Well I've been quite active well lurking in these forums for awhile now. I owned an White Mr2 1985 model I believe and pretty much fell in love with its handle and its character. But alas I (like all my cars i tend to own) I Broke it. Blew the gasket between 2nd and 3rd, with out checking it proper and being very poor at the time as well as inexperience with cars I sold it off to my work and brought a reasonable car under request of family members and friends. But the hunger always lingered for another one even the skyline I owned couldn't feel that hole. I Finally convince myself that no matter what I'm getting another MR2 so the hunt was on for a cheap one. yep worse idea ever my advice now unless you have time to fix it don't go cheap it gets nasty quick. So after purchase of my Devil of an MR2 I found it had quite the history and that changing it from Auto to Manual is harder then it looks... Alot harder. I also quickly found out that all the bushes under the car and shocks where absolutely rooted so driving anything over 100kms it became very unstable but hey that didn't stop me from doing 180. so first started the hunt for parts and such requiring parts for it which worked out to be harder then i thought and expensive. Long story short after driving it around in its rough and very dangerous state which required me to focus intensively on what i was doing if driving over 100. Hence the nickname the Devil MR2. Scariest car ever driven and owned. But enough of that I decided pulling it apart and starting the manual conversion... well that was a year ago and now I'm putting it back together well starting too. This is my backyard now and the process I've started with about last week. The Exhaust gearbox and clutch as well as flywheel Back end of car i have no good photos of it before it was pulled apart The very sad state of my interior due to the fact i left the window down and it being powered i couldn't be bothered getting it back up so for a whole year its been down and year The old Auto gearbox got abit rough with it and it was leaking Poor old rental backyard Getting there slowly. The Auto shifter has been removed Engine now with Auto Flywheel removed and the part i don't need but need the manual version of And my Poor little datto that has tried to fill in my need for speed and handling... Yea its not doing such a good job. Hopefully all these images work if not i shall try to redo it.

On other news on the sunday 27th was a cruise for charity and i put the little datto in the cruise performed well apart from getting on the highway and she overheated abit but made it to the show. and i even got her dyno made a terrifying power of... 47HP :)

So trying to get more done on the MR2 but i need to wait for parts really so all i can do now is swap out bushes and hoses right now. that being said im being a bit lazy and trying to put that aside for now. but today i did manage to pull apart the front of the engine abit but damn is it hot out there no relief when i go inside either makes me work slow.


So managed to strip some of the front timing cover off waiting for the timing belt kit and all that to come. But before I could do more ran into a problem with my rattle gun.

Poor thing wouldn't work. so need to sort that out.(PS I don't have compressed air that's why it doesn't work :D)
Did get a photo of the front before putting cover back on and yes number plate is bent hitting a magpie and 150kms does that apparently. But man feathers went everywhere.

Poor thing looks very tired and such cant wait to get her going again got some big plans for her... like a turbo...and some body mods...

Epic photo-age mate, thanks for sharing! It always makes me feel good about another MR2 being restored :)

Unless your air compressor is heavy duty, a rattle gun ain't going to make light work of the crank bolt.
 
You might find yourself putting the flywheel back on, wedging a bolt in there, then cracking the crank bolt with a breaker bar; that's what I had to do with mine.
 
Also just another tidbit. They estimate only around 900 Red AW11's made it to Australia. Considering the amount that have rusted away or been scrapped, your red one is probably a lot rarer than even my JDM Auto GZE. Being a hardtop it's also one of the lightest chassis models (your old white one being the only one lighter since it was an earlier year) so with the GZE conversion and increased boost, will be a very fun thing to drive.

maj
Unless your air compressor is heavy duty, a rattle gun ain't going to make light work of the crank bolt. You might find yourself putting the flywheel back on, wedging a bolt in there, then cracking the crank bolt with a breaker bar; that's what I had to do with mine. Also just another tidbit. They estimate only around 900 Red AW11's made it to Australia. Considering the amount that have rusted away or been scrapped, your red one is probably a lot rarer than even my JDM Auto GZE. Being a hardtop it's also one of the lightest chassis models (your old white one being the only one lighter since it was an earlier year) so with the GZE conversion and increased boost, will be a very fun thing to drive.

Well I'm hoping it will but I think the handling will be a little **** and down right dangerous for abit giving that the shocks are absolutely ****ed and all the bushes. And i did end up putting on the flywheel thanks for that tip cause i soon as i read it i was like "oh yea i can do that" Nek minute crankpulley bolt is undone :).

Tree
Epic photo-age mate, thanks for sharing! It always makes me feel good about another MR2 being restored :)

No worries there Tree. Please dont get your hopes up for now because my MR2 is gonna be all function over form. half the trims and **** are missing and i dont even think they will be going back in there. but who knows in the future i might change my mind and start restoring the interior as well as the outside. but for now im looking at getting it running. then some outrageous mods i.e. Knights idea with the hood, love to do that to it. Mounting an intercooler in a better spot. and making it handle well and some nice aero to assist in handling. oh and when money permits, making it go fast.

So last night i was hoping to get that damn water pump off and crankpulley but alas my mate who i asked early on in the day to come around after he finished work with some tools... failed miserable. so i had to wait till today reading a message from Maj about it ^^. can't believe i didn't think of that.

Well did that, got it undone but did have to drive all the way out to my mates garage in order to pick up a pulley pull set. Which resulted in me getting of the Pulley Yay.

Also cleaned a few items there. now in my attempt to pull off the water pump i ended up stripping half the front of the engine off. well i would say most of it really. aside from couple of things. like the ****ing water pump son of a bitch still didn't want to come off and i hate using force unless i need to.(ps i tuned down the swearing i was pretty mad when i did all that and it still didnt want to come off :D)

so i walked away and decide i would put the rest of the car on stands and show off my awesome rims and sizes. note ive never brought rims or tyre sizes for this MR2.



Hopefully tomorrow will be more eventful and go the way i want if not i bet there with be more swearing and cussing. until the old lady next door complains :)

If you think water pump removal is a pain, try doing it in the car.. I did!
 
Don't forget to pull off the oil dipstick, gives you more wiggle room with the water pump. Just remember to check the O-ring at the end of the dipstick tube because it's known to perish and allow oil to leak out. Might even be worth replacing it as a preventative measure.
Keep the pics coming. We all need to keep spurring on each other :)

So had alot planned for today got ruined by a phone call at about 3:20 work asking if i can come in early like 4. so at that moment pretty annoyed had plans but doing a 6hr shift is okay means lots of money kinda. so i only got so much done like cleaning down my engine mounts and spent a good two hours trying to get replacement studs for engine mount cause well the threads look alittle worn.


Also best to undo the engine mounts when ever you take them out you might just be putting them back in again same way but i can tell you now if you need to clean or do something on them getting them undone is a bitch


Had to attach them to my new gearbox and undo them and **** did i struggle.
Also got a box of goodies for the mr2

dont by this brand smells like cirtrus but very over powering

and this engine mount starting to split gonna fix it hopefully soon.

Out to dry

oh wait i lied i cleaned up timing cover and dipstick.

So got a little abit done today... well not really decide to finally stop ****ing around and replace all my hoses but left it to the last minute to go into town and pick up some hose clamps so all shops where closed so that's a tomorrow job now. Wasted some time there, decided to pull out my dash because either way I want to replace the back lights or replace the whole unit. Also got an email saying that my parts will not be posted till about another 3weeks so delay there. I've decided to take measures against that so rather then sitting around with my finger up my bum I'm ordering in a gasket set getting here by December so not really happy about that but hey at least this way I can bolt the engine in when I re-gasket everything and such. Then I'll just need to wait to the final things are in place then shes ready to go hopefully that's the plan but we all know that something is gonna **** up or go missing or break or ill break something, miss something or **** it up some how... other news here's some pictures on what I've done since the last update. Yep I know sweet **** all.

Cluster removed, and yea steering wheel has seen better days.

That scared the **** out of me when i turned around and saw that... but spraying half a can of bug spray on it and finding no bugs coming out of it or anything i decided it was safe.

Found this on the net pretty kewl wouldn't mind one myself.


take one guess as to where i got this idea from :D.

and how the engine sits now... yep water pump is still on there. I noticed there was a pipe behind it connecting to it... I now feel like and idiot but hey it will come off once I take off the super charger and such, to get to it.

So in other words not much done and worst is that I need to put the engine back onto the trailer cover it back up pack everything away so when they come around to inspect the place they don't go ape **** at us then pretty much after they leave it will come off the trailer and I can start back up on it. Oh joy...

So got abit done was hoping to replace all or well most of the coolant hoses in engine bay but found out rather quickly that I don't have all the hoses... oh joy. So need to do some hunting soon, to track the rest down but I did manage to replace all the front ones to radiator. Also decided to replace all the sway bars seeing as I got all new sway bars and bushes kit awhile ago. So they went in.


New hoses in... yea I know boring but meh I'll take pictures of what I do to show you guys how I've been doing things.

Front sway bar compared to old and new... The new one is the shiny one :D (WhiteLine sway bars both front and back)

Rear considerable thickness difference in rear compared to front. Also only has two holes for adjustment.

Thickness comparing this is rear only did not do front but can if you guys ask I suppose.

Rear in place the setting it is on is the hardest it will go. Might change later.

And front in place, it is set on softest for now given that it has three holes for adjustment I shall play with it later when its on the road.

And that is all I've got done today need my engine crane back before I start playing with the motor again. Or may wait till after inspection on house before pulling engine apart. Hopefully more updates soon rather then later I will soon be rededuced to only working on weekends soon due to me moving out and car staying. Or I could look at putting it into storage and working on it there... Hmmm gives me an idea, better start calling some places up.