Bargain-bucket MR2

[Call the midlife!]

I'm trying to picture which nut it is but I had the bumper and heat shield off and just managed to wedge the screwdriver in behind the brace which gave enough pressure. Only need to crack it. But there is the last remnant of the torx head showing on the pic, good luck with that [emoji23].

Yup, you were right, the Torx was not happening! Couldn't be a worse one for access though - no direct route through the tubing to get anything on it and awkward for grinding.

If you're scrapping the manifold anyway I reckon it's going to have to get medieval.


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[CrazySX]

Get a dremel cutting wheel in the nut.

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[jonbill]

Screw a new proper nut on, weld it to the old round one, run the engine up to temp, undo the new nut.

[frootloops]

Screw a new proper nut on, weld it to the old round one, run the engine up to temp, undo the new nut.

doubt you'd have to get the car up to temp, welding it is likely to put enough heat in.

[The Arch Bishop]

Welding is not something I can do or have the equipment for I'm afraid.

I think the plan is thus...

1. Remove the last of the heat shield
2. Get underneath and get a stud extractor on it from below
3. Wind is out like it's not a problem
4.


Or....

1. remove the last of the heat shield
2. Get underneath and discover that it's still really tight for a stud extractor
3. Wind it out until the stud snaps flush to the head
4.


Sound good?

[The Arch Bishop]

Double post! Soz!

[The Arch Bishop]

Yay!



Possibly arse.



Ultimately, it's off so I can crack on and the stud hasn't snapped (yet). I may try re-cutting the thread on the stud - I might get lucky and it holds as I've recovered worse before. At the very least, I can remove the manifold and gain enough space to get a decent stud extractor on it, so I'm pretty pleased thus far.

In the end, the only thing I could get to the nut was a grinding stone on the Dremel and a colt chisel to whack what was left off the stud. All in all, about two hour's work... Not the most rewarding two hours I grant you...

[Call the midlife!]

Yay!



Possibly arse.



Ultimately, it's off so I can crack on and the stud hasn't snapped (yet). I may try re-cutting the thread on the stud - I might get lucky and it holds as I've recovered worse before. At the very least, I can remove the manifold and gain enough space to get a decent stud extractor on it, so I'm pretty pleased thus far.

In the end, the only thing I could get to the nut was a grinding stone on the Dremel and a colt chisel to whack what was left off the stud. All in all, about two hour's work... Not the most rewarding two hours I grant you...

Well done sir! That stud probably looks worse than it is, you can probably get a couple of nuts on there and wind it out with the back nut locking on the top nut [emoji1303].


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[The Arch Bishop]

Well done sir! That stud probably looks worse than it is, you can probably get a couple of nuts on there and wind it out with the back nut locking on the top nut [emoji1303].

I'm just thrilled it's off so I can crack on! I was close to giving up at one point, but then I decided to go for brute force rather than clever tools. Can't beat a hammer and chisel. In the months I've owned the car, I've used a hammer more often than on all of my other cheapy cars put together!

[delhusband]

Well done sir! That stud probably looks worse than it is, you can probably get a couple of nuts on there and wind it out with the back nut locking on the top nut [emoji1303].

I'm just thrilled it's off so I can crack on! I was close to giving up at one point, but then I decided to go for brute force rather than clever tools. Can't beat a hammer and chisel. In the months I've owned the car, I've used a hammer more often than on all of my other cheapy cars put together!

+1, success  s:) s:)

[The Arch Bishop]

Time to remove this sod-arsing manifold!

With the flipping nut removed, tonight I scrunched myself underneath with an assortment of tools to remove the 'three amigos' and the manifold bracket.

Now then, when I swapped the subframe, I had those pesky three nuts off - they were tight, but not a problem. This time, two flew off very obligingly and the third took my longest breaker bar and all of my (admittedly feeble) strength. When, after 20 mins of upside down sweaty grunting (and not the fun sort), it came clattering free, it had actually bent the stud by about 15 degrees. Quite why this recently removed and clean threaded monstrosity decided now was the time to be a grunting pain, I couldn't tell you.

Next was the manifold to block bracket. I took one look at the bolts and decided that I was removing the bracket to block bolts rather than tackling the dry and solid looking bracket to exhaust ones. Removing those can be for another day (and an impact wrench).

Finally, I could triumphantly lift out the manifold - the source of recent woes! Well, I could if that stud hadn't have bent 15 degrees meaning it was effectively holding the manifold to the flexi section... So back under I went armed with my stoutest screw driver and a further 10 minutes of levering and sweaty grunting finally had it loose. It had fought me to its last...





So what have I been left with? Well there seems to be no oily residue around the ports, so I guess that this 120k engine is in fairly good shape.

The pre-cats also looked healthy with no evidence of them breaking down;





It seems that the chain tensioner cover is leaking some oil though;



As ever, I'm willing to take advice on this - I read that there's an o-ring that can weep but is straight-forward to change. At least the cover bolts look un-seized (having read delhusband's woes with his) as they are nicely oiled up!

[Call the midlife!]

At that mileage it's probably a good idea to fit a new tensioner altogether if you're taking it out to fit a new seal anyway. Fairly inexpensive part from TCB and can make a lot of difference.
I just fitted a new one and it's much quieter on cold start.


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[The Arch Bishop]

I'm in two minds about that though - I'm not sure what the fate of this car (or rather this engine) will be, as I'm leaning more and more towards a 2ZZ swap. Spending a lot on future-proofing this engine's probably not worth it if I am doing that... I ideally would like a few more years out of it though.

I see that MR2-Ben do the o-rings on their own, so the tempation is to do just that and save the money for other things.

[Call the midlife!]

I'm in two minds about that though - I'm not sure what the fate of this car (or rather this engine) will be, as I'm leaning more and more towards a 2ZZ swap. Spending a lot on future-proofing this engine's probably not worth it if I am doing that... I ideally would like a few more years out of it though.

I see that MR2-Ben do the o-rings on their own, so the tempation is to do just that and save the money for other things.

I see your logic, although the new tensioner comes complete with o ring anyway [emoji2]


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[The Arch Bishop]

I see your logic, although the new tensioner comes complete with o ring anyway [emoji2]

Oh now that's the sort of man-maths that has been the trouble with my other projects in the past!   s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

[Call the midlife!]

I see your logic, although the new tensioner comes complete with o ring anyway [emoji2]

Oh now that's the sort of man-maths that has been the trouble with my other projects in the past!   s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

Haha! I think they're around £35 from TCB, I got that and a new PCV for around £55 delivered.


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[The Arch Bishop]

First post on the shiny new forum!

Sorry this thread is as slow as a maudlin sloth, getting time out in the garage when it's not arctic outside just hasn't happened. I'm not as young as I used to be... which is a daft thing to quote as that's how time works, so, yes, there's that... 

Anyway, today was seeing if the damaged stud was reusable or whether I had yet more pain and torment in trying to remove it from the head. I set about it with With my trusty Lidl tap and die set. A quick clean up, and I think I've been very lucky indeed!



Wound the nut on and it felt absolutely fine, so I think I may have gotten away with it.

I've also removed all of the heat shields and brackets from the old manifold. One rusty old bolt that wasn't going anywhere required some Dremel justice, but otherwise all seems good. Offering up the heat shields to the new manifold, it would appear that the exhaust mountings for them are a bit all over the place, so I'm going to have to be creative with them or use heat wrap (not sure this is actually very good for stainless).

Last job was to hook out the chain tensioner with a view to putting a new seal on it. The nuts came straight off (sorry delhusband) and out it came;



The seal itself is rock hard and ultimately useless. The tensioner seems absolutely fine, so I'm going to reuse it.

Anyone know the seal I need or is it a case of buying the one MR2-Ben sells?

[delhusband]

Last job was to hook out the chain tensioner with a view to putting a new seal on it. The nuts came straight off (sorry delhusband) and out it came

:thebird:

Just kidding nice one! Good that the bolt cleaned up. But if it hadn't been salvageable the post is double threaded, and cheap too.

[The Arch Bishop]

:thebird:

Just kidding nice one! Good that the bolt cleaned up. But if it hadn't been salvageable the post is double threaded, and cheap too.

I love that there's a flipping the bird thingy! That's sold the new forum to me to be honest!

[The Arch Bishop]

Sloooooooooooooooooow progress as always, but it's been a tiny bit chilly in the old garage and I'm a delicate flower, but I have done a (little) bit in the last few weeks.

Number one was to replace the Chain tensioner o-ring. I cleaned up the facing a little (I didn't go mad because the o-ring is the seal not the face plate of the tensioner).

[

I'd gone all fancy and bought a proper Toyota chain tensioner o-ring at vast expense (at least for a piddly o-ring - I used to sell hydraulics years back so I know how much these cost) to save some bother sourcing a non-OE one.



With the old one off, you can see that the new one on the left is a bit thicker. Ropey photo but if you squint....



Installed it on the compressed tensioner (which I really liked as an assembly - very clever with it's little toothed cam and retaining hook) and installed it back in the engine. Once tightened up, I gave the crank a little turn and heard the reassuring clunk to tell me that the tensioner had sprung. Job done!

Next was on to fitting the new stainless manifold. I'll be honest and say that I've spent far too long thinking about this and not enough doing it.

The major problem was that I couldn't fit the old heat shields as the middle brackets were well out on the manifold. Little bit vexing, but it came with a roll of titanium heat wrap. Now I did want to make the car look standard under the engine cover, but to get the thing on, I decided to wrap the manifold.....very, very badly....

So on with the manifold gasket;



And on with the badly wrapped manifold. Seriously, don't look to closely at it or you'll go blind.



Well, that'll do I suppose. But I couldn't live with it.

Laying in bed that night, I swear I could hear it screaming "Please kill me" from the garage.

So tonight I went out to the garage again and whipped it back off, chopped the wrap off it and had another think, I've worked out that if I join the top and bottom heat shields in the middle independent of the manifold, then by attaching with all of the other mounting points, I can have it fitting on there pretty well. I just need a trip to the nut and bolt man for the fixings.

More soon!

[K T M Rider]

Think I would have been happy with that wrapping job.

Well, effort.

Well maybe not exactly happy as such, but pretty sure I'd have left it on there.

I'm probably just deaf to my car's screams 


How vast was the expense for the piddly O ring BTW? I might need to invest in one at some point.....

[StuC]

Using the same squinty eye from the o-ring... the wrap looks fine.
Justsayin'

[Call the midlife!]

Wrap looks better than some I've seen lately and I did mine twice for the same reason!


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[The Arch Bishop]

The photo is flattering to say the least. I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture of the whole thing. Because of the middle mounts for the heat shields being in the way, it got really messy half way down!

Anyway, I really did want it looking as OE as possible, especially with the new MOT restrictions on removing cats' - all I'd need is one slightly knowledgeable tester to spot the two top lambdas sitting in there and no pre-cats.... It's just not worth it. The heat shields hide it.

Getting there now - some new bolts have been bought to mount it all so just two things to work out;

1. How to cut a section of the heat shield out for the left sensor (the mounting is not in line with the existing hole) - my Dremel won't touch it and the stuff is flipping impervious!

2. How to put the heat shield on after mounting the exhaust. With the top and bottom shield joined in the middle, it's going to be a right faff!

To be honest, I wish I hadn't started it as it's been a faff from start to finish and the pre-cats were in fine condition!

[Call the midlife!]

The photo is flattering to say the least. I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture of the whole thing. Because of the middle mounts for the heat shields being in the way, it got really messy half way down!

Anyway, I really did want it looking as OE as possible, especially with the new MOT restrictions on removing cats' - all I'd need is one slightly knowledgeable tester to spot the two top lambdas sitting in there and no pre-cats.... It's just not worth it. The heat shields hide it.

Getting there now - some new bolts have been bought to mount it all so just two things to work out;

1. How to cut a section of the heat shield out for the left sensor (the mounting is not in line with the existing hole) - my Dremel won't touch it and the stuff is flipping impervious!

2. How to put the heat shield on after mounting the exhaust. With the top and bottom shield joined in the middle, it's going to be a right faff!

To be honest, I wish I hadn't started it as it's been a faff from start to finish and the pre-cats were in fine condition!

If these are any help, this is what I ended up with after fitting the manifold I bought, half the shield mounts were in the wrong place.
I ditched the lower ones in the end as once you cut them you break the integrity of the two sheets and they just vibrate. The top shield is only held on the two top brackets but doesn't vibrate, just bounces a bit.
If I'd offered it all up prior to wrapping I'd have cut the shield mounts off and made a better job with the wrapping. Or sent it back.
Once you're done with these photos by all means ask the mods to remove them from your thread to keep it tidy.
I used various different discs and burrs on my air "dremmel" but I've since bought an actual Dremmel together with some proper cutting discs, I've you use cutting discs they should go through fine, just take care where the two skins are bonded that it doesn't "nip" the disc and smash it.



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