rider

I was given this 'car' by my daughter as a christmas present two years ago, apparently because it is the right colour being white like my full size Supra. It has fantastic detail, so authentic that even the headlights have started to yellow. is there a more authentic Supra toy out there?

I just renewed my Range Rover insurance. That didn't go quite as expected with the selected insurer, Churchill, coming out with a new angle for me. The car must have a S5 Thatcham on a current tracker contract to be insured for theft. No tracker, then no cover even though i live in a no crime rural area and the car is only on a restricted mileage social policy. I've never had that before, especially strange considering its only a £5k car. i struggle to imagine anyone would in a right state of mind pay £400 for an annual tracker sub on a really cheap and still rapidly depreciating 12 year old Range Rover; or indeed any similar car.

HKS Hi Power

Most small screws on the Supra are M6, just confirm that by measuring the screw thread diameter and then go buy something like this. When I took the wheel off the spare column I have I screwed it straight back in just so it didn't get lost. Maybe you did the same and forgot its there?

There are USA suppliers of Supra carpets. Now for reasons best known to the colonials the drivers foot pad is on the wrong side. I talked by email to and fro to one carpet producer three years ago just out of interest and they said they could put the foot strip on the right for the same price which would have been around £250 landed from memory; which does fade as I get older. I decided there probably wasn't much demand for carpets to be bothered taking it any further but that is probably a reasonable guide to what a pristine carpet should fetch, at minimum. The best thing about their carpet option was you could have it made in a myriad of colours and pile choices, a potential wet dream for those who like to bespoke their cars.

Give Paul at TCB a call. He has sourced some connector blocks for me. They tend to come as generic white blocks so not the original black or orange colours. But, a block is a block.

In this day and age you need to be willing to grab whats on offer and be prepared to tidy up and paint body parts. The days of it must be with Supra parts has largely gone.

Why not just fit run flat tyres to the car? I've had the space saver out once in 22 years, only to get access to the top of the fuel tank.

I'm OK thanks, I have a 2 year old HKS hi power that must be worth £600 on my Supra. They actaully aren't that loud, you might be disappointed.

750g of R134a is definately top end of the Supra spec so the system, if anything should be slighly overcharged. If you do have the correct or slightly over charge in the system then you wouldn't ever run into the vacuum issue. If you find a vacuum issue with your gauge (hopefully you purchased a port snap on as well as the gauge) then either the charge wasn't 750g or you do have a leak and a good amount of it has gone away. If your inlet side pressure are fine then its onto the otlet pressures I'm afraid. Different coupler and gauge to the inlet. Should be running low to mid 200's psi with the compressor running. Less than that and your Denso compressor isn't working quite as well as it should. If all that checks out then its onto your pressure/temperature sensors or looking for a restriction in the system causing a pressure overload.

£300 collected for a second hand aftermarket exhaust - wow. Thats rich.

I bought in an entire steering column 2 years ago and finally got around to unwrapping and dismantling it today. I bought it to get at a spare column stalk set so that leaves the wheel and column as potentially surplus items. The column has one key in the lock so might be of use to someone, its a bit rusty on the brackets but the bearings and column wiring seem good. If it is of interest to anyone PM me and I'll send over some pics. It'd need to be collected because of its size and shape. The OEM steering wheel is a key part to the OE look and increasingly rare item to get listed. The one that came with the column is in really good condition which has pleased me no end. I'm going to give it a fresh leather colour treatment so it'll look close to new once done. I'll be putting it up for sale on eBay and FB once I've completed the tidy up and posting the link in this thread. If anyone has any interest in a really nice pre-facelift, 3 spoke (no airbag) steering wheel then PM me and I'll give a heads up before it gets listed.

PCV valve stuck/sticking? I had that once on one of my ancient cars that occasionally give a gulp of oily smoke out of the exhaust until I fitted a new PCV.

This kit is missing its screwdriver. The kit had a 6 inch set of grips, 2 open 8/10 and 12/14 spanners and a screwdriver. That blue rod could be something to do with the wheel nuts or locating the stud so other studs accept their nuts.

Great build with clearly a lot of effort gone into it. Fingers crossed you never suffer any electrical Gremlins that a few Aristo swaps seem to pick up. Out of interest, what is the cost to insure a modified Supra in Ireland these days?

You need to get a pressure gauge onto your low pressure port and check when the compressor runs that the pressure doesn't drop into vacuum. If it does then the compressor will shut off to protect against sucking outside atmosphere into the system. That's an indication you do not have enough refrigerant in the system. You need to charge it up until you get around 14psi pressure on the LP side with the compressor running (it'll settle out to around 70psi on a normal temperature day when the compressor stops ruuning). You can buy the service port snap ons and gauges for not a lot of money. Without the gauges to work from its like tuning a car without a timing light.

You need to become a paid up member in order to be able to PM others, then wait an undefinable amount of time for your membership status to be upgraded. If you want to contact a mod then message Tyson. He is one of the very few mods that still comes online regularly. The mod group is in the process of being rejuvenated, don't hold your breath waiting for that though.

In these days when DIY VIN plates are being offered up you'd be advised to go check out the factory spec on the Supra registry site and then when you see the car confirm the VIN with a body stamped one.

The value depends somewhat on whether it has a cat or just fresh air in the box. New, the pre-facelift with cat 2nd cat cost 2.5 times what a facelift 2nd empty cat box cost. The scrap value will be much higher on a pre-facelift. I paid, for a very good condition 1st and 2nd cat pre-facelift £120 three years ago. I'd suggest somewhere around £75 if a pre-facelift and £50 if a facelift cat. The thing that adds most of the value is having good condition heat shields as you cannot get those any longer. So a second cat, or first cat, with a scabby heat shield would be worth little more than its scrap price.

£6k++ Now starting at £8k on the International market. Makes the M3 gearbox option a steal at under £2k. Add in a modified VIN plate if upgrading from an auto box and happy days.

I undid the 12 or so drive shaft bolts with a 3/8 drive ratchet using an allen socket while my colleague held the wheel with a pry bar through the studs. That way it was easy to rotate the shaft as I took out the bolts. No big effort needed, I think they are only torqued in at around 50lb'ft which leads me to think your impact is either struggling or someone seriously overtightened the bolts in the past.

The three 12mm Allen bolts should just screw straight out. Sometimes an impact won't have enough torque to break the seal dependant on what impact you are using. I have found my own electric Makita one is getting weaker with age, it used to be able to undo wheel nuts easily but now it cannot and the diff bolts are torqued up close to that setting. I always have a 3 foot breaker bar to hand and a 3 foot hollow bar that'll sleeve over that if required. Use a big bar with gently increasing force and they should give in squeaking all the way, either that or the bolt will shear. If someone has stupidly used loctite then you are buggered as you cannot get anywhere close to the thread to be able to heat that part of the bolt up. PS - I assume the frame is still fixed to the car? Its a lot easier to get the leverage on all the bolts while it is on rather than off.

Check the designs you are looking at have ventilated gables to protect against fly away in gales. I remember there being plenty of gales when i lived in East Kilbride.

If you don't get any joy on here with a solution then you might want to give Chris Wilson a call to talk through your symptoms. I've found him very amenable to having a chat over all things Supra. You probably do need to catch him when he has a moment or two to talk but if he has time to answer the phone he probably has a minute to talk. I've had a couple of occasions to call him and always found him very helpful and very pleasant to chat with. The reason I think he'd be good to talk to is he would be able to point you down and through any possible sensor fault and how to test those as all the position sensors are getting very old on these cars.