fifth year I owned it, it started sounding like an old carbureted muscle car. Overtime, it started losing more and more bottom end power. Instead of easing off the clutch around 1-1.5k rpms, I had to rev it even harder to around 2 or even 3k rpm while riding the clutch.
I had an exhaust leak somewhere around the exhaust manifold, and I felt up to the task. And what a damn PITA that was trying to yank the exhaust mani off of the collector pipe...rust straight up welded it in. (I definitely learned from this...getting the exhaust out of my P5 was going to suck since it was rust-welded, so I just got a reciprocating saw and cut the fucker out.)
And sure enough, that gasket was done for.
I was very confident that this fixed the problem. I re-connected my sensors, bolted everything back on, fired 'er up...and damn! The problem was still there!
I tried the PCV valve...no improvement. Fuel Pressure Regulator? No difference. My parents were starting to get impatient with me, since I had to end up either borrowing their cars or getting rides from them. What could I do? My car was now so weak that it would stall trying to leave its usual parking spot.
"Fuckit man, it's gotta be the sparkplugs..." I guessed. I didn't know what to do, our family friend was out of town, and the heat was on. Well, I went ahead and pulled out the old sparkplugs, and...
Oil on the threads and carbon deposits. My piston rings were presumed to be shot, and perhaps it was also the fuel system? Dunno, but when my dad saw the threads, it was game over. He said that there was no way I'd be rebuilding the engine or getting a new one.
Like when I was stranded by the van, I was now stranded by the Suzuki, and my parents wanted me to get my own ass around town lol.
I came across several cars that I was interested in. I saw an unmolested NB Miata, a really pretty Foxbody, and even a slick Nissan Sentra SE-R.
Then, I came across the Protege5.
I haven't the slightest what drew me to it. Maybe it was the yellow color, maybe it was the fascia design that hearkened back to the days when NFSU1 and U2 were new to me...I didn't know then, but perhaps it'll all be elucidated at a future date. Either way, I knew what I wanted, so I cheekily made a point to first show my father the rear-wheel drive cars first. "Son, you know I can't have you driving a sports car" he said, so then I said "Oh, right...well, how about this wagon I found?"
Hot-diggity, it had 120k miles on it, a new paint job, and looked practical. He agreed, and I got permission to buy it.
Supposedly, that thing had a cold-air intake on it at one point, but the then-owner elected to rip it out and replace it with the stock airbox (without the front air scoop, lmao). I told myself that it would work...I find a way to keep it longer than I kept my Zook, and perhaps I'll have a bit of fun with it too. I'll put mods on it, and, well, here we are to this very day.
As for the Zook, it was sold to a guy who was very much into Sidekicks and Samurais. He had 4 Kicks and 2 Samurais at his own house, and was putting all the parts together into one super Suzuki, or something. He limped the car out of our place, and it left with the sunset. All those years of that rattly, boxy, boaty-gearshifting were now gone, and I had to fight back a tear lol.
The day it was sold:
Nothing is truly ours to keep; we more or less borrow our possessions for the duration of our existence or care. I'm glad its in his hands and not some one else's.
Hope I didn't bore you all with my little Sidekick story! I loved that thing man, and if I could, I would get another.