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Apr 14, 2021 12:12:07 GMT
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To start this thread off i thought i should give you all a rough idea about the history i have with this car. Part 1 I bought it back in July 2016 from a guy at work. It had been sat for a couple of years after failing the MOT and most of that time he had been pestering me to buy it. The final straw was when he said to come and get it for £100 or its going to the scrap yard. So i went and got it  As you can see she looked a bit dejected and rather rusty    So i got started welding up the chassis. Both rear quarters    Both sills     She got a replacement new to me interior, and i fitted heating pads to the seats  I repaired the doors   Repaired the front bumper  There was quite a bit of fresh paint sprayed around on any areas that i had repaired  A few other bits got cleaned up or changed as required and in February 2017 she went for the MOT and sailed through it.  |
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Apr 14, 2021 13:13:57 GMT
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Did you finish the Mk1 MR2
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Apr 14, 2021 16:14:57 GMT
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Did you finish the Mk1 MR2 Not yet she has been pushed to the back while i get this one finished. |
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Apr 14, 2021 16:16:01 GMT
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PART 2 Sky as she became known became my primary daily driver. We had some good shakedowns and ironed out a few small issues before the tapping started. I made the assumption it was probably a valve and continued using the car but then it started getting louder so by the end of April 2017 it had started to get rather bad. I took her off the road to investigate, found no issues in the top end.  But did find some issues in the bottom end.   I checked over the crank and it seemed fine so i flushed the sump out, put in new big ends and mains. Then flushed the whole thing through with some flushing oil and a couple of oil and filter changes. I proceed to drive it every day to work and back making small changes including fitting a remote central locking with boot actuator.   Leds and chrome rings on the cluster.  As you can see i also painted the dash All was golden and it made a great daily driver. Until the end of September 2017. |
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Apr 14, 2021 19:56:56 GMT
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Nice looking car,
Good work on the refresh,
Will there be any further updates ??
Nigel
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BMW E39 525i Sport
BMW E46 320d Sport Touring (now sold on.)
BMW E30 325 Touring (now sold on.)
BMW E30 320 Cabriolet (Project car - currently for sale.)
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Nice looking car, Good work on the refresh, Will there be any further updates ?? Nigel About another 2 years of work still to update you on.
And plenty more to come as I'm rebuilding it at the moment.
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Apr 15, 2021 11:56:44 GMT
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PART 3 There was a few things i wasnt happy with, knowing the big ends had already failed made me a bit cautious so i prepped a spare engine to go in and booked some time off work to swap them round and do a full rebuild on the original. On the final run home from work before my time off i was giving it some beans and felt a sudden change in the engine. I was about 8 miles from home at this point so i carried on driving, by 7miles to home there was alot of knocking coming from the engine. By 5 miles the car had little power and would stall if you didnt keep the throttle open, not to mention the unbearable clanking going on behind my head. By 2 miles the car was relegated to 1st and second to keep moving, it also wouldnt crank over on the starter after stalling it but i was still rolling so bump started it and continued. By the last hill to home i was relegated to 1st gear with my foot flat to the floor just keeping the revs above stalling. She must have been running on 2 cylinders by this point lurching and clanking, everything smelled hot. I coasted into our drive as she gave up. After giving her a few hours to cool this was the result of trying to start it. drive.google.com/file/d/1SX05PgOmq4EBOt5CMk8answ1z9PqxBRl6g/view?usp=sharingEngine out and spare engine in    I put her engine on the stand and got to work stripping it.  Is this too much play? drive.google.com/file/d/19NW5KOFUzsuw_VYlmoN0PPm1QFHpX0WBvw/view?usp=sharingThere was only 3 big end shells left, No1 rod with no bearing had enough play that it had been hitting the cylinder head. You can also see that no. 4 shell had been hot enough that it had started melting out the sides of the big end cap  At that point i started to add up my options. The original engine might be rebuildable but the machining time involved would be high and alot of parts would need replacing. The engine that was in would be fine for a stopgap but i wasnt sure if i trusted it long term not knowing its history and i saw the state of the car it came out of. Considering i didnt know what i was going to do with the engine i needed something to do while i had a week off work. The 50 shades of blue was really starting to get on my nerves so i ordered some paint to give her a blow over.   After several issues we eventually got there and the result was certainly alot better than what it had before.   I also filled in the holes in the rear quarter and swapped to the later 1 piece spoiler design.  |
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Apr 15, 2021 18:20:11 GMT
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PART 4 I drove the car around for a while deciding what i was going to do. Then mid december a Lexus RX300 came up for sale at a very good price, it had an MOT but really shouldnt have had and was rather rough underneath. The engine though was solid.  So the v6 conversion began. I pulled the engine out over christmas 2017.   Spent a few months tinkering with it, working out the wiring and generally tidying things up.  The MOT was due and i wanted to do a few bits so refurbished the front suspension.   Gathering parts i picked up a cheap MK3 gearbox and pulled the LSD out of it.  I picked up an avensis diesel gearbox for the longer 5th gear  A cheap set of 16” wheels came up that i liked so got them  A few trips up to woodsport to get the required engine mount, Flywheel redrilled to match the v6 and custom intake pipe made. Aswell as merging all my gearbox parts into one unit. Once the gearboxes were apart we decided to use the full avensis gearset instead of the mr2 one as it would also give me a longer final drive. By May 2018 i had just about everything ready.  Old engine out and spruced up the engine bay.   Quite alot of sprucing  And lifted the v6 in, or more accurately dropped the car onto the engine.  A considerable amount of time was spent wiring, plumbing and getting all the other bits done, including cruise control.    I built up an exhaust for it as i didnt like the locations of the stock manifolds i decided to make the full system up to the back box.   Not by any means a pretty or performance based system but it got me on the road The wheels got shot blasted so i cleaned them up a bit further and painted them.  Complete with fresh and very sticky rubber   I also got around to fitting a mk3 tiptronic steering wheel but with a bit of electrickery i wired the shift buttons to the radio for controlling the track and volume.  |
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Apr 16, 2021 12:09:23 GMT
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That was the conversion done. So a week of daily driving gave me a bit of confidence before i hammered on some miles. A week after i put it back on the road i drove it 500 miles to ben nevis and back one weekend, obviously the dog came with me, i think he rather enjoys it in the car even if he is relegated to the footwell.  A quick repair swapping gearbox input shaft oil seal due to a leak and the following weekend i drove it 1000 miles to Fontainebleau and back. A quick picture if front of the palace gates before the police chased us out.  A 2 week recovery space and we went for the big one and drove it to norway where i met some fellow mr2 friends for a roadtrip, 10 days and we covered around 3.5k miles. An amazing trip and some incredible driving roads over there.      A slight issue with the knock sensors on the way back but certainly nothing that stopped me from driving so we carried on and i changed them when i got home. It had been an amazing month of driving and I really started to feel that this was the ultimate touring and daily car. The suspension needed addressing though as the front inserts i had fitted a few months previously were shot so i bought a set of Koni sport inserts, Apex springs and Superpro full polybush kit. I blasted and powdercoated the arms and struts, rebuilt and fitted.    In March 2019 we got a brief feature in Practical classics magazine    Continuing the theme i kept driving the car every day for work and to the occasional show, In Easter 2019 i joined one of the mr2 groups on a spirited trip round the highlands. Which was alot of fun on some more great roads.   Driving this car every day for a year i really enjoyed it, lots of torque is always there waiting for you but its also comfortable and i had no doubts about getting in and driving it all day. It can also return around 35mpg on a long drive. By the time we got to august 2019 i had racked up a considerable amount of seat time and thats when a lapse of attention when coming home from work one day changed everything. |
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Apr 17, 2021 13:40:11 GMT
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PART 6 This is the result of not paying attention. Long story short i pulled onto a road and was more concerned by what was behind me i didnt see someone stationary on the road i just pulled onto.   I'm sure you will all agree it didnt look good. Once i got it into the workshop and pulled a few bits off i found that a fair bit was bent and not entirely sure if it would straighten with the equipment i had to hand.  We gave it a bit of a go by tying the car to a tree and giving the crashbar a good tug with the digger.    I knew the local scrap yard had a mr2 in as i had taken a few parts off it several months earlier. A quick call confirmed they still had it in stock so i went down armed with an angle grinder.  Typical scrapyard dog haha  This was august 2019 and i knew i wasnt going to get it done soon so the car went into “hibernation” for 20 months  |
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munky
Part of things
Posts: 462 
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Apr 17, 2021 14:50:21 GMT
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What a great story. Looking forward to more.
I did a Toyota Camry conversion to an early mk2 many years ago.
All was good until the gearbox started showing the strain - turbo boxes were diamond encrusted hens teeth at the time, so I just gave up on it and sold it for cheap with known problems.
It went through a few hands after that (at one point being swapped for a fireblade) before going through a ditch and a fence and to the big graveyard in the sky.
Wish I had your tenacity but I can be a little bitSQUIRREL! at times.
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Apr 18, 2021 19:56:45 GMT
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What a great story. Looking forward to more. I did a Toyota Camry conversion to an early mk2 many years ago. All was good until the gearbox started showing the strain - turbo boxes were diamond encrusted hens teeth at the time, so I just gave up on it and sold it for cheap with known problems. It went through a few hands after that (at one point being swapped for a fireblade) before going through a ditch and a fence and to the big graveyard in the sky. Wish I had your tenacity but I can be a little bitSQUIRREL! at times. Thanks, the na gearboxes are generally fine upto around 300hp. You do need to have an LSD in there though or all that power is going through one side of the diff and that will be the first thing to fail, I went to a longer final drive and longer 5th to give me better cruising RPMS. Turbo boxes are still hen's teeth but alternative units are starting to come to light. |
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Apr 21, 2021 12:58:58 GMT
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I have found some time recently and had a bit of enthusiasm to get back on with this car, so have clear out the workshop and unburied her from the junk.  Dragged out and up onto the stands so i can get cracking. While repairing the front end is the primary focus i also will be dropping the engine out for a rebuild and finishing up a few other bits that need attending too, including bodywork, underside and a few electrical quirks that she has picked up over the years.  First job is drilling out the spotwelds for the front bulkhead  While I'm going i decided to remove the capings for the strut tower, the main reason being that i know they rot behind there and i wanted to get it dealt with before it becomes a problem.  As it happens it did need attending too. On both sides  The inner wing straightened out nicely. Any final fettling will be done as i line up the front bulkhead.  Onto the chassis leg. It was apparent that it wasnt going to come easily without alot of tools i don't have so in an attempt to save alot of panel beating i chopped a section of it out and straightened the other half.  The c section will be getting replaced with a lump from the new front end.  This bit.  And with the bulkhead temporarily dropped in place you can see its coming together.  The cavities on the front strut towers got a good scrubbing,  Followed by some hydrate 80  And zinc primer, Once the caps are welded back on they will get fully coated in cavity wax  The inner wing cap flange on the driver side had a bit of rust on it so i chopped it out  And made up a new one.  Blasted and primed the caps  There was also a slight twist to the passengers side chassis leg so i cut off the outer skin so that the c-section could be straightened. Bit of remedial corrosion to be fixed in here too.  The first cap has been tacked back on, since my front cut had an end piece of the cap i decided it wasnt worth trying to straighten that bit of the old one so lopped it off.  Onto the passengers side there was a rust spot on the flange.  Chopped out and replaced  And onto the passengers inner wing/strut tower  A small bit just starting to creep through. Chopped out  Cleaned and prepped  New piece made up and welded in  And linished back  Cleaned up and blasted the replacement pieces for the chassis legs ready to weld in  A bit more cleanup, along with alot of measuring and trial fitting still needs to be done before i can weld the new front parts on but its looking promising. |
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Lots of trial fitting, trimming and tweaking has been going on to make sure everything fits properly. I finished up and painted the bits of the chassis leg ready to start welding, i also did the replacement sections.  Found a reasonably nice evening and blasted the front bulkhead, it has to be done outside since it wont fit in the cabinet.  It still needs a bit more blasting before i can prime it and weld it in though as there was a few spots i missed. So time for a full test fit.  Everything is clamped in place and its looking like we are good to go.  Onto the welding. The drivers chassis leg is now welded up.  And the passengers side.  On both sides i finished welding on the strut cappings and cleaned back.  Sanded down the bonnet and it looks spot on in original paint so probably no point in going all the way back to steel.  And made a start on the wings, both of them have quite a bit of unknown/suspect paint on so i wanted to clean it back for a fresh start on bare metal.  The new drivers side needs a bit of panel work as while stripping it down i found that the front corner was made up with filler.  Part have started arriving too, We have a new denso AC condenser  Along with drier  A full engine gasket set, i would normally advocate for oem parts but at over £400 i decided to give the FelPro kit a go.  Head bolts on the way. And a power steering rack seal kit  A few more parts are incoming and I'm going to collect a few bits at the weekend. |
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This is a great write-up and a car worthy of the care and attention you're giving it!
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This is a great write-up and a car worthy of the care and attention you're giving it! Thanks, she is certainly worthy. |
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Looks like google drive was having a bit of a hissy. they all seem to be working again for me now. |
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Some back but not all ...
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jimi
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,224
Member is Online
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May 10, 2021 10:04:28 GMT
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Pictures are OK for me, try refreshing the page a couple of times.
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Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
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