Gruks SW20

[gruk]

Hi all,

So yesterday I made a trip out to Masterton and picked up my first sports car. Had a load of fun on the drive home.
It's a white 1990 NA T-Top, and seems to be in good mechanical order. I'm pretty happy with it. No leaks!
My plan is to essentially restore it. I want it to feel new. So I've made a huge list of jobs for myself - it's going to be a long, long, project.

It's the first car I've had worth cleaning my car port out for. I'm looking forward to finding some time and getting to work on it. She's a beauty.

A little about me: I'm a keen photographer, I've worked in IT for years, I've got a 10 month old son, and I'm fairly new to 'liking' cars. Always enjoyed driving manual, but saw cars as an A to B thing. This last year I've changed that thinking. I decided I wanted something RWD, sporty, and japanese. When I looked into it and discovered that I could get all of that with a mid engine, well I fell in love with MR2's. Now I have one. Stoked.

[Benckj]

Looks like a good project. Word of warning that these cars can be addictive.

[ClanFever]

Awesome, looks like you got the one I told you to get

Let us know if you need any help with it. I have a few parts lying around, should you need anything. I see you're a member now, that means you can search the forum and find information that may have already been asked, and if not, definitely come here for anything you need.

[gruk]

So I've had a few little drives in the new beastie, and geez I love having an engine behind me! The ride is pretty rough through town though, might need to raise the car a little to see if that has any effect.

I've got quite a list of jobs to do, but due to the weather and lack of time at the moment I've only been tackling the smaller ones. The mechanical stuff will have to wait.

So far I've pulled the instrument panels apart and removed all of the old 'carbon fiber look' vinyl - which was starting to look very tired. Under the vinyl I found a few broken panels which have now been superglued and have made it on my 'to buy' list.
I've cleaned out all of the interior air vents (gross) and repaired any fins that weren't swiveling. Superglue is great stuff!
In removing the Cigi lighter I've managed to screw it up a bit too. That will require a fair bit of tinkering. It's a fiddly little part.
The gear lever knob thing was looking pretty tired with the leather worn through so I've removed it all and it's much tidier. I'll have to take some pics soon

The whole cabin has had a good cleanout now and a polish and it's looking and smelling much better.

I also managed to get the alarm reconnected which I'm quite proud of, it did reveal to me a mess of cabling though - which to me is a bit of a no-no with my IT background. On the topic of wiring - there is a little dial under the steering wheel which I think is a pivot converter for the headlights? It turns out that it's cable was cut so I'll have to do some digging to sort that one out. Also I have a mystery switch, down where the foglight switch would be if I had foglights. From what I can tell it doesn't go to anything. More digging required!

Next on the list will be replacing blown cabin lights, might do a full LED conversion while I'm at it.

[GDII]

That dial controls the dashboard lights. It's a dimmer control. NZ models got this but JDM did not. What does the other switch look like?

[gruk]

Oh no I'm talking about a custom added dial, attached below the steering column - ugly job. I'll get a photo up tomorrow. The dimmer is there. The other mystery switch is next to the dimmer, big red button. At first I thought it was a kill switch, but that would be too obvious. I really need to study the wiring diagrams and start tidying things up. Big job.

[GDII]

I might have to have a look to figure it out. Unfortunately the wiring diagrams that are available are for USA and Canada and do not match JDM or NZDM stuff closely enough to be 100% reliable. They help but they are not gospel.

[gruk]

The freshly cleaned gear lever - notice the large cracks on the plastic surround. Part will need replacing at some point:

The big red mystery button:
It's wires look as though they might head into the door loom maybe? I've just had a really quick look. Weather is too nasty today for proper investigation.

A custom addition - I think it's a headlight pivot converter. It's cable is cut though, I'll need to find the other half of it at some point and see what happens.

And finally a quick photo of the much tidier cabin:

[gruk]

I gave the exterior a clean today, I was going to polish it up but stopped after the initial wash. There is a lot of damage to the paint in various ways. Damaged clearcoat here, chips and scratches there, and the bonnet has had a rattlecan paint job and was never cleaned up after so that will need a bit of sanding. I discovered a bit of rust on the underside of both doors also so what I might do is sand that back to metal, treat it and bog it if needed. I'll repair the other bad paint areas at the same time. I'll need some touch up paint and some clearcoat I suppose. So I'll save polishing with Ultimate Compound until I've done that stuff.

I've ordered some fine grit wet and dry sand paper from a website I found called BangGood.com. No idea how legit they are but shipping was free and the sandpaper was cheap, and they had grit as fine as 7000! hardcore! Repco and Bunnings topped out at about 1500. We'll see if anything shows up in the post.

Next job will be to get her up on jack stands and have a look underneath. I want to have a good study of the coilovers and see what can be done about ride comfort too.

The weather was great today so I took the roof off and cruised around the Miramar coast. She hugs the road well in the corners! Good fun

To buy : cupholders. I made the mistake of buying a coffee to go and ended up wearing a lot of it.

[gruk]

Today I wasn't planning on working on the car at all. I just popped the hood to have a look at the top of the suspension to see if there was way of softening it from there. 4 hours later...

I pulled all of the cowling, and the spare out and gave everything a bit of a tidy up.
There were a couple of blue wires which were running under the seal at the front of the car - turns out that they weren't going anywhere. It looks like a previous owner had strapped some fog lights to the front. I traced them back to the mystery switch inside. All removed now.

I gave the battery bay a much needed cleanout - turns out it had a drain in there! who knew!? Spent far too long putting it back in

I also did some further investigation into my stuck temperature selector. The part inside the frunk seems to move freely, so it's not that. I followed the cable under the dash and found a couple of patches where it was melted a little, so perhaps thats trapping it. I've had more thoughts about it since I packed up, maybe it needs to be anchored better at the console end so I'll investigate again in a day or two.

[85AW20v]

..... I followed the cable under the dash and found a couple of patches where it was melted a little, so perhaps that's trapping it. .....

Maybe the cable has inadvertently been used as an earth at some point......

[gruk]

Maybe the cable has inadvertently been used as an earth at some point......

Quite possible looking at the electrics! It could also have been getting rubbed on something under there. Hopefully the weather is fine sometime in the next few days and I'll have a chance to try again. Having a heater isn't a huge priority, but it would be nice to have everything working as it should be

[gruk]

Well poop

Got back from Phil's place, left the car for 30 mins, return and this. Time to learn to diagnose a coolant leak! Fun times ahead

[GDII]

Hmmm that's no good.

As it is coming from in front of the wheel it could be the main hose or the heater hoses. There is a lot of coolant parts floating around the rear of the engine.

[gruk]

Hmmm that's no good.

As it is coming from in front of the wheel it could be the main hose or the heater hoses. There is a lot of coolant parts floating around the rear of the engine.

Yeah, it's coming from somewhere on the passenger side, up quite high I think. My best guess from what I've seen so far is maybe the Water Outlet. Perhaps a hose has slipped. It has dumped a lot of coolant. I'll top it up and start the engine and see if I can see anything. It'll be a very gentle drive home I'm thinking. Don't think I'll be making it to the run next week!