Simple strut change?

[sirdeuce]

Started as a simple strut conversion. BC struts, Whiteline urethane bushings and sway bars were the plan. The lower control arms were beat, looked like they were removed and hammered on, so after months of Pick-n-Pull hunting I found replacements. Installed the afore mentioned parts and found the rear tires rubbed at the full neg camber adjustment. Fixed that with 10mm spacers and longer studs. Changed the studs in the front as well along with the bearings and seals. Inspected the axles and decided to replace then too. Then the master cylinder decided it wanted to retire, replaced it. Started up, went for a ride, drove great! Engine started running rough. Lost a lobe on the intake cam. Installed a set of WEB cams I had on the shelf, mild 294 grind, ran poorly. Installed adjustable cam gears and fiddled with the cam timing. Runs decent now. Go for a drive, new sound, kind of a squishy, crunching noise. Motor mounts! New mounts installed. Drive around for about a week, smell burning oil. NOW WHAT!? Distributor seals are shot, replace the distributor. Oil leak fixed. Go for a drive, new noise, power steering pump fell apart, replace pump. Time for another drive, but worried about the next repair. So far the car's fun factor on the road has improved tenfold! But the fun working on it is reaching the tedious level. Just having too much fun!



I think the little Corolla is jealous of the MR2. Needs a bath now. The rack is for my kayak.

[sirdeuce]

Forgot to mention the dome light not working. Just a light, but let's try the leds that are available. put in the festoon style lights, 2 30 light festoons. Now I can see the grains of sand in the carpet, stupid bright!

[Rogue-AE95]

Sounds like a lot of fun I hate those repair sprees. But at least after they're done, you know those things won't be giving you problems for a while.

I always recommend to friends to replace their interior lighting with LEDs whenever possible. They can be much brighter, and use up much less juice. I've left them on by accident on my cars, but they didn't do a thing to the battery light a standard bulb would.

[sirdeuce]

Benn driving this little beast for a week and now I need to replace the tires. Wore almost new tires out in the first week! Just having way too much fun! Mountain living is great! As for the leds? I have blue in my AW11 and when they're on the car glows! It's ridiculous! I used 21 5050 size leds, and all it really needed was 3. The pic doesn't do it justice as the ground is literally lit!

[Rogue-AE95]

Your MR2 has a flux capacitor back there, doesn't it?

[sirdeuce]

And the hits just keep-a-coming! Popped the handbrake cable and blew the right rear axle bearing. My wife is starting to get jealous.....

[yoshimitsuspeed]

And the hits just keep-a-coming! Popped the handbrake cable and blew the right rear axle bearing. My wife is starting to get jealous.....

This will happen for a while till you get all the big bugs worked out. It can take a little time to make up for the 30 years of neglect that many of these cars have seen. If you do it right you should get to a point where it should be pretty reliable and low maintenance as long as you don't beat on it crazy hard.

[sirdeuce]

Maybe it'll keep going until I rebuild the car Nice to have a spare for parts though! Sure am glad I'm not one that dislikes working on my car. Yeehaw!

[oldae82]

Just scrolling through and came across this. Makes me happy with my fx16.

[sirdeuce]

Got it all together and haven't had a lick of trouble. Although the Swift springs are settling a bit more than I anticipated, but a twist fixes that.