Here's our story, in hopes that it may help others. And for the record, this post is simply relaying my experience with our Hijet, not a recommendation to anyone to do anything and obviously, I don’t guarantee anything. I’m not a professional mechanic and don’t play one on TV, either. SOME BACKGROUND The patient was an early 90s Hijet exhibiting some starting issues after running fine for several years. One of the issues seemed to be a fuel issue, specifically slight flooding when attempting to start. The only resources or manuals we have are what is readily available out there on the web. We are in the US and while the little trucks themselves are not common, they are not particularly rare, either. However, parts, information and knowledgeable service people are almost non-existent, so generally, one is on one's own. We assumed it was likely the carburetor in need of a cleaning or potentially, an issue with ethanol having caused some issue(s). For those that don't know, most of the gas in our area of the world is 10% ethanol blend, although you can readily find "real gasoline" at a higher price. Generally, we use the "real gas" in all small engines, boats, RVs - anything in which the gasoline will potentially sit for any length of time (say, over a month). While I know there are various additives for such E10/ethanol fuels (Star Tron, Stabil Marine, etc.) and they seem to work well, we simply prefer not to take chances when we don't have to do so. However, we had not been using "real gas" in this Hijet because fuel rarely sat in it long. However, recently it had been little-used and so, the fuel that was in it was probably 3-4 months old. THE PROBLEM/SYMPTOMS: 1. Would not start consistently, and when it did (rarely), it ran very badly 2. Flooding, but only mildly so 3. Starter seemed weak, but not out - it was just dragging and getting warm. All of the connections were checked, and they checked out OK, and the battery was good, as well (and we replaced all the little gelcell “lawnmower” batteries with deep cycles long ago, so cranking amps were not lacking). THE WORK DONE: First, we removed the carb and cleaned it up. All seemed OK with it, including the choke system and accelerator pump. All vacuum lines were checked. The carb was reinstalled. This didn't seem to help. So we began to do more troubleshooting. I placed a call to Leon at Daihatsu-help and he suggested adjusting/setting the valves. NOTE - This was an excellent suggestion - I would suggest anyone having any similar issues to do this first. I had done this before on another S83P, but this one hadn’t been done by us yet. It isn't difficult at all and takes about 30-60 min. at the most. See the end of this post for the procedure I used. With the valves adjusted, things were not apparently better (and pay close attention to the word “apparently”). The starter at this point was clearly an issue – while it would turn it over, it was clearly weak. We took the starter to local shop, and had it rebuilt. Yes, replacement starters are available, including from G and R (and from whom we have bought before and will likely buy from again). I chose the local rebuild route because it was a local shop I know and trust who is a Denso service center and by doing so, I have a 1 year local warranty. If they weren’t local, etc., I’d have strongly considered simply buying a replacement. I would not recommend one way over the other based on anything more than the situation at hand. The starter was installed and TA-DA! The little guy fired right up! My purely anecdotal thought is that had we addressed the starter issue first, we would have had less of an issue, BUT – I do think the valve adjustment was in order, too. It is hard to convey in writing – yes, the rebuild starter is clearly faster, but the starter just didn’t seem THAT bad, just weak. But the difference in starting is dramatic - when the rebuilt starter was installed, nothing further was done before trying it out and it started nearly instantly. I guess these little guys seem to need as much cranking speed as possible, esp. with the high compression they have. Here is the valve adjustment procedure I used – NOTE – READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY PLEASE, esp. that part pertaining to the adjustment settings. This is based upon my experience with our particular S83Ps (we have 1 now – had 3, sold two, but the valve procedure was the same on all 3): 1. Remove valve cover and take note of which bolt goes where as they are different. Pull the plugs to make turning the engine easier (and if you had a flooding issue, clean them or replace them – ours cleaned up just fine – YMMV). 2. Set piston #1 to top dead center (TDC) by turning the engine by hand (I just used a large wrench on the crank pulley nut) so that the mark of the timing gear (on ours, a small hole in the gear, different from the larger holes in the perimeter of the gear) is visible through the hole/window in the timing gear cover. 3. The #1 cylinder is the one toward the front of the truck and the intake valves are the upper (closest to the center) set and exhaust the lower (closest the outside) set. 4. With #1 at TDC, adjust the intake valves for cylinders 1 and 3 and the exhaust valves for 1 and 2. 5. Leon said that the proper setting with the engine cold was .008” (8 thousandths of an inch) for the intakes and .010” (10 thousandths of an inch) for the exhausts. The manual for the S81P says on Page EM-35, and I quote, intakes at .07” (.18mm) and exhausts at .10” (,25mm) (presumably meaning .007 and .010), both plus or minus .02 (again, presumably .002). HOWEVER, someone (but not Steve, the head service man) at G and R, a minitruck dealer/importer in the US, said this was wrong and that .004” and .006” was right. I used Leon’s numbers and it seems to be correct ON OUR TRUCK. I have a call in to Steve for clarification, but I leave it to the reader to determine which if any is correct for their application. 6. If you’re tackling this, the adjustment procedure should be self-evident, but just in case, use a wrench to loosen the adjusting nuts, use a screwdriver to adjust the adjusting screws, place a feeler gauge between the top of valve stem and adjusting screw/rocker arm and tighten the screw as per the feeler gauge. Put a drop of oil on the nut and while holding the screw in place, tighten the nut to “snug.” DO NOT OVERTIGHTEN – THESE AREN’T LUGNUTS! The spec I have is 15-16 ft.-lb. If you don’t have a torque wrench, “goodnsnug” seems to be about right and “CRANKITDOWN!” seems to be about wrong. 7. Turn the engine by hand and turn the crankshaft one turn until the timing mark on the flywheel is visible in the opening/window (this is the window in the bell housing with the square rubber plug, about 1” by 1”, slightly rearward from the carb). 8. Adjust intake for cylinder #2 and exhaust for #3 to the same as the rest (see 5 and 6, above). 9. Replace valve cover, spark plugs, rubber “window”/cover plugs, etc. For the search engines: 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, s83p, daihatsu, valves, starting, starter, carb, carburetor
Here's an update - Steve from G & R just called and he confirmed that .008" and .010" are acceptable on a cold engine. He said he uses .007" and .009" on a cold engine. Given that, I feel confident that either one are acceptable and proper measurements, but again, I offer no guarantees.
To add a little bit more to this great write up about having a good starter my Daihatsu S81 Factory Service book says compression should be 213psi @ 300rpm. First time I read that I thought wow these puppies got some compression which would lead you to believe in having a good starter, a must have. The service book also indicates minimum cyl. psi should be no less than 171psi @ 300rpm with a max of 14psi between cylinders. To some degree I would think down to 150psi you could still be in the ball park and still have fun with your truck.
Hey, man! I've been trying to contact you for a couple of reasons: 1. To thank you for the YouTube videos, and 2. To ask you some questions about your wheel adaptors (assuming you are the same "fupabox" - OTOH, how many "fupaboxes" can there be...?). Could you send me an email to my actual email address off-list please? My email addy is my user name here @bellsouth.net. Thanks in advance and thanks for the positive comments!
Thanks for the compliment and this brings up something I forgot to mention in the original post. In all of the troubleshooting, we did a compression test and the first time (after having flooded it a couple of times), the compression was low (60-70 lbs, but equal across all three cyls.). I expected it to be low because of the gas washing down the cyls/rings, but it surprised me how low it was. A couple of squirts of oil into each cyl brought it back up. There doesn't seem to be any further compression related issues and like the original post said, the little guy now runs good.
Great, thanks for posting this! I just recently picked up a 93' Hijet Climb. When I picked it up from the dealer they told me that due to the type of engine, in the mornings I should hold the gas pedal down, release, the start it and it should fire up. The next morning I did so and... it didn't start. I thought perhaps I did it wrong and ended up flooding the engine so I pushed it (thank goodness for being so light!) to a hill not to far ahead, roll-started it and away we went. It started fine after that all day. Every day since though, it wont start in the mornings. Luckly I live on a hill and can roll-start it - it seems it needs fuel in the line, which the roll-start does for it. For the rest of the day each day it starts like a champ. The pedal down for a few moments before I try to start it, I was told, is supposed to engage the throttle or something of the sort, but this is clearly not happening. I'm hoping I can pinpoint the issue and fix it as I wont always have the luxury of a hill to roll it down in the morning I thought it may be the same issue. Perhaps not though. Any thoughts?
The s83's are most likely the easiest trucks to start. Ive had 30+ of them over 6 yrs. and if everything is right they should start right up with one pump on a cold engine, and yes the rest of the day they will start right up without any pumps. Try this next time with a cold engine first thing in the morning try two pumps if one pump doesnt work. You might have either a accelerator pump thats weak or a fuel pump thats weak. My guess would be the accelerator pump if the trucks has some miles on it. You can check the fuel pump by disconnecting the feed line at the cab. and watch it while you turn over the engine. There should be a decent amount of fuel come out but not a lot. If it looks really weak fuel pump is going south. Keep in mind it doesnt take a lot of fuel for these engines to run. S83 are older trucks and sometimes you have to find that sweet spot when starting them. Kinda like the old 1960's 6 cylinder chevy truck. Its always best to check the air cleaner and make sure its clean and breathing good. Also might pop the dist. cap and see if the contacts have oxidation on them. Clean those up plus the rotor with some fine sand paper. 8 out of 10 trucks that have dist. caps the contacts need cleaning when these trucks come to the USA. Its something that gets over looked often.
2 pumps almost got it going, it came close in its' turn overs but did not quite make it. I had to roll-start it again so I could lift the dump-bed up to check out everything else. The truck has 82,000km or so (though it's hard to say if this is true as the odometer rolls over after 99,999) and I'm sure either way it'd be good to check out the fuel pump by doing what you said checking the feed line - should this be done when it's cold? I'll have to find a manual, I'm not as well acquainted with engines in general. Dist. cap looked alright, gave them a bit of a clean anyways. However one of the bolts heads was pretty corroded and when I was working at loosening it it busted of What's the process of making sure the air cleaner is breathing as it should be?
