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If you are after an investment Supra you should be talking with the Jap importers to bring one over as then you can avoid rust issues that do affect the cars that have been here for decades.

I have a complete front sub-frame surplus to needs with hubs, arms and ABS sensors. Feel free to PM me an offer for the subframe, or subframe with arms or subframe with arms and sensors. Would need to be collected from Shropshire.

Final episode today. The drive over yesterday to a B&B close by to Center Gravity showed the steering to be a bit skitty and light relative to what it had been before the new front arms were put on so it was obvious that there would be some major realignment required this morning. I arrived at CG just ahead of the appointed 08:30 and the father and son-in-law team of Peter and Chris turned up a little ahead of schedule to. After a cuppa the car was taken for a lengthy test drive and Peter diagnosed all the adjustments that would be required from running various speed and road condition tests. Aside from the skitty steering feel and wayward movement of the car over bumps he also picked up something I hadn't that the nearside rear was planting less power than the offside rear. After the run there was then 4 hours on the ramp optimising the toe, camber and caster. I elected to go for the Grandad Tourer settings so the car was given minimal toe to maximise the rubber contact and I also said I preferred heavier steering with better self centring so the caster was set higher than OEM spec at 4 degrees. Then back into the car first as a passenger and the ride comfort was transformed with bumps now just lifting or dropping the car rather than moving it sideways as before and when I drove it the steering feel was fully restored. Once all the adjustments had been made the cars ride height was good across the car and all four sides were 10mm lower than the factory stock new settings due to the car being fitted with factor Bilseins we do run slightly lower. The weight distribution was within spec so no shimming of the dampers was required. In all I was there for 5 hours. Well worth the money for anyone with a poorly aligned car or anyone wishing to set a car up more for cornering over straight line comfort if using the car on tracks or thrashing around lanes. Well over £10k poorer and only the MOT man will know. Project closed.

Rear End Parts & Materials Spend £6,870 Front End Parts & Materials Spend £1,959 Garage Labour Front End £962 The car is back and the only thing left now is the visit to Center Gravity for the chassis tune up service this Tuesday. I'll hopefully get lots of pictures of the underneath and the work Center Gravity do on Tuesday that I can add into the thread. Spend so far on the underside is £9,971 give or take a bit with no labour cost on the main part of the undertaking. There were some additional service/maintenance jobs done by the garage of fit a new O2 sensor, new clutch fluid and fill with new coolant that are in the garage labour total.

For anyone in need of a first and second cat I have a set fresh off my car that were on the car for the MOT passed only a few days ago. They have been swapped out for a better looking set of cats with intact shields, these are speed hump trashed on my original set. Anyone finding they are now in need of fully functioning pre-facelift cats feel free to PM for pics and to pitch in with an offer.

If you MOT tester knows what a Supra should have in terms of canisters and cats then those missing, modified or bypassed is an automatic fail.

The clips are actually pretty easy to swap out for new one. All you need is a watchmakers little flat head screwdriver or a micro sim tool. As for the clips there are plenty of options, I got my set off eBay with the wires. Cheap from China if you can wait a week or so. Just removed the pigtails and plugged in the old wires, removing one at a time from the old clip and fitting into the new clip as they came out that way ensuring that the wires couldn't be fitted the wrong way around. PS - The number 7 loom clips are still available. I bought quite a few as the ones holding the coil loom had gone brittle and broke when opening up. They are also used around the engine bay so I bought a few spare to change those over sometime for new. I recall that they cost Toyota prices and had to come in from Japan so took a lot of weeks to get them. Do watch out that you don't have lumps of plastic from the failed clip in the spark plug recess. If you do you won't be able to get to them until the old plug is removed and then you run the risk of the bits dropping through the hole. You'll probably know if something is amiss if you cannot get the plug socket to seat fully down onto the plug. I had to dab grease onto the end of a long screwdriver tip to pick out the bits out of the recess while at the same time pushing them away from the plug hole. All a little stressful but it did the job.

If you do decat then you need the 1.2 bar restriction ring to ensure you don't over-boost the ceramic jspec turbos. Its easy enough done yourself and you can source parts cheaper that way than going full kit from one supplier. I'd recommend you keep both cats in your garage or bedroom somewhere as that always leaves the option to put it back to stock at a future date if that is what you or another owner wishes to do. I was never sure what has been done to my car as it ran over 330bhp when it was dyno run 12 years ago and it still has both cast and no on-board boost controller. There are loads of threads on BPU upgrades

I owned 4 Capri's in succession ending with a 3.0S followed by a 2.8i Special. Next car after the 2.8 was a MkIII Supra Turbo then onto a MkIV Twin Turbo so for me it was a logical step. I still rank my 2.8 with its LSD as one of the best driver cars I've ever owned. The 3.0S was in contrast the most lethal car I've ever owned. Welcome and enjoy both.

And maybe import duty, VAT and customs handling charge.

Its incredible to see from that old thread that the UK Toyota price for these was around £100 3 years ago and now its double that, Supra inflation I guess. The company I've used a few times is an independent dealer out of Atlanta, McGeorge. They were always good at follow up on email enquiries and back 3 years ago about half the price of your local Toyota dealer. Haven't used them since buying in that crankshaft pulley though.

I bought my OEM crank pulley in from the USA maybe three years ago. Landed taxes paid about 60% of the UK price, exchange rate isn't as favourable today but it'd still be worth looking at a few US Toyota part suppliers.

Be worthwhile keeping an eye on who is where with insurers. Presently looking to get my Supra TT6 agreed value pre approved before considering any switch from current expiring policy provided by LV Classics at £28k cover - looking to raise this to £30k on renewal. I'll add to the list as insurers respond. So far results are: Classic Line OK to pre-approve on photos and write up. Came back with £18k limit on agreed value which is a long way off market so rejected. Lynbrook Didn't get past first base, here is their response to my email. Hagerty International - Classic Car insurance Good to go with £30k agreed value based upon pictures and write up. I do have history with this broker as my other classics are insured through them so that may make things easier compared to new customers making their first enquiry? Hagerty offer primarily Hiscox insurance policies. An insurer with a fairly good reputation. Brentacre Insurance Services Ltd Good to go with pre-approval on agreed value. Photos sent and form filled out. Replied quickly asking for larger pictures so I've sent them some big picture files. Approved the valuation on £150 excess and 1,500 miles. The quote from Brentacre was very competitive, however i have decided against running with their initial quote as the insurer is Markerstudy who it seems from online reviews that Adrian Flux also use. Trust Pilot and Reviewcentre reviews of Markerstudy are appalling. Both bottom 1 star rankings (as a comparison my current insurer, LV top customer satisfaction surveys like those run by Which Magazine and are 4 stars, out of five, on trust pilot). i have asked Brentacre if they have a more customer service focussed insurer on their panel that they can offer up a quote for - awaiting a response on that. I declined. Brentacre are a professional brokerage to deal with, shame about the insurers really poor customer service and claims management history expressed in online reviews. The Markerstudy quote is 40% lower than the LV Classic renewal notice. A massive saving but for me not enough to justify the potential hassle in dealing with and pursuing a claim. Adrian Flux Acknowledged contact email in an auto responder message, message stated they would soon be in contact. Called late on the next working day to add some personal information. Said they can pre-approve agreed value no problem. I told them not to bother quoting Markerstudy. Caller ask why, had I read some bad reviews. I replied, yes a great many. Caller said they are terrible aren't they. Left to email over any quotes, excluding Markerstudy. Asked to quote first and advise insurer before agreeing to pay up front a £15 valuation assessment charge. They sent over a competitive quote (though high compulsory excess) with an OK insurer so handing over the £15 and lets see what valuation they come back with. Nine days later, I'm still awaiting the valuation and the policy renewal date is fast looming. I've emailed a prod. Received a response advising they couldn't give a valuation as the form was not accompanied by any pictures (these had been provided in the initial email so were resent). Several days later still nothing and I have run out of time on the current policy so its a no from me to AF. Turned into several months with no response. £15 was refunded without having to ask. Lancaster Insurance Never responded. No acknowledgement, no reply, no call. Sky Insurance Responded after a couple of days. Rejected due to the lower than desired agreed value limit. LV Classics Received the renewal which will only go up if I called them to raise the agreed value from £28k to £30k. Its noncompetitive compared to other quotes received for £30k cover so I won't be renewing with LV Classics. Policy was on auto-renewal which has been cancelled. They never even asked why I was either considering or actually leaving. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Top tip with Broker arranged insurance is always ask who the insurer is and run background checks before paying for the cover. Worthwhile as you only get to find out how good your insurance is when you come to claim against it and although people are more driven to leave bad reviews online than they ever are to leave good ones it is easy to pick out which insurers have a bad track record when it comes to customer service and handling claims. The cheapest insurance is often not the best insurance. Went in the end with Hagerty adding the Supra to a pre-existing multi car policy. £140 for 5 months cover at £30k agreed value to take it up to the policy renewal date.

If you intend keeping the car stock it would be worth your while keeping an eye open for a stock set of wheels to buy as a spare set or even to put onto the car. The wheels are a big part of the stock look that collectors hanker for and I'd expect a £350 set of wheels today will likely add £2k+ to value in the coming years as most stock wheels got themselves binned or scrapped.

I've bought in a Lisle tool for removing the valve collets. Picked it up for under $30 in the US. I also bought in a air hose kit that thread into the spark plug hole so i can use compressed air to keep the valves seated rather than stuffing a rope into the cylinders. Theory being the engine won't then need turning but i might get scared and just take each cylinder to TDC anyway to avoid the risk of losing a valve when its being whacked.

There is everything you need to know about valve seal replacement here.

I haven't talked to Sky for years as they were always very uncompetitive. With insurance you need to identify companies who will run with a personal write up on how good your car is, a couple of recent ads for overpriced cars and the walk around photo shoot. When companies start asking for independent valuations then you start to hit issues, it's not just the cost of generating an independent valuation report its where do you go? No insurer will tell you though occasionally it has been suggested a owners club valuation report/certificate could suffice. Many car clubs do offer valuation reports to their members to support their insurance cover, unfortunately the Supra Owners forum doesn't have a valuations function so that isn't possible here. I can only pass comment on the companies I have knowledge with that are good to go with walk around shots, a good write up and a few recent for sales ads. They include both insurers direct and brokers; LV Classics, Hegerty, Lancaster and Classic Line. I'm sure there must be many more that others use that I have never contacted or discounted for various reasons (usually uncompetitive) but these work for me and I have insured my Supra through all of them at one time - all without the need for independent value verification.

I'm no fan of AF so you need to take that into account. Last year AF had a ceiling of £14k on a TT6 value, any higher it had to be independently verified - though they couldn't actually tell me who would be a suitable company or person to conduct the independent verification but did say they would need to recognise it as a reputable source. So you could spend out on a valuation report to then be told it wasn't from a source they recognised as reptable. AF will take your money, you could pay for agreed value of £35k if you wanted. They will take the money but its then up to you to provide a back up independent valuation at your own cost that they will accept. If you don't jump their hoops within a few weeks then you'll only be on their unverified agreed value limit which was last year £14k; even if you'd paid for £35k insurance cover. I'm talking with insurers myself as my LV Classics policy falls due in the next 3 weeks. Following getting messed about by AF last year I am now asking insurers to pre-approve the valuation ahead of taking up their quote. I'll post up in the insurance section how this works out when I've completed the negotiations. There are lots of useful threads in the insurance section, i'd say its second only in value to any member to the technical section of the forum. A couple of threads worth starting with are: http://www.mkiv.co.uk/vbb/showthread.php?348828-List-of-most-recently-mentioned-insurers-on-here-(as-of-May-2018) http://www.mkiv.co.uk/vbb/showthread.php?351357-2019-agreed-value-prices-following-the-market-upwards Don't stop at these though, there are plenty of other useful threads in that section worth browsing through.

I splash liberally on all my old cars. It's really good stuff that is primer ready when dried.

You need to head over to the insurance section of the forum for a bit of a read before agreeing cover with Adrian Flux on a TT6.

Does look like the a.c compressor 4 pin plug 90980-10942

I haven't let anyone do a test drive since I had a waste of time idiot rag a 3.0S Capri of mine back in the 80's. Now, whenever I sell a car I offer to drive it around if they want to conduct a working appraisal. Then when the sale is finalised I give them 30 minutes (written time stamped guarantee) to return the car in as departed condition for a full refund. Never have any complaints and never had any returns and not had any annoying time wasters as they have to pay over the cash before they get to drive.

I doubt any trickle charger would kill a battery unless it got stuck on max charge and boiled all the electrolyte away, and you'd expect to notice that. The CTEK lights show the rate of charge and a knackered battery wont take or hold charge so the unit may be fooled into thinking job done all lit up. I've tried to resurrect several dead fencing batteries with the CTEK and it'll show fully charged on a duff battery. the only thing I've noticed with duff batteries is it'll take a short time to get full lights whereas a normal battery will usually take getting on for 24hr to get where it needs to be.

I always think its nice to see an air box still in place rather than a cone of some sorts. Looks really clean if they are recent pics of the car and £16k seems a good to keen price even taking into account the poor paint job it's been treated to in the past.