rider

There is a simple check list you can run through, either on your own (with some cheap equipment) or by hiring a refrigeration engineer. The main reason a/c units will stop working is because there is insufficient pressure to activate the compressor clutch. This is a saftey mechanism to ensure the a/c system never pulls a vacuum on the suction side of the compressor with all the problems that could lead to with sucking in air and moisture. You can buy a gauge set with port coupling off eBay for about £30 to check out the system pressure yourself. If its about 60 - 70psi then you have a good factory level charge in the system. If its less than that then there may not be sufficient refrigerant to maintain a working suction pressure. The compressor would normally start and quickly cut off as the suction pressure fell from 60psi to under 7psi. If you have no pressure at all then you have a leak somewhere and all your refrigerant has escaped. If you have no gas pressure then you do need to have an engineer come and pull a vac on the system to confirm the leak. If its large enough you'll hear hissing and be able to track it down to a specific location/part. If its not audible then the engineer would normally introduce uv dye and pressurise the system and look with his uv light for where the dye is escaping. Normal leak points would be pipe unions or a holed condenser. If you have pressure but its low then you probably just need to top it off with a service cylinder of refrigerant (200g usually) to the correct pressure. 14 - 20psi on the suction side (low pressure - blue port coupling) with the compressor running. If you have the correct pressure on standing and the compressor doesn't run then suspect a seized compressor or electric clutch fault. After this process you'll know what if any new parts are needed to be able to order those from Keron. Otherwise it'll be just pure guess work.

I spent quite a few days trawling maybe 100 what if sites and threads and all drew a blank or dead end on JDM fresh keys. I was thinking of going to see the people who did a Range Rover key for me that was supposed to be impossible for anyone but a main dealer but I haven't got around to that seeing they are a good drive from home. Here is one of the threads that goes on about this. No idea if Toyota still sell the modules. Its not listed as a stock item at Amayama. I'd guess most people would look to wire in a new universal c/l module that costs £10 anyway if a new one is needed. The Denso units were well over £200 from Toyota.

The US Supras were programmable, with a red pairing button on the module that is located behind the steering column on their cars. The JDM c/l under seat unit isn't programmable. From what I read each unit shipped from Denso with two blank two button keys that were factory paired. So, it seems, anyone wanting new key fobs needs to buy a new c/l module and have the blank key blades cut or have the old keys along with a second hand module and fit new blades (if that's possible) so they can then be cut to work in the recipient car locks. So, a second hand c/l module on its own isn't going to be much use.

I did, but it didn't work.

These come up reasonably often on eBay - ebay.com. When i was researching how to go about pairing new key fobs it seems the US ones have a red button that is used in fob pairing that isn't a fixture on JDM car modules and they are located differently, behind the steering column. Increasingly JDM cars are entering the USA for parts and the c/l module will probably one part they will not recognise as interchangeable with US cars so it's the kind of part US breakers will offload relatively cheaply.

There is a section on the Torque GT site where they talk about and retail the speed converters and say that you need to ensure you have the vehicle specific converter. Maybe you have a converter for another vehicle fitted?

You'll need to buy in the condenser and drier as there is no point putting in second hand parts in hard to get to locations. Best place to get the Denso OE parts is from US parts suppliers, really its the only place as Denso Europe don't/won't distribute the parts here. You have next to no hope in getting the pipes this side of first dibs on a scrapper that hasn't front ended. I've only seen one set come up for sale in probably 3 years. They are just pipes though so any decent fridge engineer should be able to fabricate functioning plumbing with service ports and a sight glass next to the radiator expansion bottle. R134a is on the phase out list so you may want to go for the replacement R1234yf. This would need a different compressor oil to the original ND8, same type being a PAG just that the new refrigerant has different solubility in the oil. So you'd need a thicker oil than the standard ISO46 the DENSO compressors come filled with. You'd probably need to step it up to an ISO 68 or possibly a ISO 100 but there is plenty of background reading you can do around that. Its a balance of what will work in the compressor to what will flow around the system so you wouldn't want to go too thick on the oil. It won't be cheap even if you are doing all the fitting yourself. Be around £500 in parts alone even with a second hand compressor and clutch. That's why when people sell their cars with a/c not working - probably just needs a regas I always think, right. When you consider it's a high labour enterprise you are considering undertaking, meaning expensive parts added to expensive labour charge if you aren't doing it all yourself or working on best mates rates.

Do you expect anyone to own up to owning a pink Supra?

So you haven't sold it yet? At least now it'll be as featured on Top Gear car for hopefully more than a brief moment. That should raise the interest level if you are still planning on moving it on.

Its clearly a short that'll blow a fuse of that relatively high amperage. Best look where the wires can get hot first and work from there. O2 sensor wire is a good place to start seeing thats up against the manifold and that's also a good place to short to. PS - I have a used serviceable one if you need a quick replacement.

Maybe your car is an outside car, open to the elements? I had a problem with my central locking 16 years ago a week or so after period when there had been several weeks of really heavy rain. The fob and internal switch would unlock but not lock so I could let myself in but I'd need to lock the car with the key in the door lock. It fixed itself after a few months and has been fine for the last 15 years. I figured that had nothing to do with the c/l module under the passenger seat but was due to the unusually heavy rain that occurred just before the self fixing fault.

With the MOT rules of if it was there at birth it needs to be there now I'm surprised people are still decatting their cars.

What a nightmare thought. You'd need to approach the council for licences with every event and obtain at cost a Temporary Event Notice (TEN). You'd need to have adequate public liability insurance and to separate the events from your person otherwise any incident could entail a claim against you personally and your personal property. You'd need to arrange electricity (with certification), water, toilets and refuse removal. You'd presumably need help to clear the site of rubbish and debris after each even. You'd need a ground crew to prepare the site ahead of any venue. You'd probably be best advertising locally to see if anyone would like access to a pony paddock. There are lots of sites about setting up farm land and buildings as a wedding venue so if you read some of those it'll let you know what you'd need to consider before taking any decision. 2.5 acres is probably more a wedding and private party size than a car club event size which tends to be a few cars in a pub car park or major shows covering big space. Something like a party or wedding location would obviously be defined by the site access and serenity of it setting.

It might come down to you trying to install a 32 bit programme onto a 64 bit operating system. if you look up your system information that'll tell you what windows you are running and if its 32 or 64 bit.

I sprayed black matt and black gloss acrylic over the silver POR15 and that adheres fine. So you can buy a can of Simonize spray paint to cover over any parts where the Hammerite flakes off.

I only completed my Supra rear end underside project 18 months ago so it might be a little soon to comment on durability but the parts treated and coated in POR paint then top coated in acrylic are all good. I still have some bits to tackle like the bit in the middle running between the sills and the tunnel which is where undersealed has been applied in the past and as that is lifting little by little then surface rust is usually exposed. I'm just sanding these little imperfections, treating, applying zinc primer and top coat black acrylic painting the imperfections as they show themselves. I have the car on my ramp a couple of times a year so as things become evident they get tackled. The good thing about having spent well over 100 hours on the underside is that now the inspection leads more to a wash down with a damp cloth to get the surface dirt and dust off those nice new parts than it does tackling rust. With the POR adhesion a lot may come down to the prep work, I've seen videos were people complain they have applied POR straight onto rust and its lifted a few years later. I did a lot of sanding and chemical treatment before applying the POR and only time will tell whether that helps with the POR adhesion over time. You mention poor adhesion to the undercoat of the POR paint. Is that correct as the POR is designed to be applied directly to the metal surface or treated surface? The POR dries to an aerated plastic film which is impervious to air and moisture from what I've seen and dissected from the dried drip runs I removed, so the POR paint probably prefers a rough surface to adhere to over a smooth surface.

I have had this guy recommended to me as the real deal Dr Turbo. Not used him yet myself but I have talked with him about getting a spare set of 'low mileage' turbos I have sitting in my garage refurbed. Came across as no nonsense, said he'd strip the turbos while I looked on and tell me what was needed with cost there and then. No swaps, just your own turbos reconditioned unless they are damaged beyond repair. There is no option on ceramics used in jspec available so it'd need to be 'upgraded' to steel turbines.

I had all my brake lines replaced with copper using a length of tube I bought off eBay and the local garage fitted them as they had the fittings and flaring tool. Didn't cost a great deal to get it done. I bought in a new OEM set to, just in case I or any future owner want to revert it to stock but copper is good, bendable and cheap.

When I was in the oil industry Century Oils had a good set, probably the best set of racing oils for bikes in their Silkolene range that became Fuchs when the Germans acquired Century Oil way back when.

You need something like Loctite Weatherstrip or 3M Rubber Weatherstrip. The 3M is generally regarded as the superior product and there is a Shrewsbury eBay seller in the UK (not me btw). Both cost around £16 for a small tube but a small tube would pretty much do a whole car as its only a small bead required. Have something ready to rest against the seal where it goes around corners until the sealant has time to set otherwise the seals can lift or even look to cut a corner in preference to going neatly around the corner.

When I owned an Audi it got a car park hit on its bumper and I found the Holts black 300ml spray a perfect match which isn't easy for a met black. If I needed a small area touch up I'd probably buy in some Holts spray cans and check them out for a match first. Holts list four colour codes for Toyota Super White 040. HCR02 HWHI04 HWHI19 HWHI09 I'd expect you'd find one of those would be a perfect match. If you Google the codes you'll find suppliers listed at around £5/can plus postage. You can get a good paint finish out of rattle can, I have used spray guns a rattle cans to do area spraying on some of my vintage cars and on small areas I'd usually grab the spray can out of preference. And the Holts spray area I did on my Audi bumper, you'd never know it'd been painted even close up.

I had the opportunity to get the car up on my own ramp yesterday to smear a grease film over and onto the new bolts, nuts, cams and castellated nuts so took time out to grab a few pictures.

I think if you are looking at a £10k or well below that budget you can forget any of the usual importers doing the running on it. Also with the prices being what they are these days there is really not much chance of a manual coming up within budget. If you've been away for a while you may need to catch up with Supra inflation over that time, particularly JDM inflation from Japan. Your best chance by some margin to pick one up will be with one that is already here, in the UK.

Was monitoring the thread to see if it reached 4, sign of the times that it has proved difficult to get 5 cars together for an event.

For anyone near to Southampton or an urge to travel this could be a bit of a bargain. In another eBay ad just up for a TT6, a good example of lazy ad writing and picture taking and still expecting a premium price; in a rather hopeful kind of way. Another ebay TT6 for those not adverse to travelling for the right car.