Late Intro to My New Car (Mk1.5 Turbo) - Picture Heavy!

[tommundy]

New clutch time!

All stuff disconnected from the top side of the engine, gearbox oil drained, drive shafts and hubs removed:



Some gearbox bolts a pig to get to from the top (under all that pipework!):



Gearbox dropped:



Old cover plate:



New clutch and cover plate on. Notice the patent pending clutch alignment tool!





The actual clutch plate wasn't that worn but there was play in the release bearing and the cover plate flaps were quite 'flat', which is what was probably causing the slip.

I also changed a CV boot that needed doing and replaced a ball joint that was looking a bit tired.

It took longer than I'd planned to do it but it was a good learning exercise and I saved some good pennies by doing it myself, with a little help from friends!

[tommundy]

New chargecooler pump fitment:







The old pump had died and so needed replacing. Thankfully I have a water temperature gauge for the charge cooler so knew the moment it had failed! I used this as an opportunity to mount the new pump properly as the old pump had just been held in place by the pipes it was feeding. This is how it was when I bought the car and had just been 'one of those jobs' that you never seem to get round to doing.

I'm glad it's done properly now though!

The pump was an auxiliary pump from a Vauxhall Frontera!

It was very easy to bleed as you could move the pump around before bolting it to the gearbox. I used the mounting holes that are used to mount the Celica ST205 chargecooler pump so it's nice and out of the way of road debris etc. I just made up a bracket out of some dexion I had laying around.

Before the summer I'll replace all the clear hose for proper radiator hose as it's wall thickness isn't the best! Saying that, it's never come close to overheating in the 2 1/2 years I've had it, but I'd rather be able to fit the proper hose and then forget about it!

[FossMan]

Nice work.

I really want a ride in this car!!

Brave man rolling the arches on a mk1 too. I need mine doing... 8s + coilovers don't leave much gap.

[tommundy]

Cheers FossMan! I'm close to the point now where I can start thinking about any body modifications that I want to do before a respray. I'll be staying black as although it's a pig to keep clean, when it is clean it looks fantastic! I'd love some dishy wheels but my front brakes mean I'm very limited for choice, doh!

I'll be at JAE, Donington, Tatton etc. If the opportunity arises you're more than welcome to pop out with me for a quick blast.

Yeh, I still can't believe the tyre situation. Some 225 wide tyres must actually be 235 or 245! Let me know if you're feeling brave yourself and want to borrow the roller!

Cheers,
Tom

[tommundy]

Right, it's been a while since I've updated this thread so thought I'd give you all a story! I've been doing odd jobs on it over the past few months and will post these up later, but for now I will tell you the story of my overheating, 3 cylinder running and head gasket change!

This all started about 2 months ago when I was just arriving into Beverley after having travelled from Sheffield and was making my usual progress on the country roads on the way into Beverley. I noticed the coolant temperature had shot up (I check it regularly without thinking about it anyway), so pulled up straight away. I popped the engine lid and there wasn't any steam but I could hear it pouring out from somewhere. I quickly remembered that my expansion tank was in the boot, so popped the boot lid and was greeted with a boot full of steam! Not great when your ECU is in there... anyway. I left the engine lid and boot lid up for 10-15 minutes to allow it to start cooling down. I then walked to a local motor factors to buy a new thermostat as I thought I may as well change it if I'm going to flush the coolant system out anyway. When I got back to my car I knocked on the door of a nearby house and they kindly gave me a watering can of water, which I used to top up my system and then get the car home the mile or so back to my mums house. This was all on a Tuesday afternoon and I had already booked the week off work with the plan to get loads of odd jobs around the house done.

So Wednesday morning came and I removed what I thought was the thermostat housing, only to find that it was just a water junction. I then checked on the Internet and found the proper location of the thermostat housing and proceeded to remove the thermostat. Then I found out that the one the motor factors had given me was way too small. So, I walked down to the motor factors and went through their parts system manually specifying a 1992 MR2 turbo. They didn't have the thermostat required in stock so I ordered one to arrive on the Thursday. I walked back home and set about wiping down the boot area and removed the expansion tank also. I scoured my garage and luckily found an expansion tank from another car that would just sit in the only gap left in my engine bay. I then went out again to buy some brackets to make a mount for it. I'd organised for Kris and Alison to visit Beverley to matt black my car (a great idea at Tatton!), but it was slightly windy when they arrived and due to the now higher priorities of my car we decided to just spend an afternoon going around the great pubs of Beverley.

Thursday morning came and I went straight down to the motor factors once they'd called me to let me know the part was in, but as soon as I arrived the bloke on the counter said "nah mate, this one's too big"... great, I was thinking. So, they ordered yet another one in, off a celica gt4 this time for the afternoon. I went to the pub for a couple of hours as by now I was sick of walking to and from the motor factors. Went back and they yet again hadn't got the right one. We then decided to go for a thermostat that they did have in stock that was from a camry or a lexus that was the correct diameter but not as long; I just wanted to get the car up and running again! I got home and decided to make a fresh start Friday morning.

Friday morning came and I installed the thermostat, flushed the coolant through and got the car up to temperature. Everything was going well until I noticed some steam coming from the joint of the water elbow that I'd first dismantled originally! I let the car cool down and then unbolted the housing... no o-ring or gasket... that's strange. Okay, a quick check on the internet and I have the part number, so order one from Toyota Sheffield.

I then get the train back from Beverley to Sheffield and spend the week walking to work. Come the weekend I get the train back to Beverley with o-ring in hand. I take a look at the water housing and I can't see how this o-ring is going to be held in place. I decide it'll be best to clean up the two mating surfaces. As I'm sanding away I notice most of the bottom surface is turning silver as you'd expect, apart from a black ring that's steadily appearing! This turned out to be the o-ring, which must have been the original as it was flush with the surface and can't have been giving much of a seal at all. I pick out the old o-ring and install the new one; happy days! Re-do the coolant bleeding procedure, checking for any leaks, none.. great!

So I take it out for a test drive and it's all running great. I then pull up at a petrol station and stick a tenner's worth of fuel in. Minutes after leaving the petrol station it loses all it's power. Temperature gauge and all other signs seem okay but it had no torque or power at all and sounded like a bag of nails. I pull up down a side street and after a bit of checking discover that it's running on three cylinders. So, I take the car home and check ht leads, dizzy cap, rotor arm, spark plugs, ignition coil, ignitor etc. All fine... hmm... aha, perhaps it's the ECU that's fried due to the steam! So, on to IMOC I go and buy one from a member. Off to Sheffield I go for another week of walking to work before again heading back to Beverley at the weekend on the train.

I fit the new ECU, reconnect the battery and turn the key... still three cylinders! Argh!

What else could it be? Faulty injector I think now. I check that there is voltage getting to each of the injectors, yes! I check that there is continuity from each injector back to the ECU, yes! It MUST be the injector on cylinder 4. So, I limp the car to Sheffield on 3 cylinders taking it steadily as I was planning on removing the fuel rail and having the injectors cleaned and tested. On the Monday or Tuesday night I remove the injectors and get a lift from someone to take them to the cleaning place. They come back the next day but haven't been cleaned because their machine wouldn't do side feed injectors. Although, they had tested them and said they were fine for resistance and the solenoids were all operating. Hmm.. the mystery deepens!

Then I come across a few posts on IMOC having the same issue and it was being causing by a faulty injector resistor pack. So a quick phone call to Pete Gidden at SBits and I'm round there like a shot with my tools. About 30 minutes later and a few swear words I've swapped over the injector resistor pack. Turn the key... BOOM, all four cylinders, yes!!!

However, I've not had chance to see if the original overheating issue is resolved. So, I test it carefully over the next few weeks and find it's pushing coolant out into the expansion tank. I end up changing the thermostat for an official Toyota one, which makes no difference. Try bleeding it a million times, which makes no difference. Okay, okay, it's the head gasket. So I start planning on all the parts I need and order them all from TCB Parts (Toyota didn't have any stock in Europe!), ready to start work two Mondays ago. I had a week off so thought it'd be no problem getting it done!

On to some pictures

Work started on Monday 27th August and I made good progress:

Parts removed:







Inlet manifold, exhaust manifold and turbo removed along with cambelt and a shed load of other things!



Cam cover off.



That was the end of Monday. It's very tight working on the 3sgte engine in a mk1 and as well as being systematic I ran in to some tricky bolts and clips along with shearing some exhaust manifold head studs. It was also drizzling all day, which didn't help! I decided to go back Tuesday morning to finish it off:

Head off.



Carbon deposits on cylinder #4 from running on 3 cylinders.



Cylinder #3 for comparison.



Manky gasket residue.



Cruddy looking gasket. There were no visible cracks in the ring walls of the gasket but it looked pretty buggered.

[tommundy]

Valves.



#4 cylinder.



#3 cylinder.



End plate, cam pulleys and cambelt tensioner removed. Now ready to take to get engine shop to surface grind the head!



So, that's Tuesday afternoon that I took the head to the engine shop. I also took the exhaust manifold as one of the heat shield bolts had sheared, so I needed that drilling and tapping. For the head, I was wanting it surface ground along with removing 2 sheared studs and again, drilling and tapping if necessary. They said it'd be back Thursday morning, which turned into Thursday lunchtime. However, they only had one Toyota spec stud, ie. fine thread. So I had to order some through Pete at SBits.

Seeing as it was my holiday and was hosting a party with my girlfriend that night, we decided to actually have a rest for a couple of hours rather than treck across to her parents' house in Sheffield. On the Tuesday or Wednesday I ordered some extra gaskets such as they turbo to exhaust manifold gasket, throttlebody gasket and the hose from hell. The hose from hell is an infamous part amongst mk2 turbo owners that is nie on impossible to change without the turbo and exhaust manifold coming off, so I thought I'd change it while I was there. Mine was looking a bit worse for wear anyway.

Friday came and it was lunchtime again by the time the parts had come in at Toyota and we'd got over to the car. It was raining on and off again and was heavier than Monday. However, I managed to get the block face and pistons cleaned up along with fitting the hose from hell. A bugger to fit and align as it has a sheath around it, which makes moving it about tricky. Here's some pics of Friday 31st's progress:

Where did my engine go?



Shiny new gaskets.



Block face cleaned up.



Pistons cleaned up as well.





Shiny head back from the engine shop. They removed and replaced the valve shims and buckets as I'd forgotten/didn't realise that you had to remove them.



You can't really make it out but the finish was a perfect mirror finish!

[tommundy]

Saturday morning we drove to Bristol for the weekend, returning on Sunday afternoon.

I had a very busy week at work with meetings Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. It was JAE at the weekend and so I booked Wednesday off work to finish off the job. I'd got to Pete's yet again to pick up some odd final bolts and nuts and was ready. Here's the work from last Wednesday:

More parts to go on.



Shiny rev3 metal head gasket; this one won't go!



Head on and bolted down.



Cams installed.



End plate on.



Cam timing marks.



Inlet manifold installed (along with loads of vacuum pipes and electronics underneath.



Fuel rail, injectors and throttle body installed along with more pipes.







That was all I could do on Wednesday as the Toyota head gasket set that I'd bought didn't include a gasket for the oil drain/feed from/to turbo, argh! A quick phone call to Pete and he put an order in with Toyota. My plan was to finish it off and test drive it on Thursday night and then get to JAE on the Friday night.

Well... that was the plan. Toyota didn't deliver the part to Pete and so I had to call off going to JAE! However, this at least meant I could take my time on Saturday and make sure it was all put back together perfectly. The gasket arrived on Friday and so I made a final trip up to see Pete. One other odd thing I noticed was that my intake cam didn't have a dowel installed for the cam to go on. I did manage to get the cam timing perfect without it but thought if I've gone this far I may as well make the effort to finish it off properly.

So Saturday came and my first hour was used to strip back the throttle body and attached metal brackets/supports, remove the cam cover, cam belt, cam belt tensioner and cam gear just to install a bloody dowel, lol. With that done and put back together I carried on with the job.

Turbo installed loosely so that the exhaust manifold can be wiggled on.



Exhaust manifold and turbo all on with new gaskets.



HT leads, turbo heat shield, downpipe and o2 sensor installed.



Soldered on new alternator loom plug as old one was fubared.



Cut off unused brackets from chargecooler, painted it and lagged it with aluminium tape. (I've now received and brand new Celca GT4 sticker plate to finish off the chargecooler)





Alternator bracket, oil filter, alternator and belt installed and tensioned.



Chargecooler in!



Pretty much done!



I then fitted the exhaust and one of the bloody hanger brackets broke off so couldn't test drive it as it's just held on on that side with a tie wrap for the time being. I've had a mk2 exhaust ready to be fabricated to fit my car for a while, so that will hopefully be getting done this Saturday. It needs to be done by the MOT expiry a week on Friday anyway!

I topped up all the fluids and after cranking it a few times with the EFI fuse removed to make sure there was a bit of oil all around the system, she fired up first time! Woo! I ran it up to temperature and there were no visible leaks, but there'll be more testing this weekend.

I got home at about 8:30pm on Saturday and had a relaxing evening, although I had to prepare my clothes and stuff ready for going on a training course in London this week. Fun, fun, fun!

So, the plan now for Saturday is to double check for leaks and check fluid levels before driving it down to the exhaust centre to get the mk2 exhaust fabricated on. Then I just need to fit a new rear drivers side brake caliper as the handbrake mechanism was sticking on (I disconnected it 6 or 7 weeks ago as it was dragging).

Apart from that I can't think of anything that should need doing, but it'll be nice to put some miles on it before the MOT to check for anything silly.

Well, I got a bit carried away there but I know a few of you guys have heard mixed bits of information so thought I'd try and give the full picture. I'm sure there's stuff I've missed out but I'm glad I persevered with it!

Roll on full boost!

Any questions, praise or sympathy, please feel free!

Over and out!

Cheers,
Tom

[Master-B]

Great post tom. It shows that anyone can do it if they have the right tools and some patience! Well done mate

[mk1 dal]

what took you so long tom , excellent write up mate and hats off to you for top job done . a major strip down not for the amateur do it your self person , you have skills mate well done and saved your self a fortune in the progress , happy days

gary

[tommundy]

Test drive went well. Had such a grin on my face!

Unfortunately the exhaust centre weren't willing to give me a fixed price on modifying the mk2 exhaust to fit my car. However, I've booked it in for Thursday to have a complete system built from scratch Got to treat the old girl every now and then!

Will just fit the new brake calliper today then get it booked in for MOT tomorrow or Tuesday to find out if it needs anything other than the exhaust doing to pass. Hopefully it doesn't then I'll re test it on Friday once the exhaust is fitted and join you guys on the peaks run, woo woo!