stevie_b

Re WD40, it depends what you read and who you listen to: http://www.skylineowners.com/forum/showthread.php?t=180979 It's an ongoing debate as to whether it harms rubber seals or not. Not all rubbers are alike, so testing different types tends to give different results which is probably the cause of the confusion.

During my caliper refurb, I'll have used the following products: - Brake cleaner (aerosol) - Red rubber grease (supplied in Toyota's refurb kit but cheap enough on ebay) for the piston seals - High temperature CV moly grease for the slider pins - Copper grease on the anti-squeal shims. You wouldn't need all of these unless you're stripping the brakes down and doing a full refurb.

I think it's an anti-squeal shim. Omitting it shouldn't contribute towards your untimely death anywhere near as much as using WD40 near your brakes. What did you use WD40 for? IIRC it's not good for rubber seals, the sort that hold the brake fluid inside the calipers instead of giving your brake disc a DOT4 shower, and you a brown trouser moment. (I jest a bit, it's OK to use it for some brake-related things like freeing off seized bolts, but don't get it anywhere near rubber seals).

Stock apart from speed converter, head unit, speakers (behind stock grilles) and horn (twin FIAMM airhorns, before I realised Toyota sell a horn upgrade that doesn't sound like Postman Pat's van)

Unless it really bothers you, I'd leave the odometer as it is (reading in kms). A decent conversion is a 3-step process: 1) feed a modified "miles" signal into the odometer (instructions on here somewhere about how to do it for the Thor converter) 2) Change the legend from "kms" to "miles" (it doesn't happen automatically) 3) get the number on the odo converted from kms to miles, otherwise you'll get a readout that's a mixture of kms and miles: shoddy IMO.

Ah, you should be fine once you put less in. I don't know if the SRD bottle is the same shape/dimensions as the stock one, but I'd try filling it no more than 1/2 full and see what happens.

You have got a problem if you're boiling your coolant off. Have you been filling the expansion bottle to the brim? If so that would probably explain why you've been losing some.

I think the "full" mark isn't at the top of the bottle so that the coolant's got room to expand when hot.

Fill the expansion bottle to the "full" mark, not to the brim of the bottle. The full mark is some way below the brim.

Thanks Scooter. I had another go having read your post and it seems I wasn't pushing the piston in far enough the first time.

I've struggling with getting the dust cover located in the cylinder (the bit where bromy uses the George Foreman tool). There doesn't look to be enough clearance between the piston and the cylinder wall to fit anything down there. The gap seems to be narrower than the circlip itself. I've tried pushing the piston all the way into the cylinder in the hope that the narrower bit of the piston gives me the room I need to push things down there, but no joy with that. I've also tried a novel method where you fit the dust cover to the base of the piston, stretch it out to fit it into the cylinder groove, fit the circlip, then push the piston in: no luck there either but I might try that again with circlip pliers.

Digsy: to clarify, you used a vice to squeeze it instead of a hammer/mallet to hit it, i.e. you still used a socket to protect the rubber part. Any ideas why one of my slider pins is stiff? I can't move it at all with my hands: to take the pin out I'll need to use pliers and wiggle it out. I certainly don't want to put the brakes back together with the slider like that. I've followed all the recommended advice AFAIK when refurbing the sliders: - Cleaned the pin with a degreaser, then dried with paper towel. - Cleaned the bore with paper towel wrapped around a drill bit. - Applied high-temperature CV grease sparingly to the inside of the bore and to the surface of the pin with a cotton bud. There were no rubber anti-rattle bushings (the small rubber rings that fit in the recess near the tip of each pin) in the refurb kit I bought from Toyota (should there have been?), so I re-used the old ones. I'll remove the bushings to see if that helps. If it doesn't, maybe I deformed the metal collar whilst fitting it just enough to pinch the pin and stop it from sliding freely.

7/16 socket on a 1/2 inch drive. I didn't use a vice: just wedged the carrier between a couple of heavy objects on my lawn so that the slider bores were about vertical. It continues to be a pain in the bum though. I checked the slider pins tonight, and I can't budge one of them. It's like it's set solid overnight. I'll take the anti-rattle bushing off and see if that helps. Bizarre....

If it doesn't fit like that, take the back wheel off too and then it should be a doddle.

Thanks guys. I managed to fit the collars for one corner by using the socket method with a rubber mallet to do the hitting. Make sure the collar sits square on top of the bore, and give it 2 or 3 firm whacks with the mallet. Refurbing these brakes continues to throw up surprises: it seems like the 2 pins (or the pin bores) are not identical, even though they look it. One pin struggled to fit into one of the slider bores, whereas swapping them over meant they both fitted in their respective bores. Sure, that was easily fixed, but it does make me think whether I've done something wrong when things like that happen. I couldn't budge one of the pins by hand after fitting it, so it wouldn't have been able to do much sliding. I coated both pins and both pin bores with a light coating of high-temperature CV moly grease. I'm pretty sure I didn't over-grease them (i.e. packing the bore with grease so the pin had nowhere to go).

I researched engine flushes when I changed a head gasket on a petrol Rover once. The advice was to use some engine oil for a diesel engine for about 1000 miles, drop the oil out and replace with normal oil. Before doing that to a turbo car (or any supra) I'd get confirmation from someone else that doing this is fine. The reason I didn't use specific engine flush is that I read it can cause more problems, especially on high mileage engines where the carbon deposits actually help prevent oil leaks etc. Like I said, I'm not saying that's definitely correct, but it's the advice I followed at the time and it didn't cause any obvious problems on what was a basic, normally aspirated engine.

Yep, position and description sounds like condensation from the aircon. Put a bit on your finger and smell it, or even taste a tiny bit. If it's oil or petrol you'll soon know about it. If it's coolant, it should taste slightly sweet.

I always check it when the engine's stone cold, because it's the most stable hence repeatable condition. Sounds like Toyota's workshop manual advice is aimed at getting the oil warm (thus expanded a bit), but ensuring it's all drained back into the sump. In my unscientific experience, it takes longer than 10 minutes of rest after key-off to get a repeatable reading on the dipstick. I tend to fill the oil to about 3/4 of the way between min and max. I suppose brimming it accurately to the max mark allows you to monitor oil loss more closely, but about 3/4 is accurate enough for me.

Freezing the dust boot didn't work, so I'll give the socket method another go as described here: http://www.clublexus.com/forums/rx-first-generation/602012-diy-lubricating-the-brake-slide-pins-and-replacing-rubber-dust-boots.html (not a Supra, but same principle). Sounds like it's important to offer up the dust cover absolutely straight to the carrier: easier said than done without a vice. Also, I noticed that both of my slider bolts have the small rubber ring (the anti-rattle rubber bushing) at their tip, not just on one of them. I've read on here that only one should have the bushing, so I'm guessing I've got a mismatched pair of sliders in that carrier. However the workshop manual diagram (BR-28) shows a sliding bushing being applied to both pins. Although I'm refurbing both front brakes at the same time, I definitely haven't got the pins mixed up, because I haven't taken the other carrier apart yet. I'll check the other carrier to see if I've got two of the other type in there! What I thought the pins should be like, with one having a notch for the bushing: http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/tutorials/article/161-caliper-slide-pin-overhaul-plus-all-models-i-think/# (again, not a Supra).

So far, I've tried to squeeze the collar into the hole using a G-clamp, but I've only got one G-clamp that's big enough, so I have to squeeze it a bit on one side, then remove it and squeeze it a bit on the other side, by which time the collar has probably shifted out of position. I've also tried squeezing the slider pin (with dust cover attached) into its hole, but I think that's what ripped the rubber. I might try putting the dust cover in the freezer for a while to shrink it, then see if it'll go in the hole. Risk is that the rubber will get brittle and perish, but hopefully not (one would hope the rubber will cope with -20 deg C, otherwise anyone who drives these cars in a Norway winter will be in trouble).

Thanks Scooter. I got the collars off this afternoon with some carefully-applied mole grips. However... I've ripped the rubber on the new dust cover whilst trying to put it on. Those collars are a *really* tight fit! I've been trying to squeeze them in using a g-clamp, but access is tricky.

I'm refurbing my J-spec front brakes. There's a metal collar on the rubber dust covers for the slider bolts, and the old metal collars are stuck fast in the brake pad carrier. Has anyone else had this problem, and if so how did you get the old collars off? I'll try levering them out with a screwdriver tomorrow. If that doesn't work, I'll have to try chiselling them off, and that won't be fun.

1 = open diff 11 = LSD

I might be wrong, but I think the PAS control box sits just above where the head unit is. I can't remember if the PAS box gets its signal from the ECU, or directly from the speed sensor (i.e. before the signal reaches the ECU). I would first check the error codes logged by the ECU. If it's logged error code 42, that means the ECU isn't getting a speed signal at all, and if this is the case, whatever the speed converter is trying to do, the ECU will simply provide maximum assistance regardless of the car's speed.

Look at the converter. If it's only got one output, then you'll have the problem I described. The better converters send a scaled-back signal to the speedo dial, and an unaltered signal to the ECU. None of this will make a difference if over-assistance kicks in at about a ton though. By the time you get to 100 leptons, the ECU provides minimal (or no) steering assistance, and it doesn't make a difference if you scale it back by 5/8 or not.