TNR's AW11 (Finally!)

[TNR]

I've done my AW plenty of times, and a few SWs too, but always feel nervous about it. The best way (for me) to be sure, is after the first good bleed, take it for a blat up and down the road constantly watching the temp gauge so it doesn't start going above half way. Then let the car sit overnight (or until it cools), top up, rinse and repeat until no more water needs to be added. Even then, I'm still paranoid and watch the gauge like a hawk.
Because of my silvertop swap, I actually have two senders (and two gauges), one just before the thermostat and one just after. This way I can see when the thermostat opens (if at all) as the second gauge sits dead until flow starts going through - I find it quite handy, especially at the track Definitely want to retain this after my next engine swap too.

Good advice, I'll remember it bleeding the system for the first time when its time.

BTW are you swapping to a blacktop top soon? I'm not sure if I'll fix the engine in mine or go blacktop.

[Statek]

BTW are you swapping to a blacktop top soon? I'm not sure if I'll fix the engine in mine or go blacktop.

Hmmm... I'm still deciding, but I'm probably going to hunt for something a little newer, with a bit more power, but staying N/A and below 2 litres

[TNR]

Hmmm... I'm still deciding, but I'm probably going to hunt for something a little newer, with a bit more power, but staying N/A and below 2 litres

Lol I think this means 2ZZ, that would be crazy.

[TNR]

Alright, I've been thinking about how to go about this.

I would prefer to rebuild the stock engine, however I've never done this before and don't wanted to spend money on the engine if its only good for scrap.
Does anyone know a good honest engine shop who can tell me how badly the head is warped, if its cracked or leaking, if the block needs honing or anything etc.

If its too far gone I might just go for a blacktop swap.

Thanks.

[Ash Kelly Barr]

I'm using the guys at marsh motor sport for mine

[TNR]

Just to share whats been happening, I will be staying with a 4AGE 16V but it will most likely be a replacement engine. I'll keep my engine for a rebuild in the future. By future I mean long term plans, nothing anytime soon.
Reason being that I thought the car was fun enough with the stock engine and autobox, so with a manual it will be more than enough fun. Also I want to keep the car mostly original with a few light modifications.

I'm pretty busy with uni this year but I have been working on the car little by little, just doing small jobs that need to be done for the manual swap + engine replacement.

The engine and box still aren't out, but its almost ready to happen.

Removed the rear spoiler to make it easier to work on (this was the last time the car was outside the garage):


Removing parts/lines/wires:








This is currently how the engine bay is. I need to remove the axles from the wheels (apparently the wheels should not be loaded after removing the axles according to manual? or maybe I just read it incorrectly since I was scanning). Also need to remove start cable connectors which seems a little difficult, after this I can probably drop the engine and box.

Like I said I'm pretty busy and because I couldn't find time to drop the engine, I did some other jobs instead.


Like removing auto shifter:





Cool to see stuff like this made of metal, now a days everything seems to be plastic:





A while ago I stumbled across a facelift AW at Zebra parts. I shared the find in the parts section, see here: http://mr2.org.nz/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13544. I got a few bits and pieces from that car...
It was actually kind of unnecessary since after that I just bought a complete manual swap from user "vcut214", his parts were in nicer condition than the zebra parts car too. Thank you vcut214 by the way, appreciate it. So now I have two of certain parts... oh well.

Here are the manual swap parts:










Actually everything above apart from the gearbox was from the zebra parts car, I didn't take pics of the parts I got from user "vcut214" which are the parts I will be using.
NOTE: I know these aren't all the parts required, I just don't have pics of everything.

I wanted the replacement odometer to match the kilometers exactly of my car. So that's what I did. By the way, I want to change to a manual odometer so I can have a volt meter and the cool red stripes on the tacho. That is reason enough for me.

My cars odo reading:


Replacement meters reading:


















New reading which matches exactly with my cars reading:





On the back of the instrument cluster there is a speed warning chime often found on old Japanese cars. The cover had quite a bit of surface rust so I decided to clean it up a little:



The method I used was electrolysis because I was too lazy to sand it:


bubbles are hydrogen and oxygen gas:


Finished result, not bad I'd say. It was actually very smooth:



Just on the side, here is a video I took of the chime in action. Again I think its pretty cool to see things like this, never see them on newer cars:



Here is just a random pic I took which I thought looked kind of cool:



Alright so more recently I cleaned up and refreshed the shifter mechanism:










I then looked at the mounting bracket for the shifter and pedals and thought they could also use a little cleaning up. I again used electrolysis to remove the rust and then coated the parts in a rust preventative coating:

Disassembled brake pedal assembly:




Parts cleaned of all dirt and oil before electrolysis:


Unfortunately no pics of electrolysis that I can find but here are the parts after rust coating:




I cleaned the pedal bushings and re-greased, unfortunately no pics of re-greased parts because my hands were too dirty:






Shifter installed into car:




Finally where I am up to currently. The transmission is pretty dirty so I'll be cleaning it up. I made a start but ran out of degreaser and didn't have an appropriate brush.





Okay, that's about it for now. Sorry for all the mismatched photo sizes, hard to keep it consistent with vertical/horizontal shots and different cameras.

[GDII]

Thanks for the detailed write up on progress. It's interesting to see the electrolysis method for tidying up the surface rust on those metal parts. The black finish looks great.

I hope you enjoy the car more once it becomes a manual.

[TNR]

Thanks! And no worries.

Yeah I was too lazy, so I let electricity do my cleaning for me lol.

[Aza]

Wow, she's looking very good for her age. Good find!

[TNR]

Wow, she's looking very good for her age. Good find!

Thanks!

Another small update:

Got the manual brake pedal installed. Couldn't do the clutch as I don't have a master cylinder yet.
The starting point, all covers still fixed:


Cover removed but air vent ducting still in place:


Duct also removed:


Here you can see I've taken most of the bolts which secure the pedal to the vehicle off:


Pedal removed (was the hardest part for me):


A normal sized brake pedal!


A more significant update:

I recently got a replacement engine thanks to user "Vrtigo". I'll still be keeping my original engine for a possible future rebuild, but at the moment I don't feel comfortable attempting this with without knowing more about 4AGE rebuilds. Also I don't really have the time/money to learn or get it done at the moment.

Transporting it home:


Was pretty dirty so cleaned it up a little:


Dirt that came off:


A little cleaner:




I had to keep it somewhere while I remove my original engine and do some work to get this one ready (sorry for terrible pic, back light was too strong):





I didn't want the engine to rest on the crankshaft so I decided to let it rest on two pieces of timber. The bottom of the block has two bolts/dowels for the oil sump positioning which won't allow it to sit flat, so it required two quick holes to be drilled into the timber:


This is one of the bolts, block can now sit flat as the bolt is not pressing against timber:




I blocked all the ports, spark plug holes and distributor hole with paper towels or rubber gloves to stop dust getting into the engine while it waits:



As it sits:





I will be cleaning it up more thoroughly later on, I just wanted to get the majority of the dirt off it so it wouldn't make a mess of the bench and my hands when working on it.
Will most likely put on a new water pump and timing belt/tensioner at least.

[TNR]

Alright so a while ago I mentioned wanting to run ITB's. Well I'm no where near that stage yet, however, a package arrived in the mail today which reminded me I had a set of these sitting in storage. Might as well share what I've been up to.












Cleaned up:


Still a little cleaning to do on the insides:



So what was the package that reminded me of these?





Hmm.. what could this be:


T3 ITB adapter of course:


Very nice:


I'm no where near installing the ITB's but I couldn't help it; had to see:






I thought the throttles looked pretty clean but now with them next to the adapter they look dirty again.

Had to check what it looked like on the engine too:


..Engine is still so dirty too..


I also had to order a new distributor rotor, cap and seal because the originals were no good (as you will see below):


Original distributor off my car, which I will be using:


Doesn't look good:


Seems the rotor had somehow rubbed or burnt the plastic cap??


Honestly I'd seemed to run well but couldn't just ignore this, which is why I bought the OEM Toyota replacement parts.



New rotor:


New cap:


New seal:




Cleaned up dizzy heat shield:


Refurbished unit:



Alright onto another completely different area. The transmission and its various brackets/ linkages were looking pretty bad so I decided to clean them up and coat them with the same rust preventative coating as I did the brake/clutch/shifter parts.

Here's what it initially looked like:






Note the direction of the arrow on rubber seal (not really sure if this was important, but best to reassemble the same way):




Rust/protection coating:











Feels a lot smoother now.

Oh I also picked up a blacktop flywheel since it is about ~1.2Kg lighter than the 16V one, stock feel should be retained while being slightly quicker revving. Of course it needs resurfacing.

[GDII]

That's a lot of work going into this engine. Looks like a lot of fun though. Love the T3 adapter.

[TNR]

That's a lot of work going into this engine. Looks like a lot of fun though. Love the T3 adapter.

Thanks! I just hope it'll run well.

Anyone know what this electrical connector on the manual transmission is for?

[GDII]

That's a lot of work going into this engine. Looks like a lot of fun though. Love the T3 adapter.

Thanks! I just hope it'll run well.

Anyone know what this electrical connector on the manual transmission is for?

Reverse light switch. Tells the reverse light circuit to come on when you put it in reverse if the name isn't clear.

[flying_wedge]

Reverse light switch. Tells the reverse light circuit to come on when you put it in reverse if the name isn't clear.

It's never been plugged in with any AW11 I've had, but reverse lights have always worked ok. Odd?