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!!!