New member from aberdeenshire!

[samhemmings5]

Hi guys just entered the world of turbo mr2 power!

Unfortunatly my first week of ownership has been kind of horrible...

Its a 93 rev 3 import with 120k km on the clock and pretty tidy as you can see. Its got some bad boy exhaust system on it (trd i think), a celica gt4 downpipe, apexi induction kit and "arc" bov. But apart from that dont think its been messed with. £2000 paid and was quite happy. Unfortunatly thats where the happiness ends.

Day two of ownership....

Some utter B*****D decided to side swipe me while it was parked up. Literally the first time i had taken my eyes off the car since i got it! Needless to say they drove off without leaving so much as a note!

And later that day...

The car seemed to be driving ok just before that happened but then i started noticing red warning lights coming on the dash under boost. Battery, engine, and engine cooling i think.

The steam started coming out the back so i pulled over sharpish! Opened the back to find mt vesuvius erupting out of my expansion bottle.

I got the breakdown company to tow me to my local garage.

Garage replaced my radiator cap as the original was the wrong pressure apparently. I ran the car for a couple more days and things seem fine for about the first 20 mins with varied driving (although boost guage is only seeing half way) then after that the lights start coming on the dash again under any kind of acceleration.

Back to the garage and they say that the cooling system has problems as the thermostat seems to be disconnected. The intercooler fan is also not coming on and iv disconected the little probe thing on the engine bay lid but it wont trip into failsafe mode.
Garage man also said the thermostat may of been disconected to cover up the problem of a shot headgasket

So the question is are there any decent garages in the aberdeenshire area who are reputable with mr2s. Or any of you guys with suggestions.

Sorry for the incredibly long winded intro post but i need help and dont want to just accept the fact that iv just spent £2k on a very sour lemon.

Meanwhile im driving a pink pug 206 1.1l

So you can understand the urgency of my post!!!

Many thanks
Sam

Oh i tried to add pics but the site wont let me

[StevieL]

Welcome mate, pretty xxxx news, hope you can get it sorted. I'm not sure on any MR2 specialist up that way.

[synXero]

Aww man, that is rotten luck. Private sale of course? Hardly worth asking but I got my first from a garage see.

Many many dash warning lights is usually alternator related. Lots of steam is not however. There is a chance you goosed the headgasket yourself when you boiled it over?? Can't understand how previous owner managed though, with a radiator cap the wrong pressure. What pressure did it say it was?

[MR2HOT]

Hi welcome, sorry to hear the bad luck you have suffered so far with your MR2 and i hope you get it sorted out soon and back on the road again.

[samhemmings5]

thanks for the support guys.

Not sure what pressure cap was on the resevoir as the garage has since disposed of it. oh well....

Got in touch with the previous owner and he guarantees its not the head gasket (hmmm we shall see!) and tells me that i should park the car somewhere dry, let her run for a while and see if im getting any coolant leaks.

I shall be checking the alternator belts for slackness aswell, hopefully could solve some of my red light issues!

Looking through the history of the cars receipts i see that at some point k seal has been added to the coolant to stop a leak a couple of years ago. A recent coolant change may have dislodged this temp repair maybe?

Anyway tommorrow shall be a good chance for me to get my hands dirty and hopefully solve some issues. Oh and my block tester head gasket checker came in the post today so we shall see what that yeilds!

Ta guys

[samhemmings5]

oh yeh and private sale of course! I dont think iv intentionally been sold a duffer though. The guy is local and willing to respond to my texts.

[timlowthian]

Having all these issues so soon after buying it isn't good! I'm glad to see your trying to sort the issues rather than get rid of it! Make sure you keep us updated with it!

[samhemmings5]

Having all these issues so soon after buying it isn't good! I'm glad to see your trying to sort the issues rather than get rid of it! Make sure you keep us updated with it!

Yeh i know its not really the start of my mr2 ownership that i had hoped for! But with my very limited knowledge of cars i shall persevere. Maybe i shouldn't have picked an mr2 as a starting point to educate myself on all manners of car maintenance as they appear to be bl88dy tricky vehicles!



Updates on the block test

Again not sure if iv done this right! (probably havn't..)

Let car run up untill temp guage was up and pipes etc were nice and hot. Then removed the expansion bottle lid and hose and conducted test from that point. negative.


not sure if i have approached this test in the right way though as by removing the expansion bottle cap you are isolating the bottle from combustion gasses any way.

I waited for it to cool a little with the car off and did a test on the radiator cap (dont worry i was dressed up like a space man before i removed the cap!)
This time i couldnt really get a reading as i ended up getting coolant in the tester which obviously is an instant fail.

Please advise if you have conducted one of these tests in the past and the procedures you used

Ta

[samhemmings5]

Oh yeh and iv also left the car running for a whie on dry ground and can not detect any leaks along the length on the cooling system. Although a lot of my radiator fins seem pretty goosed (potential problem?)

[samhemmings5]

After another day of scratching my head and feeling pretty sorry for myself i'v gone out to halfords in the pug and bought myself a compression tester kit. Hopefully this will give me some more conclusive results.

The intercooler/throttle body pipe looks like it may cause some problems with getting one of the spark plugs out but i shall cross that bridge when i come to it.

Waiting till tommorrow till the sun comes out (not blessed with a garage at the mo )

Compression results coming soon!

[samhemmings5]

The results are in!

cylinders from left to right

1. 203 psi
2. 202 psi
3. 183 psi
4. 193 psi

think these reading are a little high from what iv read.
cylinder 3 reads a little dodgey.

what are the correct readings for a rev 3 turbo?

[samhemmings5]

oh here are some pics of the car











The start of a bad day!



the end of a bad day!

[Magic Beans]

Welcome Sam

Not had the smoothest starts have you. Stick with it though, put in the hours and you'll look back on it all and smile. While you're stood next to the car you've worked so hard to attain

[samhemmings5]

cheers magic, i shall persevere and get it fixed. Think iv traced alot of my problems to a goosed radiator which is missing most of its fins. Gonna get one ordered up this weekend. Oh and by the way "the mule" is one of the most bad ass awe inspiring projects on here and ceertainly gives me something to aim for! Kudos m8

[Magic Beans]

Kind words Sam, thanks

Phil