Creepie's MR2 Restore

[Crawls]

Hey guys, i have been doing this for a while, and decided to finally post what I am actually up too.
My car is a 1990 NA SW20.
As far as I am aware it is completely stock, I don't have any info to what previous owner had done to it.

But anyway, after many a year of driving this little beast, the many issues starting arriving. And as such the wife and i couldn't afford to repair it at the time.
So we took it of the road and said that we would get it road worthy once more - Fast forward 12 years, two kids later, she tells me to get cracking haha.

And here I am.....

[Crawls]

So that is where I am starting this journey. First up was Brakes.

After so many neglected years, the brakes were shot to say the least. I decided to rebuild the stock calipers and replace what I needed.
Fronts are easy, so i started with the rears.....

After a lot of researching I found that i needed a special Nut to help take apart the rear calipers.

So i got cracking on it, i removed the piston from each, removed the handbrake mech inside too.
All rotors got replaced with new ones, with new pads all round too.

As was not surprised with the state of it.

Stuffed Piston

Seen better days

Old vs New

Damn.

Getting better

Looking way better

Calipers got a paint as well as the pad bracket.

Much Better

Colour Yay

Then onto Rebuilding them..

Big difference

nice

Finished

Once i had done the rears i done the fronts in the same colour scheme.

Wasnt planning on doing brakelines immediately, but unfortunately i sheared one in half. So on went some stainless steet brakelines from Goodride.

[Crawls]

Next up was figuring out why I couldnt start it. I assumed after checking things that the fuel pump was stuffed. After nearly 30 years i figured that was the issue.


I WAS WAY WRONG!!!

I dropped the fuel tank with some gentle persuasion, and took it apart to replace fuelpump.

UMMM!

WTF!!!

Damn. Entire fuel tank was full of rust, checked out filter and thankfully it was clear (Still replaced filter though). So onto Trademe I go, found a fuel tank in Whakatane, Yay.

Was a little hesitant but was very happy to find out previous owner of said tank had changed fuel pump in it, so yea good for me.

Big difference here

After we put tank back in, we needed to do coolant replacement. Which meant firing the little beast up.

And amazingly after sitting there for 12 damn years, FIRST POP. Didn't want to stay running as the Idle control valve was gummed up. So cleaned that and it sweet now.

[Crawls]

Next on my hit list was suspension issues. I had previously replaced all 4 Shocks, and i had issues with the ball joints (this was one of the reasons it went off the road). So ordered new ball joints from Toyota & puremr2.com and got to fitting them. I must say, these are stupidly hard things to do when you dont have the gear.

But here you go...

As you can see, one of the bolts snapped off, this is one reason i failed to keep it on the road (got told by a mechanic that you cant replace them, dumb me for believing him).

[Crawls]

I got stuck in to car audio, nothing to wild just nice to hear.
Replaced speakers in doors, and carefully replaced rears too. But i found this headunit at repco.

I also set up a dashcam in the top pocket between seats. It can stream directly to stereo.
This is what it sees

All Powered by a USB port.

As previously mentioned, I had issues with the idle control.

I also had issues with throttle body itself.

Every thing got a thorough cleaning and reassembled. Tested it out, and PERFECT.

I also done a LED dash light conversion during this time, didnt take any photos but looks way better.
Tacho had popped both capacitors, of down to Jaycar I go to get new ones.
Volt Gauge didnt go well. So that got replaced with a digital one.

This brings us to this week, with help from a couple of guys on here advising me via PM. I got my alternator out, could not lower sub frame due to seized bolts, so had to remove bracket and then remove alternator. That thing is now at auto sparkys to get repaired, hopefully will have it back tomorrow.
Then to put it all back it.

[Benckj]

Good job with all the repair work. Quite a long list there so far.

[Crawls]

Thanks man, I couldn't have got this far without help from the forum and other owners.

[Crawls]

While I wait for the alternator, it's time for some body work.

It's got a little rust around the t-tops, thankfully majority of it is surface. Got a couple of holes to sort but not too bad.

[Crawls]

Body work has started, I ground off the surface rust today. And applied rust converter to it, the holes are very minor after the initial grind back, so will be able to get away with a small piece to remove. The rest is going to be sorted with a simple metal body filler.

[Crawls]

Alternator came back, got it installed and looks good.

Also done the trans fluid, don't know the history on it. But it was BLACK as. New stuff is red, so looks better.

Now to run it for a while, then change it again with a new trans filter.

Represent.

[Benckj]

Very cool. Glad your getting it all sorted after so many years (& jobs). Nice to save a classic from the scrap heap.

[Crawls]

Thanks Jim. Yea, I wish I had been able to do this years ago. No scrap yard for this one.

[Crawls]

Well today I decided to rewire the rear speakers. I have replaced the rear speakers with some pioneer 4in ones. Tight fit, but got them in. Then found out that the rear left one didn't bloody go. So out came the new speaker wire, and I got to work. Done the left rear first, since it didn't go. Wired it all up and tried it out, and well it was louder than the right rear. Probably by 10-15% more (at a guess).
So I done the right rear as well. And the rears are considerably louder than the fronts. Kids stopped me from doing the fronts for the moment, but will get the fronts done too.

[Benckj]

Yes the stock speaker cable is average at best. Generally best to simply run new cable than fluff around with the OEM.

I like the HU with touch screen. Gives the interior a modern look.

[GDII]

Yes the stock speaker cable is average at best. Generally best to simply run new cable than fluff around with the OEM.

I like the HU with touch screen. Gives the interior a modern look.

Yeah you are right but the MR2 with the amplifiers had an interesting wiring setup. For the premium system the audio signal wires from the CD/Tape/Radio are thin due to only carrying a signal. Then the amplifiers would make that signal better and the wires from there to the speakers are actually quite large. For the non premium system the wires from the CD/Tape/Radio are big all the way to the speaker due to no amplifiers. So straight from the CD player to the doors rather than to the amps behind the left door then out to the speakers.

So Jim is right about running new wires and ignoring a lot of the OEM stuff. My car has bypassed the amps and has wires spliced in after them to the big wires for the speakers but they aren't big wires. So really it's like the non premium system with an aftermarket head unit. Not really great but it was like this when I got the car and I haven't planned to change it yet. Right now I have an OEM tape player in the DIN slot. The exhaust is my entertainment for now.