Another Stateside JDM kei car; ‘95 EA21R Suzuki Cappuccino

Here's the underside view of what I suspect is the root cause of the rust seen behind the seats in the post above...stuff gets thrown up onto the firewall while driving, and then seeps down via gravity into the poorly-sealed box section across the bottom of the photo.

In other news, the gas tank doesn't look too rusty from here. I'm still apprehensive above the potential for fatal rust in the fuel hard lines running up and disappearing over the tank, especially given the brake line rust in the hard lines that run up over the tank...

Speaking of those brake lines that disappear up over the gas tank somewhere, here's a good view pre-tank drop of the driver's side, which looks very dubious, and is the "good" i.e. non-leaky side!

Given that I was tackling this task solo, there are no in-progress shots, as all appendages were engaged, with none free for photos. Thankfully, the multiple soakings of Kroil paid off and the fasteners came free without too much drama, and the tank is down!

The underside with tank removed, and access hole visible. Wow, sure looks good where the tank shielded the body from salt spray! Also, note the copious quantities of seam sealer Suzuki lavished on every tiny seam.  The sticky, stinky, black aftermarket undercoating spray is obviously visible on the lower surfaces. Finally, the cross-vehicle run of the problem brake line is finally visible, just above the dark undercoated area and across the lighter painted area...this line is leaking somewhere frame left, but not possible to remove/replace with the tank in place.

I got the tank out from under the car for a closer look. The next little while was a bit of a roller coaster ride. At this point, I figured it was dusty, but not too bad, and was already envisioning a quick clean, touch-up, and reinstall...

Sure, it is dusty, and it has some surface rust spots, but the tank could be worse, and those fuel hard lines don't look too bad!

I prepped the sender and fuel pump for removal, and snapped a few photos along the way to ensure that I connect everything back up correctly. I'm still apprhensive about what the inside of the tank will look like.

Here's the fuel pump, and that is not very encouraging for the interior of the tank! It looks like rust is fairly abundant inside.

Yarp...I'm really glad I didn't just slap an oversized turbo and bigger injectors on, crank up the boost, give her the beans......aaaaand....melt a piston or blow up the engine due to lean running because the fuel pump sock filter is rather caked with rust flakes! Anybody have any suggestions for a source for replacing this filter? Suzuki doesn't sell just the filter. It looks very similar to Walbro aftermarket units, but when comparing side-by-side with a Walbro, the dimensions are a little bit different. I will keep looking for marks on the pump, but haven't found any yet. I presume it would most likely be made by Denso or another Japanese supplier, but who knows?

I figured I was probably in for penny, in for a pound and would need to seriously consider getting the tank cleaned/refurbished, which was a possibility I was prepared for. I stripped everything back in prep for further cleaning and a peek inside.

Hooray for being several years behind on cell phone tech! Because I have an "old" iPhone SE, it is small enough I was able to slide it down into the fuel pump hole in the tank and swivel around to take some photos. I couldn't see what I was photographing until after removal, but I snapped away a few dozen photos, figuring a few would come out and be insightful....and they certainly were! A lot of the tank interior has surface rust of varying degrees, and it looks like the car may have sat for a while at a particular partially-full level a couple of times.

This is looking across and forward a bit. the pickup is out of the frame at the bottom of the picture.

Yup, there's some rust in there!

The pump pickup area held a thick layer of fine rust sediment at the bottom.

This is some of the worst of the exterior on the back of the tank near the filler inlet.

Even the filler inlet isn't free from rust. Yuck!

Here's a closer look at the worst end of the fuel hard lines that run down from the top of the tank, and sadly closer scrutiny reveals that I might not want to just re-use these. 'Tis a shame, because the top 90% of them looks in quite good condition. They are an assembly that is all welded together, which doesn't necessarily mean I have to keep it that way if I am replacing them, but ordering new is probably just as easy or easier than futzing around with cutting part of these off and trying to patch something in, or trying to bend, flare, and fit something homemade as a replacement. I think I'll get some new clamps while I am at it!

I managed to free the crusty stock filter inside mounting bracket from the rear subframe, and it is on the right with the new Rock Auto US-market Grand Vitara filter on the left. I held the new filter in the approximate orientation it will be in if clamped into the Cappo bracket (both filters have ridges that line up with indentations in the bracket to clock the fuel filter.)

You can see that the Grand Vitara filter is the right general idea, and has quite a bit more surface area. Outside diameter is the same, and the three ridges for clocking share spacing as well, even though the inlets and outlets don't perfectly line up when clamped into place.

Here they are side-by-side, once again both in the approximate orientation when clamped into the stock Cappuccino bracket. I'm thinking this is close enough to run with it, and be ready to adjust if it become apparent that it somehow doesn't work (which seems unlikely, and could easily be solved by cutting off the mounting bracket and re-clocking it by a few degrees before welding it back on, powder coating it, and just running a Grand Vitara filter from here on out!

Part number for interested Cappo owners.

I had been awaiting a peek behind the fuel tank with bated breath. I was curious, hopeful, a bit intimidated, and the realist in me was asking, "how many ways is this car going to break my heart today?" I grabbed the creeper and a couple drop lights, took a deep breath, and dove in! We'll start with the 'good' side, and by good, I mean the driver's side with a brake hard line that wasn't yet gushing fluid. Yarp....doesn't look so 'good' after all.

Let's just do a little poking around to see how bad it is. I mean, I see a hole...gotta poke at it a bit and check, right? Yup. there are some structural deficiencies in this area that aren't going to be repaired with Bondo!

Now that we've gotten the 'good' side out of the way, let's hop over the passenger's side, aka the side that leaked brake fluid and required all this disassembly. Hmmm...interesting....not great, but not holes surrounded by rusty sheet metal with the consistency of tissue paper, for what that is worth. I still can't tell exactly where the brake line failure occured, but safe to say that I am glad I tore all this apart and made plans to fix and replace it.

If we just pan up a little bit to the underside of the cubby behind the passengers, we can see the access hole for the pump and sender and bright, shiny, nearly-pristine sheet metal! Let's all take a moment to recognize the sacrifices the fuel tank made to save the chassis in this area...

Panning over just slightly, here is a great view of the one puzzling area that Suzuki deemed worthy of seam sealer. So strange...if this is the only seam at the back to get it, why even bother? The problem brake line is clearly visible in both the shot below and the one above, and although it looks like it isn't all that far above the fuel tank mounting points aligned with and just below the brake line clips, I can assure you that trying to loosen the fuel tank in place, remove the front two mounts, and sneak the line out past the tank would have been a fool's errand.

Here's the non-leaky-side brake hard line out of the car. Looks like it is about six inches from the grave. I'm glad I removed it, but at this point I looked at the shape of the line, had a bad feeling, and started digging through the parts I had bought from Japan so far. Sure enough, nothing to match this line! However, the shape rang a bell, and I ordered and received this line along with the others, but somehow my brain decided it was for the front near the master cylinder, and I tried a dozen different ways of matching it up to the existing lines and failed, so my brain then decided that I must have accidentally ordered the line for an ABS car, and sold it! Doh! I could have cross-referenced part numbers, but I didn't. I could have been more organized when ordering and receiving parts, and labeled the bits as I pulled them from the long-awaited box from Japan, but I didn't. Lesson learned; you can't be too organized when undergoing a partial restoration, or whatever this project is. Take notes, double check, make copious labels, store parts carefully, and when in doubt, hang on to stuff! I got a second one of these lines on order.

Here's the 'bad' side, the one that peed DOT fluid all over my shopmate's trailer when loading the car. Still not completely sure where the leak is, but I think the failure point is the damp spot just below the ugly cutoff-wheel mark in the vice.

After letting the tank air out for a bit, I dumped out the rust flakes, and here's the pile. After this photo, I did a second round out the sender hole, as the fill hole I had been using isn't flush on the inside of the tank. I didn't get a photo of the second round, but it was at least 2 cups worth of rust flakes! At this point I resolved to send the tank off to be blasted inside and out, and coated inside and out using the Renu process. Moyer's in Greensburg, PA is a long way away, but seems very experienced with this type of work, reasonable turnaround times, and with shipping both ways factored in, the price is still less than half of getting a new tank from Japan...and I have a lifetime warranty against leaks!

Moyer's Fuel Tank Repair

The instructions from Moyer's specified washing the empty tank out with dish soap or a similar degreaser before shipping, so I did, and took advantage of the afternoon sun across the driveway on the 95 degree afternoon to make quick work of the remaining moisture. The top of the tank doesn't look to bad from here after I washed both exterior and interior!

The underside is still pretty crusty...yeah, best to get this thing sorted once and for all.

A close up of the topside with the factory rubber-coated, bendable steel clamp visible just above the sender hole. This is welded to the tank, and gets bent around to hold some flex lines steady. Suzuki frequently uses these clamps for securing wiring harnesses and hoses, and in many cases they bolt-on and are replaceable, but sometimes they are spot welded on, like this one. Moyer's will be heating up the tank in an oven to remove any volitile fumes, then cutting it in half along the seam, then media-blasting it both inside and out, then TIG welding the halves back together, then treating any suspcious areas and baking it, then coating all of the inside and baking it, then coating all of the outside and baking it again, then re-coating the bottom of the tank a second time and baking it yet again. I'm impressed with how thorough they seem to be. In my no-salt, dusting-of-snow-2-days-a-year environment, this should be a lifetime repair. I'm not sure the clamp, let alone the rubber will survive all of the baking and blasting, so Moyer's is going to fabricate a stand off and TIG it on in the same location so that I can use a replaceable clamp for securing the lines.

Suzuki put a couple of exterior stickers on the tank, and from what I can tell, these just ensure that nothing else on the car rubs/wears on the tank. New ones were cheap, so I have some coming, and snapped a couple photos so that I can position the new ones on the refurbished tank correctly.

While scrubbing the gas tank, I also cleaned the long runs of fuel/evap lines under the car. These are the ones that run along with the rear brake line through those god-awful plastic clips from the engine bay under the floor to the rear subframe/fuel tank area. I knew there was a little surface rust on them, so I figured I would remove the dirt, salt, and whatever else was caked on there so that I could keep it from getting worse and take a look at what we have. The fatter one is the fuel supply line, the skinnier one next to it is the return line, and the skinnier one on the outside is the vent from the tank to the charcoal canister.

None of these are leaking. None of them look structurally deficient at this point. I'm still undecided. Part of me says berkeley it, grab the wire brush, give them a good clean, slap some paint on them and move on to frying some bigger fish. Part of me wants to remove the rusty sections and replace them with short runs of rubber lines with clamps (rated for EFI pressures, of course!) The factory actually has a several inch section of rubber on the rear end of these where they connect to the hard lines that run over the top of the tank, so what would be the harm in adding a short run further forward? No part of me wants to buy OE Suzuki lines from Japan and pay for shipping on a 60" long box! I suppose I could also have some new full-length lines made more locally, using the originals as a pattern, and never worry about it again, along with all the tank and other fuel-related parts I am replacing with new.

Here's the other bit of rust, minor, and pretty much exclusively on the return line in this section.

Anyone have any suggestions or thoughts? These lines are metric sizes, and the ends feature a bubble-flare type of end, as well as another flared section 1.5 or so inches further back for the rubber line to butt up against, with a clamp in between the two flares. Going with new lines that are likely to be the nearest inch-size equivalent may or may not present an issue with mating up with the rest of the system. I've been in this boat before, and at that time I vowed if I were to do it again, I would spend whatever needed on fittings to go AN as close to fuel rail, tank, filter as possible, and then buy everything in between new, and fabricate mounts for it all. Now that I am at that point, my wallet would rather not take that approach, and this resto-mod project is putting a bit more emphasis on the resto and not as much on the mod as I've done before.

In other news, I took a chance on a likely looking 70's Toyota Hilux shift boot on eBay, and here it is, side-by-side with the rough-looking Cappuccino one. Might be similar enough to modify and work with! The center hole may need a little work with some sort of a hole-embiggener, plus the raised circular ridge seen here might need some trimming. The Hilux boot is quite a bit thicker, which I don't think will cause any fitment issues (there is a bit of spare room under the console and cosmetic boot.) The thickness is probably great for wear and for keeping noise down, but not sure if it will impact the feel and effort of moving the stubby little lever or not until I mock it up, and even if it does add a bit of effort, I can't imagine it will be much.

Two of the four mounting holes line up, which will also go for the chassis side, because the transmission tunnel has the same pattern as the ring, and it all gets sandwiched together.

The other two holes are offset by a little bit, as you can see here. Given how thick the aftermarket Hilux boot is, the proximity may not be an issue for punching two new holes close to the originals and running with it.

Here's the thickness comparison side-by-side.

The mother lode has arrived...another big shipment of genuine Suzuki parts from Japan. My wallet is still protesting a bit, but I'm sure the car will be happy!

Beyond the wheels, there isn't any individual part that is too exciting...just lots of clips, fasteners, hoses, hard lines, brackets, clamps, and the like that are needed for the restoration that this project has become. I will probably need another big order or two before all is said and done, but this lot will help me tick a lot of boxes on the to-do short list, and a few on the long list, as well.

Here's the wheels I got off Yahoo Auctions Japan. The paint job is outstanding! I had some gold fin wheels in like-new condition left over from AE86 project, and couldn't bear to part with them as they are my favorite style and they were in such nice shape. They were 15x7 +4mm offset, and try as I might, there was just no reasonable way I was going to fit them on the Cappuccino, which will be a rolled/pulled fender car at most. I ended up selling them for enough to pay for the set below, plus the shipping from Japan, plus the tires to go on the wheels, so all is not lost! The style of the two sets is nearly identical, minus the lip/offset. The new wheels are 14x6 +38mm offset, which is the same diameter as stock Cappo wheels, but with an inch more offset, and 3/4 of that added width is on the outside. Tire selection sucks for 14" in the States now, but 13" wheels won't clear on the Cappuccino, and 15" is really pushing the diameter/tire height...and there really isn't much available in 15" diameter, 4x114.3mm, high offset wheels.

I love the look of these!!!

The Engrish on the center cap cracks me up!

Quick rough test fit of a wheel before I order tires. This is at full droop.

This is gonna look great when I paint it some sort of bright blue/french racing blue/grabber blue!

Sticker from the manufacturer. Not much information on these wheels on the interwebs. They weight about 14 pounds each, which is a fair bit heavier than the stock wheels at 10.6 pounds each, which is a bit of a bummer for such a lightweight car...but then again, the new wheels are 20% wider than stock, too, so...

I got the tank back from Moyer's, and boy is it thoroughly coated inside and out! Like a fool, I didn't get any good exterior photos while I was at the shop, but it is a heavy brushed-on finish, one that looks rubbery and durable, but not totally smooth. Perfectly fine for my non-concours restoration, and the lifetime warranty against leaks is great. Since I recently revived the ol' Harbor Freight parts washer with some upgrades, I got to cleaning on some of the other fuel system components. Here's the sender...pity I didn't get a before, but trust me, it was rusty and crusty!

I also made great progress on the pump. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this didn't seem to have much rust in it, but it did have lots of dried rust flakes stuck to it. It took quite a bit of elbow grease, but was very gratifying to get much cleaner than before!

Here's the inside of the refurbished tank, and I'm ecstatic with the improvement. Moyer's did a great job!

You can see the TIG weld just above the seam where they stitched the tank back together after cutting it in half to thoroughly sandblast inside and out.

They really coated every interior surface well!

A bit of slow progress lately; getting the tank buttoned back up, and got some refurbished and LHD-converted headlights to replace my cracked and yellowed RHD ones.

I imported this one last year.  May '95 build EA21R, picked up August '21.  I sold it Labor Day weekend.  Fun car but I needed the space.  

In reply to GeddesB :

Wow, not many other EA21R (single digits? maybe a few more?) in the sea of at least several dozens of EA11R in the States! I'm chuckling while thinking about selling a tiny Cappuccino to 'free up space,' but given that most of my other projects are motorcycles, and space is always at a premium, I can also relate.  Your Cappo was beautiful, hopefully went to a good home!

To flesh out the previous post, here's the bare coated tank before adding on all the shiny new bits.

And a slight update with a few new hoses and all new clamps since the last post. This is the top side of the tank. I also trimmed all the rubber lines for the other end of the shiny hard lines you can see here...the bit that goes from the bottom of the tank-mounted hard lines out of sight and forward to the fuel filter and/or body-mounted hard lines. These rubber lines are clamped to the tank side, so they are ready to be connected once the tank is in place. This is now ready to go back in the car!

Further fleshing out of details; my old headlights were yellowed, scratched, and the housings were cracked from a previous minor front fender bender or perhaps a botched attempt to pop them open to work on them? In any case, the cracks were sealed up with big ugly blobs of some caulk or seam sealer or similar goo. Most importantly, the weak beams were pointed the wrong way, and had a lot to get through before shining in oncoming driver's eyes and not showing me the edge of the road, so I wanted to convert the beam pattern.

I found a guy through the American Owner's Group who does a professional job of the conversion, plus offers refurbishment services at the same time. Turns out he is in Bulgaria! He sourced some housings better than mine, opened them up, re-coated the reflectors using an aluminum vapor process like the manufacturers do, polished and coated the lenses with a self-healing coating, converted to LHD with upgraded bulbs, and sealed them back up, before shipping to an associate in Germany to ship to me with DHL for the best shipping rates.

These are the units he started with:

Here's the reflector after coating:

Plus a sample of the beam pattern from a Cappuccino he did previously.

The only minor issue with the housings he sourced (which are honestly probably some of the better housings out there) is that one of the tabs on one side is broken. It isn't a mounting point, more of an alignment/retention tab, so not a big problem. There are three bolted-on mounting points per side, and the tab in question hooks behind the front bumper skin in the center of the bottom of the housing. Might use it as an excuse to further improve my plastic repair skill set and tools...we'll see...

Here's the good side.

And the broken side for comparison.

They still look great on the car! No regrets on spending the money to pay someone else to do it. Could I have spent a couple months worth of weekends researching, learning, buying tools and equipment, scouring the internet for decent used housings and getting half the results for three quarters of the price? Sure...but not worth it in this case.

I've been working on a few more details in the rear subframe and under-car plumbing areas. My dad suggested it would be fun if I were to drive it to their place for Christmas, which helped spark a flurry of activity on my part, but also made me realize I'd be cutting corners to do so. This project is a do-it-right-the first-time, buy-once-cry-once, make-sure-it'll-last-my-lifetime endeavor.

The rear brake splitter is bare aluminum, bolted to rusty steel, and had a gooey coat of after-the-fact aftermarket undercoating on top of lots of powdery white corrosion, so I shined it up.

The fuel filter mounting bracket attaches to the rear subframe and was extra crusty. I grabbed the rapidly-depleting can of penetrating oil that is seeing heavy use these days, and got it soaking before clamping it up to get the two parts separated.

The plan here is the same as everything else crusty under the car: disassemble, de-rust/blast/wirewheel, deburr and clean up, powdercoat, new hardware, and reassemble.

Since I'm dragging my feet on building my new blast cabinet (too busy on the car project, bike projects, shop upgrade projects, house projects, work, etc) this one went into the white vinegar soak and comes out as below.

The only remaining issue is that the original fuel filter and the larger Grand Vitara one I'm using have different length locating ridges on the outside of the filter. The original filter design ends short of the edge of the circular clamp on one of three clocking ridges, plus the same length on the corresponding groove the fuel filter clamp. I presume the idea is that even if the clamping bolt works loose, the filter can't slip out of the bracket. Even if it did, the clamped-on lines on either end would keep it from going far. The Vitara filter doesn't end short on the ridge, so it fouls the clamp. I'm making all three full length, because the likelihood of failure here is small. I cut out the enclosed end with a little slot, and hammered it outward to make the groove full-length.

Then I welded up the little gap, and filed everything to match profiles, and added it to the pile of parts to powdercoat.

The next item to tackle is the rear subframe. Initially my thought was to disassemble this as little as possible so I could refresh the rusty subframe that is largely thin sheet steel and thin wall steel tubing. The differential isn't making any strange noises. I might upgrade from stock open to an LSD at some point, but want to drive it some first and assess if it is needed. Might also tackle the crusty uprights while I'm in there.

I started pulling the differential mount apart, and thought, "I'm pretty sure there's supposed to be some rubber inside there! And also, probably not having the sleeve sticking up outside the height of the bushing? Yikes!

Found some of the rubber parts of the bushing on the floor with the rust flakes. Good thing I bought new diff bushings on the last Owner's Group group buy! 

Safe to say the old bushings are spent, I think!

As I studied the rear subframe assembly, I noticed some things like the stock setup uses eccentric adjuster bolts to control rear toe and camber, and remembered that the rear brake dust shields are really thin to begin with, and mine are beginning to resemble crusty Swiss cheese.  A few thoughts formed in my head:

• It should would be nice to clean up the rear uprights and dust shields while I'm at it.
• Doing the above in a thorough fashion will require replacing some parts like bushings, oil seals, and circlips, which I'll chalk up to good preventative maintenance.
• I doubt my skills are up to refurbishing the ridiculously thin and rust-holey dust shields.
• New dust shields are $275 a side before shipping! Holy moly, I'll give my marginal ultra-thin sheet metal skills a go and see if I can avoid the expense.
• There's cracked ball joint boots on the outside end of the arms that adjust on the inner ends with the eccentric bolts. Joints themselves are not serviceable, but aren't worn out yet.
• My new rear suspension arms have no rust, turnbuckle adjustment for toe/camber AND new ball joints with new ball joint boots. Yay!
• If I put the new arms on, I'll probably want to use some non-eccentric bolts with appropriate reducing washers.

During the disassembly process, I found a few really rusty stuck fasteners, but in the end I got them out and added replacements to the shopping list.

Here's the adjuster bolts. The lower/further-rearward one pictured first seems like it would adjust more camber/less toe and the higher/further-forward one seems like it would adjust less camber and more toe, but both are below the upper A-arm (and there is also a rearward lower non-adjustable fore-aft arm, so I imagine that the adjustments aren't totally independent. I think the turnbuckle aftermarket adjustable arms along with the matching upper A-arm will be a nice upgrade.

And progress! The subframe and differential/axles are flipped back-to-back and the subframe is stood up on end in this view. The subframe is lighter than I would have guessed; probably fairly thin-wall. The differential is tiny (6"ish ring gear at the biggest?) and has an aluminum housing, so it is fairly light as well. The crescent-shaped forward diff mount in the bottom of the frame? Cast iron!  I presume it was used for cost reasons, but it is...stout compared to other parts on the car.

Various rear suspension and drivetrain parts strewn about as I sort stuff into piles of replace, refurbish, and reuse as-is.

With the rear subframe broken down, I took my array of files, scrapers, pokers, Dremel, and grinder to it, and thankfully it is really solid with a bit of scaly surface rust, a bit of caked-on dirt, grime, and aftermarket undercoating over caked-on dirt and grime. I got off enough of the scaliest areas to feel confident about the metal underneath, and then set about knocking back the worst burrs, welding spatter, and rough stamped edges. Many might call it a waste of time, but the benefits are three-fold in my experience: the car will be easier to clean from here on out (dirt and rust can't take hold very well without ledges, rough spots, and ridges to cling to, plus I can work in the car with greater comfort and confidence knowing that there isn't some nasty edge waiting to snag my skin or bash my knuckles, and finally it looks better and takes powdercoat more smoothly. Sorry I didn't get any photos of the subframe during this process.

High on my list was the iron differential mount casting, which looked like the two halves of the mold were rather misaligned by the time my part got around to being made. I also needed to get the failed old bushings out. Check out the ugly flashing down the middle!

A bit of a struggle getting the bushings out, but nothing a bit of heat, a bit of grinding, a bit if hacksawing, a bit of heat, and a bit if pressing couldn't tackle together!

I find tidying this stuff up so satisfying because it is like I am unearthing the more-perfect form of the part underneath. An engineer designed it, and the production version is imperfect and rough around the edges, but I can make it look better and more true to the original form with a quick tidy up. The impact on the end viewer is subtle, and may go unnoticed in some cases, but it helps elevate the whole car, IMO, and makes me really happy, so I'll keep doing it. And the chassis black satin powder looks soooo good and so smooth on these once-everyday-cheap-car parts after a clean up!

I decided to replace the fuel hard lines under the car, so I ordered some rolls of bulk tubing, but haven't yet gotten to bending and flaring.

I found a spare transmission in Florida of all places, and bought it. The seller's buddy shipped it, and yesterday the transmission arrived. The box plus packing plus transmission was 42 pounds! Bill for scale...

This one supposedly has bad bearings, and the one in the car has a bad second gear synchro. I got two of the three parts of the synchromesh on order, but the third is NLA. I have the comparable part from a Suzuki Carry van coming, hoping it fits. In any case, I'll be assembling the best of both used transmissions plus new parts into a unit to go into the car, and the seconds will be put on the shelf as a spare core. Along with the synchromesh parts I also ordered bearings, circlips, o-rings, and the like.

Getting a lot closer to the point where I can get cranking on reassembly on the rear subframe and surrounding area. The long-term plan (likely) still includes fixing the body rust and doing paint, but I don't want this thing to end up like some previous projects I've done where scope creep ends up making it interminable and then I'm years in, haven't driven it in forever, still only partially done, daunted by what remains.

The shorter term plan for this car is to finish several key sub-assemblies (fuel tank and lines, rear subframe and suspension, transmission, the braking system front and rear, and outboard parts of the front suspension/steering) and then drive it some. Phase two will include the engine bay, turbo upgrade, inner parts of the front subframe and suspension, and bodywork.

Here's the finished with de-rust and powdercoat pile of parts as of yesterday:

In case it isn't obvious, this is the three protection plates for underbody plumbing, rear subframe, fuel filter bracket, fuel tank mounting/e-brake cable mounting brackets, differential speed sensor wiring bracket, rear sway bar, and rear sway bar bushing brackets.

I have new sway bar bushings, upper and lower control arms with ball joints, brake lines, caliper rebuild kits, pads, rotors, quite a bit of hardware, new rear hub bearings/oil seals, and differential mounting bushings.

Still to clean up and powdercoat:

• Rear differential mounting bracket
• Rear suspension uprights
• Rear brake dust shields (these will need patching/welding rust repair first)
• Rear trailing arms?

Still to paint/reassemble:

• Rear brake calipers 

Still to build:

• Fuel hard lines under the car

Parts I still need to source:

• Rear trailing arm bushings (not available separately from what I'm finding-only the entire arm with bushings, or a complete rear suspension bushing kit)
• Rear sway bar end links
• Circlips for the rear hub bearings
• Some miscellaneous fasteners
• Brake dust shields if mine are too far gone to repair

Down the road when I get into Phase Two of the project, I will be able to pull the rear subframe, tank, and fuel lines intact and put them on the shelf as an already-done unit that won't need more attention, so there isn't a ton of work I'll be doing twice with this plan.

Very much enjoying this rebuild thread. I have started to look at Kei trucks and vans as a future project and this is giving some good insight on the challenges that they may present. The work to date looks great!

In reply to fusion66 :

Thanks for the kind words! Since these were cheap when new and in the salty and often snowy climes of Japan, rust can be a concern. If you aren't obsessed with over-the-top aesthetic improvements, you could have a runner/driver with less work than I'm putting in. The other upside of the vans and trucks is that there were more of them made, more of them imported, and parts seem to be more plentiful. There are even places in the States that specialize in Suzuki Carry/Every, Honda Acty/Street, Subaru Sambar, etc. Cappuccinos were only made in small numbers (~25K worldwide over the whole run) and not many parts specialists, and none Stateside that I know of.

Be careful with registration, and/or act quickly before they completely close the door on registering these so you are grandfathered in...and even that grandfathering is at risk due some terrible no-fun Scrooge busy-body "advisory group" that is bullying/influencing state governments into refusing registration for legally-imported JDM vehicles! 
 

<soapbox> I guess they feel really offended that someone with means can legally import a Japanese vehicle older than 25 years and register it to drive on the street at their own risk because someday down the road they might sell it on to some unsuspecting member of the general public who gets duped into thinking that a 660cc RHD microvan unlike 99.99% of other vehicles on the road with all labels in Japanese writing, speedo in kph, and passenger knees as the crumple zone is "safe" and if that person gets injured in a crash after buying it, that the state is culpable because they formerly registered it for street use to the previous owner! Must be not much of any real issues to worry about over in ex-auto-insurance executive-cum-traffic-safety-advocate-ville if this is really a pressing concern in need of governmental action. I mean, it's not like taking action on drunk driving or cellphone use behind the wheel would impact thousands of lives and reap huge dividends...nope, gotta go straight for those few hundred enthusiasts doing legal personal imports just in case someday way into the future they resell it to a dumb-dumb!  </soapbox>
 

I won't go into detail, But I'm bitter over the hoops I've jumped through and am still jumping through, and still facing registration hurdles.

Love seeing these cars brought back up to snuff. Big fan of all the kei cars and wouldn't mind getting one sometime. There is at least one kei van running around Richmond doing amazon deliveries and a bunch more JDM stuff due to Japanese classics being in town but only have ever seen a cappuccino in Japan.

In reply to johndej :

Thanks for the encouragement! Almost everything kei I see driving around here in Portland is vans, but there is a Honda Beat in town that I spot driving once every year or two.

Another big pile of parts has landed, and that means I can begin reassembly! As I mentioned before, I will tackle the rust if I really like the car after driving it some. Earlier this year, when visiting a friend who has some experience with shell prep for rally cars, I was picking his brain and got some useful information and dipping versus blasting. He also mentioned that it sure would help the crowding in his shop if I borrowed his rotisserie, so I will have to see if that offer still stands when I am ready.

So, what arrived? Lots of little stuff, mostly hardware and small parts that can't be reused. Bolts, circlips, seals, cotter pins, plastic clips, rear wheel bearings, and then hopefully all the transmission rebuild parts I will need. I also got some bulk tubing to make new fuel lines for under the car. Whew, the little stuff adds up money-wise when doing something this thoroughly, but thankfully little car parts are cheap-ish.

I started reassembly with where the trouble began, the left rear brake pipe that goes up and over the fuel tank. I also installed the right rear brake pipe and the union/tee.

Next up was the fuel tank and tank fill hose. It took three or four attempts due to the heavy coating that Moyer's used in refurbishing the tank slightly interfering with the holes in the mounting tabs. A bit of razor blade cleanup and it went into place, along with the freshly powdercoated e-brake cable brackets. I find this type of stuff so immensely gratifying, I just stayed under the car for a while smiling.
 

I didn't get any pics, but I also popped the bare subframe back in temporarily. I'm an idiot and didn't disassemble the whole shebang per the manual, and now I want to pull the rear hubs from the knuckles. With the subframe in, I can slap the rear suspension back together and do it with a slide hammer, which is probably easier than trying to clamp the rusty knuckle in the vise and then get the hub out.

Mild progress today. I got some of the stock rear suspension reconnected to the subframe for the purpose of disassembling the hubs.

While I was in there, I started trying to wrap my head around Suzuki's design for toe control. The upper control arm is an A-arm, and there are two lower links plus a trailing arm (not installed here) for front-back location. With regard to the lower arms, the front one is mounted a couple inches higher on both the chassis side and the upright side, and is about 11" long. The rearward arm is a bit lower and is 15-16" long or so. The upper control arm's balljoint is located almost exactly halfway between the two lower arms in a fore-aft orientation. Soooo...at full droop it is a bit toed-in, but as it compresses towards mid-stroke toe-in is reduced, and then at some point further into the stroke it starts to add more toe-in again, AFAIK. Hmm..whatever works. These aren't known for any significant handling quirks beyond an insanely-sort wheelbase and a bit softly sprung from the factory, so.....

And then I broke out the trusty long-suffering and well-abused 4x114.3mm slide hammer:

Hey presto!

And the hub side...hmmm...not much meat on the lip there at all for pulling the outer bearing race. Might be one of those cases where I either need to get brave and careful with the dremel plus chisel and try to break it, or else break down and get the SST or take it to a machine shop and pay for race removal.

Not much more to this short update other than me sounding like a broken record and saying that these suspension uprights are *crusty* can't wait to clean them up!

Thank you for sobering me up regarding importing a Kei car or other JDM vehicle.  I had labored under the delusion that Kei cars in Japan were time capsules waiting to be opened.  Maybe yours came from a coastal area and the ones from inland don't require so much attention, but since I'm not really that much of an enthusiast, maybe it is best that I skip the Kei truck idea.  

I had my eyes on some Delicas for a while, but the prices went apey.