Hello all!
Where to start....
2 years ago I sold my Corsa to get something a little faster and better looking!
I drove from Chesterfield down to Oxfordshire to pick up this beastie.
I had always wanted one as my dad had 2 Mkii Supras so I loved them from being a kid but I did prefer the looks of the Mkiii.
I was quite insistent that it had to be white, leather interior, turbo and auto!
It was a joy to drive and I got a good 4 months of fun driving before the inevitable happened and the head gasket blew, Just outside Newcastle, on the way to collect a ratty metro to bomb about in for winter.
I was asking for it really cause when I bought the car I failed to notice the 18 previous owners on the logbook and 0 service history past the 90's!
Anyway, after getting recovered almost 200 miles at silly o'clock on a Sunday night I decided that rather that simply change the head gasket I would strip the lot down and rebuild it from the ground up! (slightly ambitious as my mechanical knowledge was zilch!)
I also had discovered that the auto box despite being a lovely box was just not as fun as manual, I live in the peak district and round those little country roads there is no substituting a manual box! this meant that an auto to manual conversion was also on the cards.
My other half Phil and I rented a unit that we could do the work in and I got cracked on (at the time he had an SD1 which required new front wings so although he did help I was left to it for the majority).
3 hours work got it from this...
to this....
The following few nights had it coming to bits quite nicely, it all took a bit longer than it could have as I was taking picture of where everything went and bagging and labeling everything so I would be able to put it back together again
At this point it was ready to pull out and the gem of a unit we had found had a 1.5 tonne winch in it's rafters, which came in very very very hand on a number of occasions.
I did get a bit of help pulling it out lol there is only so much help a breaker bar can be!
Yes! time for cleaning and painting the block almost!
In the mean time I had sent the turbo off for a rebuild as I felt it was something I probably shouldn't try and tackle! It had come back in all it's shiny glory!
I also got a full gasket set and a very expensive air filter through the post.... it felt like Christmas!
Back to the block I took the head off to see how bad the HG failure was. It was quite obvious where it had been blowing I can't say I managed to get any of the other pistons that clean!
The sump revealed some nasty looking oil and the oil pick up revealed some nasty looking shards of metal, that said the crank didn't seem to have too much scoring. I still chose to send it for machining with the head which I wanted skimming.
All lovely and organised
Whilst waiting for the crank and head to come back I got started on cleaning the block. A wire brush got the surface rust and ingrained dirt off that the petrol couldn't shift and then I gave it a light coat of primer and a couple of coats of black Hammerite.
The sump was a nightmare to clean but it looked good once I'd painted that too.
The pistons and cam plate came up nice, I just love rotary wire brushes hehe
Next on my list was the cam covers! They looked a rite state! but I did like the idea of sticking with blue so these got some paint....
I loved the look of the ribs rubbed down all in all they had about 4 coats of paint and two of lacquer to stop the alloy discoloring.
At this point I got my crank and head back. It turned out the crank only needed a polish which they charged about £10 quid for then only £30 for the head skim. Brill.
Now for the best bit... putting it back together!
The difference when the crank went in was awesome cause I couldn't turn it by hand before I took it out and when it went back in it spun like a dream.
all new bearings and bolts
Engine bay clean as well this was a funny road trip involving me tearing the towing eye out the back of the SD1 in the attempt to take the Supra round to the car wash to jet the engine bay. Probably quite illegal but quite fun too and you should have seen the looks we got when an SD1 with primered front wings pulled into the petrol station towing a bonnet and engine less Supra with an old piece of rope! haha!
next was the newly acquired gearbox. I bought a £500 donor for this as the R154 Supra gearboxes are silly money. this worked quite well as I got a few other little bits off it and made my money back breaking it
Anyway this is a before and after of the box.... I was quite a sight after this as most of the glop ended up on me! (no pic of this as I didn't want anyone to see me in that state)
With the handle of a screwdriver as a clutch alignment tool the clutch and gearbox went on lovely.
Now we get on to the head... I've got, how it looked after it's skim then after I cleaned it too.
I asked Phil to lap the valves in as he's done it before and it wasn't something I wanted to mess up!
An now it's ready to go back in! YAY! Again I got some extra hands. And set to bolting all my shiny bits back on!
And Done! Only thing was it wouldn't fire! the suspect was something to do with the it being auto before and the ECU not being happy. It turned out there was a sneaky ECU for the gearbox separate to the engine ECU and once this was unplugged it went!
I was well chuffed, the running in period was tedious as the turbo kept egging me on to let it rip but I was restrained for a full 1000miles and it runs sweet as a nut.
Next on the agenda was the brakes... they looked liked they hadn't been changed in donkeys the discs and pads were shot! only having the budget for the fronts I changed the discs and pads to see if we had improvement and although it was alright for the first few 100 miles my calipers seemed to be sticking more and more. this was wearing a ridge in my new disc so I wasn't too impressed!
I had the calipers off and the problem was evident... the pistons were seized solid!
Some new ones to the rescue and we were running much better!
But!!!! after a few months of running again it seemed there were still problems. after hard driving they would still stick on! I could only assume it must be perished brake lines as everything else was new so I set to work again..
I went for some nice braided lines, unfortunately I don't have any pics of fitting them but it had to be a quick job, 2 of us doing a side each with the whole thing on axle stands. but this did finally fix the brake problem which was a relief!
I will eventually change all the discs for grooved with some up-rated pads but I can't justify the cost at the moment as there is a lot to do first
Oh and I dropped the beastie by 35mm leaving it looking like this
I have probably missed loads of things I've done but I wanted to kinda bring everyone up to date as it's still an unfinished project
If you want to see more you can find a lot here
www.mkiiisupra.net/bbs/index.php
and just search posts made by Melody
Now for my future plans...
I am aiming for the car to look like this...
A friend did his Supra in a touring car scheme and I loved it.
At the moment the car is parked up waiting for all this special treatment and I am repainting the wheels white as we speak as the first step to getting it looking like I want.
There are a few things I need to do first, I have welding to do in the boot and on the OSR arch for the MOT and I also have a new front bumper and passenger door to paint and go on as the old ones are a little worse for wear.
The engine after a year of running has sprung a couple of leaks which I need to sort out as there was power steering fluid all over one wheel and I don't want the same happening again when their white!
I have quite a few wiring issues thanks to previous owners cutting and chopping under the dash so I will be swapping the dash loom too.
I will keep you all posted with plenty of pics as I get it perfect.
Hope you enjoy
Mel
Where to start....
2 years ago I sold my Corsa to get something a little faster and better looking!
I drove from Chesterfield down to Oxfordshire to pick up this beastie.
I had always wanted one as my dad had 2 Mkii Supras so I loved them from being a kid but I did prefer the looks of the Mkiii.
I was quite insistent that it had to be white, leather interior, turbo and auto!
It was a joy to drive and I got a good 4 months of fun driving before the inevitable happened and the head gasket blew, Just outside Newcastle, on the way to collect a ratty metro to bomb about in for winter.
I was asking for it really cause when I bought the car I failed to notice the 18 previous owners on the logbook and 0 service history past the 90's!
Anyway, after getting recovered almost 200 miles at silly o'clock on a Sunday night I decided that rather that simply change the head gasket I would strip the lot down and rebuild it from the ground up! (slightly ambitious as my mechanical knowledge was zilch!)
I also had discovered that the auto box despite being a lovely box was just not as fun as manual, I live in the peak district and round those little country roads there is no substituting a manual box! this meant that an auto to manual conversion was also on the cards.
My other half Phil and I rented a unit that we could do the work in and I got cracked on (at the time he had an SD1 which required new front wings so although he did help I was left to it for the majority).
3 hours work got it from this...
to this....
The following few nights had it coming to bits quite nicely, it all took a bit longer than it could have as I was taking picture of where everything went and bagging and labeling everything so I would be able to put it back together again
At this point it was ready to pull out and the gem of a unit we had found had a 1.5 tonne winch in it's rafters, which came in very very very hand on a number of occasions.
I did get a bit of help pulling it out lol there is only so much help a breaker bar can be!
Yes! time for cleaning and painting the block almost!
In the mean time I had sent the turbo off for a rebuild as I felt it was something I probably shouldn't try and tackle! It had come back in all it's shiny glory!
I also got a full gasket set and a very expensive air filter through the post.... it felt like Christmas!
Back to the block I took the head off to see how bad the HG failure was. It was quite obvious where it had been blowing
I can't say I managed to get any of the other pistons that clean! The sump revealed some nasty looking oil and the oil pick up revealed some nasty looking shards of metal, that said the crank didn't seem to have too much scoring. I still chose to send it for machining with the head which I wanted skimming.
All lovely and organised
Whilst waiting for the crank and head to come back I got started on cleaning the block. A wire brush got the surface rust and ingrained dirt off that the petrol couldn't shift and then I gave it a light coat of primer and a couple of coats of black Hammerite.
The sump was a nightmare to clean but it looked good once I'd painted that too.
The pistons and cam plate came up nice, I just love rotary wire brushes
heheNext on my list was the cam covers! They looked a rite state! but I did like the idea of sticking with blue so these got some paint....
I loved the look of the ribs rubbed down
all in all they had about 4 coats of paint and two of lacquer to stop the alloy discoloring.At this point I got my crank and head back. It turned out the crank only needed a polish which they charged about £10 quid for then only £30 for the head skim. Brill.
Now for the best bit... putting it back together!
The difference when the crank went in was awesome cause I couldn't turn it by hand before I took it out and when it went back in it spun like a dream.
all new bearings and bolts
Engine bay clean as well
this was a funny road trip involving me tearing the towing eye out the back of the SD1 in the attempt to take the Supra round to the car wash to jet the engine bay. Probably quite illegal but quite fun too and you should have seen the looks we got when an SD1 with primered front wings pulled into the petrol station towing a bonnet and engine less Supra with an old piece of rope! haha!next was the newly acquired gearbox. I bought a £500 donor for this as the R154 Supra gearboxes are silly money. this worked quite well as I got a few other little bits off it and made my money back breaking it
Anyway this is a before and after of the box.... I was quite a sight after this as most of the glop ended up on me! (no pic of this as I didn't want anyone to see me in that state)
With the handle of a screwdriver as a clutch alignment tool the clutch and gearbox went on lovely.
Now we get on to the head... I've got, how it looked after it's skim then after I cleaned it too.
I asked Phil to lap the valves in as he's done it before and it wasn't something I wanted to mess up!
An now it's ready to go back in! YAY! Again I got some extra hands. And set to bolting all my shiny bits back on!
And Done! Only thing was it wouldn't fire! the suspect was something to do with the it being auto before and the ECU not being happy. It turned out there was a sneaky ECU for the gearbox separate to the engine ECU and once this was unplugged it went!
I was well chuffed, the running in period was tedious as the turbo kept egging me on to let it rip but I was restrained for a full 1000miles and it runs sweet as a nut.
Next on the agenda was the brakes... they looked liked they hadn't been changed in donkeys the discs and pads were shot! only having the budget for the fronts I changed the discs and pads to see if we had improvement and although it was alright for the first few 100 miles my calipers seemed to be sticking more and more. this was wearing a ridge in my new disc so I wasn't too impressed!
I had the calipers off and the problem was evident... the pistons were seized solid!
Some new ones to the rescue and we were running much better!
But!!!! after a few months of running again it seemed there were still problems. after hard driving they would still stick on! I could only assume it must be perished brake lines as everything else was new so I set to work again..
I went for some nice braided lines, unfortunately I don't have any pics of fitting them but it had to be a quick job, 2 of us doing a side each with the whole thing on axle stands. but this did finally fix the brake problem which was a relief!
I will eventually change all the discs for grooved with some up-rated pads but I can't justify the cost at the moment as there is a lot to do first
Oh and I dropped the beastie by 35mm leaving it looking like this
I have probably missed loads of things I've done but I wanted to kinda bring everyone up to date as it's still an unfinished project
If you want to see more you can find a lot here
www.mkiiisupra.net/bbs/index.php
and just search posts made by Melody
Now for my future plans...
I am aiming for the car to look like this...
A friend did his Supra in a touring car scheme and I loved it.
At the moment the car is parked up waiting for all this special treatment and I am repainting the wheels white as we speak as the first step to getting it looking like I want.
There are a few things I need to do first, I have welding to do in the boot and on the OSR arch for the MOT and I also have a new front bumper and passenger door to paint and go on as the old ones are a little worse for wear.
The engine after a year of running has sprung a couple of leaks which I need to sort out as there was power steering fluid all over one wheel and I don't want the same happening again when their white!
I have quite a few wiring issues thanks to previous owners cutting and chopping under the dash so I will be swapping the dash loom too.
I will keep you all posted with plenty of pics as I get it perfect.
Hope you enjoy
Mel
.
