rider

I've had my Supra for 18 years and over that time the drivers side belt in particular has been suffering the common problem of failure to retract fully, leaving dangly bits outside the door. There are threads on here about how to dismantle the belts and retension them. You can also of course buy new ones for around £100. Anyway the garage I take my Surpa to for service mentioned that a belt clean up can often free them up. The belts, over the years, can suffer sticky finger clogging and a good clean will free them up. A little sceptical I set about sponging down the belt followed by spray on cleaner and repeated the process a few times. Finished off with a PTFE spray on the top end of the belt that never usually sees the light of day. Result is it now retracts, not with the twang of a new belt but it does fully retract of its own volition. So for any sticky belt sufferers and you know who you are, a good clean up could sort things out. Along with wearing gloves in future. Time to look out my 1980's style racing gloves that I never owned.

That's correct. From what I took out of the comments was that the bulb looms all have a common plug into the main car loom so that the light units (which do appear as OEM supply to come complete with bulbs) would be a case of take the old cluster out, disconnecting the multi-plug and tow retaining screws and simply replacing with the facelift unit by plugging into the same multi-plug and refitting the two retaining screws. So a 5 minute job and £160 lighter?

Thanks guys. So to sum it all up the bulbs are different pre facelift J-spec or UK-spec to facelift but the lenses come with bulbs and wiring with a loom block that fits the standard wiring loom connector. So its a straight swap. If someone can let me know if that's incorrect. As a straight swap over it probably explains why there are always a fair number of pre facelift light units for sale.

Are the J-spec pre facelift and facelift bulb looms the same? Basically can you just take out the two screws and plug the bulbs from a pre-facelift into a facelift cluster. Having read the UK spec light cluster bulbs are oversized figured I'd better check if the same applies to a J-spec.

Do they offer discounts on large value orders? Titanium exhausts look good and only 6kg.

Whenever I have called in the past he is not at his phone and never returns calls so I preferred to use email to converse with Steve.

If you aren't in a hurry for parts and they are big capital items amongst them then you should look at buying from a Toyota parts distributor in the US. I did this recently for a crank pulley and saved £60 over buying at the 15% discounted price from Inchcape Toyota (effectively a 35% discount over the standard Toyota UK price). The only difference was it took 10 days to arrive rather than 2 and the import duty has to be paid before the package is delivered. As a rule of thumb, you probably need to spend over Euro400 to make the wait worthwhile and absorb the shipping costs if bringing in parts from the US. As a second rule of thumb, if you start off with an order exceeding $1000 you can usually get a good new customer discount from US suppliers.

I emailed an order for parts to Steve a little over a week ago and it got bounced back as no such user so I don't know if he has moved on. Anyway I contacted another parts supplier who gave good service and am asking them if they would be interested in offering a club discount of 15% to match the Inchcape deal. If they say yes I'll post up the details and say what I found better than my dealings with Steve/Inchcape on previous orders.

I know, it's a me thing. I just don't find sticky on plastic and bolt on accessories appealing. Unless it happens to have something like Blitz, HKS or Greddy stamped somewhere on it.

Why would anyone want to put a roll cage into their Supra? Maybe someone knows, I can't figure it out. What's it say about the driver and their ability of maintaining a car on at least 2 wheels? Still seems to be selling well on eBay. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Toyota-Supra-Twin-Turbo-6-speed-/231291344666?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item35da09d71a

The thinner oils were only required to meet US fuel efficiency regs in the 90's and nothing to do with cold cranking. My oil comes out like the day it went in after 4,000 miles between its annual servicing. I have used the Fuchs Titan Pro S 5w 30 for the last three years without any problems. If you have synthetic oil coming out black you are either running a diesel or have some blow by contamination or its acting as a detergent and cleaining up crud left behind from former oil charges. You'd struggle to cook a synthetic ester oil, the base oil class is after all used in gas turnine engines where bearing temperatures run far hotter than anything in your typical car engine.

Low brake fluid level? Check the reservoir is at the required level for the float in the cap.

I tried the polarity all ways, every ways. Even offered to make it a brew. Just a bad kit.

I'd agree, people said they could hear me rumbling up to the pub from almost 2 miles away with the Blitz exhaust. With my more recent bespoke exhaust, people say they can hear me rumbling up to the pub from almost 2 miles away. I notice the difference with the Blitz seeming more responsive to revving with its tone and the bespoke is much louder on overrun. Both sound good, is the difference worth 3 times the price? Probably yes if money is no object.

My TT6 has been sitting outside for 16 years, 15 literally outside with the last year in a new garage. Never had an issue with it, including never blown a single bulb.

£600 to £650 is a lot to pay for an exhaust and more expensive than getting a bespoke exhaust made to your own desire for noise/performance. My Supra entered the UK with a Blitz exhaust which was great but must have been a mild steel variety as it rotted away. Having gone through a standard exhaust stage I missed the Blitz rumble so replaced the Toyota exhaust with a bespoke stainless one 7 years ago, it has the grunt of the faded Blitz and is only missing a removable/adjustable baffle. Is that really worth an extra £450? The company I used way back when is still trading so must be doing something right. http://www.mijexhaust.com/toyota-exhaust-system-stainless-steel-exhaust.html

I purchased a HB3 kit from an eBay seller. Plugged in and neither side worked. Purchased another kit from a different seller, never arrived. Purchased a third kit from a third seller and they worked. Went for a more expensive metal case as the thin ballast set went straight into the bin. A pointer for anyone considering fitting a HID kit into j-spec headlights is the HB3 bulb lugs do not align with the correct bulb orientation. The return insulated wire should be at the 6 o'clock position according to commentators on the web but is more like at the 2 o'clock position if fitted into the lamp unit without modding the lugs. To get the bulb orientation correct hacksaw off half from the top part of the lug to the right of the bulb (looking down along the length of the bulb, holding the leads with the bulb pointing away from you). You can then fit the bulb to the recommended orientation that does give a raised light pattern relative to the alternative fitment that had the illumination restricted to just in front of the car. Its all to do with the 9005j&6j bulbs having different lug sizes and offsets to the European 9005&6 bulbs. So, eBay is the best place for cheap kits but don't be surprised if you need to go through more than one purchase to gain a working set.

Looks like there is a stone in the rear tyre, tut tut.

The Merc stuff is so expensive because of two things, firstly the name and secondly it'll be a gas/PAG compressor oil mix. It is always good practice if you have had a catastrophic leak to add back top off oil with a new charge, the compressors range from ISO 68 to ISO 220 weight PAG oil but a general ISO 100 will pretty much do as a top up. A healthy air con system will loose up to 10% of its charge each year as it'll be running between 17psi suction to 200psi discharge. So, you should have your system topped up every 4 or 5years anyway. Its when the system falls so low on gas it'll start pulling a vacuum on the low pressure side that you can start to get issues with moisture getting pulled into the system. There are loads of sellers on eBay for R134a, port coupling and gauge sets. You only need the low pressure (blue) port coupler and low side pressure gauge to charge the system. Its a really simple job but must always be done with gloves and specs on as liquid refrigerant will cause burns. With the car running if the a/c pressure is too low the compressor wont engage. The pressure in the system standing should be around 70psi though this is obviously dependent on weather. As soon as the compressor kicks in the LP side pressure will drop and anything below 17psi needs a top up of gas. By opening the screw valve on the gauge set that is coupled to the LP service port and R134a cylinder you can start to feed gas into the system (always feed in gas - don't invert the bottle that could then feed in liquid. Some bottles do have two separate liquid and gas take off valves). Once you have the correct gas content in the system the condenser sight glass will show a steady stream of liquid with no or limited amount of bubbles. Don't be tempted to overcharge a system, that can result in hydraulicing of the compressor which is usually terminal. It really is an easy job to do yourself if no recovery of old refrigerant or drying of the system is required. http://www.refrigerantgases.co.uk/shop/index.php?_a=product&product_id=39 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/REFRIGERATION-AIR-CONDITIONING-R134a-MANIFOLD-GAUGE-SET-/400320857218?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item5d34fb8482

I had a similar problem with my front o/s clunking and grinding. Lots of parts were changed including shocks and track rod end without remedy. Turned out to be a warped disc that a new set of discs and pads sorted.

Why do people do it, particularly the unfortunately ugly eyelid treatment to the lights.

I think it may vary by state. Saw something online referring to California 15 year rules on imports though the general ruling seems to be 25 years and some have mentioned 20 years on this site before. I lived in the US for a while and as anyone who has lived there or who watched the first Top Gear episode in the US knows, second hand cars there are not cheap. A large part of that is sales tax applied to second hand purchases, can't think why the government here hasn't cottoned onto charging VAT every time a vehicle is sold through trade.

Just to close this thread off with a resolution. Problem was solved with a new set of front discs and pads.

I was browsing around some classic car sites seeing what's in and what's expected to be in. I am thinking of buying an original Triumph Stag but found a couple of US sites that mention the Supra as one car destined for stratospheric pricing with TT6 minters now making over $50k. Checked out Autotrader US and sure enough plenty of cars in there in the $30k up to nearly $60k range with the NA's parked around $15k to $25k. Its probably a good time for people to stick with their Supras, I have done that with mine over 16 years and it may well one day get back to what I paid for it, who knows maybe more. ][]]&modelCode1=SUPRA&showcaseOwnerId=579471&startYear=1981&Log=0&showcaseOwnerId=579471&captureSearch=true&fromSIP=69F9611880C9A88AAD353679799B317C&showToolbar=true&Log=0&searchRadius=0"]http://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/Toyota/Supra/Fords+NJ-08863?endYear=2015&makeCode1=TOYOTA&mmt=[TOYOTA[sUPRA[]][]]&modelCode1=SUPRA&showcaseOwnerId=579471&startYear=1981&Log=0&showcaseOwnerId=579471&captureSearch=true&fromSIP=69F9611880C9A88AAD353679799B317C&showToolbar=true&Log=0&searchRadius=0

Endless only seem available from eBay sellers. Might try them next but would never buy brake pads off eBay.