The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

[Magic Beans]

More updates

Tonight's job was to sort out the pretty poor dash lighting. This is what I had to work with...


New clean white 5 LED clusters. 4 of, plus one for the ignition (job for later)


Close up. Excuse the garage fingers


So it's basically a matter of pulling the 4 large bulbs in the middle.


More garage fingers


Et voila. Bit of a difference huh! £10 and 30 minutes work, not bad at all.


Now I can't help but notice that the aircon controls look a bit tired and dull...

[craig]

Nice mate, I swapped my blown bulbs out for LED's but got hotspots where the lights are, rather than an even spread of light.

[Magic Beans]

These seem pretty good as far as hotspots go. I specifically went for the widespread (WLED) style versions, so all the lighting energy isn't focused into a single spot. I did toy with the idea of sanding the back of the dials down, to remove the mask with is there. However it would be too bright and would be a distraction when driving at night. Which is when you use your lights anyway

[Draven]

I want to replace my sidelights.. with ultra bright led ones

[Magic Beans]

I want to replace my sidelights.. with ultra bright led ones

It's on the list

Have you found any good ones?

[Magic Beans]

So the seats have made their way out of the car tonight.... Cue the hoover and upholstery shampoo, to finally cleanse the last traces of the previous owner.

Pics to follow, of course

[craig]

Awesome dude, might find a few quid

Found these, re: dome lights:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stoney-Racing ... 0747038661

Tenner for the pair.

[Magic Beans]

Awesome dude, might find a few quid

Found these, re: dome lights:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stoney-Racing ... 0747038661

Tenner for the pair.

You're not far off. I think so far since having it I've found:

- £3.50 ish, in various change
- 5 pens, of assorted colours
- Sunglasses (bin quality)
- The key AND fob for a Renault of some description?!
- A bootleg copy of The Streets album.
- Screws etc
- Sweet wrappers (no sweets )
- Another pen
- Plus other things so terrible I've wiped them from my mind

Bargain dome lights! From the same seller I got my dash lights from Might not be quite so blindingly bright too

[craig]

Awesome dude, might find a few quid

Found these, re: dome lights:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stoney-Racing ... 0747038661

Tenner for the pair.

You're not far off. I think so far since having it I've found:

- £3.50 ish, in various change
- 5 pens, of assorted colours
- Sunglasses (bin quality)
- The key AND fob for a Renault of some description?!
- A bootleg copy of The Streets album.
- Screws etc
- Sweet wrappers (no sweets )
- Another pen
- Plus other things so terrible I've wiped them from my mind

Bargain dome lights! From the same seller I got my dash lights from Might not be quite so blindingly bright too

WOW that's a lot of stuff, when I bought my rev 3 and had the seats out, I found a japanese club VIP card and some japanese sweets

My first MR2, I found a crow bar under the seat

Will give the dome lights a shot, like you say not as bright. I might not need sunnies at night

[Magic Beans]

Awesome dude, might find a few quid

Found these, re: dome lights:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stoney-Racing ... 0747038661

Tenner for the pair.

You're not far off. I think so far since having it I've found:

- £3.50 ish, in various change
- 5 pens, of assorted colours
- Sunglasses (bin quality)
- The key AND fob for a Renault of some description?!
- A bootleg copy of The Streets album.
- Screws etc
- Sweet wrappers (no sweets )
- Another pen
- Plus other things so terrible I've wiped them from my mind

Bargain dome lights! From the same seller I got my dash lights from Might not be quite so blindingly bright too

WOW that's a lot of stuff, when I bought my rev 3 and had the seats out, I found a japanese club VIP card and some japanese sweets

My first MR2, I found a crow bar under the seat

Will give the dome lights a shot, like you say not as bright. I might not need sunnies at night

You get sweets, I just get the wrappers The crow bar's a bit worrying though Did the owner need to sell it and leave the country quick sharp?

[craig]

You're not far off. I think so far since having it I've found:

- £3.50 ish, in various change
- 5 pens, of assorted colours
- Sunglasses (bin quality)
- The key AND fob for a Renault of some description?!
- A bootleg copy of The Streets album.
- Screws etc
- Sweet wrappers (no sweets )
- Another pen
- Plus other things so terrible I've wiped them from my mind

Bargain dome lights! From the same seller I got my dash lights from Might not be quite so blindingly bright too

WOW that's a lot of stuff, when I bought my rev 3 and had the seats out, I found a japanese club VIP card and some japanese sweets

My first MR2, I found a crow bar under the seat

Will give the dome lights a shot, like you say not as bright. I might not need sunnies at night

You get sweets, I just get the wrappers The crow bar's a bit worrying though Did the owner need to sell it and leave the country quick sharp?

yeah, god knows how long them sweets were there!

Crowbar, no idea, maybe it's best not knowing!

[Magic Beans]

So then, another night another update and another job done. Tonight Matthew it's cleaning the bits you can't normally get to.

Out came the seats, leaving the filth of previous people


Driver's side. Note the change lying on the floor


Looks odd without seats in


Seats pre-washing. They're not in bad shape really, however they're a bit dirty, dusty and probably have a fair amount of flatus from other people


Cleaned and shampooed. Poor quality photo, as always


Driver's side. The marks are shadow and shampoo residue


One clean and shiny. That's not a noose to the right, just my corporate leash


T'other side, as my gran would say


Everything back in and showroom clean!


If only the camera could actually capture what things really look like :-/


The pictures really don't do it justice, it's as clean as any car I've ever been in now. It demonstrates what a few products, a fair amount of effort and being incredibly anal about cleanliness can do

Might have ordered a couple of new bits today too...

[craig]

Very nice work mate! Excellent effort
Come on then, what ya been buying?

[craig]

Couple of things I've spied from looking at pics of your car mate.

1) How come there is a voltmeter in the speedo pod rather than a boost gauge?

2) If it's a rev 4 turbo, it should have an air bad on the passenger side.

Is this a rev 3 G-Limited converted to a turbo?

[Magic Beans]

Very nice work mate! Excellent effort
Come on then, what ya been buying?

New plates, but with a twist

[Magic Beans]

Couple of things I've spied from looking at pics of your car mate.

1) How come there is a voltmeter in the speedo pod rather than a boost gauge?

2) If it's a rev 4 turbo, it should have an air bad on the passenger side.

Is this a rev 3 G-Limited converted to a turbo?

Good eyes. You can tell you've not got the LEDs in yet

The voltmeter I put in myself, as there was a boost gauge pod, the stock boost gauge and the EVC. So three sources of boost information seemed like overkill to me. As I was doing a fair amount of work on the car while it wasn't running, the battery was prone to going flat. Solution: swapping the boost gauge for a voltmeter from an N/A. If you look at the wiring on the back of the cluster on the earlier photos you'll see the wires making the links

Now on to the Rev3/4 bit. It was sold to me as a '97 Rev4 and the V5 shows '97 as the date of registration. However an eagle-eyed member on here spotted it and mentioned that only Rev3's came in C Blue (8B6). So I guess it's actually a Rev3 and not a Rev4, i just haven't got around to updating everything.

It was a little worrying that it's got the wrong date of registration, however apparently it happens with imports?

[craig]

Couple of things I've spied from looking at pics of your car mate.

1) How come there is a voltmeter in the speedo pod rather than a boost gauge?

2) If it's a rev 4 turbo, it should have an air bad on the passenger side.

Is this a rev 3 G-Limited converted to a turbo?

Good eyes. You can tell you've not got the LEDs in yet

The voltmeter I put in myself, as there was a boost gauge pod, the stock boost gauge and the EVC. So three sources of boost information seemed like overkill to me. As I was doing a fair amount of work on the car while it wasn't running, the battery was prone to going flat. Solution: swapping the boost gauge for a voltmeter from an N/A. If you look at the wiring on the back of the cluster on the earlier photos you'll see the wires making the links

Now on to the Rev3/4 bit. It was sold to me as a '97 Rev4 and the V5 shows '97 as the date of registration. However an eagle-eyed member on here spotted it and mentioned that only Rev3's came in C Blue (8B6). So I guess it's actually a Rev3 and not a Rev4, i just haven't got around to updating everything.

It was a little worrying that it's got the wrong date of registration, however apparently it happens with imports?

Yeah, that's why I'm going for the leds that don't set fire to your eye balls

I've owned MR2 MK2s for 10 years so know a thing or 2 about differences between revisions/models etc etc

DVLA are always cocking up with imports lol

[Magic Beans]

10 years is a fair amount of time. The amount of new guys you must have seen through here, all bright eyed and bushy tailed. Eager to fettle with their new pride and joys.

No stickers, Veilside bodykits or any other terrible bolt-ons coming from here. In fact I'm going to great lengths to remove anything like that and make this car the best it can, within the realms of good taste.

It's an interesting journey, full of new knowledge to glean, ups and downs. Having a thread like this helps, as I find that when you're the person doing the work, you don't actually fully appreciate what you've achieved. Now i can look back to what it was when I got it and hopefully stand proudly looking at what it becomes.

This is starting to sound like a pledge. It's been a long day/week

[craig]

10 years is a fair amount of time. The amount of new guys you must have seen through here, all bright eyed and bushy tailed. Eager to fettle with their new pride and joys.

No stickers, Veilside bodykits or any other terrible bolt-ons coming from here. In fact I'm going to great lengths to remove anything like that and make this car the best it can, within the realms of good taste.

It's an interesting journey, full of new knowledge to glean, ups and downs. Having a thread like this helps, as I find that when you're the person doing the work, you don't actually fully appreciate what you've achieved. Now i can look back to what it was when I got it and hopefully stand proudly looking at what it becomes.

This is starting to sound like a pledge. It's been a long day/week

Yeah, seen a fair few members come through here in that time, plenty of awesome projects/builds, and loads move on sell up and come back later etc

All the best with your MR2 journey mate, and am tuned into this thread for updates

[Magic Beans]

Updates there will be. The "to do"list is ever shrinking and ever growing at the same rate. But not tonight, the urge to rest wins right now.