rider

Cleared out the last remaining 6 bolts today. Three from the rear most heat shield (that is not there except for fragments remaining under the bolts) came out with a bit of coercion. Three holding the butchered remnants of the redundant but going to be reinstated with new exhaust hanger would not yield. I tried 4mm drill so I could apply screw extractors but broke two drills as the bolt metal is very hard material. Upped to 5mm but that is too close to the M6 bolt size so screw extractors just sheared off the head of the bolt leaving the screw stub to be drilled out. Took a while because the bolts are made of very hard metal but finally got the three original bolts drilled out and tapped for the new bolts. Just need to angle grind off the bespoke hanger welded to the floor (very close to the fuel tank) by MIJ exhausts as it goes at and below where the heat shield sits, then I can fit my new heat shield. Pity MIJ didn't removed the hanger and shield the normal way, by removing the bolts which would have saved me a lengthy drilling task today. Still another thing done. Hubs coming off tonight and having new wheel bearing and bush fitted. Amayama have not shipped the suspension arm bolts, nuts and adjustment cams paid for over 3 weeks ago yet in spite of the we will ship within 4 days promise on their website meaning reassembly is at least 3 weeks off. So there will be no need to rush on the sanding, prep and painting.

Ive ordered myself a 1M length of 8mm od stainless tube of an eBay seller for around £8 and a cheapee bender for around £8 so I'll have a go at bending a new breather pipe (which I measured at a little under lM). I'll post the result, good or bad. I'm quietly confident I'll do a decent to good copy but I know I'll get nervous on the last bend. When I veneered my MGB dash in a strip of American Oak all was a breeze till I got to the last panel because you know if you screw up at that point it fucks it all up. Recycling some parts off the old frame today, got off the front mount bush clamps (discontinued and not on my swap frame) and the sway bar bush brackets (not on my swap frame) and they are now pickling in an acetic acid bath. The bolts on both parts were abused with an undersized hex socket and a 600mm extension to get them off so it'll be new M8 stainless ones going on the swap frame as I haven't ordered the OE M8/20's for these parts. Underside sanding will probably have to wait until the weekend.

Took a close up look at the dropped frame last night when the diff and drive shafts came out because tonight it'll be hubs off. The arm bolts protruding the nuts look in a really bad shape so ordering new fittings has proved to be the correct choice as none of these can be recycled. So anyone considering doing this should get the fittings for the arms beforehand. I'm still waiting on my fitting almost 4 weeks after ordering from Amayama Japan, not even shipped yet. On the diff and drive shafts the splines and ABS rings look like new. Just some slight surface rust on the dif casing and the shafts that'll be treated and POR 15 black coated.

There are on tank has clips for the metal line that route away from the apex of the tank. Possibly a unsecured rubber hose could find itself getting squashed when the straps are tightened? The tube start and ends in a rubber length so Mr T must have had a good reason to metal tube the bit between.

I've got everyone scouring the World for a new breather pipe. If nothing comes in then I'll buy either 1m of 8mm stainless for £12 or 1m of 8mm anodised aluminium pipe for £3 along with a cheap pipe bending tool and have a go. I have hour glass sand on site so I'd pack the pipe with this very fine sand and with the original still intact as a template I'd use the bender and see how it ends up. The anodised aluminium is probably easier to work with (much easier to bend). You can pop down your local Wicks to buy the anodised tube, for around £4. If I made a anodised one sucessfully I know I'd then feel compelled to try the stainless just because its more durable. So I could sell you the anodised one!

Thats useful to know. I have bought the bigger tins, quart I think. Going to have everything prepped so it should be a one hit, one brush go around. Top tip on resealing I've used with other things that go rock hard is place clingfilm over the can before sealing. If its something thats going to attack plastic films then I have also used a nitrile rubber glove as the membrane between the lid and the can. Planning on doing heat shields and rear bumper bar in silver. The diff casing, drive shafts, hubs and everything else in black. I'll only use the POR on treated parts so I'm hoping one can will be enough and I've got 2 large cans of 182 primer and 6 large cans of gloss black acrylic and 6 large cans of matt black acrylic to finish the job. I plan on using the matt as base coat and if then deciding whether to semi-gloss or do another coat of matt. Having a ramp does make things easier which is good as I think I'll be spending the best part of a week just sanding before even getting to the metal paint prep stage. Hate to think how much people pay to get this done professionally.

Spent 3 hours this morning pressure washing and then steaming the underside and also the frame and tank that came off yesterday. Lots of dirt hidden away in crevices and a lot of blasted off underseal, which is good because I don't like underseal seeing it hides rust well. There is a fair amount of surface rust along the front of the tank guard area and along the sides of the tank guard area. The drivers side seems to take a lot more punishment than the passenger side for some reason. Its all light surface stuff apart from the sections that support the brake flexible hose coupling which do have pitting. Its not like that's structural though. There will be a fair amount of sanding to do this week using my compressor and two air sanders. I've bought in supplies of POR 15 degreaser, prep and paint. I've gone for black POR 15 which I'll cover in a top coat of black acrylic paint so all the newly uncovered white wont be long lived. It'd be so much effort to get the black underseal and painted areas back to white, way more than to turn the clean white areas to semi-gloss black. Seeing the reason to do this is to stamp on any rust before it breaks out or before it takes hold, the underbody colour is not top priority. I'll also treat and paint the diff and drive shafts in the POR black. The diff cooler has wire brushed up nice on the little bit I worked on today so I wont be painting that part. I also have a pot of POR silver to apply to the bumper bar. On top of that have 4 aerosols of Dinitrol 3125 to spray into all holes. Pitching to get the car fully assembled and rolling again by the end of November with a back underside clean enough to lick. Mr T says the breather pipe across the top of the tank is discontinued so I'll just buy in some 8mm stainless and have a go bending up the just under 1m length myself. The picture below shows the deterioration in the breather pipe that was caused by it being totally encased in soil for probably a good few years. Its definitely a worthwhile job for people to take off their tank guard (only 6 bolts and 4 plastic screws) and filler tube shield to have a look see what is going on inside there before the guards become a discontinued item.

Given the tops of the two exposed bolts a good dousing in penetrating fluid but it think its going to need some serious remedies which is either grind fresh flats to try some pin socket extractors failing that I'll probably drill the bolt as I also have a set of reverse thread bolt and stud extractors. I'm not about to be defeated by three 10mm bolts. If the alsolute worst happens two of them can be replaced with a bolt and nut anyway.

There is a fairly large difference with original TT Autos around £5k more then orginal NA Autos. Fitting a £2.5k engine won't bridge that gap.

Got the tank and frame off this morning. All the bolts gave in without too much of a fight and the only thing that has defeated us is the three bolts that hold the exhaust hanger are rounding off so they will get some special treatment tomorrow when the hubs are also being removed from the dropped frame. First up was the tank drop which came fairly easily. The fuel lines are in good shape with one exception, the breather pipe is heavily corroded. This is without any doubt because the exposed length of the breather pipe was completely buried in fine soil. All the fuel lines are being replaced and I'll order a new breather tomorrow. Also a new Walbro pump is going to be fitted to replace the still original pump while the tank is down. Removing the tank gives good access to the rear bumper bar and obviously the metalwork around and above the tank housing. There is a good bit of sanding that'll be done in the wheel arches but they look pretty good. Mechanic matey who has helped with the teardown recons for the ago of car its in fantastic condition. Once the tank was removed the propshaft bolts, handbrake cables and 10 frame bolts were removed. The ABS cables had been fed through and the frame dropped on the forks of the telehandler using a pallet plaform to get under the bumper. The heat shields were also removed to ease access to the handbrake cable yoke. Total time including the prelim work yesterday has been 4 hours.

The safety things are the front to rear brake and fuel lines which are getting rusty after 20 years. The other thing I've noticed is the rubber bushes have gone a lot softer then new bushes. As well as play which can give additional loading on things like roll bars there is a likelihood of transmission hop under power take off. Bushing is not cheap, either OE or poly and who wants to go solid? There is body rust which wasn't so much of a problem years back. The rear bumper bar gets particularly rusty and is, I believe, discontinued. The sills can rust out under the plastic but who is going to say yes to someone physically pulling their cars kit off the car on a test drive?

Tear down started today, just a couple of hours with the main get it completed tomorrow when my mate is bringing his transmission jack over. Today tank inspection cover removed and all fuel pipes disconnected from the top of the tank. There was a lot of dust so a quick vacuum before pulling the pipes and unscrewing the pipe clip. The pump wiring clip was the hardest part to remove probably because there isn't any spare length on the wire. Had to undo the main fuel nut with an impact as the top rotated on a ratchet. Then onto the ABS sensors. The hubs are being retained and rather than risk breaking the sensor by removing from the hub its safer to just disconnect inside the car. Just three screws to remove on each side to remove the rear most trim. The trim behind the speakers needs to come off next and they are held on by four clips. You just need to move them in the only direction of travel they will go to slide out of the clips (don't just pull otherwise you will likely break the clips or panel). Once the two trim pieces are out its hand in under the speaker to the ABS clip, push the lever on the clip in with the thumb and with finger the other side applying pressure the connector slide out of the clip easily. The floor grommets that are part of the ABS lead can then be easily pushed through the floor. Its a task that went much easier than expected. Then finally for today the fuel tank guard. The six 10mm bolts came out easily apart from one at the front, this was easily sorted because the front of the guard was so rotten so the bolt was left in the strap which is being replaced with new anyway. The pain part was the bumper strip with four screws, these are plastic screws and they would turn but not unscrew so they had to be pulled out through the guard brackets and bumper holes. Once out the screws could be removed and the bar straightened out so it can be re-used when refitting the new guard. Although the outside of the guard looked not to shabby, the inside is just nasty. Anyone who has never replaced their tank guard probably should get one while you can because they do rust away largely unseen. So far, so good.

Last I saw steering wheels were a cool grand from Mr T.

LV Classics have my TT6 at £24k. Just copied over some adverts and pictures and all set.

Mileage on a 40 year old cars outside of museum pieces is inconsequential compared to the rust and mechanical condition of the car with body condition the paramount concern. The classic World is alien to many Supra drivers so its not surprising that many view no testing requirment as a negative step. In the public consultations 56% of respondents were opposed to raising the limit beyond the present pre 1960 exemption. So clearly public opinion didn't hold sway in the decision. It was probably more tangible things like insurance data and MOT pass/fail data. There is a reason why classic car insurance is so cheap and that is very much down to its a low risk end of the market. If you look at MOT failure rates, in some cities that is over 50% of vehicles tested and in the very best you still get 33% fail. Contrast that to pre-war Austin 7 owners whose last test year statistics were 7% failed. Considering the insurance stats and vehicle testing data it is a sensible decision to remove these generally well cared for and usually low mileage vehicles from the requirement for compulsory testing. The vehicles will still need to comply with any road inspections for lights, safety, tyre tread, oversized wheels etc and owners subject to fines and endorsement for any infringements. As a owner of several cars in the 1960 - 1978 vintage I'm delighted that the MOT test expense is going to be no more from May next year.

The DfT have announced today the pre 60 no MOT requirement is being lifted to pre 78 vehicles, in line with the European guidelines from May 2018. That's going to save me a lot of test fees on my stable of cars and it won't be long till the Supras get to 40. Not sure if it'll be a rolling 40 years or be stuck on 78 like it has been on 60 for a while. Anyone with pre 78's can still submit their cars for a voluntary MOT test but I would want to clarify that any failure would not have any impact on the insurance cover before doing that. PS - The 40 year rule is going apply so the date for exempt vehicles will be raised each year.

http://www.supraforums.com/forum/showthread.php?506648-Broke-the-rear-sway-bar

Out of interest, did it rust from the inside out? Apparently that's the common cause of failure with these bars.

Kind of suggests that all their PH ads are teasers. But here is a real, physical example. Hybrid twin silver for £23k There you go, someone needs to grab a bargain and this time, MkIV forum members are not barred.

I have a high def card and monitor for graphic design work, maybe that's why the shading is very different on my pixels?

I put my £150 dehumidifier on every time I open the garage door for 6 hours after the door closes (internal timer). Sometimes It'll pull a litre of water sometimes no more than a small cup full. When the outside humidity is over 85% it really starts to fill the collector. I think you'd have difficulty getting the water levels down anywhere near 50% humidity unless a garage is well sealed and at a fairly constant temperature. I even did an estimate of the humidity after the 6 hours using the every kg of air can absorb 13g of water (100% humidity at 20C). The volume of my garage is 90m3 (1.2kg air/m3) giving a water content of potential of roughly 1.3l on one of those humid 90% days. So I recon after 6 hours with the dehumidifier on and sometimes pulling 1l out its down to under 30% humidity. An ideal level for leather. apparently. So would definitely recommend a dehumidifier though I never saw one that'd run on humidity level in the price range I looked at, just timed with various fan speeds and heat settings. PS - As a add in, the reckoning is that when humidity is above 50%, the moisture level is sufficient to enable rust to form. So my dehumidified garage should, in theory, be a rust free zone.

Possibly the worst colour match and fit front bumper this year? £23k single white (several shades).. Low mileage, 13k.

You can see why its not be allowed to go out for a while but even so the recorded km reading history is a bit iffy. Suit some back street ganja dealer.

I've bought a few times from McGeorge, a Virginia Toyota outlet. They were very competitive 2 years ago but are a little more expensive today relative to Amayama. Only bugbear was they ship by US Mail which ends up with Royal Mail handling charges; rather like Amayama with Parcel Force handling charges. Other than that they would quote and follow instructions to only ship if they could source the essential list of components. Thats a big upside compared to Amayama were my last but one order shipped the order padding and dropped the main components. That one was really frustrating.