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Clocked over 4000 kms on my restored Maruti Esteem: Significant updates

18th September 2023, 08:28 by Dev Shah

It was found that the distributor seal had started developing a leak, along with a slight crack on the distributor cap.

BHPian sohanbala recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

It's been a year since my last post, the car had clocked over 4000 Kms and serves me well now.

After having the audio setup done, I was elated that 95% of my work is done(that's what I thought) however within the next 200 Kms my tuning started going off, the moment I leave the pedal, the car just felt as if it's gasping for breath, especially with the A/C ON.

After checking around my hometown, I just couldn't find the right person to do identify whats going on, finally my mechanic himself suggested Mr Udayan at Cochin, an ace mechanic who works on mostly classic cars. After talking with him, he suggested to bring the car with a spare carburetor.

Though the 6Hr drive to Cochin was daunting, I decided to take the car anyway, I arranged my stay at a cousins place in Cochin if at all there was a need to stay during the cars work.

Started early morning 5AM from my place by 11AM I was at Udayans place. After reaching there the first thing I noticed was this beautiful Mercedes he was working on.

Soon Mr Udayan came, a humble and very relaxed man, he idled the engine for a while and thoroughly listened to the note.

It was found that the distributor seal had started developing a leak, along with a slight crack on the distributor cap. We got ourselves a carburetor repair kit, some new cord wires, set of plugs, oil seal, new distributor cap and got to work. We spent the whole day working on re setting the distributor, both of us skipped lunch hoping to finish by evening.

The Denso distributor assembly:

Despite of all efforts we couldn't finish by the end of the day, carburetor was still pending. I decided to stay another day in Cochin. We got to work early next morning.

After getting the carburetor and distributor sorted, I was eagerly waiting since morning to see how this goes:

After a final inspection at 4PM we took the car for a test drive and boy it was a joy! The engine happily started pushing even with the A/C ON, Idling became crisp. The drive and 2 days of standing was absolutely worth it.

I decided to stay that night in Cochin and started back next day morning, I had a fantastic drive along the MC Road, the engine was crisp and responsive.

However my happiness was short lived, just about 15Kms away from my home, the engine started stalling under load and especially at inclines. I still managed to drive home.

Next day we were back at my usual garage, Udayan had asked me to check the fuel pump and yes indeed the motor had failed. After several tries we managed to fit a Bosch motor to the fuel pump assembly which sorted the issue.

Now comes the new issue, one of the technicians had closed the bonnet too hard which caused it to touch the RH headlight corner, cracking it.

I started to loose all my hope at this point, its been one issue after the other, and this was a brand new set of lights. The dealer had told me they no longer have any more units available and its very difficult to find Esteem type1/M1000 headlights.

A few months went by and in the meantime I was able to correct the headlight brackets a bit more for slightly better clearance. Suddenly I get a call from the dealer saying he found 1 new headlight assembly for the Esteem t1 that too RH.

The very next moment I picked it up and got the lights changed that day itself.

Now with all these done, I can say Its been quite a journey but I've absolutely enjoyed working on the car, with this the only work remaining was some stock stickers to be added which would complete my dream of keeping this car as stock as possible.