Ok, onto the last of the carrots and the last of the new car write-ups.
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For now.
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If you've read chapter and verse of my other posts you'll be aware of two things: 1) I take far too many photos and uploads them in a size that makes them a screen rendering nightmare.
Sorry, not sorry
2) I have two MR2s, which at the time buying No.3, were fighting me or were self-lightening.
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This made things feel like one long treacle wading exercise, affecting my motivation to work on them.
So what does someone with what feels like the burden of project cars do to help with the feeling of burden? That's right, buy more project cars!
Hear me out, though.
There is, or was at the time, logical thinking behind this.
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The big part of the perceived problem and the thing grinding me down was that I was doing all this work and was still nowhere near having something I could use.
Sure, things were moving forwards but there was still a long long way to go.
Add in it now being spring/summer, which is the time you want to be out enjoying them, the feeling is amplified.
I
(felt I) needed something I could use and enjoy, while working away on the others in the background.
That enjoyment then motivates you to push forwards and see them all done, ready and being used.
So what did I buy.
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Well, I could ramble on
(you know I'm partial to doing that.
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) about motivations etc but I'll spre you the boring deep dive into my thought patterns
(you're welcome) and will just tell you: I bought another AW11.
However, not another 4A-based AW, this one has an 3S-GTE engine in it!
The car itself started out as an
'87 NA, with the usual tired chassis etc.
This then fell into the hands of a coachworks company in Wales called QSR.
They took the car back to a bare shell, popped it on a rotisserie and completely restored the whole car.
As part of the process the boot was modified in preparation for a Woodsport 3S conversion
(a crashed Celica GT4 being the donor car), as well as the frunk and bonnet being modified to provide functional venting/aero.
The paint is a mix of Toyota black, I believe a Kia grey and a Hyundai red, or something like that?! At the time I wasn't sold on the combo and planned to get the red deleted or go all black.
Since sorting the wheels I'm much happier with the aesthetic.
Here's a few photos I was sent of the build, to give you an insight into the work:
Arrival day came! The transporter collected the car from deepest Wales and many hours later it arrived at its new home.
Before you say it, I also have no idea what was going on with that wheel colour choice?! Don't worry, I correct that later.
I only got time to grab a few photos before tucking it away for the evening, as we were heading out.
I'd then need to wait a couple of days before taking it out for the first run.
The time came.
It was the weekend, I had some free time and we could see what this thing was like.
I knew it was going to need a full service, as it had been sat for a while
(the former owner died and his son sold it to me) but I threw in some fresh fuel and we headed out.
We then promptly returned after 5 minutes because it clear something wasn't right.
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The idle was lumpy, which originally I'd put down to it being related to the conversion/exhaust/cams etc.
However, after driving just a few metres it was clear something wasn't right.
The car vibrated badly on idle, laboured when accelerating and struggled to make boost
What was supposed to be an exciting first drive and a step onto the path of process, had just turned into the complete opposite
](./images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall")
As disappointing as it was, the only thing that can be done is begin the process of identifying and rectifying the issue(s).
Well, swearing and thinking terrible things about it in your head is also perfectly acceptable in this instance.
It sounded like it was only running on three cylinders.
Which after seem testing, was confirmed as being cylinder 2.
The next few hours were spent checking the basics and then pulling known working bits from the SW and seeing if they solved the problem.
None of them made any difference.
I'd swapped the plugs, leads, dizzy cap and rotor, checked for spark on all four, checked the ECU, checked the wiring and done some tests to see if the fault moved with the changes.
It didn't, it remained with cylinder 2.
Defeated the day, I headed to the house and began what became a massive trawl of the internet
(and Pete's brain, as always
) to see if I could get any leads on solutions.
The issue was something causing cylinder 2 to not get fuel.
After some time and some logical deduction, the next step was to pull the injectors and get them tested/cleaned.
Given the car had sat for a while and I didn't knw the full history, it could simply be that the injectors are dirty and no.2 is clogged/dead.
On a
"normal" car this would be easy enough to sort, but I had to go and buy a mid-engined car with a whacking chargecooler core sat on top of it!
:facepalm:
Cut to hours later, lots of cuts on my hands and generally no fun had, the fuel rail was out, the injectors extracted and ready to be sent away for cleaning.
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A couple of days later they were back, along with the before and after test results.
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Yep, pretty much spotless
To be fair though, I had cleaned them myself using carb cleaner before sending them away.
Still, while it's good to know they're functional and clean, it didn't give me much hope that it would fix the wider issue.
While the rail etc was out I took the opportunity to clean everything done, then prep and paint a few bits before installation.
I'd also ordered new O rings for the top and bottom of each injector, which I fitted and then built the rail ready to be installed back into the car.
Now back in place, with all the crush washers replaced, hoses/pipes checked for leaks and a long list of other checks completed, it was time to fire up the car and see if all that work was worth it.
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It didn't make any difference and the exact same issue remained
(cylinder 2 was down)
:facepalm: I wasn't overly surprised but it was still a bit of a kick notheless.
I promptly downed tools, turned off the garage lights and went into the house, then headed away for the weekend.
While we were away my mind continued to churn through possibilities of what the issue could be.
Given we know the injectors are clean the only other thing could be that they're not being triggered for some reason.
I was praying this didn't mean that the loom needed work, as that would be a nightmare to work on! A couple of suggestions I'd seen in old forum posts across a few sites, was that the injector resistor pack could go bad.
I never even heard of it let alone considered it might go be, so I Googled to see what it was.
Interestingly, the images returned showed me something that looked familiar.
It looked like a thing that JD had randomly included as a spare with the SW! When we got home I headed to the garage and checked to see if I was right.
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I was! It wasn't in great shape and the wires had been spliced together using a block connector, but I could test the car at least.
One of the following was going to happen:
1) It made a positive difference and we'd found the cause
2) It made a negative difference but we'd still found the cause
3) It did nothing at all, meaning it was something else entirely
I connected it up and fired up the car.
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It appeared to sound different! Better! To check I wasn't just being optimistic I swapped it back and fired up the car agan.
Immediately worse! The car idle was too low, it was lumpy and generally sounded bad.
I swapped back.
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it sounded good! The idle was in-line with what a 3S should sound like, the engine revved freely, it was fixed! Or appeared to be at least!
As a test I swapped the bad one into the SW and the one from the SW in to the AW.
The fault carried across to the SW, meaning we had finally found the thing that had caused me weeks
(this issue had been chased for at least a month!).
This is why we need to keep forums alive and to keep using them.
Without some random posts from a guy in the US back in 2012 I might still be chasing ghosts now! It's also the reason why I docuement like I do in this thread, so another me out there might find the answer to whatever issue is giving them hell!
Given the spare I had had dodgy wiring I bought a used replacement from J-Spec.
This thankfully worked as intended!
It was a few more days before I got to drive the car properly, which was the weekend Pete was up to stay with us.
I'll get into that shortly as there were a few other bits going on at the same time.
First up was swapping the stock ARBs for the Whitelines I had.
The next being the one I'd wanted to do since first seeing the car: Powdercoating the wheels! The red/grey colour scheme was a bold choice, not one I'd hve chosen.
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I did consider replacing the wheels but the key challenge there is that the Celica brakes are huge! There aren't a lot of wheels that would fit, have the right offsets and wouldn't foul the front calipers! There's maybe 5mm of clearance in front and at each side, so they're pretty tight! I opted for
"Racing Bronze" which came out well, even if it's a bu88er to capture properly on camera
Fitted.
Note the house guest in the background
We collected them when Pete came up.
The time finally came.
Pete was here, along with his Mk3.
The car was
(appeared to be) ready and the sun was out.
Let's go and see what this Mk1.5 was actually like to drive!
Yes, I hate the exhaust too! It's going, don't worry:lol:.
It
The photos were actually from the second ride out.
The first was a shakedown run with Pete and I, to see if it all worked, how it felt and what snags there still were to sort.
Overall it was brilliant! The engine felt great, the clutch was just right, the brakes were surprisingly balanced, no noises or grumbles.
It felt like a sorted little car.
The only snags were the following:
1) The right-hand turn indicator bulb in the cluster wasn't working
- Now resolved
2) The speedo was a bit jumpy and under hard acceleration it read as zero.
So the faster you went the slower it read!
While it's a Rev 3 engine it's not the mechnical speedo drive in, because of the Mk1 cluster.
We'll get onto that shortly.
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Overall a great weekend spent with a great friend
Everyone bored of reading yet? I'm definitely bored of writing!
Grab a fresh brew; there's a few more dramas to go through.
I'd read up on issues with the speedo and the common suggestion was that the cable gets gunked up over the years.
Apparently you can pull the core, clean it, lube it and fit it back in, so that's what I did.
Before reinstalling it I put the cable end into a drill and ran it up to speed, to see if the speedo read properly.
It did! I finished the job and left it for the day, feeling satisfied with how easy of a job it was.
You know those times where you plan something, it goes smoothly and everything is great.
Yeah, that's how it appeared, until I came to test things.
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I took the car out and was immediately presented with a speedo that had no reading at all
I pulled the cable again, made sure it was all aligned, did the drill test
(which gave a speed reading) and put it back together again.
Back out I went: still nothing.
F.
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! In fixing something I've now made it worse, great
Now chasing a fresh ghost I decided to pull the dash cluster out and see if everything was in situ.
I got most of the way there and got side-tracked because the rusty cowel was too much for me to deal with.
This wouldn't do! I had to remove it, treat/prep/paint it before I could carry on.
So that's what I did.
It might seem like a waste of time, whichh it probably is.
However, it's also a good way to get some time away from the bigger issues and come up with plans.
That's what I tell myself at least!
I continued to plug away at trying to solve the speedo issue and got nowhere.
The next logical step was to pull and check the speedo drive itself on the gearbox.
Normlly this wouldn't be too difficult but as this is a 3S in an AW, the job is a little more tricky.
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The bolt for the speedo drive sits right behind the customer rear engine mount, so the only way to get to it is to remove the whole mount.
It's not difficult to do as such, it;s just fiddly as hell.
The nuts and bolts are at really awkward angles and I had to get creative with ways to remove them all.
In the end I was successful!
That success was short lived as my next issue was that I couldn't remove the speedo drive, due to it hitting the rear firewall!
The only solution was to separate it in situ, which worked but I knew it would be an absolute sod to put back in.
It was!
After checking over the speedo drive I was pleased to find that it was working as intended.
The gear was in good shape, the keys were solid and it engaged well.
i have no words for the process of putting it back in.
Sufficed to say it was not sunshine and rainbows.
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That would be forgotten if the test then proved a success and the speedo was working again.
Yeah, that didn't happen, it's still a dud
I'm still nowhere with the speedo now.
I was planning on leaving it as it was and dealing with it as part of winter maintenance.
The problem being that if the ECU reads zero speed while the car is moving above a certain RPM for a prolonged period of time it throws a code, code 42 to be precise.
It then cuts engine performance, applying boost cut at a lower level and generally drives badly: brilliant!
I'm now forced to continue the ghost chase and the next thing to try is to check the speedo cable union under the car.
Well, it would be but as this is a conversion I can't easily get to it.
I'll need to get it up fairly high to do it properly, so for now it's going to have to be what it is.
Next up was MOT time! I had mixed thoughts about this, as the car is super clean but it's also proving to be true to its Mule XIII namesake! I drove to the test centre, getting a 42 along the way, naturally
While it was up in the air I checked out the underside.
It's clean, very clean! A few bits of prevenative maintenance I'll be doing but it's nice to get some positive news!
The end result was this!
The only thing he mentioned was that it was worth me treating the front brake lines as they were getting close to becoming an issue.
The next day I did exactly that! So off with the wheels.
The slightly scabby lines
Wired brushed, rust treated, prepped and painted, they looked like this.
While I was there I wire brushed, treated and prepped the surrounding area.
The repeated the process on the other side.
Sorted and protected for another few years.
I then decided to do another of the jobs I'd decided I needed
(wanted) to do.
That being covering up the many residual connectors in the engine bay that had no purpose after the conversion.
I'm sure they'd be fine but it doesn't take long with cover them and it's another potential issue avoided
(hopefully) in the future.
The way I chose to do this was to cut the fingers off nitrile gloves, insert the plugs and then cable tie them up, like so:
Almost finished, I promise!
Despite the speedo issue I have been using the car.
Having to rely on an app to read your speed isn't ideal but it'll do.
On one run, which was on a particuarly hot day, I was driving it and spent a load of time sat idling in traffic.
The car had done well, hadn't given me any issues and the temps looked good.
However, about 50m from home, after I'd topped to let oncoming traffic by there was a popping or banging sound from the engine bay! The car drove home fin after that but after pulling onto the driveway I could see that was a puddle underneath it!
Thankfully the finger test showed it to be coolant and not oil, with further investigations identifying it was the collant expansion tank overflowing and weeing on the floor.
Why that had happened I'm not sure.
It's suggested it could be the coolant cap, the thermostat or even air in the system?! I checked the cap and it appears ok.
I have a spare so I'll use that to test.
The coolant level was pretty high so it could have been an air/excess coolant issue.
I'll pick up a new thermostat, swap it out and flush the coolant system at some point in the future, then see if it has any further issues.
I did pull the SW and AW out to let them get some air and to run for a while.
Decided to grab a few phoos while I was at it.
After pulling the AW back in I saw this
Which prompted this
Pretty much sums up my experience with this car.
Remembering that I bought this one because I wanted something I could just use and enjoy.
Thankfully, after getting it out again on Monday I'm happy to report no wee puddles.
I'm going to assume it was residual from the original blow off.
Well, that's it, I've finally got up to date with this car's journey with me so far! Apologies that it's an epic read.
Leaving it so long meant that it became longer and longer due to the fact I was continuing to work on the car! Do shout up if you see any massive grammatical errors, as right now I have no desire to proof read this.
Next up is updates on the SC!
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