Ian's fun road trip car build

[ian710]

This is the continuing saga of my fun daily drive and road trip car build.
About 2 months ago I bought a tired blue 2003 facelift model.
As I told in my introduction page the car is from Germany. I found it on Mobile.de a very good car site for used cars. My friend has an MR2 and after driving it a year ago, I knew I needed one. My normal car is and Alfa 147 with a 1.6 engine. It's a great car but nothing in comparison to the handling of an MR2.
One of my passions is road trips with my friends and the Alfa was just not keeping up with the other guys with their Lotus Elise, MR2 , MX5 and Honda NSX. This new car should fit right in and will keep me going until I finish my big project car that I've been working on for the last 6 years. If you're interested in that then search "millercars" on facebook

When I got the car the front tires rubbed on the fenders the brakes where crap, head lights where broken, the bumper was broken and many other small things. But the car was cheap relative to others and I don't mind fixing a car up. At least know that everything that I put in it is new and in the end it's still cheaper than buying one that is nice and clean that can have problem in the future.

This is pic of the car when I bought it in the north of Germany (raining of course)

Up on stands and start fixing the plastic parts

New front brakes and SS lines

New rear brakes and SS lines

Machined the ET on the wheels to move them in 4mm. it made all the difference and New front tyres.

Flying on the stands

The left springs seem a bit sagged

The clutch was slipping when i got the car so i made plan for a second batch of parts that will go on soon.

[shnazzle]

Crap mate your car's screwed! The steering wheel want all the way to the other side of the car!

[ian710]

It's just slight oversite..... nothing major  s:wink: :wink: s:wink:

[shnazzle]

Those front brake lines look to be a very nice fit on the stock brake line bracket. Did it go into place easily with just the horseshoe clip?

[ian710]

The SS lines went in fine (goodridge) and no problem with the clips at all.

[ian710]

I had a busy but successful weekend!
Friday the new springs arrived  s:D s:D  . I chose H&R because they were cheaper than the Tiens here in Holland and they have very good name (quality) in Germany. Has anyone else tried them?

Got the car on the lift and removed the header pip and cat pipe.

Then came the gearbox... What a job! Even with the lift it took about 5 hours to remove it, I've not done and MR2 before and I was talking my time to make sure I didn't break any plastic clips. All the layers of tubes etc. took a while to penetrate.

The worn out clutch and heavy flywheel.

Got the gearbox home, Filthy

After cleaning, Didn't make much difference.   s:x :x s:x  People told me use Brake cleaner... didn't work at all. But at least it's degreased and I can handle it without making my hands dirty. I was hopping it would be new looking again. oh well.

Then I started the De-Cat operation. That actually went quite fast.  s:) s:)  

While it was cleaning out the remains of the Cats I noticed how bad the joints were on the pipe connections. So I got the file and grinder out to smooth and round the tubes. An hour later they look much better.


The cast iron end was also not very good, now it lines up perfectly with the down pipe.... after lots of filing and rounding. I figure it's good for 1 HP at 6000RPM, (not much but it makes me feel good that I did it)

Rear crank seal looks good  so I will just bolt on the new flywheel.

The side of the engine is coated with oil from what I think is the chain tensioner o-ring leaking.   s:( s:(  
I have new tensioner and will clean this mess and install it... I just hope it's not the head gasket or the front crank seal. Fingers crossed...

The car on the lift and the rear subframe needs bit of cleaning, (next job)

So that's it for now, any questions?
Ian

[ian710]

More pics and small update:
Got the new clutch and flywheel in, and started on the sub-frame rust.
First the rust stop coating and then the red antirust coating. This should keep the sub-frame going for another few years.



I also replaced the o-ring in the original chain tensioner because the new chain tensioner that I got would not fit. It hit the belt tensioner when I tried to slide it in. When I compared the new tensioner with the old one, I saw that was an extra 2mm of flange metal and this caused the obstruction. What a pain...
The only option was to just change the o-ring from the new tensioner to the old , luckily the old tensioner was still good except for some old crappy oil inside which came out when I pushed the plunger back in.
We will see how long this o-ring will last.

I've also been having some exhaust issues. The down pipe has these restrictor welded into the flexy joint which will not let the engine rev freely. I turns out that they are even smaller than the header tubes... Ridicules...
My only choice for the moment is to run them and later weld in some new flexy joints (without the restrictors)


I went all the trouble to make the header flow better only to have it all sapped by the downpipe restrictors  s:flame: :flame: s:flame:

[ian710]

Well... I got it back together and running again!!!


What a difference the light flywheel makes, Fantastic!!
The engine is now very zippy and responsive.
When I got the car, the clutch was already gone and I couldn't rev the engine so now I finally took it up in the high range.. really impressive.
Next week the shocks, springs and the flywheel dust cover.

[ian710]

Hi Everyone,
I've been busy! and I finally got around to redoing the shocks and springs.
Normally this would not be a hard job but due to effect of rust and the idiots that had the car before me, it turned out to be a bit more difficult and more expensive.
First I had to get the old struts off... that was the easy bit.
The rears came apart ok, but i still broke one small M6 bolt in the rear upright because it was rusted in.
I found that someone had already changed the springs to Eibach lowered springs but one side was 10mm lower than the other so i decided to change them all to H & R springs -30mm.

One of the first things i saw when taking the rears apart was the "the idiots" (who had the car before me) had forgot to put one of the bumpstops back in   s:cry: :cry: s:cry:  so i tried to find a new one on the net... For get it...they are not to be found.

Then i started taking the fronts apart.  one of them was rusted solid, I ended up cutting the spring and the strut just so i could beat the sh*t out the top of the strut with a tube to separate it.



The dust seals were destroyed and needed replacing... with nothing available on the internet  s:roll: :roll: s:roll:  
Here is whats left of the front bumpstops.

And the hat, which was save-able.

So i end up at the dealer, brought my Vaseline and bent over as i walked in   s:shock: :shock: s:shock:  This is why i hate the dealers....Stupid prices for one bumpstop and two dust seals

I cleaned the hats and pained them with really thick anti-rust paint. Luckily the top bearing were OK and just needed a good cleaning, painting and re grease.

And reassembled front.

Reassembled rears... really cool looking springs.

While i was at it i cleaned the radiator top mounts and some other rusty bits

I drilled out the broken bolt and re-taped the hole.
Final assembly this week and test.
looking forward to the testing part.
Ian

[shnazzle]

Great work!

[JoeCool]

Great work! Interesting to see that the KYB Excel-G's come as new Strut Legs, not just inserts. I got those for my Impreza and they were just inserts.... Hmmmmmm....

I'm going to have a hard choice to make when I decide if I want Shocks+Springs or Coilovers! Need to ride in some cars to find out...

[1979scotte]

Great work! Interesting to see that the KYB Excel-G's come as new Strut Legs, not just inserts. I got those for my Impreza and they were just inserts.... Hmmmmmm....

I'm going to have a hard choice to make when I decide if I want Shocks+Springs or Coilovers! Need to ride in some cars to find out...

You can have a ride in mine anytime. Meister R coil overs fitted now for almost a year. Love them.
Will be at the Pub meet at the end of this month and the Xmas brew in December.

[ian710]

Update:
The car is running again!!
I'm very happy indeed.
The suspension is much better now with the new shocks and springs, even over speed bumps.
Now I'm coming to grips with the back end of the car wanting to step out on round-a-bouts in the rain. It's tons of fun and always keeps smiling.
I will work up to finding the limits of the car bit by bit. Now I just want spring to come as soon as possible so I can plan my first trip to the good roads in France.   The roads here in Holland are CRAP. There are no hills and all the roads are straight single divided lanes and you can't pass the guy in front,.. and he is always going less than the speed limit. (more on this later)

I still have some work to do on the car like the water cooling pump, radiator, and thermostat to change.
That will be in the next few weeks.

[jvanzyl]

This is a great build thread. I'm interested in the difference the fly wheel made? Is it a hard job to fit a lightened fly wheel?

[ian710]

Thanks for the compliment!
The light flywheel is great! The engine blips much quicker and it really feels like I have 10 more HP.
The car also feels more "Zippy" and at the low revs in second gear the pick-up is so good that on a round-about in the wet the back end comes out (but I do have crap rear tires).
I also have not stalled the engine yet at a light. Basically it starts just like the original heavy flywheel.
I highly recommend it. Mine is all steel and weights 4 Kg, I got it from Monkey Wrench in the USA because I have a connection there that can send it over cheap. But in the UK I would go for a TTV flywheel.  w www.ttvracing.com w    Good price and local (for you) and they can make it whatever weight you want.
I used an OEM clutch from LUK because my engine is stock and the pedal is still very light which I like.

It was bugger to remove the gearbox, but there is good site on the net that can show you how. Basically take your time and plan each move. If your tear into it you will just break all the plastic clips and other parts,
For example:
I couldn't get the drive shaft out of the box so I ended up just leaving it in and being careful not to rip the CV Boot. I did however have a friend help me with the heavy lifting. When putting it back in, having a fiend really helped. For the flywheel I used the old bolts but they do recommend using new bolts.

Ian

[mtgraphics]

That's great work you're doing there, thoroughly enjoying your build thread, learned a thing or two, looking forward to more updates.

[Tomo70]

Excellent write up Ian very informative. Like the idea with the lightened flywheel.

[ian710]

More changes,
I added a gas pedal extension to make heel and toeing much easier.




for a complete right up on how i did it have look at "Heel and toe gas pedal extension" thread.

Ian

[shnazzle]

I like the pedal extension!
I've settled for a sort of side-of-foot/toe technique

[Vin]

Car looks familiar, did you buy it in Germany in 'Oost Friesland' ? I think we went to look at the same car   s:D s:D  In the end we bought another one from Germany.

Good job on the restoration. Really like the heel and toe extenders.

[Scottie]

Good work. Must feel like a different car!

[ian710]

Hi Vin,
Yes, i did get the car in Oost Friesland. I think you probably made the best choice not to get this one. As you've seen, I've put a ton of work into it and a ton of money as well.
But at least now it's in good shape. All i need now is hard top and a better sounding exhaust.
The pedal extension works perfect by the way, now i can double clutch and blip the throttle all the way to first gear for those tight hairpin corners in the french mountains.
We leave on a 4 day road trip in 2 weeks... I can't wait to try it all out.

[Vin]

Hi Vin,
Yes, i did get the car in Oost Friesland. I think you probably made the best choice not to get this one. As you've seen, I've put a ton of work into it and a ton of money as well.
But at least now it's in good shape. All i need now is hard top and a better sounding exhaust.
The pedal extension works perfect by the way, now i can double clutch and blip the throttle all the way to first gear for those tight hairpin corners in the french mountains.
We leave on a 4 day road trip in 2 weeks... I can't wait to try it all out.

Hi Ian, yes well for the price we expected some work. However we had the plan to make the car like new, which was just to expensive for that one. You did a great job on the restore. Have fun in two weeks  s;) s;)

[ian710]

Hi Everyone,
More updates.
In a week i will go the first big road trip of the year. And I still needed to get the car ready.
So I changed the thermostat and coolant. It seemed like it took a long time to get warmed up. But a new thermostat doesn't make any difference. It does seem to run a touch cooler though.

While I was at it I changed the radiator. The old one had all the fins corroded away and rather than risk a hole while having fun, at 55€ a new radiator was cheap insurance

A month ago I ordered some PU engine mounts from "Kirkosourus" and I finally had a chance to change them.
I only had time to do the rear mount which was not too hard. But when I drove the car the vibrations were quite high. I read on the "to do" thread the best way to reduce the vibration is to cut them a bit.
Before:



I used a disk sander to grind them down. I worked very well. And much neater than using a hack saw.

After:

I'm happy to report the all the vibration is gone.

While I was under there I cleaned the sway bar mounts at the rear and sprayed silicone spray to lubricate. It seems to work quite well, but I will know more in time.

Since had new front sway bar rubbers I figured I would change them as well.
What was supposed to be an easy job turned into difficult one real fast after one of the bolts broke while I was trying to remove it. What a bitch. The only way to drill out the bolt was to remove the lower front wishbone. 3 hours later I had the wish one off. I had to cut the one of the bolts because it was rusted in the rubber joint.  s:flame: :flame: s:flame:    s:cry: :cry: s:cry:    
When I finally got it off I center punched the broken sway bar bolt before drilling and the whole nut just broke off and fell on the floor. Had I known that it would break off so easily, I  would have never needed to remove the wishbone.
Here is the new bolt. What bugger. I haven't touched the other side of the bar in case it's rusted solid as well. I just sprayed it with silicone spray and WD40 to keep it going.

Now I think the car is ready for big trip. I'll tell you all about it when I get back.

Ian