welcome to my basket case.

[aussieGT]

this is the best 'hands on' backyard build thread I have read in a long time. Really makes me think I need to pull my finger out...

[qwakers]

so thats the front end rebuilt, the top mounts where seized but the ones on my old struts off the other mr2 where fine so i nicked the tops off of them, cleaned up, painted and the front arches undersealed. calipers rebuilt and new pads, disks put on the lathe and refaced. so all is well on the rust side now. all the paint is near as dammit there. just a good polish and wax needed.

however, the elephant in the room...
the clutch, its slipping, im going to need to change it. but how to do it..

last time i did a n/a clutch i did it as you would expect, left the engine in and pulled the box off. this took a LONG time, even bearing in mind it was the first mr2 box id pulled off so it took a bit longer. then getting the box back on was a nightmare....


so this afternoon i pulled the engine out. 3 hours later the engine on the floor, ill do the clutch tomorrow, in the mean time its a good opportunity to pressure wash the crud off the engine and the engine bay...

[qwakers]

well all my photos above are hosted by photobucket, and im in no hurry to rehost them, but i will if i have to. they still seem to be alive at the moment.

all future pics are being hosted on google photos. couple of reasons for this. one the interface is nice, simple and easy. second google's policy has never been to offer a service and then snatch it away. so id think the chances of a photobucket repetition are small.

as for the car/s. the V6 is fine and dandy, one small oil leak to sort and all will be well. thats my fault. i forgot to torque one of the end plates down. serves me right for being in a hurry to a deadline that turned out to be B/S anyway. oh, and it has a sticking piston ring. smokes wen revved hard until fully warm. again i was in too much of a hurry to reassemble so although i took the time to clean all the ring lands out, i must have missed a bit at 4am when i was building the block up. so ill drop the engine (again) and see to that and the leak at the same time.

but the red one. oh the red one. this is taking far longer than intended, i wanted it sold by now to fund the v6's petrol habit

clutch plate arrived today, i refitted the gearbox and dropped the engine back in. im getting quite good at that now lol. just gotta finish off attaching the ancilleries and mot it. then itll be for sale.

getting there, slowly. im losing the V6 faith a bit though. the insurance difference is STUPID! i can insure it as a N/a for £98 agreed value on a classic policy. that underwriter wont touch it as a V6 so the best so far is adrian Flux at £260, all mods declared. next best quote is £1100! im seriously considering going back to motorbikes. this fast car lark is sodding EXPENSIVE!

its my birthday on the 20th, this year i've been bought a movie car experience day at a local airfield. i had the choice of loads of cars like the Fast and Furious supra, Skyline etc, then a 007 Aston v8 vantage, a new GTR, the bullitt car etc. i chose the skyline, it should be a laugh, it was a tossup between that or the Aston but the aston id get half as many laps.

ill let you know how i get on, its on sunday.... my first ever track experience... in a tuned skyline with nitrous... YIKES!

[qwakers]

[qwakers]

well all my photos above are hosted by photobucket, and im in no hurry to rehost them, but i will if i have to. they still seem to be alive at the moment.

all future pics are being hosted on google photos.

scratch that i cant use google photos. ive gone with imgur.

[qwakers]

i spent the day playing in a skyline and a aston martin v8 vantage today.




















videos later. i had a instructor in the other seat, thats who im talking to lol.
both instructors said i did really well for my first track experience and gave me 98/100 on the score cards. the organizers said no one ever gets over 90, but i suspect they say that to everyone

[qwakers]

skyline:
https://youtu.be/S7xEaSvZJfw

please please disregard the f****up i made of the home hairpin first time out, i lost the exit point lol

aston
https://youtu.be/tKzvwqDp0ZA

i was VERY disappointed with the Aston, it just didn't feel like i thought a Aston would, Very heavy clutch, numb steering and brakes etc etc. i guess its a case of never meet your heros.

the skyline on the other hand. me want

[qwakers]

oh and its REAllY weird to drive fast with someone else in the car lol.

[qwakers]

im slowly going through this thread re linking all the pictures. at 1 page per day (lazy as i am) itll take me the rest of the month, but its not going to be too bad, unlike some poor sods who have over 100 pages in more than one thread to do.....

[qwakers]

Just bought these.
http://www.goo.gl/5NnCnH

bit of a bargain imho, I'm intending on taking it onto the continent next summer with a friend. she hates the bucket seats, so ill fir the celica seats, and chuck the drivers bucket back in on trackdays etc.

[qwakers]

well 'lil miss red is all finished bar a clean up and dust of the interior. oh and putting a few gallons of petrol in it.

doesnt it look better!

before


now.









im proud of that. it was a (censored) lot of work. I took the boot badges off so i could polish the bootlid properly. they will be glued back on shortly.

[qwakers]

so i have been well, procrastinating about pulling the v6 (AGAIN!) so i can sort a oil leak (crank oil seal seems to have eaten itself) and whilst im at it pull the alternator off to have it refurbed.

so i fitted the seats, sorted my dash properly and fitted the carpc.

the seats weren't anything like as easy as other people find them(according to many a thread ive read) i had to replace the celica seat belt sockets with the mr2 ones (despite everyone saying they are compatible, my seatbelt wouldn't lock in) and cut both rear mounts off and make up 2 (granted very simple) brackets per seat. took me morning all in.





then i sorted my dash. first was to wire in the 5v usb charger ive got into ignition live for the tablet, then made a bracket for the tablet mount in the cubby and put it all together. now i have TOYOBD and satnav

[androo007]

Oh shup up that's very cool!

I have a Link ecu which works via windows tablets, if you want.

Only problem is that the power socket is the data socket....it's one or the other. How did you get around that?

[qwakers]

its not a issue, the data and charge points are seperate and all the accessories (the tomtom gps receiver and TOYOBD data logger) are bluetooth. made the install a piece of proverbial.


the cigarette plug powers the gps receiver (ill out another socket in behind the dash at some point. the tablet is powered off of the usb port you can see in the first pic. thats it.

[androo007]

very impressive!

[qwakers]

today i decided to see if i could get rid of my battery drain. i started wih 700ma, which dissapeared when i removed the ecu-b and the dome fuse..one of those is easy. the ecu-b fuse according to the interweb is for abs and airbags only. i have neither, so i removed that fuse and i was down to 400ma, getting there. i decided to rip the alarm out wich halved it then i found unplugging the central locking control unit dropped it to 0. looking closer at the connector block there was a diode between two of the end pins. i have no idea why its there but removing it and plugging the wcu back in left the drain at 0. so thats that problem solved

what a horrible rats nest.,.



this was probably quite expensive back in the day...

[markstevieandmads]

Ive got the same alarm ive been meaning to rip out and put a toad in as it was causing me the same problem.

[qwakers]

the only thing ill miss is remote central locking, but ill fit a c/l kit to it (same as the one i just fitted to the red one) and all will be well again

[qwakers]

ive done a load more wire tidying today.

ive got rid of the 'lazy eye' headlight mod. it turned out to just be a on/off/momentary rocker switch wired so you could isolate then momentarily apply power to the motors to stop them where you want. that was interfaced in the frunk where the fuse should have been with a in line fuse holder replacing the proper fuse location. all ripped out and the fuse back where it should be. all is well again in my fuse box. then i took the permanent 12v feed going to the radio, removed it from the battery terminal and soldered it (with a 5a inline fuse for safety) to the permanent live going to the ignition switch (handy place as that's where the alarm was powered from.)

i fiddled with all the buttons in the cabin to be sure my repairs hadn't stopped anything working. the only thing that didn't work when the ecu-b fuse was removed was the electric folding mirrors. for some random reason the fold function was powered by ecu-b and the electric adjust was powered elsewhere. so i took a fused spur off of the ignition live from the ignition switch and fed the white/red wire on the folding mirror relay with that. problem solved. saves spending hours/days tracing every wire ecu-b feeds to find the device that's draining all my amps

last but not least was making my clock go blue from green


now i just need to wait for my alternator to arrive back from the specialist rebuilding it for me and i can get it going again

[qwakers]

more stuff done today. or should i say, this week.

ever since i fitted the v6 ive had intermittant charge issues, which got worse and worse until it was only charging at 12.8v and the battery light was on permanently. i knew my wiring was right so i pulled the alternator and sent it to a specialist. imagine my surprise when he called me to say it was working fine!

i told him to do the brushes anyway whilst he had it (180k miles is a lot for any set of brushes) and for the cost i thought it well worth doing... a few hours later i got another call.... ummm ive had a bit of a problem with your alternator... im going to have to replace the regulator too. turns out some of the wires inside the regulator had gone brittle and when he took it apart it disintegrated. thatll be why id only charged intermittantly then....

got it back today and fitted it, guess what? it charges! i love it when im right. and very glad i insisted on him working on it anyway.. or i might have ended up replaceing the alternator at considerable cost when i didnt need to...