One project ends...another begins....

So my weekend backroad toy/girlfriends car is now complete.. A few niggles needed rectifying which i outlined in the last post. As expected, i battered through them fairly easily, with a clutch slave cylinder replacement thrown in for good measure! So after a few backroad shakedowns it seems to be in rude health! The rear wing is finished and has been given a crude blowover to blend it in. I will paint it properly when i get a suitable quiet time, as the rear bumper needs sorting too. Not urgent so not getting done for the moment:

Still looks ok all the same. I gave her a clean today to take a bit of pride in it, not to mention stand back and admire my handiwork....

 So we are up to speed on the MR2 for now. I feel comfortable letting it go unleashed for a summer season. Might get it in for a respray this coming winter but we will see how the garage situation looks first. As there is now a space in the garage, i took the opportunity to do something about the Passats "problem". As the repairs would be about half the cost of the cars total value, the car being close to 200k miles, and the rest of the cars maintenance being woefully overlooked, i have decided to cut my losses and seek a new daily. Cue an eBay splurge and a replacement Mercedes! I did miss the last one (the C180 estate) but found it ugly as sin with its hunchback proportions. This new one being a saloon i have to say is a lot more gentle on the retinas:

i wont go banging on about this in too much detail as it is after all a daily, but i might as well cover something rather than let the blog go silent, and it will be getting a few interesting and relevant tweaks that may carry onto other projects... ;)

Its a C180 on an L plate, one of the first of the W202 range Mercs. Being a "Classic" its lucky to even have a steering wheel. Aircon and cruise control are absent, but thankfully so is the dire wood panelled interior options, and the less there is the less can go wrong! No alloys to speak of but i still have the stock 15" ones from my last elegance. Eagle eye readers will spot a dodgy influence of rattle can experiments, with the previous owner deciding to ignore the real paint issues and rusts spots and instead badly black out the grille and half of the rear lights. Not being urgent issues they have been put "down the list". I love my lists....

First things first, SERVICE!

...new plugs, oil, and filters. Good chance for me to root about and appraise the mechanicals. Engine seems ok, slight lump in the idle but pulls well enough. One thing i did notice was a pin holed radiator. As its in for work anyway i took no chances with rad-weld and instead plumped out a big note on a new radiator. Old one out:

...sensors swapped...

...and new one fitted. Funds have dried up a touch this month, so some bodywork prep was the cheapest way to occupy my time until payday. That grille was the initial subject of my wrath. Half a litre of white spirits and a couple of scotch pads saw the majority of the poorly applied paint removed:

...so that should save me 40 odd quid in a new grille. a bit of Autosol will get the shine back too.

The rest of the car has its fair share of rust. More than any Merc should have i should point out. God knows who was in charge of the quality control in that place in the mid 90s, but they should be taken out the back and shot. One front wing will undoubtedly need changed, and the other side is looking ropey too. As the grille was off i got in about with a screwdriver and tested the patches of rust to see how far gone it was. Pleased to report that the wings seem to be the worst affected areas. A sand back and some Kurust took us upto the end of my car funds this month. Coming up... what will become of the cars colour scheme?

MR2 - Repairs done, modifications continue

Got the '2 taxed and on the road again. First drives helped identify a few problem areas...These were as follows:

1. Handbrake weak. In all likelyness brakes need bedded in. To be re-appraised.

2. Minor oil drips. Could be from undertorqued oil filter.

3. Head unit still pumped. Sound only comes on after a bump in the road. I forgot about this one!

4. Dash light on fuel gauge side flickering

5. Metallic skimming noise coming from O/S whilst moving. Suspected dustguard bent out of shape.

6. Car is a joke for handling. Darting all over the road and heavy to steer. Front ARB to be refitted ASAP and tracking to be reset.

So how did it fare once i pulled it back in? Well the first hitch was simple. Took the rear wheels off and clocked the witness marks on the rear discs were negligble. A week later and the rear pads have bedded in better. Got the car holding on Montrose street in the city centre, and on one click too!!

Oil drips. My first concern was i had maybe clattered the oil filter when wrestling with the timing belt change. Not even that! I had forgot to torque down the cam covers after repainting! Easy to find that fault too, just looked for the highest traces of oil...

Dash light has been a one off fault. No more flickering so if its not coming back i'm going to resist ripping the dash binnacle out!

Metallic skimming noise was indeed a dust gaurd. The O/S/F brake dust gaurd has deteriorated and split, with the bottom half contacting the disk. Again, simple fix... bent the cover back.

Handling. Now without the front ARB droplinks i was unabe to do much. Well, theu finally arrived yesterday so i popped them back on along with another cheeky mod i acquired while waiting for it to arrive: A rear SW20 (mk2 mr2) ARB. Much stiffer, at 1.5mm thicker. Definite improvement in handling too, with the car having that pinpoint go-kart like precision!

Head Unit. Not quite an easy fix. Electrical stuff is never my strong suit, so Having sound cutting out could be anything. In the end a dodgy rear speaker turned out to be the culprit. Headunit was replaced with a modern iPod compatible unit, and some Kicker components installed up front. Rears remain disconnected for now, but i may install replacements in a different location....

Outside of the snagging list i had a few modifications. First: JDM lights:

You may notice a lack of spoiler. No, not for a despoilered rear...There have been a few changes made to it.

 First, shifted the spoiler back a mounting hole...

Cut off the excess parts that dont blend in, and fill the open gaps with expandy foam!

...and fill in the gaps then smooth! Here it is in place where it will now sit:

Much more purposeful angle!

So that now needs repainting, along with a couple of holes welded up in the bootlid. For now though, its back in rude health!!!

Just as well, as this will be the next unplanned and urgent repair:

More on this later.........

MR2 reaches completion!

The last post ended on a bit of a cliffhanger i believe! Was the car losing oil pressure? Was it burning oil?

The answer was.... no. The sender for the oil pressure had been disconnected. On AW11s its a very primitive clip that attaches to a small post. Easy knocked off. Once attached it was clear the car was bang on for oil pressure readings.

The burning of oil continued though, but this did seem to be diminishing as the car was warmed/used. The jury is still out but i'm hoping its mostly due to lack of use!

So i had a wee morning in the garage with little to do! Droplinks still had not arrived for the front, so i had to find some jobs to occupy my time. The handbrake was resembling a gearstick since i changed the brakes so i gave the adjuster some attention. Not easy to access (couldnt even get a pic of it) but a hassle free job. Below is the brake off:

 ...and after the adjustment, here it is fully locked (one ratchet click!)

I did promise a snap of the engine all assembled and dressed up. Here we go:

...and while we are at it, heres the car out in the light, all assembled:

Lovely! So as of last night, heres how it was left:

Front struts disassembled to remove the droplinks. I wasnt going to bother removing them with anything other than an angle grinder. 

Todays task: ROAD TAX BABY!

MR2 nears completion

A rare thing in my garage! A car actually ready to roll out and go about its life!

Put some finishing touches on the mk1 last night, culminating in a test run of the engine. Will cover that later on, but lets look at whats been done in that time!

For a start, i was not halfway there as claimed on my last post. The problem with overhauling a car is that its easy to get carried away. One such incident was this:

Found some heavily soaked carpet in the passenger footwell. Now, knowing that the car had previously burst hoses due to the lack of antifreeze, my assumption was that a tired heater matrix had burst causing leakage into the footwell. It wasnt till i was halfway through ripping out the dash that i thought to question this, and instead fire a heater in there to see if the problem continued.

2 Days of sauna-like conditions proved me wrong. I had gathered a full inch of water in the footwell from damp and condensation! Carpets removed, dried and the interior refitted, and now no more water. Back to the repairs!

When working on any old J-tin, always plan 1 day ahead so you can DRENCH any component to be removed with WD40. It saves a lot of wasted time in the long run:

This allows the removal of scrap metal with ease (although the coil was mostly due to an angle grinder)

Now on with the new parts!

New flexi pipes from HEL installed

New front discs and ferodo fast road pads

New rear droplinks (to replace the chopped old ones)

A closer look at the rear discs. In a word - pumped. Time to replace those too!

Replaced! Fired some Mintex pads on the back while i was at it, they were on special offer anyway (eBay)

New battery fitted, as the old one had decided not to hold a charge

Rear flexis fitted, and system bled. Bricks for brakes now!

Now for some basic servicing. After the antifreeze disaster i was taking nothing the previous owner told me to be true. Off comes the timing belt for a swap over.

While i was at it i fired in some new plugs, cap and rotor arm in a bid to eliminate the mild "miss" i was experiencing at higher RPM. As it turns out, i was quite right to do so:

Slightly worn! Whilst waiting for parts to arrive i became a bit bored. Cue a new steering wheel, Titanium gearknob and snap-off wheel boss:

and the cam covers being whipped off for a paint:

The results of this will be shown shortly! As of writing this i am still awaiting front droplinks arriving. They were the only component i didnt deem neccesary to replace during my refurb. Turns out i was wrong as i jacked the car up to do the TB and heard an almighty twang from the front.

More worrying was the first start i mentioned earlier. Had her running for a warm up last night... lots of white oil-smoke! Im hoping thats due to being sat up for weeks on end, will try it again today and see if there are any improvements. The other worry was the total lack of oil pressure on the gauge, but i had a full fresh sump of oil, no rattles or noises to suggest lack of pressure (I think these have hydraulic valvetrains too, so if there was no pressure there would be a fairly loud ticking on idle) and no loss of oil. As i think about it i did have a large rubber mallet on about the crank pulley to do the timing belt, and the oil pressure sender is right around the corner from there. Will have a check today.......

Watch this space!!!