Month: October 2009

Right, today was a pretty momentous occasion. 3 months ago (calendar, not days) i rolled the car into the garage, and today it left. But rather than pushing it out i drove it out under its own power.

First of all i had to put the rad in, and get it all wired up, which was pretty much a walk in the park.

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29380-1/IMG_0911_s.jpg[/img]

The rad only just clears the engine, and im hoping that the 2JZ doesnt encroach any more on the rad, as its already quite close:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29386-1/IMG_0913_s.jpg[/img]

After doing that and bleeding the clutch, and putting the wheels on it was a nice walk in the park to drive it out of the garage.

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29389-1/IMG_0914_s.jpg[/img]

After that i gave it a quick drive down the road, and turned it around to pop it onto the lawn and give it as wash and i was quite surprised that it was in a lot better condition than i had first feared:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29413-2/IMG_0917_s.jpg[/img]

But there are still some niggling little problems. Firstly im running slightly too much castor:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29401-1/IMG_0918_s.jpg[/img]

Clears the front guard there by only a handful of millimeters there, so ill have to wind it out a bit again.
Secondly the interior needed a handful of refitting, which i spent an hour or so doing tonight.

Thats about it for now. Its now time to start getting ready to take it over the pits at regency, tidying up little things so i can make it presentable for that.

Really really happy that its out of the garage again in only 3 months.

Since that last post i havnt really had much time to get anything done, did a bit of interior refitment the other day, but other than that not much until tonight. What i have been doing though is trying to sort out this fuel filter leak, and tonight i just cracked it entirely and pulled all of it out and rejigged it.

At the back of the car i pulled the fuel filter and remade a basic straight hose between the two flare fittings, and to do that i scavenged fittings off the old engine bay rail and the existing one that i had the banjo attached to.
After some jigging around that was done and dusted, and no leaks, and it was onto the front of the car.

With the fuel filter removed from the back i had to find a place to put it up front, and i figured i may as well connect it to the existing inverted flare fitting on the end of the fuel hard line (which normally connects to a soft line on our ADM cars).
What i found was that there were a couple of captive nuts, in EXACTLY the right spot for a fuel filter, and exactly far enough apart for my AE92 (and others) fuel filter to be attached to:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29365-1/IMG_0906_s.jpg[/img]

And for an idea of where it sits in the engine bay:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29371-1/IMG_0908_s.jpg[/img]

Just needed the line to be bent slightly, maybe 10-15 deg, and it sat beautifully.
A really good solution in the end, as it fits perfectly. With that in place i crossed my fingers and fired up the car. After a bit of revving, settling down, and fiddling with the idle screw it idled nicely at 1000rpm. Which is about 1300rpm on the analog dash, due to the 4cyl tacho installed.

With that done there really isnt much left to do, as i picked up some wheel nuts the other day too.

Off the top of my head i need to reinstall the radiator, brake bleed, finish refitting the interior, an exhaust secondaries gasket, a good wash, and a wheel alignment, and she should be all chipper 🙂

Not overly much to show at for the last little while, just been tinkering and tidying up little things as i havnt been feeling well enough to get really stuck into it much.

However, i did find a fuel banjo bolt off my 4AGE which fits so i could bolt up the fuel rail and try for a first start. But to my dismay the fuel pump wasnt running and the ECU wasnt turning on. So after a hell of a lot of wire tracing i found that there was a previous alarm install where they had cut wires underneath the fusebox to disable the car. After some soldering and heatshrinking all was good again, and i was able to start the car.
Engine runs ok, but the first time i started it i had forgotten to plug in the fuel return hose near the tank, so i poured half a litre of fuel on the ground :).

After fixing that we were good again to go, but then i foudn that one of the fuel filter copper washers didnt seat down properly and has become crimped and isnt sealing properly, so ill need to replace those.

But for all of that the car is running, and it feels like im on the home stretch now.

I picked up my radiator too, from having the thermofan sensor bung welded into the bottom tank:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29331-2/IMG_0882_s.jpg[/IMG]

Then i modified the AU falcon rad fans to fit the radiator, which included taking almost 10mm of shroud off the front so it would sit closer to the rad:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29350-1/IMG_0895_s.jpg[/IMG]

Apart from that ive done a bit more on the interior, fitting up my speakers and tidying up wiring. Also i have finished off the manualisation of the climate control, which ill write up a little thing on later for future reference. Not many pics there, there are only so many pics you can take of heatshrunk wires and testlights before it becomes deathly boring.

Really feels like im on the home stretch now, just need to get some wheel nuts, sort out the upper radiator hose, sort out the fuel filter line, refit the interior, and do a brake bleed and we are pretty good to head off to Regency.

A little bit of progress today, i spent the morning at TKs machining out various things, including my stock rear discs, so i was able to completely reassemble the rear end:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29155-1/IMG_0842_s.jpg[/IMG]
Spring and shock is only in on one side, but ill pull the driveshaft and do the other side tomorrow.

I also dropped the tank again and squeezed in my little fuel filter:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29149-1/IMG_0840_s.jpg[/IMG]
Pretty tight up there between the rail and the tank, but it should be ok.

Plus i mostly mounted up my little power steering cooler, just have to make a crossbrace back to the central upright tomorrow.
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29158-1/IMG_0843_s.jpg[/IMG]

Thats about it, tomorrow i want to put the steering column back in, and finish the dash off. Then im just waiting on a tailshaft and i can start thinking about getting it to start.

Not much has happened as ive been away and sick, so its a bit of a double whammy, although i have managed to do a few little things.

Firstly, the one niggling little bit with the heater box has been solved:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29176-1/IMG_0844_s.jpg[/IMG]
The clip is where the Celica non-climate controlled dash normally sits and then because there isnt a post for the wire to clip over ive used a simple screw into the stock receiver to secure it.

Next up i added some paint to both sets of rims:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29188-1/IMG_0848_s.jpg[/IMG]
First up i painted one set with White Knight Metallic Charcoal paint, which i thought Babs was taking the piss about, but it as actually come out really nicely, im quite chuffed.
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29218-1/IMG_0859_s.jpg[/IMG]

The other set i decided to give a gold with a silver lip a go, just randomly, and this is how it came out:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29206-1/IMG_0855_s.jpg[/IMG]

Quite nice too imho, and i think i might go with that colour scheme for the other set of wheels, although im not sure which ill use as a daily set.

Next up i wired in the analog dash, a pretty simple exercise, although it appears that my previous spreadsheet was horribly wrong, and really only applies to LHD US cars, of which this isnt anything of the sort. So after a few panadol/telfast/codral/codine induced dramas with confusing a couple of wires it was all sorted out and everything that i can currently test works.
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29227-1/IMG_0869_s.jpg[/IMG]

Had a few dramas with the indicator stalk, but after “consulting” with some RA60s and other celicas yesterday at UPullIt i now have a small collection of good indicator stalks to use, and they are a piece of cake to swap over too. A circlip and repin 3 wires.

Up next on the agenda was wiring in the thermofans, and a fusebox for the thermos and my “hektic stezza bro”.
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29224-1/IMG_0868_s.jpg[/IMG]
All made quite neat by my friend 3mm alu bar, and a bit of forward planning.

During this time i also popped in the tailshaft, filled the gearbox with oil, filled the engine with oil, and then started on the brake bleeding. Which turned out disasterously, because the MX83 master was pissing brake fluid out the back of the cylinder. No matter, a quick trip to Power Brakes in Holden Hill (highly recommended) and i had myself a 1″ MX83 brake master kit. 1″ i hear you say, i thought they were 15/16″. Yes, well so did i, but it appears that the MX83s had a 1″ master by default, but it seems that quite a few over the years have had 15/16″s put into them by dodgy brake shops (as my MX83 seems to have had) with little detriment, but possibly some slightly spongey brakes.
Never fear, after a quick reseal of my master cylinder, a bench bleed (made easy by a pair of brake lines borrowed from my rather sad looking race car) and we were back under way.
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29191-1/IMG_0849_s.jpg[/IMG]
After getting it all back together i taught my wife how to do the pedal end of bleeding brakes, and we set about doing a quick bleed. The first round found 2 stuck bleeder valves, but after that we were all alright. Ill do another round before we get stuck into it more though.

Now you might say, what front struts are you using, as last time i updated there wernt any in there.
Well on Tuesday i ducked up into the hills and picked up a pair of stock front struts from an MX83, expecting to have to chuck the MA61 upper hats on and use that. Well it seems that you dont even need to put MA61 upper hats on, the MX83 hat is the same as the MA61 one, and therefore the same as the S13 one. Nice coincidence:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29194-1/IMG_0850_s.jpg[/IMG]

Other than that i figured out my fueling stuff, wired up the ECU and got pretty much everything else sorted, im now champing at the bit to get some fuel and a banjo bolt so i can see if i can get the car started now 🙂

Oh yeah, and i cant figure out which of the 3 4pin plugs this sucker uses:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/29221-1/IMG_0860_s.jpg[/IMG]