My MR2 Slow Build

EDIT: If things don't make much sense, its because I am coping and pasting this from another forum. lol

Alright guys,


So to start off. I will state the pros and the cons to my car.

PROS:

* Very Solid Body
* Nice stiff suspension. (Compared to my 86 that would ride like a cadi )
* Baby Rear speakers. (I will grind some material off to put in slightly bigger speakers.) (Done)
* Almost everything is functional... Almost.
* Base model. No power nothing. (Good for light weight)
* Has a lip (Needs a bit of work and repair)
* Nice rims. (I will work with these)

CONS:

* The wire harness has been tampered with. (Makes me feel uneasy about having an electrical fire. Every time I turn the car off after a while of driving, it smells funny.) (Fixed)
* Fans are always on. Both rad fan and engine compartment fan. (Fixed)
* Temp sensor missing (Fixed)
* Steering wheel has some wiggle. (Fixed)
* Rotors are slightly warped. (Replaced)
* Headlight motors sound like there going out. (There good)
* Cigarette lighter has a bad ground somewhere. When I connect my phone charger, my speakers start to whine.
* Carpet is bad, with holes on the driver side. (Fixed)
* Motor leaks oil from some where by the timing belt. (Motor Replaced)
* Motor bogs out slightly after 4K rpm. (Motor Replaced)

Plans

* Fix everything that is a con.
* Respray. (Paint is fading)
* Paint my wheels gold with a polished lip.
* Give it a drop

Alright, since I lost my camera. All the pictures will be taken from my phone. So please forgive me for the bad images.

When I first got it.





Seeing as how bad the MR was leaking oil. I couldn't wait till Friday to do the engine swap as planned. So today I started taking off the motor off of the black one with my dads help.













Well, it took us the whole day to take it off lol

Anyways, after a long tiring day. We started looking at the motor from the red car. After checking that the car had a little more oil then needed. We drained some of it. And when what noticed was that, the oil was really thick and black.

So, since I was going to have to wait a few more days to continue the swap. I decided to do an oil change. I'm guessing the owner before me stopped taking care of it after while because you can easly tell, the oil had not been changed for a LONG time.

I changed the oil and realized that one of the TVIS vacuum hoses was not connected to the diaphragm. Plugged that right in and the car worked almost flawlessly except after 4K rpm.

Great!!!! For now, Ill put the swap on hold and take care of the other things that need taken care of. Gotta tell you. Removing that engine from the bottom is a PAIN IN THE ***!!!

Dseries member came over and helped me out a bit. We took off my wheels and put my old ones back on.















All the wheels turned out great. With only one being slightly bent and its the one with some curb rash.

Well, on my next day off. I decided to address my steering and vibration problems.

I went to the black MR2 and took off the steering assembly.







Took me a while and a couple of cuts here and there with a smack to the forehead that left me a cut from my eye brow to the hair line (going up and down on my forehead) lol



My bro helping me out.





Drove it home and man what a difference. No more shaking when I hit the brake. Just smooth breaking

Went hone and took off my steering assembly



And this is the reason why there was so much play on the steering wheel other then the fact that the only reason the whole thing was holding on to the rack n pinion was by pressure because who ever worked on the car before did a ****ty job. Glad it never gave out on those hard turns I would take.





This is how it should look. To bad I never took a pic of how the other guy had it.




Ok this is what I did yesterday.





Took off the roof cover and two bolts fell off. Wonder where they go.







Ok so the first thing I did was replace my rear speakers. It still had its original speaks. Think they were 2.5" 5W 8ohms and I replaced them with some Kenwood 3" 90W 4ohms speakers.

Marked everything down and started cutting away on the sheet metal... With wires cutters. Yea... I wont be doing that again lol



My first attempt to solder











And finally my carpet. It looks so much better. Sorry about the crappy pics, it was getting dark and my cam sucks taking pics with low light.







How the speed sense was holding on to the tranny lol



Wondered why my cruise control didn't work.





Lots of gunk on my control arm.







Intake in my trunk lol











Engine OUT!!! What a pain taking it out by myself.



FWD MR2:bigok:



That was it for the night. Put the engine to sleep in its new place.

Little bit of cleaning..



BAM!!!!



We got everything on there and realized that the 86 engine harness was not gonna work without some modification to the MRs firewall.

87 Firewall



86 Firewall



Ill take a picture next time so you guys have a clear view of what I'm talking about. But my solution to this is just make another hole on the firewall that will allow my 86 harness to go into the trunk.

And another thing. Ill have to replace some of my coolant lines. I guess the car has never had its coolant changed or something because there was mad rust in the lines.

This is the 86 3rd firewall



and this is the 87 firewall



So what I did was, I went to home depot and got me a 2" round saw. Marked the center and made the hole.





Inside the ebay



Trunk shot.



I think it looks stock so guess that means I did a pretty good job lol.

Anyways, this is the pic of the engine in it.



Didn't get it running the that night. I started it. It stayed on for a few seconds but with a very erratic idle. And then it shut off.

I checked to see what was wrong and saw my manifold had a pretty large puddle of gas on it. SO I had a major leak.

Also, I was leaking a whole lot of water. Decided to leave it at that. Came back on Sunday and fixed the fuel leak and clamped two coolant lines that I had forgotten to clamp and BAM! Problems fixed.

EDIT:

Also, I forgot to mention that I did not connect my AFM and the TPS that night... Main reason why it shut off... I was tired is my excuse. lol

Ok. So today, all I did was clean, paint and re assemble the interior.

Ended up painting the steering wheel metallic black a few weeks ago.





And the bolts today.















Most of the interior was baked from the sun.





So with some bulldog and black paint...

Took care of the leaking roof as well. Now don't laught but I used window caulk lol



Excessive glue in the way.





We'll see if it hold well lol







Reason I used it on this as well is because I really don't know if Toyota even makes the gasket for that piece anymore so I had to improvise lol

And... Last but not least.

Finish pictures.

Roof looking sexy in all black.







(Pics taken before Armor All and vacuuming. It was to dark to take pics)

Also, man. I saw this huge as bug coming straight to me. I thought it was a fly. Well, since it was rushing at me, I went gorilla on it and smacked the **** out of it to the ground... I have never seen a mosquito that big!!!! It was the size of your normal house fly.





Since it was so big and I was in awe, I didn't kill it. So I just crippled it and let it roam the world on its legs lol... Should have just killed it.

That is it for tonight. Stay tuned. Next update will be refreshing my suspension and wheels restoration.

Tell you what though. Been contemplating on these two wheels from Axis.

Bonzai



OG-San


In 15X8 rear and 15X7 Fronts. But can't afford them now. Maybe for this summer coming up.

Ill leave it at that for now

Oh man this is so awesome, please keep updating the thread! I used to have an '88 NA with T-tops myself, power everything, auto, and slow as dog crap, but I still say it was the most fun car to drive. I really wish I could still own that car, I would have loved to restore it like you're doing this one. Keep it up!

damn this build thread is great! gj

Wow love the detail. I learned something just reading this, keep it up man.