Guinness

What Did You Do To Your Smart Today?

5,057 posts in this topic

Those last PD 1.9s are incredible engines. Great torque, decent enough power, and because they're damn near bulletproof, TONS of headroom for major mods. A buddy is pulling close to 230 whp and 465 lb-ft of torque with his stage 4 1.9 Golf, but still averages 4.5 l/100 km on his relaxed 75 km back-highways commute to the airport.

I'm supper happy about it, it's a maxed out version to boot and under extended warranty. Man vw is awesome to make claims with, had a couple tiny rust bubbles and next Thursday the full car is being repainted under the 12 year rust warranty. . No questions asked. Also kind of missed having a "normal" commuting car. All my cars are stupidly big, fast, tiny or low. This can lug my gear around comfortably and a nice smooth commute. . . Wow I sound like I'm getting old :( The mods are starting though upgraded clutch for a couple bucks more under warranty post-12052-1402112926_thumb.jpgHere's my rust tiny rust spot that's getting me repainted. I was expecting the panel to be painted not the whole car. They said they made the claim for the whole car and it was accepted within three days (Brampton)post-12052-1402113066_thumb.jpgMercedes is like pulling teeth, vw so far is like "ok man it's all cool". Let's see how it turns out

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Stage 4 lol I can image the soot coming from the thing. They're pretty great cars, keep them at 2000rpm and the fuel economy is supper good.

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Top-down weather is upon us, so Thursday found me hanging around Pelee Island and Friday, headed up the other way to Huntsville with my daughter so she can bring her bike back down to the London area. Over 1,100 kms in two days ........ Ahhhh, gotta luv it!A/C has not had the upgrade, but is working beautifully. Ten hour 'turn-around' trip got me home about midnight.

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I took the canada1 for pretty much my last spin with it, and on the way to see a friend in Richmond, stopped in and saw Fasteddy, who kindly reminded me of what he does to OTHER people's smarts every day after they get past the easy driving stage of life. Which kind of reminded me why I have two Subarus on lease with like almost zero issues at 75,000 kms.... Hey time to get those gone and get a new one.... LOL (I did e-mail my sales guy and we're talking.... but I will only have ONE Subaru when it's over if I do anything.)

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I said good-bye for now to the canada1 cabrio.... just 25,000 kms on the ODO and a new enthusiastic owner who will take great care of it. I thought my vehicle folder was with tax stuff in storage, but I found it in my files in the home office, and dug out the nice MB letter of authenticity which goes to Alan.For now, I am officially smartless for the first time in 9.5 years.If the Subaru swap-a-thon ends up happening, I am looking at having a 2014 XV Touring with CVT, and...... TDB. That would be the only vehicle my wife and I would have at that point.So for now, I guess I'll get to help David with his canada1 coupe which has about 68,000 kms on it. There'll be a number of things to do on it, starting with a clutch actuator clean up and I'll be suggesting an intercooler mod as well.

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I took the canada1 for pretty much my last spin with it, and on the way to see a friend in Richmond, stopped in and saw Fasteddy, who kindly reminded me of what he does to OTHER people's smarts every day after they get past the easy driving stage of life. Which kind of reminded me why I have two Subarus on lease with like almost zero issues at 75,000 kms.... Hey time to get those gone and get a new one.... LOL (I did e-mail my sales guy and we're talking.... but I will only have ONE Subaru when it's over if I do anything.)

Picked up my new to me Canada 1, washed her up and detailed the inside, sadly no spare change floating around under the seats. drove around and played with the cruise control. now to find out why the radio doesn't turn off with the key.Alan

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The radio has one of the tricks done to it that allows it to play for 30 minutes extra. There's likely a thread here explaining how to do/un-do that. (It's a simple button trick, can't quite remember it....)DRL are also deactivated - just FYI. That's easy enough to undo with a one button press while pulling the high beams on with the car not running. I think it's lock to un-do it, un-lock to deactivate them.....PS - oil change was done 5/11/2014 at 23572 kms by me.... 0w40 and a 451 oil filter if that matters!

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Picked up my new to me Canada 1, washed her up and detailed the inside, sadly no spare change floating around under the seats.

Congrats!

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:) As the 'official curator' of the Ontario museum for Smart Canada1's, I congratulate Alan on his acquisition and wish him good luck and enjoyment, and his Canada1 both health and long life.

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ThanksI am really enjoying the C1. Plans are to keep it forever. I never noticed a plaque stating which number of 4 it is. The letter of authentisity states that it is white. LOLAlan

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You need another one of those letters! With the correct colour. They wrote up Keith's based upon my letter.The two middle cars don't have the Canada 1 dash plaque because the customer wanted it that way. That is: the owner of the Lamborghini dealership in Toronto. So the first one says 1 of 10 (LOL) and the last one says 4 of 10 (double LOL). They only made four of course.

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Put my smart back on the road today! 3 weeks of sitting and it fired right up! Drove around town without any problems except for the brake rotors rubbing a bit :)

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Its alive ( or almost). Finally got the intercooler back on and drove it up and down the street, it is shifting well, and everything seems to be working.In the next couple of days I will retorque everything that I installed and/or removed, and finish installing the rest of the new parts and the body panels and drive it a bit to see how it is doing for real. Can't wait!Oh and for the x brace lowering the car on its wheels as suggested worked a treat, could grab the tire and pull to get the bolt in , so it seems that is the way to go.

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I think every car is different; I had no trouble with the x-frame just jacking one side of the de dion tube then the other.

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You are probably right Francesco, I guess for the cars that the frame doesn't reach the hole the lowering of the car may work as well as it did on mine, the ones where the frame goes farther than the hole the Jack to push the tube wider may work and then for others just jacking each side up to the frame works.

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Managed to put the car up on jack stands and shoot some lithium grease on the u-joint of the steering column, gave it a quarter turn, another shot, etc. until it had a nice coating all around. Gave the wheel about a dozen turns lock-to-lock to spread it around. Definitely helped, but still not back to fully smooth operation. Hopefully the grease penetrates a little more in the warm weather.As i was prepping the winter tires to be put away for the summer, i noticed the inside of the right rear tire was significantly more worn than the others. Either the camber is off, or maybe a broken or worn spring? Funny how our cars seem to experience similar problems at similar times!

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[You may want to buy some Wurth grease in spray cans it starts out thin & thickens after it gets in there, I had the same u-joint issue a couple of years ago & that fixed it right up.

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Darren, sounds like an alignment issue. I have aligned a few smarts now and it seems the front toe (tires pointing in or out) is out of alignment, camber is usually within spec but toe misalignment can cause the tires to drag sideways usually wearing noticably on the inside edge. If you bring me the car and effected tires I can check the front end for worn parts, align the front end and swap the tires on their rims to help them wear more evenly. PM me for price or more info

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I don't think I ever bothered finding out... Where is the alignment adjustment on a smart? The tie rod ends? I don't see anything else under there with a range.

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Front:Tie Rods - Toe (usually nicely seized)Control Arms/Wishbones - Camber and Caster (mods/parts needed)Top Strut mount could offer some adjustment with a camber plate fabricated Rear Hub Shims- Camber and/or Toe

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Oh, ok, so just the toe via the tie rods on a stock smart. Cool. Question two: with the stock tires for now, should I go to a shop with corner scales to set the weights (height adjustment) with the coil-overs? Or just eyeball the heights for now and set the weights once I have bigger tires?

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I would say set it by eye for now, once you get the tires then have it properly balanced with driver in seat and 1/2-Full fuel load.

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Well its back together and I drove it out and about today, everything seems to be working okay again, I think I may still have a bit of clutch grab in a spot when I am stopped with the car in gear, but it is shifting and running well, will have to check it again on the weekend I think. Besides that I still haven't got the front drop link on, I went to do it and couldn't get the wheel off, so will try again tomorrow or Thursday, I am also 90% sure I need a thermostat! the car is not getting up to operating temperature ever today on a 20+ degree day. It is nice to be able to drive it again at least and maybe with a bit of use things will smooth out again, I know it doesn't like not being driven ( and it has sat in the garage since November). I also was he'd seven moths of dust off the car with a quick wash, need to do some detailing. I also need to get my summer tires onto my alloy rims, I don't think it will be driven in the winter anymore if I keep it and I would much rather have the alloys with the summer tires than the steeliness.

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scwmcan,I'm available Tuesday afternoon to swap tires for you, half the cost of the shop.What I did today:Reluctor Rings, Tire Swap and Front springs for a customer. All went smoooth :)

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What's the trick for the reluctor rings? We ended up heating with a mapp torch, and using an old 2 3/4" bearing race to beat it down with a BFH while clamped in a vise. There was no finesse whatsoever. I'd like to find some 2-3/4" ID steel pipe and make a tool to do them.

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