Toyota MR2

[lozzzzzz]

Indeed,  I've got 304 wire and argon gas. 

[lozzzzzz]

Actually, I think its 316 wire 

[Tony]

Nice!  Never tried stainless with the MIG.  Looks like a good job you've done of it.

[julesandtash]

I did all the stainless sockets into my stainless processor with stainless steel mig wire and pure argon.
It works quite well - a bit spattery but good enough for my needs and the welds are still as corrosion free as the processor and the fittings so must have been OK

[lozzzzzz]

A little update. The exhaust is finished, i'm quite chuffed with how light it is now that its based on the turbo system.

 

The new drive shafts have arrived and are now fitted:

 

I had a very frustrating day on the car though, lots of time wasted trying to sort proof of the emgine change, and one of the CV joints arrived in bits!!!  very frustrating.

More to come

[Dickjotec]

Keep at it, it is all coming together.

[lozzzzzz]

Had a whole day on it today.  I managed to get all the drive shaft and suspension bolts torqued up, although the bl***y TCA bolt took an hour to locate in the hole


I took the EGR blank off and cleaned it up.  It is much more visible than I thought it was going to be, so I've ground it back a tad.



Got all the bits of pipe and joiner sections together and connected up the main coolant hoses to the radiator (still got to connect up the heater hoses and mount the tank).



Got the last under-tray mounted (although mainly with cable ties).


And finally had a scratch around with the wire brush and applied a good coating of stone chip under the arches.


Just the brakes and clutch to bleed and it can go back on its wheels with all the remaining jobs to be done from above  

More to come

[Dickjotec]

Closer and closer. How long till mot?
How's the brewing going and what news on the A3?

Ps have you got the geat linkage working yet?

[Tony]

That's looking great, really coming together - thanks for keeping posting updates, I do love seeing projects like this!   (I think it's part envy that I'm not doing it, and part relief that I'm not doing it, if that makes sense?)

[Dickjotec]

(I think it's part envy that I'm not doing it, and part relief that I'm not doing it, if that makes sense?)

Makes total sense, know exactly what you mean.

[lozzzzzz]

I keep saying the same answer to that, but I think a couple of months.  It could be done over a three day weekend with some help, but I don't have the luxury of time at the moment. 

Brewing going well.  Still enjoying it too   I though I would have grown tired of it by now, but I still enjoy trying new things to make it faster

I've not attempted the gear linkage yet.  I'm kind of working my way up the car at the moment.  I should soon have it back on its wheels and then I'll start in the engine bay (coolant tank, heater hoses, gear linkage, air-box, and gear linkage). 


Thanks Tony,   I know exactly what you mean.  It is so satisfying to do, but it can be such a pain in the arse.  I don't get a great deal of pleasure from the dirty jobs (brakes and bushes) but they inevitably come up the most frequently! 

Luckily this project has been quite light on those sort of jobs (so far). 

[lozzzzzz]

I've been busy with lots of other car related stuff, so haven't had any time on the MR2 for a while.  But this weekend I did get some done, and with some help too   (cheers Matt)

The exhaust is fitted, I've bled the brakes and clutch, starred for hours at the gear linkage, finished the coolant hoses (just the expansion tank to go now), trimmed the subframe where the driveshaft was looking a little close and even found a way to connect the Toyota air box to the TDI MAF sensor (not yet fitted but I know how )

I've done away with all the resonance chambers (turbo means far less pulsing in the inlet pipe).  No need for all these:


Found a new cold air feed for the filter housing   (without the massive resonance chamber):


And I even managed to find the air box mount that I had previously thrown away


Then to top it all off, I got the diesel filter mounted and managed to start it for the first time with the exhaust on   The video isn't very informative but the cut down long story is that the exhaust is very quiet    but the engine is very loud!!!  (I think I'm going to need to sound deadening under the engine cover)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ke2LAJtPCc&feature=youtu.be

The first start is with an empty filter so it runs out of diesel pretty quick, second is after we'd primed the filter. 

More to come

[lozzzzzz]

I've had a very productive morning on the MR2 although my success has been accompanied by some new problems to solve.  The fuel lines are all in now and the engine runs with the simple connecting of the battery and turning of the key


The vacuum feed to the brake servo is now connected up.


And the expansion tank is finally mounted and I've filled the system with coolant and bled it, although its not got fully hot yet, so there might be more bubbles to remove. 



There are however a couple of issues.  The coil light flashes after a minute or so of running, I'm not sure really what that means.  And more concerning, it smokes! a lot!  blue smoke, I think its unburnt fuel. 

I messed around a little with the timing before the engine went in, I advanced it knowing that this can be a god idea with Bio, This morning I retarded it again to see if it cured the smoke.  It made lots less combustion noise, but still smoked plenty.  I thought this might just be down to it being on bio, but that can't be right, my 106 doesn't smoke at all.  It could be that an injector or two is contaminated?  I did run it a couple of times without a filter1

Any ideas welcome?  I've love to hear what you think about the smoke or the flashing coil light? 

More to come

[greasemonkey]

What do you call the coil light? The orange coloured light on the dash, with a coil shape in it?
Is that the glowplug light. Just a bit of a glitch in the matrix somewhere? Wire shorting, or the glow plugs coming on, for some reason?

Was the engine ever on it's side? Could be a bit of oil got into the bores, and needs time to burn off, or a hydraulic lifter gone a bit dry. and not quite opening the valves properly.
I wouldn't get unduly concerned about it just yet. If it's still doing it after a good thrashing, then it's time to look into it.

[Julian]

Being a total amateur at computerised cars I've still not managed to get VAGcom working on our Golf, but it too had a flashing glow plug light.  The fault was read by a garage as two blown rear bulbs!  Did I feel even more stupid than normal?  However, they took pity on me and just charged for the bulbs.

Out to dinner last night with a friend who runs one of these Audi estates on steroids.  He had the same warning and that turned out to be low oil level.

So, from my limited experience the light is probably only a minor fault and if you're lucky or smart enough to make VAGcom work, I'm sure you find out what it is.