Number 2 MR2

[Trotbags]

Joined a while back and have a manual Red 90 SW20 NA Hardtop but I have been looking for a second one with a T Top. Last night I picked up a green manual with T Top - also a 90 SW20 NA. It has done 130k and drives really nicely. The front shocks have been done along with the cambelt. It was for sale in Tauranga a while back and before that lived in the South Island. After it didn't sell, it was moved down to the Hawkes Bay and I kept in touch with the owner. Its pretty straight but needs a really, really good clean inside and out, a small bit of rust dealt to on the top of the A pillar, a good service and a few minor odds and sods. It still has MR2 mats and the bags for the T Tops. It even came with a very early version of Google Maps - a map book! Xmas will see it get tidied up and driven! I'm also planning on finally getting the new struts installed on the Red car.

[DravidDavid]

Nice! Clean and tidy! My brother had one in that same colour.

I like the lines of the hard top. But you can't take the roof off and listen to the exhaust with the wind in your hair with a hard top! If the t-tops leak, there is a guide that is floating around the forums to fix it. Recently did it after over a year of a shoulder leak plaguing me. Wish I did it way sooner! It's a 10 minute job and works so well!

[Benckj]

Nice one.

Make sure you get a good UV wax on the exterior before the clear coat peels away. Might also pay to hit the interior with a decent restoration product as it looks rather nice for an older gen 1.

[GDII]

Looking good. Seems pretty straight apart from being dirty and faded trim.

This car would look great with some treatment of CarPro DLUX and CarPro PERL. PERL can be used on Plastic, Engine bay parts Rubber and Leather. Not sure if it's good for vinyl like the dashboard.
See here for how well it works. These can be bought from an NZ company for a decent price.
DLUX http://mr2.org.nz/phpbb3/viewtopic.php? ... 65#p128642
PERL http://mr2.org.nz/phpbb3/viewtopic.php? ... 25#p129473

[Trotbags]

I like the lines of the hard top. But you can't take the roof off and listen to the exhaust with the wind in your hair with a hard top!

Yeah I love the way the hardtop looks as well. In my very biased opinion, unless you are playing in the supercar league, the SW20 is one of the best looking cars around. And they are very under-rated and pretty cheap right now. Give it 5 years and you won't be able to find a good one.

[Trotbags]

Make sure you get a good UV wax on the exterior before the clear coat peels away. Might also pay to hit the interior with a decent restoration product as it looks rather nice for an older gen 1.

Yes I will take a look at that Carpro stuff that was suggested. The clearcoat looks pretty good so keen to keep it that way.

[Trotbags]

Productive Saturday replacing the front struts on the Red Hardtop. Loads of good information on this site that made the job a whole lot easier. Hopefully get the back ones done today. Then new plugs and oil.

The adjustment mechanism on the drivers seat on the Green T Top was jammed so seat out and linkages reattached. Makes the driving position so much more comfortable! I grabbed an aerial for to replace the broken one (snapped mast) so need to swap that out and in the process of tracking down a wheel centre cap for the one missing on the factory mags.

Once we get some rain, I will give both cars a clean with the CarPro products. Its a little dry in the Hawkes Bay at the moment.

And then start to track down why both cars drain their batteries if left for a week..............

[Trotbags]

Great weekend finishing off the strut replacement on the Red hardtop and took the opportunity to repaint the rear Toms strut bar. The old struts had adjustable inserts that were about 50mm shorter than the new standard 93+ struts I got from Toyota. The springs though were exactly the same size as the replacement set I got. There were no bump stops on the fronts either. No wonder it was bottoming out so hard.

Most helpful tool was the cheap rattle gun I got from Supercheap. Makes undoing all the nuts much easier - especially the 2 lower bots and the top damper nut. Also used copper grease on all nuts.

[Trotbags]

A change in direction around cars (I'm getting rid of some old Mini Cooper projects) has allowed me time to focus on my Greeny Blue SW20 NA Beast. It has been shuffled around in the shed for a few years only coming out for wofs or moving house. It still only has 131,000kms on it and I've had it for 4 years now (it had 130,000 when I bought it).

It has a few niggles like a the sticky gear change which will be cured with a new Master cylinder (I hope) which I bought a couple of years ago via a good bugger on this site. I've replaced the cable bushes, slave cylinder and the gearbox oil. I've recently got a replacement set of cables too just to be safe as one of the current ones has a green sleeve which doesn't look original.

The passenger window has caused grief but with some great help from you guys, I hope to have that solved soon too.

The last niggle is the rocker cover gasket which I attacked in the weekend armed with new seals from our friends at Manawatu Toyota (Richard is a great guy). So far it has been a fairly straight forward exercise - though the leak has made things a little messy and it didn't help that the PO lived on a dirt road. Aiming to finish this off at the weekend.

[85AW20v]

At least the dust soaked up the oil and stopped it dripping everywhere.

[Trotbags]

So I got the valve cover replaced. It wasn't as bad a job as I first thought, the only real struggle was getting the plastic shroud that houses the wiring above the injectors. Once I'd figured out the clips, it just pulled apart. Having 30 years of crud, dust and oil didn't help. Some of the valve cover bolts were less than finger tight while others were tight. Unfortunately the essential service that is Repco/Supercheap not being open meant that I couldn't get any silver engine paint so the valve cover didn't get painted but it did get a good clean and looks a million times better. All the bolts benefited from some copper grease. Next task is the Clutch Master cylinder replacement.

[Trotbags]

Productive Sunday replacing the clutch master cylinder. Bench bleeding the new master cylinder turned out pretty simple once I figured out how to attach a hose. I cut the end off the blanking plug that was fitted to the outlet on the master cylinder and glued it to some 1/4 inch clear tubing. I pushed it back into the outlet, stuck the other end back into the reservoir and bled it. Removing the old one went well - I used a plastic syringe to suck out clutch fluid and the rest unbolted easily. Refitting was straight forward apart from lying upside down in the footwell trying to get the nut started on the bolt of the master cylinder. It hides behind the pedal box. I'd raised the back up on ramps before starting which made bleeding the whole system pretty quick. Test drive and all went well though there is still a little resistance when changing gears.

[mknz]

Either readjust the pedal or rebleed if it gets worse

[Trotbags]

I've potentially found the source of my gear changing problem. I'd noticed the gearbox end of one of the shift cables had a green sleeve around it. I figured because I had a spare set of cables I'd swap it out, just in case it was binding. Turns out the "green sleeved" cable was about 15 to 20mm shorter than the spare MR2 one I had. I swapped the right side cable out, took it for a quick drive and the difference was remarkable! Longer drive planned this weekend.

And to make a sunny day even better, my passenger window that has never gone down suddenly started working! It was a great day in the life of my little car.

[mknz]

Was it because of the passenger window lock switch? seen that before