Two summers my wife bought me a ‘94 Sambar for my birthday. It was in really great shape, no real issues other than a slightly leaky valve cover, old tires, and an incredibly clunky shifter (although this is almost standard for these trucks). So, there were some small things to sort out right away, but nothing catastrophic. I’m going to split this out into a number of different posts in here, each with their own little topic. First up… Normal Servicing Type Stuff… I didn’t really have a service record on the truck. So I figured right of the gates I would baseline myself and replace all the standard wear and tear type things, and fix that leaky valve cover gasket. After a lot of reading around on what parts I needed, and how to do what when and how. I made some purchases. -Subaru Sambar Tune Up Kit KS3 KV3 from minitruckgarage.com -Subaru Sambar Valve Cover Gasket EN07 from minitruckgarage.com -Wix 33204 Fuel Filter -Castrol Edge 5W-30 A3/B4 Oil (5 Quart) -Fram XG6607 Oil Filter -Iron Man RB Light Truck Tires (LT155R12 88/86N D) All of this went really smoothly. Oil change was simple, no real tricks there. Spark plugs and wires were easy. Distributor was as fun one to check out. Turns out someone had upgraded it to an electronic distributor. Fuel filter was a tough fit. It went into the bracket Valve cover was simple, but took a while to clean out. The vent hose was not attached where is was supposed to be, so the vent in the valve cover was clogged with junk. After a bunch of cleaner and scrubbing, it was fine enough. All the valves where checked and adjusted as needed. And the new valve seal went on with some Permatix Ultra Grey in the tight corner spots. Getting the Tires swapped out was went great. The Discount Tire shop near me had a great time. Tires were a perfect fit for my 12 in wheels, and made me much more confident driving around. --------------------------- I had a great time with the truck as is, running to pick up lumber, drop off things at the dump, or moving things around the yard. They really are a work horse. I know the one trip to the dump was almost 1000lbs in the bed. The guy at the scale station could stop grinning seeing my truck after all the big trucks before and after me. It is just too cool, and eventually I decided it was time to create some projects out of it to make it even cooler.
NEW RADIO INSTALLATION! We all know these trucks are far from quiet, and the old and torn speakers barely worked. My first plan was to swap them out, and add a radio that would play more than static. Most 4x6 speakers will sort of fit into the spots on the dash. Pretty much all of them will require at least some sort of modification to get them settled in there. I used Cerwin-Vega H746 HED 4x6 speakers. Just one corner needed to be cut off to clear the hole that the cover fits into. They sound great, and are more than loud enough in that tiny cab. I eventually plan on figuring out how to get some speakers in the rear of the cab. But that is for another day. For the radio I grabbed a rather cheap Single DIN option from Amazon. I wasn’t looking for much, really just wanted it to have Bluetooth, and work. Wiring it all up was not terrible. The resources out there to figure out what wires to grab off the harness were slim, and sometimes didn’t quite have things called out properly. So this is what I did, with good success. TRUCK HARNESS: BLACK and BLACK W/GREEN STRIPE- both ground, one is for the cigarette lighter and one is for the radio. All three can be wired together. If you don't want the cigarette lighter for whatever reason you can look under the dash and see what ground wire it uses, I believe it was the all black one. TRUCK HARNESS: WHITE W/BLUE STRIPE- 12v constant/memory, goes to stereo’s yellow wire usually. TRUCK HARNESS: BLUE W/BLACK STRIPE- 12v switched/ignition, usually goes to stereo red wire. There is an antenna wire back there somewhere that will likely unplug itself when you yoink the old radio out.
WHEEL PAINTING! I knew at some point I would want to paint the truck, even though I have no experience painting a car, and am pretty terrible at painting almost anything. My thought was to start easy, and spruce up the wheels that came with the truck. My plan for the color scheme of the truck was going to be very Subaru WRX STi based. So that meant gold wheels. The wheels started off painted with a very boring grey paint. First step was to clean them up, sand out any chips or loose paint, and scuff them all up. This wasn’t too bad, just a bit of time getting every inch of the wheel prepped enough to receive primer. I used Maroon Scuff Pads for the final scuffing and Duplicolor Wax and Grease Remover before priming. For Primer I used some SprayMax rattle can epoxy primer (grey). As best as I can tell, it works great and is very sticky. Went down really smooth and had very reasonable flash off times. For the paint, I used VHT Wheel Paint (Gold) and Clear coat. Also was really happy with this. Follow the timing instructions on the back and you are good to go. By the time I had all my clear coat layers down, they were smooth and glossy. I waited a full week to allow all this paint to cure before putting them back on the truck. I’m sure they were ready to go sooner, but I wanted all the coats to cure up nice and hard before I was anywhere near them with a socket wrench.
Out of curiosity, why did you not use a harness? There is no need to cut up the stock wiring, the Sambar radio harnesses are the same as the rest of the Subaru line for the era, and that is very well documented. The 1990-1993 models use Metra 70-1780 or Scosche SU02B The 1994-2012 models use Metra 70-8901 or Scosche SU03B
I am getting ready to install a MP3 radio in my 1998 Sambar so it would be great if it was plug and play.
Then you want one of the harnesses from the second line. It is the same as any other Subaru from the era. A lot of the wires will not be used, like the rear speakers and the left side speaker if you have a truck.. but the rest of the pins are good.
For no other reason that I didn't stumble upon this information. Good to know though for the future and anyone else looking to throw in a new radio. Thanks for the tip!
TRUCK PAINTING – DISASSEMBLY After a lot of planning, I finally decided that the truck was going to be taken apart a decent amount and painted. I wanted the body to be blue, and the bed to be black, with some random red accents here and there, which ended up being the headache rack, and bed latches. I decided on just paint for the truck bed instead of bed liner, since it would be easy to repair when I do inevitably scratch it up. While I had it apart, I planned to also do a number of other things during re-assembly that will be detailed out in following posts. As for taking it apart, it was both easy, and incredibly odd. Some things had perfectly simple access, while other things seemed like they weren’t really designed in a way for simple disassembly. The truck bed is held on with a bunch of bolts. Along with that, there are, in my opinion, way to many things mounted to the bed as well. I would have really just wanted there to be some bolts, unplug the tail lights, and off comes the bed. But there are two wiring harnesses mounted to it, a coolant line is permanently mounted to it, and fuel lines, mounted to some clips, the ignition coil, and some other stuff. I completely understand WHY these things are mounted to the bed, otherwise they would have needed to add a handful of other brackets, but my point stands. The cab was pretty easy overall to take apart. The dash had a lot going on, but nothing that going slow and never yanking anything too aggressively didn’t handle. I don’t know what other people’s processes are, but I took a handful of pictures at each step, should have taken more. But every step got a bag and label with all the hardware in it. This would end up making reassembly an absolute breeze…. mostly. This step was rather uneventful, I did find a spare key hidden in the truck though, so that was cool.
PAINTING Never again. Although that’s what people say after a pain of a tattoo. But I am pretty sure about this one. I just don’t like painting. I don’t know why, I’m never confident I’m doing it right, or that it is going to stick properly, or cure right. Paranoia and anxiety just to the max once paint starts going down. In the end, it went well. So… phew! I used a combination of stripper discs and sandpaper to remove a large majority of the paint that was on there. The bed and walls went all the way down to metal everywhere I could reach (except the underside of the bed). The paint on the body was in decent shape, so that got a combination of stripped down with the grinder, or just sanded. Prior to paint everything was scuffed with maroon scuffing pads, and wiped down with grease and wax remover. I was happy enough with the state it was all in. Far far far from perfect, but I wasn’t even attempting to get this paint job to be perfect. I knew my skill would stop me from getting there, and I only had so much time to get this done. Primer – Everything was sprayed with Summit Racing DTM Epoxy Primer (grey). This went on incredibly well. After two coats it left me with a very smooth surface to put some color on. For the bumper I used some Rustoleum Adhesion Promotor prior to primer since it is a polypropylene material, and not even epoxy primer is going to stick to that very well. Black Bed Paint – Summit Racing Jet Black Gloss Singe Stage Paint. This went on not as well, but I am going to blame myself for that one. The cheap spray gun I had bought was being fussy, and I didn’t diagnose it properly, leaving me with a rather orange pealed first coat. From there, I just had to live with it after I fixed the gun issue. All in all, not a terrible look actually. Have to find the positive in it, so now I like it like this! Sort of like a hammered finish or whatever that is called. Blue Body Paint – Summit Racing Metallic Blue Single Stage Paint. Outside of getting some drips in a few spots, I say this paint sprayed pretty well! It is smooth and glossy. Did my best on the last coat to follow the instructions so the metallic flake dispersed consistently. Not bad at all, any inconsistency in it is not enough to really stand out quickly. Most lighting scenarios make it look more than fine. Red Paint – I sprayed the bed latches, door hinges, and headache rack with Rustoleum Professional Enamel. This looks great, but took a while to cure. Be patient and it will eventually be durable. The Summit Racing Paint took a pretty serious amount of time to cure. Unless you have some nice warm temps, be very patient. I was not blessed with warm weather, so I was waiting almost two weeks before trying to really get back to work on the truck. After a few days is was pretty good, but still soft, not fingerprint soft, but still would stick to stuff with some pressure. After a week some parts were passing the fingernail test, others not. Time and temps is all it is. Wait wait wait. Also sanded down and painted the wiper arms with Rustoleum Professional Enamel (Black). Next it was time to start putting it all back together, and adding some things along the way.
TACHOMETER INSTALLATION I had a Bosch Tachometer just kinda jammed into the instrument panel with some double-sided tape. I really wanted to get one integrated into the instrument panel though for a cleaner look. After taking the instrument panel apart, and taking some measurement. The amount of space I had to work with did not leave me with a lot of options. Amazon has a cheap 2” tach, that once taken apart and modified, fits nicely though. The backlight is BRIGHT, too bright. I even covered the LEDs with some translucent nail polish, which helped, but still, really bright. The entire area where the little truck outline is, got Dremel’d out to make space. The tach was taken apart, and I made a little base out of plastic and some pieces from the tach housing. I used some 5 minute epoxy to mount the tach board and based into the instrument panel. While it was curing, I got it adjusted for level and center, hoping I was close. I cut a circle from the cover plate thing so I could attach the tach dial to it and allow the backlighting through. I think it came out pretty good. It obviously isn’t as good as the Bosch tach. But I checked them side by and side and it seems accurate enough. It might read a little high on the higher end, but the idle is pretty close, so good enough for me. Good enough that between listening to the engine and this as feedback I should be able to make use of it.
INSTRUMENT PANEL LEDS I knew I had some burnt out bulbs in the instrument panel, and wanted to upgrade them to some LEDs anyway. The dim green backlight was barely anything at night as is. Illumination Bulbs - LASFIT 194 168 2825 W5W Bulbs. This one fit the large illumination bulb slot perfectly. It is also a non-polar bulb, so it didn’t matter which way it was installed which was great. Really brought a nice bright white to the instrument panel. Other Bulbs – Nanpoku T5 74 73 37 2721 Bulbs. These were a perfect fit for all the other bulbs, however, they needed to be installed in the proper direction. For the life of me, I could not figure out what was positive and negative on the circuit board. So, I had to trigger each bulb one by one to figure out if I had it all right. Wasn’t too hard, but slightly annoying. Some notes here. They DO NOT work for the blinkers. There must be some sort of delay in the LED, and the on off pattern of the blinkers doesn’t work with it. They also make any of the RED symbols a little pinker than I wanted. So, I kept the original halogens in any of those spots.
DOME LIGHT AND BED LIGHT I replaced the original lights here with some 31mm Festoon LEDs. What a difference they made. So much brighter and whiter. A really simple upgrade if you are looking for a touch more light in the cab.
HEADLIGHTS As you can imagine, these were going to get upgraded to LEDs as well. After reading too many different opinions on whether or not certain bulbs would work with the Subaru wiring, I just picked out some H4 LEDs that I liked and gave it a shot. Looks like the page no longer exists on Amazon (Zethor H4 LEDs). But best I can say is make sure they say they are plug and play non-polar (or non-polarity). All this means I think is that the chips on the board take whatever power is going in and sends it to the LED in the right direction. They were in fact plug and play. And they are clear and bright. I’m hoping they aren’t TOO bright, I know oncoming traffic doesn’t love LEDs, but they have really increased how well I can see at night, which is good because previously I was not thrilled driving the truck at night.
They are the same thing, just sold by two different brands. There are other brands as well, but those are the two biggest and most common to find in stores. It is the same harness as most Subarus from 1995 to 2009.
Do you happen to need a subaru 660 cc engine? I may have one to sell. the engine runs great, but my CVT transmission crapped out. Cutting my losses and looking to sell a 64K km engine. still mounted and will start up and run perfectly. I am in NJ
This engine is out of a 1994 subaru vivio, i am sure it is the same engine for the sambar. it runs great. the vivio is a ECVT 4WD. I drove it about 2 kilometers after I got it off the boat, because I was waiting on the paperwork to plate it, then I notice a grinding noise when I started moving over 20mph. It is coming from the front. when I put it in park, and rev it, no grinding noise at all. the engine is very sound. ugh, so mad. When i put it nuetral and coast down hill, the grinding noise is still there. I think it is the transfer case. still looking into it.
Well first, a Vivio engine is not the same as a Sambar engine. The block is the same, but the head, oil pan, mounts, and all ancillaries are very different. It mostly comes from the engine being mounted backwards in comparison to the Vivio, and it is mounted on its side as opposed to the vertical orientation in the Vivio. Second, you kind of skipped over my initial question. Did the OP mention somewhere that they were having engine troubles that would require a replacement? It is a little odd to start advertising that you have one for sale in a thread that has nothing to do with engine troubles.
I find this comment section hard to use for some reason. I don't know how to start a thread. I don't know what you mean by "OP". but I guess I can't cut my losses with the engine, since it is not the same as a sambar. I am SOL, unless I can find and fix the grinding noise.
There are plenty of Vivio owners around, I would seek out one of those forums/groups and advertise it in one of those.
DOOR LOCKS The novelty of only have mechanical door locks wore off relatively fast. Seeing the price of keyless entry door lock kits online made it an easy choice to try and set these up. When it came to choosing a kit, I mostly just looked at price, and which one had a key fob that I liked. This ended up being some no brand $20 kit, not that there were a lot of actual brands to choose from. Since I only needed two of the locks, I cut the wires for the other two, and since the kit was kinda cheap and weird, I had to extend the wires for the driver side to make it reach. It may have been because I had my wiring tucked up under the passenger side of the cab though. The entire locking and handle mechanism in the door needed a good spray of WD 40. They moved much more freely after that. The door locks have plenty of power in them to move the locks, but the less stress you can put on them the better.
DASH AND “CONSOLE” CLEANUP The plastic on the dashboard was quite weathered. I really had no interest in painting it, so I was hoping that cleaning it up some would restore it to an acceptable state. After some scrubbing with a simple degreaser all purpose cleaner, and a few wipe downs with 303, I couldn’t believe the results. The original color pretty much completely came back. We will see how it fairs in the sun, but so far in the garage it is holding that nice new shine very well.
SHIFTER BUSHINGS If you have a Sambar, do this repair. There are two bushings in the linkages of the shifter, well, there SHOULD BE two bushings there. Mine were completely gone. So every shift you would feel the back lash of the linkages banging around on the pin. It made for a not so smooth experience, it worked, but it was clunky. Replacing the bushings is simple. I already had everything apart. But pulling the shift boot up to access the mechanism is plenty simple. Part – 35035TC000 from Amayama (getting them from Subaru dealers was getting annoying since I don’t live near one, and their price and shipping was way to high, especially since I was ordering parts from Japan anyway, but they can get this part for you.) Once the boot is out of the way, a pair of needle nose plyers can be used to remove the cotter pins and pull the linkages off to install new bushings. Reverse the whole process and it is good as new. Granted new is still just ok, but it’s a whole lot better than no bushings.
Nice! Yeah I have been lucky to find a couple things on Amazon for good prices. Always worth a look, sometimes Amazon doesn't always show up through a google search for me with these PNs. I have been very happy with them so far. Much more confident with LT tires when loading up the bed over a trailer tire of some sort.
My Sambar seems to ride and handle better with the Iron Man tires. Gonna go for a ride on the Dragon US129 in a bit to give them a good workout.
Nice ride over the Dragon and back. Lots of motorcycles and autos out.Luckily hurricane Helene didn't get us.
INTERIOR GLOW LEDS I ordered some GOVEE Car RGB LED lights. I ended up cutting most of the wiring for this kit as well, and rewiring them all into a terminal block. I wanted to run the wire between the seats, and the way they come wired just didn’t support that. They are nice. I can control them more with a phone app, but they come on to whatever you set as default anytime you power the car up.
