Ash's 93 TT White JDL Supra Restoration

Hi guys,

Thought I would start a build thread for my supra for future reference, considering the amount of money that has been put into the car so far.

I will keep this thread up to date when and where I can with pictures etc.

So where to start. Well I purchased the Supra back in March 2014, from a previous owner on this forum.

Basically this was advertised way back on ebay. The advert was for the supra I now own and the owners previous supra that he had owned and rolled/crashed, which damaged the body of the car, due to the roll.

He then purchased a new shell from a NA white supra and transffered the parts needed from the old shell to the new. This consisted of a UK spec TT engine, W58 5 speed gear box with stage 3 clutch and various BPU upgrades as the car had been rated at 400bhp on the rolling road.

I saw the Ad and thought it may be a nice project to work on (Not thinking of what it may cost to restore lol). So I contacted him and came to a price for just the new supra shell with TT UK spec engine and gearbox etc. He wanted £5500 for the lot intially, but I ended up getting the working car for just £4000, with some glass headlights

I went to view the car and it seemed in fair condition. A few things needed attending to. Brakes being the main thing I noticed and some slight leaks.

After viewing I left a deposit for the car and then went home to arrange transport to my local garage, Horsham Developments, who specialize in imports.

This is what she looked like at this stage:

As you can see, the main bodywork was ok, but the bodykit was in preety bad shape. Discoloured and cracked etc.

So the next step was to wait and here back from Horsham Developments on the restoration of the car.

Unfortunately, this wait came with some bad news. Horsham Developments had checked the car over throughly and found so many issues, they did not want continue with the project due to time.

This left me in a pickle as I didnt really know anyone else, so had to quickly do some research in order to get this car sorted and up and running.

The areas they listed as problematic, were as follows:

Oil cooler is mounted with cable ties – needs to be fixed properly

Oil cooler pipe work leaking

Front brake disks need replacing

Front brake callipers need a rebuild (leaking)

Front anti roll bar link faulty

Intercooler is damaged (not sure if its leaking or not)

Intercooler pipe work need replacing

Air conditioning hose hanging off

Turbo oil feed pipe fitted incorrectly

Various engine oil leaks

Oil leak on gearbox bell housing

Gearbox oil leak from centre section

Gearbox oil leak from propshaft seal

Rear callipers need a rebuild

Rear brake disks need replacing

All of the interior electrics do not work

Engine has a misfire

Near side front lower arm ball joint needs replacing (split rubber)

I’m sure other faults would become apparent if we investigated further.

With further research, this led me to a company called Whifbitz, who were very helpful and arranged for my Supra to be transported over to there London garage to do the work on the car and get it back to running order.

Little did I know how much this whole project was going to cost me. A lesson learnt, but we all make mistakes.

So within a week Whifbitz started work on the Supra to get it back to a good working order.

They were in costant contact with me and advised me on parts every step of the way.

It did turn out that a lot more than intialy expected had to be replaced. Including the seats as the motor had failed on the drivers side.

However the engine itself was a clean example and seemed to be in good order at this stage, with turbos etc working as they should.

The Supra remained with Whifbitz from April till August time to fully restore it and make sure it was road worthy.

I finally recieved the invoice of all parts purchased at this stage and these were as follows:

2 TOYOTA FRONT ANTI ROLL BAR LINK £67.73 £135.46

2 TOYOTA REAR ANTI ROLL BAR LINK £54.41 £108.82

2 TOYOTA REAR LOWER ARM £206.58 £413.16

1 TOYOTA REAR LOWER ARM BOLTS/WASHERS/NUTS £38.82 £38.82

2 TOYOTA HANDBRAKE CABLE £52.90 £105.80

1 TOYOTA UK SPEC FRONT BRAKE KIT £577.29 £577.29

1 TOYOTA UK SPEC REAR BRAKE KIT £570.26 £570.26

1 WHIFBITZ SUPRA FMIC £450.00 £450.00

1 TOYOTA FUEL FILTER £35.32 £35.32

1 WHIFBITZ FPD FUEL PIPE £56.12 £56.12

1 TOYOTA CRANK PULLEY £235.00 £235.00

1 REAR WHEEL BEARING £85.00 £85.00

1 TOYOTA REAR DRIVE FLANGE £169.92 £169.92

1 SUPERPRO REAR UPPER ARM BUSHES £90.39 £90.39

1 REAR UPPER ARM BUSH REMOVAL £20.00 £20.00

1 WHIFBITZ TURBO LINK PIPES £40.00 £40.00

1 HKS 200MM AIR FILTER ELEMENT £20.00 £20.00

1 TOYOTA POWER STEERING PUMP TO TANK HOSE £9.49 £9.49

1 BATTERY £79.94 £79.94

1 GEARBOX PROPSHAFT SEAL £14.10 £14.10

1 UNDERSEAL £25.00 £25.00

1 K&N OIL FILTER £10.31 £10.31

1 GULF 5W40 COMPETITION ENGINE OIL £46.20 £46.20

1 NGK IRIDIUM SPARK PLUG SET £51.00 £51.00

1 GULF RACING 5.1 BRAKE FLUID £5.52 £5.52

1 ANTI FREEZE £9.50 £9.50

1 CORBEAU FORZA SEAT - BLACK/RED £386.00 £386.00

1 MOT £50.00 £50.00

1 USED TOYOTA LSD £300.00 £300.00

1 PROPSHAFT MODIFICATION £120.00 £120.00

1.5 GULF COMPETITION 75/90 DIFF OIL £12.72 £19.08

1 NUMBER PLATE £10.42 £10.42

1 TOYOTA FRONT BRAKE CALIPER PAD RETAINER £9.82 £9.82

1 CLIFFORD CAT 1 ALARM £350.00 £350.00

1 SUPERPRO REAR DIFF MOUNTS £52.05 £52.05

At the begining of August it was finally time to travel down to London and pick up my newly restored Toyota Supra TT. I was so excited at this point to see the transformation.

This was what was presented when we arrived:

Engine bay had really been tidied up and looked a lot better.

I chose to purchase some new alloys to replace the old Lexus ones, as I wasnt a fan of them. The new alloys I went for were black 18 inch Rota Drift Force alloys with Falcon tyres all round. As you can also see I purchased some new seats made by corebu racing and they were FIA approved. Really comfy too.

Got her safely home at this stage, but then I did come across some minor things that would need sorting.

This included no horn for some reason lol?

Belts at front of engine were squeaking when I arrived back and were annoying.

New aftermarket steering wheel to fit. Went with a momo drift steering wheel. love it

Noise from rear of car

After revisiting Whifbitz, it turned out the new LSD fitted was faulty causing strange noises and loose subframe bolts.

These were sorted.

Some more pictures before the car went in for its body work to be sorted:

Loose subframe bolts....how did that happen?

We'll loose May be an exaggeration, they needed tightening as they were causing a noise from the rear.

Fair play to you mate for keeping with it and forking out the cost of another owners neglect this is what annoys me when people say in some for sale ad’s that’s overpriced is it though if its had no money spared.

Cheers mate. It's have far more than what's listed above done to it now. Recently spent £3500 on a full body kit and respray.

Still at Horsham developments at the moment sorting out the last little bits and should be ready in the next two weeks.

Will update when I have pics of new paint job and body kit as well as the recent underbody welding where someone decided to cut into the side walls to remove capative nuts

Cheers mate. It's have far more than what's listed above done to it now. Recently spent £3500 on a full body kit and respray.

 

Still at Horsham developments at the moment sorting out the last little bits and should be ready in the next two weeks.

 

Will update when I have pics of new paint job and body kit as well as the recent underbody welding where someone decided to cut into the side walls to remove capative nuts

Nice what kit and colour ? , also what side walls underneath !?

Resprayed the car in white and went with jdl front bumper, jdl side skirts, trials bumper and spoiler.

Regarding the sidewalls, basically someone had cut holes where the propshaft mount goes on either side.

Must have destroyed the capative nuts at some stage.

So I am getting this all fixed up as it looks a mess.

Car is looking great, good on you for taking the time and expense to look after it and get it up to scratch! Supra's do look great (not that they don't already) with no spoiler!

Cheers buddy, I will upload more images of welding done and new body work once I get some pics

So quick update.

The welding of the propshaft mount holes was completed 2 days ago by Ed at Viking Engineering, who came highly recommended from another member on the forum.

I must say he did a fantastic job and kept me up to date. He even sent me some images of the work carries out start to finish.

So this was the propshaft mount holes before work started:

And this was the work carried out by Ed at Viking Engineering to rectify the problem:

All sorted now and very happy with the end result.

So I finally got the supra back this Monday just gone and I must say it looks and drives fantastic. All body work is now done and the engine bay had a bit of a refresh. The car has been 100% fully checked over for leaks with no issues found.

I would just like to say a big thank you to Whifbitz, Viking Engineering, Horsham Developments and the members on this forum for helping me fully restore this car. I can now finally enjoy driving the car and look forward to taking it to santa pod next year.

Here are some pic's of the car as it stands now:

The kit is a combination of JDL sideskirts, JDL front bumper, Trials Rear bumper and I believe it was a TRD style spoiler.

Will continue to update this thread in the future when I do further work on the car.