New MR2 - a quick restoration!

[chiron]

Hiya

OK so here is my new MR2, its a 1994 NA T-bar that I bought for about £1600 a few weeks ago. I've been doing a load of work on it so here are some of the pics and a few tips on what i've been doing. It was bought to replace my G/F 180sx as we wanted something a bit more practical.
Here is the car as purchased a few weeks ago:



Swirl-tastic paintwork:


New Mr2 next to my SC mk1 with 180sx in the background:



Some of the other faults include:
Clutch master cylinder is failing causing the clutch to fade and drag.
Handbrake siezed
Rear brakes siezed
Front brakes siezed
Alarm is not functioning
Interior light not functioning
Aerial does not retract
Intake manifold heatshield rattles
NSR light cluster leaking
Alloys corroded and scabby

Apart from that its great!

[chiron]

OK so on with the work:

First up was to sort the brakes, the handbrake cables were siezed which in
turn had siezed the caliper and wrecked the rear discs. Calipers cleaned up
OK and new discs and pads went on. Camskill provided a pair of new handbrake cables from Camskill. While I was under the arches I also cleaned them up and applied stone chip.

Before:


After:

[chiron]

Next was the front brakes which as usual had siezed on the caliper sliders. New O-ring seals were needed on the sliders and new pads fitted. The brake fluid was changed and now I have a working handbrake and firm pedal feel!
Along with the regular servicing I also changed all the fluids including coolant and gearbox oil. The clutch master cylinder was rebuilt with a Toyota kit to fix the dragging clutch. The original seals had chunks out of them!

Next up was the body work. The car was covered in swirls so first up was a
good wash followed by Meguiars Detailing Clay. Then it was time for a
rotary polish using a white sponge pad and Meguiars Speed Glaze. A final
polish with Sonus SFX3 and a coat of Poorboys Nattys Paste Wax.

Front end and doors done, back end to follow:



Couldn't resist tinting the rear and side windows while I was at it!
Its very easy to do and not worth paying the £200 I was quoted. Took about half a day to do the rear end and the t-bar panels.

[chiron]

While on the tinting front I decided to tint the rear lenses and the front
sidelights. The rear ligts were scratched and looked like some solvent had been used on them and damaged the plastic. I bought a tin of tinting spray from ebay and set about the process. First up I masked out the reflectors before sanding back the lens with 1200 wet'n'dry.




The tinting spray was applied with about 3 coats then left to dry for 24 hours. The masking was removed from the reflectors and the lenses were then sprayed with 3 coats of 2k clear lacquer.




When this was cured the lenses were sanded back with 2000 grit then polished up with Meg's Speed Glaze on a rotary buffer.


Fitted! I also debadged the rear end too



More to follow soon.....

[chiron]

Next up was the alloys!

I wanted to create something that resembled our old 180sx which sat on Advans:


The MR2 alloys were scabby and kerbed so some serious work was needed here.



First up was to clean them up to remove the brake dust and chipped paint. A jet wash, Mr Muscle and degreaser were used to clean them. The two front alloys were badly kerbed so I decided to break out the die-grinder and grind back the bad damage. Lesser damage was removed with a twist-knot wire brush on an anlge grinder.
Before:


After with a coat of aluminium primer:


To get the effect of the red Advan rim I chose some metalic red plasticote paint. This was applied to the rim of the wheels, masking was not too important here.


Next up was to mask the rim using special masking tape to follow the curve:


Then apply 4 coats of black base coat:


Then remove the masking and spray with 4 coats of 2k clear lacquer:

[sutton]

looking really good bud, fair play for the dedication

[raptor95GTS]

indeedy good effort sir

[Turbocarl]

Inspirational matey

Top marks! - lookin at mine with renewed vigour now.

[scott64]

looks great i like the job on the wheels well done mate

[Martin F]

Wheels turned out really well mate, looking forward to seeing them on the car...

[mattymr2]

looking good m8

[chiron]

Cheers people!

Can anyone tell me which Rev the car is? Is an L reg 1994 NA.

I'll get some photo's of the wheels when they are back on the car. i'm just waiting for the paint to go 100% hard before sending them off to the tyre shop for fitting - and i'm also recovering from an operation on my spine!

During the resto I also fixed up the audio system and resurected the Toyota active amplifier audio system. I'll do a write up on this soon.

Let me know if anyone has any questions!

[GHOST]

Looks like you just fell short of a REV3 mate, so its a REV2.

Good work though. Lets see a picture with those freshly painted wheels on the car.

[fearless]

looking very nice mate im loving what you done with the wheels, only thing where it was curbed you could have used some chemical metal to make it look near perfect.

looks like you done a good job on the windows im told the back window is really hard to do because of the major curve of the glass, ive tinted a couple of cars but dont fancy this one ive been quoted £100 for 2 qtr windows and rear which i thought was not to bad.

good to see people doing things themselves your just like me looking forward to seeing wheels on car keep us posted.

[chiron]

I did consider using chemical metal to tidy up the alloys but i was worried that if a tyre fitter tried to fit a weight onto a bit with the filler then it might just chip the whole piece off.

Actually the rear window was fairly easy to tint, it may be curved but its not a compound curve and is actually fairly straight. I have not yet managed to do shrinking of the film but didn't need to on the rear window.
I found the side windows harder and the t-bar panels were a nightmare without shrinking and I will probably do these again as I got a crease in one.

I've found out that with tinting you need a really good film and sourcing the pro stuff (Lumar, Suntek, Johnson) is difficult. So far i'm just using cheap stuff which could come from anywhere.

[ChrisT]

Interesting read

[chiron]

Right, sorry for the delay I got carried away and bought another car....

Here are the finished photos with the refinished alloys:

[jasongtr]

i too want to tint the rear and side windows, have you tintied windows before? i have done 2 and they came out ok but they were out of the car, did you do all 3 in situ or take them out?

[chiron]

did all 3 in situ, its the only way to do it.

Lay up the film on the outside first and cut to shape/shrink, then peel off the backing and fix on the inside. Check youtube for tips.

[jasongtr]

ok its the shrink bit that bothers me, and when i did mine ages ago it was applied with warm soapy water and squeegded out, i have a quote for £70 so may as well have a pro do it i guess