Munters SC Restoration Thread *pic heavy*

[munter]

Ha! I did wonder if that's what they were for Lauren but I thought that was too obvious and then thought that's the last place I'd put my jacket in the car!!!

Oh well. Feel like a chump now!

[munter]

Quick update on the latest jobs.

First of all the wing mirror respray is going ok. First got the dremel out and then the wet n' dry out and sanded down the nasty flaky paint.



Then more sanding to get rid of the smaller imperfections and corrosion. Here we are ready for the first primer coat.



Then the first coat of primer. Quite proud of my DIY spray booth stand. Drilled through some old plyboard and screwed through to attach the mirrors so I could rotate when spraying!



Finally after three coats of primer....



Quite a few marks and heavy scratches showing through. My spraying is getting better but the odd shape of the mirrors made it difficult so have a few bits to sand down before final paint goes on and the laquer. So far so good though.

I then took the rear speakers out. Been driving me nuts cause one side didn't work and the tweeters right in my ears were horrible! Left these nasty holes so looks like I'm on the look out for less butchered C pillar trims!



Finally a little trip up to Mr T to pick up some bits and parked next to a MK3 (there are quite a few around here). Sorry Roadster owners but it's not a patch on the MK1!



P

[jimi]

I then took the rear speakers out. Been driving me nuts cause one side didn't work and the tweeters right in my ears were horrible! Left these nasty holes so looks like I'm on the look out for less butchered C pillar trims!

The speaker cover (and the speakers) aren't meant to be removed from the front like that, your supposed to remove that complete corner trim piece leaving the speakers attached to the chassis. If you or the PO have taken the speaker cover off from the front then it's almost certainly knackered.
To remove the corner trim you have to start by removing the piece at the bottm of the seat belt mount, then the piece that fits around the side window, the the corner piece.

[munter]

Yeah Jimi the previous owner knackered the trim. This side (drivers) is actually in better condition than the passengers side. What the guy/girl had done was hack out the original speaker and then screw a new bigger one onto the trim from the front along with a tweeter below it.

Not even a proper cross-over, just spliced the speaker cable. Nasty job all round!

What replacement speakers have folk gone for at the rear? I'm thinking I'll try and get a mid range only unit as there's more than enough high range coming from the fronts and I couldnt stand the "tweeting" right in my ear from the rear!

I'll keep an eye out for new trim but right now I have more pressing jobs to do like finishing off the wing mirrors and the t-bar refurb first. Oh and the Fensport over sized pulley turned up yesterday

Thankfully my blu-tac fix for the t-bar leaks seems to be holding up well - it rained like crazy here yesterday and just a couple of small drips!

P

[SuperRedMR2]

I had to take mine off of via the front as I didn't want to take the entire trim out due to a stripped thread on my seat belt bolt...

I have some spare covers but they won't fit that hole!

I will be gluing mine back in as I don't have speakers there any more.

[munter]

Despite my best efforts the weather has stopped me finishing the respray of the wing mirrors so I decided to replace the passenger carpet. I thought it would take longer and be more fiddly than it actually was. Makes a huge difference.

Here is the old carpet with a nasty big hole where the welder managed to set fire to it when fixing the floor tray.



A bit of a pain to remove the centre console and back carpet/sound proofing but if a jobs worth doing, its worth doing right!



All the old carpet out. You can see where the floor tray was welded. They certainly went pretty mad with the black sealant. Apart from the repair the rest of the floor pan looks in good shape.



New (to me) carpet in and looking good.



With the passenger seat fixed back in. Unfortunately shows up the corroded seat feet - so getting them rubbed down and resprayed is another new task. One fixed, a new one found!



P

[munter]

Sparco silicon intercooler connectors fitted today replacing 3 of the 4 rubber originals that were in a bit of a state.



Look the part. Big thumbs up to Demontweaks as well. Didnt have the red ones I wanted in stock despite showing in stock on the website. Agreed to take the black ones which probably in hindsight look better, and they sent some free hose clips to apologise

The final connector looks ok but is under the supercharger and a ton of hoses. Seems very hard to get to without taking the throttle control body off or going from under the car. Any tips? Would like to change this one out as well.

Ta

[munter]

Happy days! Got the mirror respray finished last night and popped the mirrors back on this lunchtime.

Here's what they looked like when I got the car:



And here is the final result of the respray (needs t-cut in and polished/waxed still)



Must say even though they aren't perfect I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. Took a bit of time but feel my spraying technique has improved alot by doing the odd shapes of the mirrors. Took most of a can of primer and a whole Toyota top coat rattle can so not cheap - but worth it.

Best of all I get to fit the little triangle trim pieces which has tidied up the interior no end!



Next up are the exterior A pillar trims and the little black trim on the rear window quarters! Will probably do the car seat feet at the same time as I'll have the satin black paint on the go anyway!

Also the Fensport oversized pulley arrived a few days back. Will throw up a pic when I get a second. Looks shiny!

P

[coanda]

Good work.

The centre rear storage box/tape storage deck was an option on JDM cars. Theres a great thread over on mr2oc.com where someone has posted up loads of brochures.

There was an option for fibre optic marker lights for the tops of the front wings....that would be exceptionally JDM cool.

[munter]

Been doing lots of small jobs of late so nothing particularly exciting to post. The interior is almost complete to a state that I'm pretty happy with, not a perfect restoration but a massive improvement over the state of the car when I bought it. Here's a quick list of stuff done recentely:

New rear view mirror to replace the old one that had messy glass.
Removed passenger seat, cleaned and repainted feet with satin black.
Removed repainted most of the internal trim screws (many were corroded)
Replaced a couple of broken t-bar caps.
Took out the standard t-bar guides and replaced with ecliptical ones.

Replacement C Pillar Trims. See below. Now waiting on new fixings from MrT to finish.



Replacement A Pillar External Trims. See below. I now have leaking water near the mirrors on both sides. The replacements were pretty ropey eBay specials... can I, should I run some black silicone down here by the arrows to complete the seals? At the moment the seal sits slightly proud of the glass. I will be stripping back the originals which are much better but have lots of chrome showing, and respraying. Any special tips for removing that black plastic paint?



Next up I have a creaky passenger side door so I'm going to pull off the door card and reattach all the trim in an effort to sort the noise! After that I need to get rid of the bolt on foglight and tidy up the mudflaps and rear of the car. Also must remember to pull out the drivers seat and respray the feet.

After I get the car back from Paul Woods it will be a case of saving up to get the wheels refurbed and painted black in the centre. Will also see if I can find some original Works wheel nuts.

and then underseal for winter and then I can start dreaming of a full respray!!!

Cheers
P

[munter]

Got a clear run of a couple of hours on the car today so decided that it was time for the bolt on fog light to be history.

To be fair the back end of the car has been a little neglected up until now. The mud flaps are needing removed, cleaned up and resprayed, the valence trim is pretty dirty and the license plate is too big so that the tops of the letters are obsured by the boot lid. I'll have an import size plate made up just as soon as I get the V5 though (hopefully soon!) so it's a good time to start looking at this area of the car for the first time.

The state of play before:



Decided to pull the whole light cluster off to have a good look. The seal is totally shot so will need to get spares before the big respray next year.



Here we are with the fog light removed. Much tidier!



After reading a few write ups of various fog light mods I decided the easiest and cleanest option would be to use the offside reverse light fitting for the fog light. It was a very straight forward job. Just cut the wires to the existing bulb and splice in the fog light ones. Ran out of time to do a nice job so will replace the insulation tape splice with proper bullet connections tomorrow.

Yey it works!!!



All I need to do now is get a red bulb to replace the clear one. Based on everyone elses experience I shouldn't have any trouble finding one with the level of brightness needed to cruise through the MOT.

Edited to show the red LED Cree Q5 bulb at night. Very bright!



Next job is the t-bar renovation... drum roll.... just need a whole day of good weather. Not as likely as you'd expect up here!

P

[munter]

It's been a while since I updated the thread. Since I last posted I've had the oversized pulley and ABV blanking mod done which has made a huge difference to the performance of the car.

In addition while the car was visiting Paul Woods he also managed to fix what was a rather wobbly gear select lever. Seems there was a missing bush which he fabricated a replacement for. Big improvement and I'm finding a bit like Lauren in the past I'm almost driving it like a manual in town just so I can get maximum revs and noise from what is now a super sweet sounding engine!

I finally got my V5 through from DVLA as well - good news as I wanted to get import sized plates to replace the rather large standard UK ones. The plates arrived tonight so got them on. Very pleased with the look - much tidier!

Front


Rear


Only bad point was the old front plate had been bouncing off the splitter at the front and has rubbed some of the paint pretty badly. I was thinking a few areas still needed a touch up respray before next years full respray (all going well) so this has tipped my hand. Doh.

While I was working on the car I also popped a aux cable in to sit in the space under the head unit so I can connect up my iPhone for tunes. Nice simple addition and saves messing around with CDs.

I still have to sort the tbar leak. Have all the parts - just need a nice day and some time off work and kids to sort it out!

Also looking for a replacement black glove box lid (mine is cracked) to finish off the interior and good quality glass panels.

Making good progress!

P

[munter]

I finally got time and good weather to get the T-bar restoration done today. First of all many thanks to Jinxy for his amazing step by step guide. If you are going to do this job I’d suggest the first thing you do is check it out here:

Jinxy's thread

I’ll post some step by step photos here because I don’t think anyone has shown the centre rail bolt fix before. Anyway my seals were wrecked, roof panels not looking much better and I had annoying drips from the front of both sides where the T-bar panels meet the T-bar seals. I figured I only ever want to do this job once so I went with new seals from TwosRus in the states and new grommets and screws from MrT. £120 for the seals and £40 for the bits. Ouch!

So to start remove the existing seals and metal guides. My guides and screws were all in pretty good condition but alas a previous owner had gone crazy with the silicone. Most of my time was spent cleaning this off. The job took 13 hours for me by myself so make sure you give yourself plenty of time.



Next up is the removal of the headlining. A real pain, the glue is old and you have to go slow to avoid ripping the felt...



Now you can get access to the centre rail. Mine wasn’t as bad as most but I still had one bolt hanging off totally and the other three had one side rusted through. Halfway through the headlining removal I did consider not bothering as it seemed rock solid. So glad I kept going.



Here’s the offending bracket/bolt.



Here’s my solution. Drill through and add an M2 Screw and washer/nut combo.



This shows the centre piece with all brackets fixed. Note that to get the centre rail back on you’ll need to file down the protruding screw thread. I also needed to drill extra holes in the T-bar itself to make room for the nut hanging down. You may or may not need to do this.



Once all that’s done get the whole area nice and clean.



Next up pop the grommets back in and add some silicone just to make sure. Add some silicone to the backs of the metal guides as well.



All done! I was amazed by how much tighter the fit was. It was pretty difficult to get the roof panels back on again. Looks amazing compared to previous mess and a quick bucket test was all good.



Just got some minor respraying to do and then the wheel refurbs and that will be me for this summer. Phew!

P

[pk_090]

I love that exhaust! Looking fantastic, much better with the import plates on.
Alex

[cartledge_uk]

Great job

I really want a Tbar again


(ignore the below, its to help when people search for how to fix tbar seals, T-Bar, leak, fix, solution, seal)

[BARNEY_MK1]

Good write-up on the T-bar fix. I did this job last month and kept meaning to post the pictures on here. It really does work, mine used to leak badly and now not a drop of rain at all. A mountain bike tyre lever is a good tool to remove the panels and seals then re-fit them. Also, i drilled the small metal plates on the middle panels, then re-attached them with pop rivets which worked well.

[munter]

Thanks folks - it was a very laborious, but ultimately satisfying job. I won't be embarrassed to have my top off now


Alex if I ever decide the exhaust needs a new home you'll be the first to know! It sounds just like it looks....

[jimi]

Nice write up, how much of the headlining did you have to take down ?

[Lauren]

Really great work, Paul, well done!

[munter]

Hey Jimi,

The headlining is one piece of felt attached to a card base. It really wasn't possible to remove part of it to get to the center rail without bending it badly at either the front or rear.

Went back on fine. I might reglue once I've confirmed everything is 100% water tight but its restuck ok with the old sticky glue mess and the trim tubing holding it place.

One thing I forgot to mention was both the driver and passenger side interior A trims exploding on removal. Can't believe how brittle they were! Have had all the other trim bits out with no problem but these just shattered. As a result I'm looking for replacements... Doh!

Hopefully get some decent weather the next week so I can get a couple of patch respray jobs done before winter. Will be getting the wheels refurbed very soon as well. Having done a good examination of the car all round I do think a full rub down and respray is in order. Quite a few small areas of rust that I want to get rid of. Quite honestly can see myself owning the car for some years to come - it really is great fun on days like today when the sun shines. Was a bit concerned about it being auto to begin with but have got used to it more now.

Just need to keep an eye out for a manual version to add to the family at some point as well

P

PS was up at MrT on friday and saw the GT86 for the first time. Tempted to go test drive but while I love the side profile and rear I just am not that keen on the front. Maybe a different splitter would help - it just feels too bland and not agressive enough for my liking!