1992 MR2 MK2 Project: A big drive

With the car the correct way up and after the minor interlude with the fuel tank i can get to the last 2 arches.
I needed to order more Raptor as i used more than expected on the rest of the car.
First up more masking to do


And seam sealer to apply.


That finished off the last of the tub, which is convenient as i shouldnt need any more now for a while.


In the spirit of prepping i got the rack pulled off so i could access a few areas a bit better, it will also be getting a rebuild before going back on.


A few days later i got the Raptor applied. So fingers crossed thats the last of it.


In the mean time the brake disks arrived.


I did order all blueprint ones but seem to have had the rear ones substituted, no idea on the Stark brand i guess they are autodoc’s own or something like that.
Will be going on anyway and i’ll see how they last.

We can now fit the disks and start measuring up how and where the calipers are going to fit.
I have done the maths on it but id rather check that manually before machining out the adapters.

Here you can see the size difference in the original vs new fronts


And the rears


The only concern is just how much room the rears are going to have, its going to be very tight.

On with the calipers i bought some stickers for the front ones and figured id stick the spares on the rear ones.
To do that though the casting flash needs removing.


And after a bit of hand filing.


Yea its probably going a bit far but why not have some fun with it.

I chucked everything in the blaster and spent a few hours in the dusty, noisy hell that the shed becomes while blasting in there.


They come out looking good though.
Zinc epoxy powder on first.


And then the fronts gets a light coat of black and the stickers go onto that. The idea being that the stickers get removed after the final coat has flowed out and leaves the black text.


Then the final colour.
Which you will get to see later

There is more work to do on the brakes but i had other things that also needed progressing. Partly the engine bay is still a right mess.
Back in’t day toyota used a different paint in the engine bay to the exterior of the car. It was single stage so no clear coat and not even close to the cars colour. This seemed like a good excuse to remedy that and generally tidy the spot up.


I made some progress removing the few bits that were left in there. The wiring is an Peach as it goes into the cabin so you have to disconnect it from there and pull it through to remove. Not normally a problem unless someone at some point fitted an immobiliser and had wired directly into the engine bay loom.


So i had to cut a few wires. They will get rejoined later on but will be doing a better job and probably having it on the dash loom instead so the engine wiring is removable.
The immobiliser has always worked for me so im going to leave it in.


From here there isnt alot left to do other than get the whole lot rubbed down and prepped for paint.


A few areas needed the hydrate treatment, dont mix those 2 concoctions up


Wish i had bought one of these mini da sanders years ago though, it makes lots of rubbing down a total breeze.


Masked up ready for paint on saturday.


The morning dawned and the heater went on. Before long i had the workshop up to painting temperatures around 18deg and got the primer down. Again im using the epoxy primer.


It didnt take long to cure enough to start applying the colour first gripper coat down.


After 2 proper coats it was looking very good and i had finally finished off the left over paint i had so thats a win win.


The lacquer then made an appearance. I applied 2 coats which should be enough to keep it well protected.



In the mean time between painting i had a bit of a play with the brakes.


Its a tight fit under the wheel and the caliper is pretty much up against the hub but i think we are ok.


Apparently Dave at Frentech decided my nipples were the wrong colour so sent me a bag of yellow caps.
Thanks Dave.


Im going to have to spend a few minutes designing some brackets next.

In the mean time on with some bodywork.
I have a set of sideskirts what i bought some time ago because i liked them.


They were rather rough so i “repaired” them and added some more fiberglass as reinforcement.


A good few years later i have come to try them on and they dont even come close to fitting.
So need to grind out most of the additional fiberglass i had put around the insides.


This stuff is damn itchy and you really need a mask while grinding it.
Test fit and we are making progress.


There isnt a nice way to fasten these on properly, i'm not into self tapping screws through the sills and dont really want to bond it in place.
These skirts cover the bottom of the front wings too and i want to be able to remove the wings in future if i need to.

So then we need a plan.

See these holes in the top of the sill?


I think i might be able to use them.
If we took a bit of thin steel bent something like this.


Obviously it would have to be almost the length of the sill.
Chop off the upstand on the skirts since it was way too flimsy and just about falling off anyway.


So something like this where the steel can be bonded to the fiberglass and will bolt in the top of the panel which gets hidden by the sill cover plastic trim.


Im thinking that this way if i decide to take them off or one gets damaged im not left with any major work to do and there wont be any unsightly holes in the sills.

Lots of work to get them anywhere close to fitting however so ill leave it there.

I have had a bit of time playing during the week aswell. Mostly on the brakes, so the adaptor plates are almost ready to be made.
In the mean time so i can work out spacings ect i made up some quick temporary ones.
Layout fluid is brilliant stuff, i dont know why it took me this long to finally get a bottle of it.


It worked as the rear caliper needs to be 3mm away from the front of the mounting points which is the same thickness as the bit of steel im using.


Ignore the bolts hanging onto that lip like life depends on it. Everything lines up i just didnt have any smaller head bolts.


Fronts are easier


Just gets a washer to bring the caliper a couple of mm back.
With that all lined up a test fit shows where we are.


The fronts just clear but will catch on the wheel weights.
The rears would need 15mm spacers to keep the caliper behind the step in the alloy.


Its not a bad situation but i had another plan.
A friend offered me some alloys quite a while ago.
Dropped him a quick message and he still has them and brought them down for me.


Still 16” but they have a bit more clearance.


Will still be needing spacers as you wouldnt even get a wafer thin mint in that gap.


Of course there is an added bonus that they look good.

I spent a few lunches at work modeling the brackets and they are just about ready to go.



A bit of time at the weekend got the other side skirt ground out. Now waiting on the steel to arrive before i do too much more cutting on them. The dustiest job is done though.


Lots of ideas have been floating around my head, which is usually dangerous, expensive or both.
So i want to tidy up the engine bay quite a bit. It looked good as it was but possibly a little more going on than i like.
So first up is the wiring loom and fusebox. It will be fed through the inner wing this time and the fuse box can be mounted in the left hand boot pocket.


The wiring loom will be trimmed down a little bit as some of the wiring is superfluous with the changes that have been made.
A hole was drilled into the inner section for feeding the loom through, not an easy spot to get the drill into. I really should invest in one of those 90deg air drills.


The wiring will be fed back through once i have shaved and re-wrapped the loom.

I have also been thinking about the coolant overflow bottle.


Lets be honest its ugly, its also bloody useless as you cant read the level since it hides at the bottom of the engine bay.
Oh and with the V6 its on the wrong side of the engine bay so requires piping all the way round the bulkhead.
So some cad work has been going on and through a few iterations and we will see what turns up from that.


In the mean time i had the blaster running for some other bits so i cleaned up the front suspension mounts.


And the oven was on too so i powder coated them, primer and colour.

Im rather liking the occasional yellow bits around the car.

Firewall insulation. Its rather scabby and not very black anymore.



I would have liked to buy a replacement but they are discontinued and none available that i could find.
So i cleaned up this one. A bit of fabric loom tape to fix the separating layers at the bottom.


And then recoloured it.


There is so many bits that bolt onto that wall you really dont see much of it anyway.
Refitted and i started bolting bits back in.


My workshop helper kept pestering me.


Runs a little ruff, emissions are getting worse with age, doesnt make much power


Remember the sloes we picked a few weeks ago. Well i finally got round to finishing them off.
Should just be ready by christmas. This is only 6lbs of berries, there is another 6 still in the freezer. 1 jar of gin and 2 of whiskey so far

I've had 2 x right angle air drills - both next useless - the problem with the right angle adaptors is that they make the length of the drill + adaptor too long to fit into some of the tighter areas - I'm now in the market for a compact / slimline cordless right angle drill 

Going back to the little air sander is it very air hungry?

My small air sander is identical they are quite cheap - £30 ish I think - probably a little cheaper - I'd agree with the above that they are not that air hungry but it does depend on your compressor capacity - I don't really notice with the 23cfm 3 stage pump / 270 litre tank monster that I run  

Evening work got all the welding done on the main sides of the box


Bungs welded in. By no means is it pretty welding, and it might not even be water tight but we will find out later.


Test fit onto the car



That bit of pipe will be getting replaced for some proper clear hose, since apparently clear hose can be provided in multiple variations of not clear.

Small update but next week should see a bit more happening.

Long time no update, despite having a few days off work i really didn't get as much done as i would have liked.
I did get the clear hose i was waiting for, and it was actually clear this time.


Made up a feed spout



And an overflow nipple too


So thats the overflow tank complete now i think.


I welded up the holes in the rear wings where the original spoiler mounted to.


And spent a bit of time trying to planish out the creases in the front wing to a more acceptable point.


Its considerably better than it was but might try get a little more with it although i also dont want to go too far and ruin it

Next job is to get the doors repaired properly so i could start on the skirts.


I had bodged them years ago but you could see the rust had started again so i wanted to do it all again. You can see the amount of rust on the back of the bit that was welded in last time. The edge was a mile off so it was easier to chop it off and start again


Cleaned up and treated the inside


Then started making up a new panel. Which started with a wooden form so i can make the curved flange.

With that all bent over and a bit of time spent adding the curve to the panel it fit rather well.


Tacked in


I realised i really hadnt left enough of a gap around it for mig welding it in so it took quite a bit of work stopping it from buckling


A slitting disk width is ideal for welding up and i really should have taken it back off fix the gap. But it will do.


The flange was hammered round tight up against the door frame. Seam sealer will follow later once i know the panel gaps are good enough


With that done i can refit the door now its the correct shape ready for shaping the side skirts.


And make a start on the passenger door


Chopped the bad repair out.


And made a new one


Welded it in


Ground back.


Flange hammered round


Neither door is done to a perfect finish but i decided to get them done quicker than spend ages trying to get a repair that wouldnt need a little bit of filler. Also partly because my skills arnt up to making a repair to that standard.

The doors will be getting cavity waxed to help prevent any further rusting once i have painted.
The loom that runs from boot to the cabin has now been modified, extra wiring added to take the cruise control, rear fog switch, boot actuator, obd2 connecter ect


I also made a start on the frunk wiring, this involved adding the additional wiring for the level adjustable headlights, they were standard on most UK cars but mine was JDM so am adding it in.


Copied the factory splice points to aid future diagnostricks.


I also found a use for a tool thats normally used to make any man cringe after seeing what it does to a sheep’s unmentionables.


Its great for getting wiring through the grommets.
I also added some extra wiring to the spare fuse holder locations so that they can become supply points for the heated seats.


Then wiring was wrapped up


And then taped in loom tape


More updates to follow.

Something i have been pondering since doing the underside is the front ARB mounts. On the earlier version of this model they are known for cracking and tearing the mounting location out the chassis under prolonged, hard driving conditions
Since mine is a bit newer it has the additional reinforcement but i have still heard of it happening especially where stiffer suspension and polybushes have been employed.
While my car isnt particularly low and stiff it is fully polybushed and i like to push it when conditions allow.
Either way it cant hurt to give the mountings a fighting chance. And an extra bit of stiffness never hurt anybody
Enter a new cad template


Into some 4mm steel.


A quick bend in the press and they are looking rather good.


There was a second attempt as i just wasnt happy with the holes lining up but now everything lines up perfect.


I made up a quick stainless spacer for the front to stop the flange getting crushed.


Make up another as a mirror image.


Followed by a quick powdercoat and on they go


In other news i finally ordered myself a new radiator.
The quality seems decent although its technically the wrong size it still fits in the hole.


I say technically as the mr2’s came with a couple of different sized radiators, it seems that you are most likely to end up with the bigger one when ordering although the smaller ones do apparently turn up from time to time.


The fans will of course not fit


But that can be future egils problem.
I also got the aircon rad bolted up since its been floating around the workshop for months.


The tie-rods arrived and despite having the same part numbers one is painted and the other isnt also there is other differences but the essential bits appear to all be correct. I expected better from Febi to be honest.


Ah well i can apply a coat of paint to have them both looking resplendent and hopefully keep a bit of rust away for some time atleast.


On they go, along with new boots and outer ends. Its all looking very good from under here.


Continuing at the front end i have bolted and wired up the new horns.


Testfit the crash bar. This will be getting blasted and painted.


And just to have a check and make it look like things are happening, i popped the front bumper back on. I apparently have some more work to do on the bumper too as there is more holes for the numberplate than there should be.


While nothing is bolted up properly all the bodylines are looking very good.
I think im starting to run out of excuses for not getting on with the bodywork now so primer is coming soon.