**UPDATED** 1991 Rev 1 (Beastly V6 1MZ-FE VVTI) **UPDATED**

[KarlBristol]

No one has sat on the mirrors Craig. I put it down to poor camera angles... That's my excuse anyway!!

Still struggling to find out exactly what make they are. It keeps being suggested that they are Abflug mirrors, but everyone seems to struggle to find photos of them to confirm this. I guess that they probably are, and there are no photos of them as they are so rare.

I'm still very much in two minds as to if to fit them or get them perfect and primered and sell them as I do like my OEM folding ones. I'm inclined to agree with you Dan - I think if I fit them I will colour code them.


Anyways the main car progress - the temp sensor gauge has been fitted to my car. A slight gear select issue has also been resolved. No more updates on it as of yet, and the MOT is still due... Hopefully it will fly through soon.


I started work on the mirrors yesterday, and have spent between 4-5 hours on them so far but there's plenty more to do to them. The main issue is the sheer extreme amounts of badly applied coats of paint. This has caused blemishes and runs in areas which should be smooth.

So I started by removing the mirror glass on each side. These have been hand cut/chipped and aren't exactly perfect. I would presume that this is because the original glass broke and the last owner had difficulties sourcing new glass. I will look into making or sourcing some myself but this will come later on. These were bonded to back plates which came away with them nicely when split.

One of the joints fitted to the mirror glass was coming away from the unit and was loose. I took my time and bonded this back properly so it is now very sturdy with no fear of it coming loose again. It's not the neatest of jobs yet and does need work to finish it off. I'm half tempted to fill around the edges to fully bond the backplates of both mirrors onto the main body of the mirrors to ensure that structural integrity is always there. I might do this in a couple of days...

I tried to take some photos but unfortunately it was on my phone which doesn't have a flash so please excuse the poor quality



The mirrors were very very poorly painted before and clogged up with coats of old paint, as can almost be seen in these photos







After hours of rubbing them back with various grades of sandpaper they now look like this:











I plan to rub them back some more, and probably fill a few spots that I'm not 100% happy with as I like things to be perfect. Then comes a couple of coats of primer, some more filling, some more primer, and the decision as to if to fit or sell


Off to try and work out what the hell to do with the mirror glass now... Watch this space

[KarlBristol]

I suspect that the mirrors will look like this when finished



Infact they do look very similar to these.... They could therefore be Eastbear mirrors

[matt-mr2]

I suspect that the mirrors will look like this when finished

Image Replaced With URL For Quote http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/h48 ... ccbbc0.jpg

Infact they do look very similar to these.... They could therefore be Eastbear mirrors

I can get some pics of my east bear mirrors for you to compare if you like

[KarlBristol]

If you could grab some photos it would be great thanks

I've worked on the mirrors for around 6 hours so far today.... And they are slowly getting there!! That's the one positive of having a pregnant partner; they spend a lot of time asleep

I started with some more rubbing back...



I decided I wanted some of the numerous mounting holes filled. I wasn't fussed with this being the neatest of jobs but it needed to be done. The issue:



I then did five coats of filling and sanding...





After many many layers of filling and sanding with various grades they looked like this:





Having got to this stage I decided it was time to layer on some primer in order to highlight any blemishes so I can target the areas to work on...

I masked off the ball sections first as I didn't want to clog these up with paint - unlike the previous owner



I then made the perfect spray holders by destroying some candle holders





Then the primer started to be laid on







All in all I'm very pleased. The primer has definitely highlighted some areas that need some tlc, and a very small area has reacted. I will probably work on them more on Wednesday as that's my next day off

I've also ordered some rubber trims for the mirror glass to tidy them up a bit and ensure they look as professional as possible. A very positive day all things considered.

[KarlBristol]

Ok I couldn't resist... I did just a bit more



They got rubbed back and resprayed.... Three more times
It's now an awful lot better. Not 100% perfect but overall in the visible areas it isn't far off

This is the tubing that I've bought for the glass. It should smarten them up a lot and protect the edges. Fingers crossed



This is how the mirrors are currently looking:









This one still has a slight mark on the inside although I'm not awfully bothered by this as it would be covered by the glass



Before i invest any more time, effort or money in these I'm tempted to stick them up for sale and see if there are any takers. If there aren't, then I will still have the difficult decision if to fit them or not

[Magic Beans]

Nice work Karl. These things do become a bit of a labour of love, but the results speak for themselves.

[KarlBristol]

Well the mirrors are up on the bay currently, we shall see if they sell or if they end up fitted to my car

Whilst I've done the odd bit of fiddling around with my mirrors Peter has been working relentlessly on the car to get it sorted, and with some cracking results as well!

The car is now MOT'd and out on the roads
It failed on a defective horn which Peter has sorted out, (and whilst doing so also fixed the indicators which weren't self-cancelling). Not a single advisory given either. Cracking result!!

Peter checked the car over fully and found that one of the brake lines wasn't secured to the chassis and so fitted a P clip to it. This was something that I overlooked when I fitted them and is completely my fault. So that's another little issue sorted out.

There was slight hesitation on the engine which Peter has been working to sort out for a while. This wasn't major engine problems or anything like that, but rather a slightly noticeable, and rather annoying hesitation. This was pinned down to be the MAF sensor. This annoying little sensor had caused a lot of worry Within 10 minutes the MAF sensor was swapped out and the car was working perfectly. The car is now reported as having a lovely crisp sound, immediate throttle response and generally being a lot livelier. Cracking result!!

The boot cables have been finished, tidied and the boot carpet re-fitted. The interior trim is now back in one piece as well (as seen in the pics below).

The engine mount is going to fettled a little bit to ensure that it doesn't have any creep with an engine of this size in there, and its also going to undergo a x4 wheel alignment then its ready for collection



Possibly the best update ever.... If Carling made posts on forums they would have made this one



Completed boot wiring



Carpets re-fitted in the boot



And interior back together



Speaking to my lift now to try and sort out a collection date once the last few small bits and bobs have been done

[pistol pete]

cracking result mate.. but you are well chuffed..

youll be so pleased first time behind the wheel

enjoy

[HighwayStar]

It's been a while coming.... hope you enjoy it fella.

R

[Magic Beans]

Hope it's not while we're away

[KarlBristol]

Cheers one and all - cant wait for the collection date to roll around. I'm waiting on my lift to confirm what date he can do, although at the earliest it would be a week today

My heater has annoying been playing up recently and is refusing to pump out any hot air. The pipes are hot and cold indicating that the heater matrix is working fine and that it could be something else.... Best bet was a blockage in the system.

Today Peter set about sorting it out and so flushed the system through.
He flushed and reversed for 10 minutes and then filled the heater matrix with radflush and left it for an hour. It then got flushed and reversed again.

We retrieved around 3 egg cups full of silt. It's all been bled and the heater is now blowing warm air

A small amount of radflush will be put back in and left for a couple of months. I will change it out at a later date to ensure its had decent time to work and is as good as it can possibly be.

Here are the pics

Being flushed:



And drained inside the car



And all back together



A decision has also been made to fit a second fan to the radiator before I pick it up to ensure it never overheats. The Toyota fan circuit is rated at 30A and the current one is only pulling 6.5A so it can all be done on one circuit



Another positive day

[Magic Beans]

My heater has annoying been playing up recently

Not guilty

[synXero]

I'm glad you let your OMG SUPER RARE Toyota boot mat get muddy too.

Makes me feel less guilty

[matt-mr2]

Just seen this monster and its sounds awesome!!! your going to love it Karl

[KarlBristol]

I wouldn't blame you Phil don't worry

If it makes you feel any better synXero the mat and boot have been fully cleaned up now as I daren't have it dirty for too long

Thanks matt - I can't wait!!

Right so what's happened since yesterday.
Firstly photobucket blocked every single one of my photos until I agreed to pay them a monthly fee and upgrade my membership as it turns out that so many people are viewing my pictures that it exceeded 10GB of bandwidth within just 3 days.... Apparently I need to pay if this many people access it

Well that bill has now been settled and you fine people can enjoy being pestered with my photos again....

Most importantly the collection date has been set for a week tomorrow (Saturday) I will be leaving my house at just before 6am in the hope to be at Peters by 9ish before any traffic really gets on the roads.

Today Peter has drilled out and tapped the engine mount to secure it as fully as possible and future proof it from any potential chances of creeping

So it got drilled and tapped before being fitted with an M5 stainless grub screw;







All completed:


synXero this next photo is just for you



Tomorrow Peter is replacing the one remaining track rod end and then doing a full x4 wheel alignment. Should make a huge difference to the feel of the car and should hopefully feel nice and planted/directed.

Off to go and cry about the fact that I have to spend money every month to post my photos now

[Magic Beans]

Top tip - Have more than one account. I have 4 at the moment

Did they specifically state it as being bandwidth and not maximum upload limits? 10gb in 3 days does sound awfully high, given that I'd imagine your photos are all maybe 100kb each, as they're camera photos

They currently host around 18gb of my photos as mine are about 10mb each due to shooting in RAW and shrinking them in post prod.

[KarlBristol]

I was going to start up more accounts to get around it, but encountered the dreaded issue first... Photobucket are very tricky with their bandwidth.

If you exceed the bandwidth or the storage limits they freeze your account. This meant that they blanked out all my photos in the thread and wouldn't allow me to delete any photos on my account either to try and counter-act it. This then rendered my entire build thread useless.

The bandwidth limit is a kicker if you read their t&cs. See here and you'll get why my limit clocked up in only 3 days

Imagine you have a photo that is 1MB in size, and you post it on your blog. Whenever a friend sees your blog, 1MB of data is transferred from your Photobucket account. That counts toward your 10GB per month limit (10GB = 10,000MB, and most photos are much smaller than 1MB).

Now, imagine your blog has a lot of photos on it, and their total size is 5MB. That would mean that 2,000 blog views would max out the bandwidth on your free Photobucket account. If you're linking multiple photos in multiple places, or you post photos on a popular site, your bandwidth can add up pretty fast!

The way that I read it was that views on my thread as opposed to individual photos will multiply/clock up bandwidth quicker especially given the amount of photos I have on here. So be careful

I don't need to worry now as I've got unlimited bandwidth and 40GB of online storage

[KarlBristol]

Since the last update the decision was made to buy a second fan for the radiator. This has been bought, fitted wired and the car put back together again. This will ensure the car doesn't overheat (especially when combined with the engine bay fans) even on a track day in blistering heat.

Here are both the fans fixed and wired:



And everything put back together again:



The alignment has now been done on all x4 corners. The front track rod ends were seized on but are now free-moving. I did have new fronts to fit but the ones on there are in good condition so they've stayed put. Whilst working on the rear Peter found that the back axle was toeing out by 3mm instead of toeing in by 4mm. That's a huge difference and explains why the car felt twitchy from time to time at higher speeds. This has now been rectified and the tracking is as good as it was the day the car rolled out of the factory. I'm pleased that I asked for the alignment to be sorted out as I will need the car to be heading in the right direction with that much immediate power behind me

The decision has been made not to reset the odo as it might not line up 100% and we couldn't find an MR2 specific guide to doing it without risking breaking the speedo cluster.

I guess the car is pretty much finished now then

[slipping clutch]

Happy days I really want to see this in the 'metal'so to speak.
Well done Karl and Peter.

[blue2]

Hi Karl, is that a standard mr2 radiator or has it been modified in any way? I may need a new one soon for my v6.