Probby

Replacement Number Plate Lights/Bracket Decided I wanted to install a rear view camera and some LED number plate lights to freshen up the rear of the car a little. However, I didn't want to butcher the existing wiring harness and light mounting bracket. So I designed/printed a new one. The number plate lights are VAG units, I made a harness to convert those to Toyota plugs so it is literally plug and play. Those being smaller allowed me some real estate to install the camera. All fits up lovely to the factory holes. Due to the size of the 3D printer I own I had to print two seperate parts and pin them together. That said it seems to have worked pretty well and looks good. Will test/re-design accordingly when the cars on the road. Little things ...

Thanks @Peter P appreciate it. Lots to do but I'm just happy to be making some progress right now ! Heres to driving her around when the weather gets a bit better ...

Rear Bumper Fitting After many months I also wanted to get the new rear bumper fitted. The first one I bought was too difficult to repair (the holes cut for the parking sensors were effectively 'welded' but they were on the lower part of the bumper which has a weird contour which I just couldn't get right (annoying as I spent a lot of time trying but I just had to admit defeat) I bit the bullet and bought a better quality rear bumper which I stripped and primed for now until it can see a proper paint job. I also had to fit a new fuel tank protector, no pics of this but it was epoxied and raptored to protect it and installed with nice new stainless fittings. Also all new hardware to mount the bumper to the car. Awaiting a cover for Australia to cover up the hole for the JDM plate too. Nice to see some progress finally.

Boot Leak Another issue which has been (and still is) bugging me was the water in the boot. I have a feeling it's from a few areas: Boot seal (you can see water climb under the seal and drip into the boot) Spoiler (terrible fittings, now removed) Seams (not sealed, leaking slowly through when rain flow is minor) Awaiting a new seal and a good day to seam seal the necessary parts. Am very tempted to leave the spoiler off, think it looks great without it.

Boot Pop During the summer I also set about fitting a solenoid powered boot release activated by the alarm. Biggest issue was finding somewhere to mount the solenoid and how to 'pull' the lever. Used a similar setup to factory - effectively a bit of brake cable looped through the solenoid - worked a treat. Solenoid was bolted to the rear boot panel - all tested and a worked a treat. May fit a boot 'pop' to raise the boot slightly in the future. Excuse some of the temporary fittings in the pic, it is all crimped/soldered in place now ... After this I set about sorting the rear lights which had one failed fog light PCB fitted and a bunch of wires twisted together. Cut all of this out and replaced with a dioide which was soldered in. Also fitted a diode from the switch on the dash (which was illuminated) to stop the back current from the brake light illuminating the switch when the brake was applied.

Preseving What's Left ... I realised it has been some time since I updated this. Work and other family stuff took over so whilst I have been working on things it's been a lot slower than I'd have liked. One of the big issues was finding someone to fix the damage to the rear quarter which I'm happy to say is lined up for later this year. In the meantime I went about stripping and epoxying the area just to preserve what was left.

Hey @TrickyBlue are these still for sale ? If so could you reply here or drop me a PM?

If you can film the light sequence when you turn the key that would be handy. But I had a similar panic a couple of weeks ago and it was the ECU main harness plug not being seated correctly (I pushed in the plug but in my haste didn't pull the lever down) and the light sequence sounds familiar, no EML, no alternator light, but 'some' lights ... assuming this is all good you can check ECU fuses (I think it's powered by the main EFI fuses from memory so check all of those) after that it could well be an ECU problem (check you have ground and +12v (permanent/switched) when the ignition is on. Other thing could be a fault immobilser. Or grounds... it's always grounds

I might be able to help with those, I have a 3D printer it's just time I don't have a lot of

I reckon 3d print some mounts and bond them to the skirt on the inside

I'll be honest I'm really interested in the spats only so not sure whether you want to reflect that on the list? But sounds really promising.

I'd be interested if they are actually plastic and not bloody fibreglass ...

Hey there, if you have a chat with Nick Cleworth (he's on the facebook group for this site) he has one breaking and I believe its in good working order.

Loving that bronze colour !

Not updated this for a few months due to work commitments but stuff has been taking place Speakers Having got the stereo up and running I figured I should invest in some new speakers. Didn't want to go mad so brought some Focal 10cm speakers for the front and the adaptor/block off kit for the hole in the factory speaker box to give it a bit more bass. They sound ok, it certainly wont win any audio competitions but it's really not that sort of car ! Gauges Having fineshed all of the wiring I finally connected up my new gauges. They are in their temporary housings until I can get round to 3d printing their permanent replacement. Front Bumper By chance I managed to acquire a front bumper from Harry @SupraLEDrearsas well as the undertrays and some other bits which fast forwarded my plan to swap the bumper out. I test fitted this against the FMIC which didn't really fit as I'd have liked without cutting the bumper so set about removing that and replacing it with the factory SMIC. This wasn't without issue as it appears I was missing the down pipe from the throttle body. I also had to chase out all the mounting threads which had either snapped bolts or rusted threads in them. Test fit it all together including undertrays and new stainless steel hardware before taking it all apart again for painting. Rear Bumper I was't originally planning to do anthing with the rear bumper until much later on this year but one came up for sale in much better condition than the OE Bumper I got earlier this year. I figured I'd see how badly the tatty OE bumper fitted before buying this one so set about taking off the Trial fibreglass bumper. This was glued to the car with what I believe to be tiger seal and held on with what looks like wood screws. These needed to be ground out and the tiger seal removed. I can't see a way of getting this off without damaging the paint. Not that this mattered - on removing the bumper I found some pretty substantial damage to the lower near side quarter (conveniently hidden by the bumper) I'll be honest I was pretty shocked - wasnt expecting to have to sort that sort of damage post removal but I guess this is the joy of near 30 year old cars. Repair is going to be a bit of a shaft as there is a nice body line or two which needs restoring for it not to look crap.. In lighter news my rather tatty OE bumper did fit quite well so I shall go about plastic 'brazing' the holes and tidying up the damaged bits. It'll take a while but at least my labour is free