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

[pistol pete]

That's awesome tom

Just wish mine would start now

[Ben]

Looking forward to seeing this at silverstone

[coverco]

Looks good Tom, I bet you are glad it is back on the road.

[tommundy]

Cheers guys!

Yes Tommy, very pleased to have had it back on the road again. However, yesterday didn't go quite as smoothly...

Firstly, I removed everything on the right hand side rear and it soon became clear that the wheel bearing on this side was fubared also!



There was virtually no play until I took the hub nut off! I'll be checking the fronts too, but hopefully these'll be okay as they don't have as much load going through them.

So, off came the hub along with the bottom arm to loosen off the adjusting nuts. This proved tricky as the captive style nut that holds in one of the lower arm bushes was rounded and the metal hook that's meant to grip onto the bodywork was bent also. This meant a very careful operation with the grinder to remove the nut.

I then set about the CV joint on this side with Gary. I did it this way as I knew it worked and I also didn't fancy paying for another refill of gearbox oil by removing the drive shaft:







I decided to leave doing the front discs (and all the other jobs I have to complete in the next couple of weeks) for another day, so have today ordered a rear wheel bearing and a lower ball joint, as I thought I may as well change it while everything was off. I'm also just going to phone Toyota to get two new bolts and nuts with the captive hooks, as I don't fancy having to struggle with the other side in a few years time.

Just an additional word on the CV joints I'm using. I had bought some brand new Mk1 hub nuts and castellated caps to treat the old girl, but they didn't fit these joints as they were too small. This can only be a good thing as the new joints I'm putting on have a thicker spline. They come in a kit that includes a flanged nut and castellated cap, so nothing more to buy.

I'll remove the inner boot on this side and regrease the joint then fit the new outer joint when I go over one night this week.

Cheers,
Tom

[tommundy]

Nuts and bolts ordered from Toyota... ouch!

[pistol pete]

oh you have been bisy.. some things never go to plan...
yeah toyota expensive but worth it..

[tommundy]

Yeh, I'm hoping the parts turn up quickly as I'm taking the blue car off the road for the year at the weekend, so need the black one fully functional again!

I'll post pictures of my shiny Toyota nuts and bolts up when I pick them up on Wednesday.

Cheers,
Tom

[chief44]

Good work Tom. I hope to see this on a run someday.

[snoball]

wow

can't believe you've had so much go wrong. having said that i would've changed the lot when i'd got it - just for peace of mind more than anything - i did it with this mk1 - bushes, arb's, droplinks etc.........

hope that you're troubles are at an end so you actually enjoy driving it as opposed to fixing it

[tommundy]

Cheers, I think, snoball.

To be fair to it, it's been my daily driver for nearly 2 years and did about 12k miles in the 2 years previous to that so it certainly gets used. I've had it for 4 years now so don't mind spending a bit on maintenance as well as upgrades. I'll certainly be keeping an eye on the wheel bearings every 6 months or so now though. The 3SGTE must contribute to wearing them out, but it could just be down to the age of them also.

It'll certainly be getting driven in August! 2500 miles around Europe through France, Switzerland, Italy, back into Switzerland, France and Belgium ending up at the F1 at Spa and also popping across to the Nurburgring!

Cheers,
Tom