Homer

Do you mean the starter ring/drive plate bolts? They’re not the same size as those ones.

First batch of parts from Toyota and other places. This should be enough to get the manual conversion mostly completed. Had to laugh at the local dealership having a trade account for ‘Kevs autos’

Kev has been cracking on with the trans tunnel plate this morning, looks amazing!

Anyone have a set of these lying around? They’re not reusable and these are only needed to make a rear main seal remover work.

Doesn’t appear to have any oil leaks (oil on it from an engine rear seal leak). Comes with stock torque converter. Untested condition but I understand it was running when it was removed from the donor car. Can include the UK auto prop shaft, UK shifter, oil cooler lines and aftermarket oil cooler at additional cost £300 Price is a guide and I’m open to any reasonable offers.

Back to the top, managed to purchase another set of big casing driveshafts happy to do a straight for small casing driveshafts if anyone is changing to big diff. Darren, PM on its way as well.

I’m not sure. I believe the people responsible for botching the car and stealing Jason’s parts left the garage. Any spare pair of hands is very welcome, drop by anytime you’re in the area Sunny I’m in Northampton, not too far from the M1.

Today we finished cleaning up the trans tunnel. Lots of grinding, filing and hammer/dolly and its back in more or less the right shape. Kev also sanded the underside applied epoxy to get ready for rsp paint later in the week. Kev is also in the process of painting the new manual trans plate so it matches with the rest of the car. He has also taken the damaged spoiler back to his place to repair it and epoxy it so it’s ready for when the car goes for it’s respray. Kev also made a replacement loom for the w58 so the speed and backup sensors can be wired into the UK loom. All important flywheel bolts, pressure plate bolts and some other odds and ends are ordered form Toyota sand should arrive in the next couple of days. All being well we should be able to start getting the tunnel back in and then install the gearbox and rest of the drivetrain. One BIG issue: the abs driveshafts I bought were also for a big diff I needed ones for a small diff… does anyone know of anyone doing a big diff swap that might want to exchange some with me? I’ve now got three pairs of the wrong driveshafts!

Very much so… all the while cursing the buggers that did it!!

Long day spent on the rsp today and the good news is we’re almost at the end of the deconstruction! As always, massive thanks to @evinX for his time yet again. 1) UK auto box is removed. Will put this up for sale as I have no future use for it. 2) Aftermarket auto box oil cooler and lines removed. Will probably sell these too. 3) The part manual, part auto mess of a trans tunnel plate is removed! I have a new manual plate which will be installed shortly. The weld was up to 1cm thick in places so took an age to cut it out with first an angle grinder then Kev’s reciprocating saw. Got to get one of those! Due to the extremely poor welding we lost about 5-10mm of the main tunnel around the back end, however this won’t have any impact to the strength or functionality. Still need to do some grinding and hammer/dolly work to get it tidied up and any remaining weld splatter removed. After this Kev will paint it with epoxy and then rsp paint. With that done, the first stage of disassembly is complete and we can start rebuilding it. Short update but that took the best part of 7 hours

Quick update from today. Kev and I got the rsp raised up to begin the gearbox removal. It was an utter pain with the sloping driveway and after probably 7-8 attempts we got it to a place where it’s safe. It looks a big redneck but it works and is solid. Managed to do some fact finding and it turns out the facelift subframes and suspension were kept in the car and not swapped for the UK ones as I was informed. This also means the missing support braces I bought don’t won’t fit. Kev found some facelift ones on eBay so I’ve purchased those. Additionally it turns out the RZS has a weird configuration for the abs lines on some cars. The rear is not always independent and abs acts on both rear brakes at the same time. This explains why there is a single line to the rear and it appears factory. I’m a bit concerned this is going to throw the UK spec Ecu into an error but time will tell. The auto shifter is also removed to get a better look at the mess of the trans tunnel. Lots of cutting, cleaning and repair work needed there. Tomorrow is transmission removal and see what else we can get done!

Also removed the aftermarket lines for the fuel system. They split back in 2014 and just disintegrated when being removed today. Going back to oem lines which I’ve started to install. Both supply and return lines are rotted. They look nice but are useless. Yet again, these aftermarket lines were not secured in any way and just lying over the subframe and suspension. Extremely dangerous work carried out by a “professional” garage. It’s not even difficult to do these these correctly.

Did a lot of work today on both cars but found something a bit odd on the rsp. A new non-abs brake line was previously fitted to the car (with an old distribution block). Weird as it’s an abs car. Also brake line was tucked away under the cover but had nothing securing it. It would have rubbed on the suspension and chassis. Unbelievably dangerous work by the previous garage, again. Going to have to pull it all out and fit new dual lines.

Quick one for this blog. 1) Black carpet is removed from the silver car and put into storage for the rsp. Forgot how long this takes to do! 2) Grey carpet from the rsp has been cleaned and put into the silver car. It looked pretty clean initially but the drain on the cleaner showed how much filth was in it. 3) Boot struts have been replaced on the silver car with new ones that work properly. 4) Rear GZ speaker pods have been removed and replaced with regular ones. GZ ones will go into on the rsp. I paid a fair amount for these way back when so don’t feel guilty about removing them. Also got another chance to inspect the absolute bodge of a trans tunnel swap the previous owner was subjected to. Absolutely appalling work and it’s going to take a fair amount of cutting, grinding and paint to get it back to near oem. I still can’t believe a professional company did this and charged for it. Total monkeys.

Thanks Darren, I managed to source some in the mean time.

Todays update is nothing particularly interesting to see but still lots of progress made. Just a few more bits to sort out and I can get the silver car up for sale. 1) On the silver car the stock UK exhaust is removed and replaced with an eBay one I got off JamieP for a great price 2) TRD 2 way diff removed from the silver car and replaced with an NA open diff. The TRD diff will go into the rsp. 3) New boot struts installed on the rsp. These were an absolute bargain, £20 from AliExpress and fit/work brilliantly. 4) Very tired Momo steering wheel removed from the silver car and replaced with a nice condition airbag wheel from a Celica Thats all for this week as I’m now waiting for a few parts to turn up. Also it’s too hot to be doing car work!! We also got chance to have a good look at the underside of the silver car, it’s really in great condition and just a few bits of surface rust. It’s in far better condition than the rsp. Thanks again to Kev for all the help and heavy work in the temperature today. We’re getting pretty quick at changing diffs now

The ones I have and non ABS so looking for pair of ABS ones. NA or TT doesn't matter

Good to hear mate. It’s definitely an option so when the time comes for the final gearbox choice I’ll be in contact if you don’t mind. It’ll be really helpful to get some first hand feedback on parts and costs

Todays update is that the large brakes are now removed from the silver car and replaced with the regular ones. The big brakes will be used on the rsp with new pads and discs. Not many pics today, too busy! Only one issue was one of the sliders was seized on the smaller brakes. Kev managed to get it sorted and working. We were going to fit the large brakes to the rsp but after 5+ hours work in todays heat it was time to call it day. Next job is next weekend where we will remove the Trd diff from the silver car and fit a standard open diff. Also take the stock UK exhaust off the silver car and fit an aftermarket one to it Large brakes ready to go in: Front brake comparison: My son adores Kev

I didn't know about your link to the car, glad to hear it was an inspiration Regarding the sills I'm not sure yet but will check. The bodywork place I use does coachwork and can replicate most parts to OEM standard. They're old school and their work is always spot on. Also good point about the T56, you're right, it's a great match with the UK auto diff ratio and that is the exact reason I'm hanging onto it! By the time the car is finished it will be on gearbox 4 I think

Yeah, bit surprised how bad they have got. It’s a major pita as it means I can’t just bolt it together and MOT it. I think it’s going to be at least £1k to get the welding work done to restoration quality. I’m not going to cut corners on any rust repair work. The plus side is this is the only real rust found so far. I definitely believe the facelift cars weren’t manufactured as well as the earlier ones. They always seem to suffer worse with rot, especially on the sills and rear spat area.

Now the bad part. There’s rot in the Driver side sill and it will need to be cut out and new sheet metal welding in (not DIY, I’ll take it to a local body specialist that has restored supras before). To be fair the car is in good shape but the sills were a known issue. Someone has been using trolley jacks on the sills for a long while and wrecked them. They actually looked fine but after some hard jabs with a screwdriver it was clear they weren’t. The holes are as much as we could dig out so that’s about the limit of the most severe rot. It probably makes sense to get the entire sill sections replaced.

Todays update. We removed the smaller rear brakes from the rsp ready to be transferred to the silver car. Unfortunately the discs are pitted so will need to be replaced. Diff (B04D), driveshafts and prop are also removed and will be kept until I decide on what gearbox I’m going for. In the meantime the TRD diff and na setup will be put in. We also also swapped out the old rear coilovers (unknown damper with stock springs) over to stock bilstein with I think CW springs. They’re a bit tatty but were cheap and work for now. The one peice exhaust is also removed. Not sure if I’ll use it as it’s a bit noisy. The subframe is very crusty and will need to be cleaned up, however it’s all solid and no problems found so far with the suspension

Just a some of the boxes of parts collected for the build. Plenty more like these in the garage too.

So, a few years later and an additional member of the family added it’s time to get this project done. It’s not been touched in the last 5 years but today we got started EvinX will be helping a huge amount with this project so massive thanks in advance to him! We live pretty close to each other and have been helping each other out on supra work/parts over the last year or so and he’s been pushing me hard to get this started! Plan of attack… I own two supras, this one and a silver NA 5spd. I’m going to take the good parts of the silver NA and sell that. I have most things needed to get the rsp running but it needs some paint work so the sale of the silver car will help towards that. 1) remove all the good parts from the silver NA and replace with good standard ones. Some of those parts are currently on the rsp 2) sell silver car 3) rebuild the rsp with the current engine, but swap the auto for a 5spd w58. I know this is not a good option but it’s enough to get the car moving under its own power, mot’d etc. 4) get paint done and any engine work needed (suspect the head might need a rebuild) 5) replace the gearbox with something else. R154, T56, or zf8 hp are current options I’m considering, however I’m leaning towards the zf8 First major hurdle is to get the car safely raised up on the sloping driveway (note to self, never buy another house with one!). We got it raised up well enough so that tomorrow we can start removing the smaller brakes, large case UK spec diff (replacing it with a small case 4.1 Trd), driveshafts and possibly the hubs.