Homers '98 RSP TT project

[Chingy]

Great to see the car running and driving 

[Homer]

On 10/3/2022 at 2:21 PM, TuneR said:

Good job lads, few thoughts on the above.

2; did you install SS hoses? iirc there is a bit of the stock hardline that needs to be removed/deburred, maybe this needs to be done if changing lines anyway.

6; a change of PS fluid and a bleed sorted mine. Think i cleaned the mesh filter too.

 

2. Yes we did and those are on the brakes that now have bleed problems. I don’t believe anything needs to be deburred, it’s normally plugs and play. I’ve fitted goodridge lines probably 10 times and never had an issue before. It may well still be related to the lines though so appreciate the suggestion. I’ll have a closer look when I take the lines off

6. Noted The system was fully empty when it arrived and it has a cooler bypass due to the fmic. It’s one item we’ve not fully inspected yet. I’ll have a look at the filter too.

[Dieter]

Check everything again carefully, vent in any case and maybe even better, take out the pump and clean it completely, rinse the rest.

 

[TuneR]

12 hours ago, Homer said:

2. Yes we did and those are on the brakes that now have bleed problems. I don’t believe anything needs to be deburred, it’s normally plugs and play. I’ve fitted goodridge lines probably 10 times and never had an issue before. It may well still be related to the lines though so appreciate the suggestion. I’ll have a closer look when I take the lines off

Found the link where its mentioned for you:

https://www.supraforums.com/threads/braided-brake-lines-not-fitting.435903/

 

This thread makes me want to go work on my car and get it tidied up for next summer but young kids means no time. Guess ill just order more parts ha.

Edited October 5, 2022 by TuneR (see edit history)

[Homer]

23 hours ago, Dieter said:

Check everything again carefully, vent in any case and maybe even better, take out the pump and clean it completely, rinse the rest.

 

Thanks @Dieter, noted and that will be a job for the next time I work on the car. If it doesn’t solve it then we’ll get the pump out and either clean or replace it.

11 hours ago, TuneR said:

Found the link where its mentioned for you:

https://www.supraforums.com/threads/braided-brake-lines-not-fitting.435903/

 

This thread makes me want to go work on my car and get it tidied up for next summer but young kids means no time. Guess ill just order more parts ha.

Thanks @TuneR I follow what you were getting at now That makes sense and since this is a higher milage car the lines have probably been changed at least twice before. Also added to the job list for next time!

Dont delay mate, go spend an hour doing a basic job on the car, it’ll get you started again. As a father of a young lad I totally understand mate! However in my case without Kev’s constant kicks in the backside the car would probably not have any work done. Sometimes you need a kick to find the time. At least it turned out to be beneficial for my boy as he absolutely loves spending time with Kev and myself fixing the car up

[evinX]

6 minutes ago, Homer said:

Thanks @Dieter, noted and that will be a job for the next time I work on the car. If it doesn’t solve it then we’ll get the pump out and either clean or replace it.

Thanks @TuneR I follow what you were getting at now That makes sense and since this is a higher milage car the lines have probably been changed at least twice before. Also added to the job list for next time!

Dont delay mate, go spend an hour doing a basic job on the car, it’ll get you started again. As a father of a young lad I totally understand mate! However in my case without Kev’s constant kicks in the backside the car would probably not have any work done. Sometimes you need a kick to find the time. At least it turned out to be beneficial for my boy as he absolutely loves spending time with Kev and myself fixing the car up

Been a fab summer building a Supra with the chaps, looks like were going to have a few cold and wet weekends. Not phased

[Homer]

End of an era… the silver supra is sold However it’s all good as it now means I have enough money to finish the RSP to a good standard.

I have some good body parts coming over the course of the next week. In the mean time a brand new facelift bumper and foam support from Keron. Considering the price 2nd hand ones have been selling for recently the new price was quite reasonable.

[Homer]

So back to work on the car today with @evinX. Unfortunately work will slow down a lot now due to other commitments and inevitable poorer weather. We started on a few jobs today but didn’t complete many unfortunately.

1) first thing we need to do is troubleshoot why the car is cutting out after running for around a minute. It seems to be fuel related so first step is to replace the old stock pump. I went for a Walbro 350lph pump from Whiftbitz as it was the closest match to a UK pump.

Unfortunelty the only fuel proof shrink wrap we had wasn’t large enough so we had to abandon the job for now.

2) we started to remove the rear crash bar. It’s extremely rusty and we knew the bolts were poor, so we cut the metal sections away for better access. Unfortunately there is almost nothing left of the bolt heads so had to abandon that too! We’ll need to try and weld some nuts to the heads and see if they will come out.

3) Kev cut away the 4 bolts leftover from the trial rear and painted some epoxy on the holes. This is to get ready for the replacement oem bumper.

4) Dismantled the sagging front bumper to get the lower lip off. Unfortunately the side markers and indicator bolts are completed rusted on so I’ll need to buy some new ones (already have new oem side markers). I’ll put this bumper up for sale as it is.

5) Found TWO good condition boot carpets in storage I forgot I had. At least that’s one thing off the list

Rusty crash bar!

Dismantled, will be up for sale shortly:

 

Need a clean after years in the garage roof space, I don’t even remember how/when I got these

[Homer]

4 hour round trip today to pick up a bumper. It looks to be in pretty good shape. Hopefully I’ve bought all the required fixings for it.

[Homer]

As usual waiting on parts (or in this case numb nuts here ordered the wrong ones ).

In the meantime @evinX and I got on with the bodywork side of things.

1) Rusty rear crash bar is finally removed! Kev brought his welder over to try and tig some nuts to the remains of the old bolts but it just wasn’t working. Ended up cutting them up with a grinder so I could hammer a socket onto the remains. That worked out well in the end

2) brand new crash bar installed. I’ll get the bodyshop to paint this when it goes in.

3) Replacement rear bumper is fitted. Used mostly new hardware for this. This luckily still had the bumper foam fitted.

4) Kev fitted the replacement side pods, hockey sticks and side panels, again they came with almost all the hardware. These are OEM ones that someone gave for me free in exchange for sourcing some parts. I think I got the better end of that deal!

5) Started assembling the new front bumper, but since the bolts I ordered were too short we had to stop.

6) redid the IC pipes as one blew off on the last run. Found a couple more were loose so removed them and refitted and put clamps on all.

7) FMIC is now removed. For the time being I’m going to use a stock side mount. Fmic will go into storage until it’s either needed or sold.

Next job is to finish the fuel pump once my DR-25 heat shrink shows up. Then test again and see if the new pump has solved the fuelling issue.

[wile e coyote]

Finally got round to reading through this restoration

Great to see with some amazing work

Be great to see when done

[Homer]

3 hours ago, wile e coyote said:

Finally got round to reading through this restoration

Great to see with some amazing work

Be great to see when done

Thanks Darren, much appreciated. I wouldn’t class this as a restoration at this stage, that would be an unfair comparison to the level of work guys like you are doing

It’s more a case of getting it running, drivable and them roadworthy (MOT pass). The restoration part will probably be some time away and done in parts, rear subframe rebuild being the first bit.

[Homer]

In the meantime, another important part arrived. A front crash bar from @keron since these are long discontinued and impossible to find used. I’m really impressed at the quality of it and it lined up perfectly on a test fit.

While I was getting all the oem bumper items ordered I didn’t realise that these are pretty essentially to supporting the bumper foam and helping hold the bumper in the correct place to prevent sagging. Lesson learnt! The bumper I had on there had no foam and no support and after years it slowly sagged to the point of not being easily reusable.

So far I’d estimate the cost of replacing the front bumper is running close to £1k not including paint. That’s also reusing the lower bumper trim, alu strips and facelift bar. If active spoiler was included I think the price of a whole oem facelift front bumper assembly these days would easily cost £2.5k before paint

 

[Dieter]

I admire very much how correctly you carry out all the work and already deal with the rust very violently, there only helps to replace, good luck furthermore   

[Homer]

Back on it today again with @evinX 

We had a bit of a break due to family commitments and getting covid, so not a lot has happened in the mean time.

1) Kev soldered the wiring for the new fuel pump, was a bit of a hassle getting the new wires to take the solder so not a quick a job as it should have been.

However this didn’t solve the stalling issue. Now there’s a walbro in there which is much louder we can now tell if the pump is running and it seems that again it’s not turning on. There has to be an intermittent issue somewhere as we did manage to get the car driving for a while. The issue reappeared and all we’ve changed is the pump. More troubleshooting on this tomorrow…

2) Front bumper is now assembled except for the indicators and the upper support bars. I managed to save the original oem ones but they need a good clean before fitting. We also started installing the oem rad ducting but ran out of them to finish.

3) IC lines are now fully refitted.

4) We decided to go through some old storage boxes and found a few rare parts. I’ll get these up for sale soon to help fund the project.

5) Drained the rad of water and changed it over to antifreeze to help stop rust. Might do a full drain again if we can get the car running properly. Also changed the rad pipe clamps from old rusty ones to new ones.

Not many photos today

[Dieter]

yes, it's a pity you didn't find the fault, I hope it will be found quickly, I also fitted a new pump today, but from Deatschwerks.

 

[Homer]

Quick update from todays work…

I’ve been a bit on/off sick after getting covid last month but hopefully I’m now free of it. That’s one reason there’s not been a lot happening. That’s my excuse anyway!

Today was a troubleshooting session with @evinX to figure out the why the pump wasn’t turning on. We’ve made quite a bit of progress but still not found the real culprit. However the bypass means the car can be moved around freely so that helps.

1) We tested the pump operation by connecting it directly to a battery (with fuse!). This worked so we know the pump and the hanger wiring is good

2) Next removed the FP Ecu and gave it a 12v feed, all fine so the ground is good from the chassis loom and also the replacement wiring from the FP Ecu to the hanger is okay.

3 )Finally we bridged the FP Ecu 12v line and it worked fine, but obviously the pump is on all the time when the ignition is on. This means the power side of things is working as intended. It’s either the FP ‘on’ signal is not being received from the Ecu, or the error reporting back to the main Ecu is not working. I’m going to dig into the wiring diagrams again as this *should* work… most likely there is a broken connection somewhere but it’s not anywhere obvious so far.

The signal is a 5v modulated one but unfortunately I don’t have the equipment to test it at the moment.

4) With the jury-rigged setup we decided to bring the car up to full temperature for the first time. It ran perfect, no leaks, cooling is working well and engine sounds great.

5) Idle is not working well and it’s around 500rpm. It idles fine when the rpm is brought up to around 800rpm. It’s not running rich so we suspect this is a sticky ICV; a future job is to remove that and clean it.

6) The power steering noise has cleared after adding a bit more fluid, it was initially dry so probably took a while to self bleed.

Fuel pump test, it works but is surprisingly noisy. 355lph walbro might have been overkill!

Cold idle:

 

Warm idle:

 

Just a supra reversing, but sounds good!

 

[evinX]

Ah today was a great day, as @Homer said we still have not found the real culprit but we will eventually. Had her running and moving and we both know were on the last stretch before she goes of for welding & paint - very promising seeing her move and run the way she did - FABTASTIC!!

[Homer]

Warmer weather is here and it’s time to get back in the rebuild. 
I’ve not done too much over the winter due to family commitments, however a couple of decisions have been made.

1) I’ve machine polished the car and much of the paintwork has come up better than expected. Due to cost issues I’ve decided to not go for a full respray and just diy the parts and panels that need a coat of paint. The money is better off spent on getting a capable gearbox than making it look perfect. @evinX is going to be doing the paint and I’ll do the prep. It won’t be perfect but it should hopefully be good enough to get it back on the road this summer.

2) The car has been sent for the all important rust repairs on the sills. It’s possibly a bit worse than first thought and the cost of repair is likely to be close to £2k. Another reason to try and save some money elsewhere!

Passenger side after a machine polish. Not perfect but good enough:

 

I managed to get some facelift headlights in almost mint condition for an absolute steal on eBay (again thanks to @evinX!). I didn’t think it was possible to get them so cheap and I’m trying to keep it as oem looking as possible.

UK versus facelift:

On its way to the bodyshop:

[Dieter]

Well, you've done a great job polishing it and with the headlights, perfect for such a small price but you'll definitely have to have the bonnet painted, good luck that everything continues to work out as well as you imagine it will.

[TuneR]

What about a wet sand and then polish? It is very labour intensive and the last time i did a car i took a picture of myself extremely disheartened so i'd never do it again. The results made me think otherwise though. Keep it up

[Homer]

22 hours ago, TuneR said:

What about a wet sand and then polish? It is very labour intensive and the last time i did a car i took a picture of myself extremely disheartened so i'd never do it again. The results made me think otherwise though. Keep it up

The parts that need paint are past being saved by a wet sand, the clear coat has failed. The parts that need paint are the bonnet, drivers side rear quarter, the sills passenger side lower rear quarter and all the replacement/new bodywork parts. We should be able to get a decent finish on those at home, but it's colour matching that's going to be the biggest challenge. Kev has been making some test samples at his place so we'll check those against the car when it's back.

[raddys]

Look forward to seeing this painted up! 

[evinX]

10 hours ago, raddys said:

Look forward to seeing this painted up! 

Homer invested in a higer end Clear coat spray gun, and my cheap and cheerful guns i used to paint mine a couple of years back (which gave me decent results) have seen the end lf their life. So i have 3 new guns waiting to paint this one

[Homer]

Good and bad news on the rust repair…. 
- The front sills and jacking area are not as bad as first thought. The sills have collapsed from the car being jacked up in the wrong place multiple times. Thankfully the actually jacking area is fine and the thicker steel is rust free. These just need the sills straightened and re-welded.

- The rear sills have the same but there is severe rot in the structural steel heading up the chassis. He’s only opened up the drivers side but it’s so bad the screwdriver test managed to get all the way to it he interior where the rear carpet can be seen.

I had no idea it was this bad, but it needs to be fixed correctly so that’s what I’ve asked him to do.

I’ve asked for it to be fully repaired to oem standard but the cost is obviously quite a lot (well over £2k) for everything. All the repair panels have to be hand made so it takes a lot of time. Next update due in a week or two hopefully.