Saving a high miler Toyota MR2 MK1 rescue

Today has seen some more cleaning
The gearbox was still a bit oily after yesterday’s clean, so I hit it with the gunk again.


Much better.
The manifold and tvis plates also got a scrubbing




I mentioned yesterday I wanted to do a pressure test so first attempt I tried looping and blocking off the pipes like this.


Add water and pressurise to 10psi, for a couple of reasons it told me absolutely nothing so let’s aim plan B. Blanking plates
Its a bit more work but should be more informative.
So a good start is to take the gaskets and mark out on some steel plate.
[

And run through the bandsaw.


Next item to consider is to figure out how to apply pressure and measure it.
So drill and tap one of the plates and fit the gauge from my leak-down tester.


Then drill and tap one of the others to fit my tyre inflator
Since these have to seal up I used to old metal gaskets with a thin smear of liquid gasket on either side



The third plate uses an O-ring to seal up on the back of the water pump, so I fitted a new one and just clamped it down



All of that needs to be left for the silicone gasket compound to cure so I will test it tomorrow.

I wanted to check the water pipes that run under the manifold, so I put them in the media blaster and gave the rust a good seeing too.



It looks like there is a good amount of steel left so tomorrow I will give them a quick powder coat.

I suspect when the other garage was stripping bits off it, he managed to break a few bolts and I spotted one of them while cleaning off the manifold.
This one holds the support brace from the intake manifold to the block.


Weld a nut on


and remove, it’s just that easy.



Toyota says the gasket set is on back order will the end of January so I think there will be a delay before I start bolting everything back together.

It's about what you would expect for an MR2 that has done over 1/4 million miles. It has had alot of mot "welding" and will be needing some attention but I'm just sorting out the engine for the owner ATM.

Not much to update, the pressure test hasnt changed after 48hours so pretty sure the coolant system doesnt have any leaks.
I have done a bit more cleaning in the bay.


Gave the throttle bracket a scrubbing too.


Had a quick rummage around for some replacement connectors but unable to find the male spade pin. I didn find a female end though so can fix the other end of the plug.
Replace this


With this


Have left the tail quite long so i can crimp it to the original wiring followed by some heatshrink.
Unfortunatly i don't have any open barrel crimps to hand for joining the two wires so they are on order.

Also on order is a timing belt and tensioner, a water pump and a full engine overhaul gasket set from toyota. Unfortunatly Toyota lives in the dark ages and is going to take a month to get the gasket set in from their european parts warehouse.
Not much to do till that arrives except remove the crank end timing belt pully. They can be a bit of an as they like to seize on and there is no room for a regular puller against the oil pump housing.

So a custom puller is needed.
Some angle iron and 10mm bar welded together to make the legs
Forgot the picture to go here.

Drill a couple of square holes in some 25mm box tube.
ok maybe they were distantly related to a square once upon a time.


welded on and then a nut welded in the middle


The idea being that as you screw the bolt in it pulls the pully off. just like a regular puller.
Unfortunately because this was thrown together by my the arms bent and it came off.


C-clamp added


and off it comes.


It was very stuck on and took a fair bit of leverage to get the the bucking fastard thing off. then just before it made the final inch or so the edge cracked.


Funk.
Ah well i have a spare that will go on. At least the oil pump housing remains undamaged

There will be very few updates untill the gasket set arrives so i might be able to get back on with building the garage instead.

Cheers. Yea I was a bit miffed off about the pulley but atleast it wasnt the oil pump housing that broke which is the usual thing that people manage to break.
Should have added an extra plate to the legs but guess it's a bit late now.

Cant provide an update other than to say that toyota has let me down again and are now saying they are having trouble with production of the gaskets and oil seals so your going to have to wait another 2 weeks.

Nice work, really love the MK1 MR2. Such an underappreciated car for years, and as a result, often neglected. Any plans to do bodywork resto? because its rust, like most Japanese cars that really kills em.

excellent work mate. Has it ever been rebuilt before? I know headgaskets can go on the 4age i think?

My frined had a white tin top one with a really funky black and white upholstery trim inside. It was a fun wee thing 'till it met its end upside down in the middle of a big roundabout!

Funnily enough i know it was post facelift as it was late '89, however it was cherished so i imagine it was put in by the previouse owner. It had an aftermarket pop-up sunroof but that always irritated me a bit. It had Koni shocks and 40mm lowering springs so it handled like a demon! looked good with the little drop too.

It was a crying shame, only 85k on it too

Back on with it.
I managed to source the genuine gasket set from somewhere that got them in from japan and even then it worked out cheaper and faster than buying from toyota direct... Go figure.


So the parts came in and i managed to totally ignore them for a week due to other circumstances.

I did get the gearbox input seal changed but that was about it.


Today i got cracking
First off i should really have removed the blanking plates over the coolant system by now.
I feel like I'm compounding a point made by smarter people than me but have a gander ere'


These 2 blanking plates i made were bolted to the same engine, for the same length of time and they were from the same stock.
The one on the right had a O-ring whereas the one on the left used a liquid gasket maker containing....
.
.
.
You guessed it.
Silicone or more accuratly Acetic acid.

Anyway on with the job at hand.
First off is the oil pump, Rather old gasket to get off and the best trick to getting this off in my experience is elbow grease.


Note: Aldi cheese dips are rather tasty and the pot dishes come in very handy later


Stanley blade


Followed by some 400 grit on a flat surface, for me thats a big lump of granite worktop, oh and don't forget to add some oil to the wet and dry.



The end result


No wonder this engine was leaking oil everywhere, this is the crank end seal which has been replaced at some point in its past with a cheaper part which was rock hard and cracked.



The block gets the same treatment minus the block of granite, a small piece of machined oak has to make do instead.


And bolted back on, All bolts fitted with loctite and torqued down.



Toyotas manual comes in handy here


Repeat the process for the waterpump backing.


On it goes with a new pump.


Same procedure of loctite and torqued to spec.
The rest of the day was a bit of rinse and repeat.
Cam shaft end seals have again been replaced but not fitted properly. They are pushed too far in again most likely causing leaks.


You can see here once i had removed the end cap. The oil way through the cap to the seal is essentially blocked by the seal instead of allowing the oil into the back of the seal where the pressure would keep the seal tight against the cam.


Caps go back on with a light dollop of goop in the prescribed areas


New seals fitted flush with the head


Things start picking up from there. Backing plate back on, pullys on, belt and tensioner on with everything timed up.


The redone water pipes can go back on. Spruce it up a bit.


Dizzy can go on next but needs the wiring repair finishing.
Crimp


And heatshrink


I decided to have a look at the oil filter housing to. I was told that it was one of the leak points and i could see somone had been at it before me with the gasket maker.


The surface has been cleaned up and will be getting a new o-ring when one arrives. Apparently Toyota's idea for a full engine gasket set doesnt include this o-ring or as it turns out the lower injector seals.

Next stop there was one thing stopping me fitting the sump and thats the rear crank oil seal and housing so the engine needed to come off its stand so i could access it. Onto the bench it goes, the blocks are on the bottom of the block and not touching the crank or rods.



End seal retainer cleaned up


And with new seal


The block has been cleaned and it will be getting remounted tomorrow along with the sump.