I thought I would share my experience with Olbermotive in Hamilton, near Glasgow.
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Apologies for the length of this post.
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After stories on the hassles of fitting a decat to the MR2, I decided to have a garage do the work
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(which I rarely do).
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I also had a small bit of welding needed on a pipe leading to the backbox.
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I went to Olbermotive on recommendation, and due to the fact that there is, unfortunately, a distinct lack of MR2 Specialists in Scotland.
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There are plenty of local garages in Edinburgh, but I decided to travel
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~40 miles for the sake of a place that knows their way around the SW20.
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I drove through, left the car at the garage, and was given a lift to the station to spend the day in town, which I thought was very nice.
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On receiving a phone call telling me that the car was ready, I was again picked up from the station and brought back to the garage, again very nice gesture.
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I drove the car home along the motorway; once I came off the motorway, nearing home, I noticed the temperature gauge rising past normal operating temperature at quite an alarming rate.
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I pulled over, looked underneath and was greeted by a stream of boiling water pouring out from under the car.
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After letting it cool, and filling it back up, I nursed it home.
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The next morning I jacked the car up to see if I could spot where it was coming from, and there was my mid section undertray flapping around missing bolts.
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There was also no rear undertray on the car at all.
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The leak was indeed up beside the new decat
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(the oil cooler section of the oil filter housing).
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I attempted to tighten the loose bolt up, but it just kept spinning.
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I then removed the stud to find it had the thread stripped.
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After replacing the stud with a nut and bolt, I tightened it up.
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Strangely it was still dripping, just not as much.
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I then managed to fill the car back up with water and as I was doing so I noticed something different about the engine bay.
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Couldn't quite put my finger on it though.
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Maybe it was nothing.
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I called Olie, and suggested I bring it through, as the gasket was perhaps not sealing as it should.
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He said that it was indeed a part he would have had to move to fit the decat, and something must be wrong.
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I turned the boost controller right down to run only actuator pressure as a safety precaution, reset the peak boost reading, and nursed the car to work with a boot full of water bottles so that I could then drive it the
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~40 miles to Olbermotive without it overheating.
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In the afternoon I went to fill it back up with water, and again I was sure there was something not quite right about the engine bay layout.
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Then it struck me, there was no cross-bar strut brace.
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And indeed, the two rear struts were being held to the car with one solitary bolt.
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Dodgy.
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I then called Olie up to ask him about the brace and the undertray, and he told me they were both through there at his garage.
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I drove the car back through, slightly hacked off to say the least, cooling it down and topping it up as needed.
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The next afternoon Ollie told me that the car was finished, and that he would bring it through for me at night
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(which was a very nice gesture).
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When he did
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(an hour earlier than he said
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- again very nice) I quickly checked it over, strut brace was back as it should be, and so was the undertray.
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I let it run on idle for a while, and thankfully no leaks were to be seen.
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Ok, I was happy.
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He said that the gasket at the point of the leak was missing, so can only assume he hadnt put it back in.
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He mentioned that one of the drop links may be away due to a knocking over bumps, which I had heard before and was planning to get done at some point.
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He also said that he thought it sounded as if it had a boost leak somewhere though, which was news to me, but again something I may have missed, I am not the MR2 specialist.
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The next day I finally got a chance to drive the car, with the boost still set to actuator pressure, checking my peak boost
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(reset on switching back to actuator pressure when the water leak was found) it read 0.52bar
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- which is healthy as it should be.
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After driving the car to operating temperature I opened it up a little, and checked my Boost Gauge
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- 0.4 bar.
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I then switched my boost controller to current boost reading to double check this figure, and wound it up again
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- 0.41 bar.
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I switched back to peak to make sure I wasn't seeing things; there it was, stored from the day I took it back through to Olbermotive at 0.52 bar.
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So, I have now developed a boost leak of 0.11bar.
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Oh, and a nice big score across my nice new TRD gear knob.
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and this from an MR2 Specialist.
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Not impressed.
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