Harleys new progress blog from the start. My Na 5

[HarleyFDMD]

Flipped it over this morning and pulled the sump off - all looks very clean with no sludge or metal shavings. The small amount of oil still in the sump is actually very clean so hopefully that goes somewhat to suggest this engine has been well maintained.

 

 

[Hammer]

Good u-dates, loving this. My Mrs took one look at this and said "don't get any ideas, it's bad enough you putting the headlights in the oven". Well done great work

[HarleyFDMD]

Block and rear sump cleaned and degreased with copious amounts of brake cleaner. I have only done the upper sump so far as i want to re paint the lower pan before i fit it.

 

I used Loctite SI5980 as recommended by various people - its certainly thick and very tacky stuff!

12mm bolts tightened down to 15ftlbs and the 14mm bolts tightened down to 30ftlbs

 

 

[Chris Bailey]

Nicely done Harley

[HarleyFDMD]

So 4 months have now passed! Anddd nothing much has changed. Made afew purchases and sold afew bits but thats about it.

 

Bought another complete rear subframe - those that have followed this thread will recall i bought one ages ago that i was going to have powder coated but the more i worked on it the more i thought it was too far gone. It had come off a 200k mile car and was pretty rusty so i just scrapped it and found this one that has come from a 90k tt auto and is in much much better condition to start with.

 

I also finally got round to getting my genuine BBSs refurbed. They look a million dollars now finished in piano black. Still need to get the centre nuts professionally polished though.

 

I bought another 2jzgte engine, it was a vvti engine directly from a supra and had suffered a spun bearing. Picked it up very cheaply even considering the damage. I broke it for parts just to generate abit cash.

 

And last but not least i bought a Mercedes 300e W124 lol. A completely unnecessary purchase but she makes a fantastically cool daily - lowered her and threw on some step up BBS reps for added G appeal. Shes getting more looks than the Supra!

 

 

[Wonga Spar]

Man.... this is too awesome.

 

Would love to know a little bit more about your experience sourcing/purchasing/transporting the engine!

 

What happened in the 4 month gap? Is the engine still in the living room?

[HarleyFDMD]

Man.... this is too awesome.

 

Would love to know a little bit more about your experience sourcing/purchasing/transporting the engine!

 

What happened in the 4 month gap? Is the engine still in the living room?

So the 2nd engine came about after a brief conversion on Facebook, somebody mentioned somewhere that they were looking for an engine and this guy replied saying he had one - i didnt need an engine but thought id PM him just to see what he was selling and how much (basically just being nosey)

 

He told me it was a 2jzgte vvti engine that he suspected had a spun bearing. He then sent me some pictures to clarify what he was saying and told me he'd be happy with £XXX

 

If im being honest i thought he was taking the piss. He was up in Manchester which is almost 3 hours away from me and i almost didnt bother going because i thought it was just going to be a waste of time i.e. he wasnt going to turn up and the whole thing was just a wind up.

But curiosity got the better of me and i thought it was probably worth the risk - worst case scenario i have a McDonald's in Manchester and then drive home again.

I wasn't going to bother going through the hassle and expense of hiring a van though considering i was 90% sure I'd be coming back empty handed.

 

So i just went in my trusty old Peugeot 306, and low and behold i arrived at the guys unit to be greated by a 2jzgte vvti with all the ancillaries hanging off an engine crane ready and waiting to be loaded into a *cough cough* van.

 

I didnt particularly want to leave and come back another day simply because A) it was a bloody long way and B) i didnt want someone else to snap it up in the mean time.

 

So we chucked it into the back of the Peugeot.

320kg in the boot of 90's french hatchback.

 

Yeah.. she squats.

 

I was convinced it was going to fall through the floor at every bump in the road but thank god she made it home safely and i didnt dump a 2jz onto the slow lane of the A1.

 

Initially i planned on keeping the bare block to build on later on but someone made a nice offer on it so thats now gone along with the rest of it.

Generated a nice bit of cash for my build.

 

 

 

 

[HarleyFDMD]

Bought a new genuine gte oil pump, core plug set and assembly lube to add to the pile.

Also ordered an SRD stainless bumper undertray, i already have the engine undertray so this'll go nicely with that.

Next things will be the genuine gasket kit and water pump.

 

 

[HarleyFDMD]

Got the injectors, rail and lower runners mocked up properly today. Had a bit of a mare with the seals and alloy injector seats as i thought they had to be welded into the runners but i have since been informed by a very reliable source that they are typically just 'glued' in with gasket sealant and that welding them in isnt totally necessary.. i guess we'll just see how it goes..

 

Bought a complete oem gasket kit today too

 

 

[HarleyFDMD]

SRD stainless bumper undertray arrived - very nicely made!

 

 

[HarleyFDMD]

Complete oem seal and gasket kit [emoji106]

 

 

[HarleyFDMD]

Last night i started pulling the engine apart to replace the head gasket + install my ARP head studs. Im extremely pleased with how clean the engine is externally and internally - next to no oil staining atall in the cylinder head!

 

 

[HarleyFDMD]

When i bought the engine from JDM garage they informed me that they had re-seated the valves and replaced the head gasket and timing belt which tbf all looks brand new - although im replacing it all again anyway.

Last night however i came to a stop when i realised i wasn't going to be able to remove the crank pulley as i had no way of locking it up, so today i made a lock up bar that essentially bolts to the rear of the crank and locks itself against the engine stand while i undo the front pulley bolt.

So got my big breaker on the bolt and it literally just unwound with next to no effort atall. I reckon whoever did the work at JDM garage just nipped it up with a ratchet with the intention of going back and torquing it up but never did.

 

Lol all that effort for nothing - its fortunate that i didnt just decide to throw the engine is as it was.

 

 

[HarleyFDMD]

Got the head off this evening. Ready for new stem seals, oem gasket and ARP head studs.

The head is super super clean and has been skimmed also.

 

 

[HarleyFDMD]

Slow progress recently but this evening i got the head stripped down and one bank of core plugs replaced on the block

 

 

[SupraTRD_MK4]

Nice work mate. Looks the bees knees. Lucky you didnt put it just in and decided to conduct the above work but I guess you would have heard the pulley before something catastrophic occurred.

Could I ask you a favor pls? Could you measure the bolt dimensions for the auxiliary belt tensioner, the one from whiftbitz that you fitted. I am missing both bolt and pulley and will get the pulley from them however the bolt cannot be purchased separately from Toyota as it gives a complete number for the tensioner.

[Mike2JZ]

I still love the fact that you are doing this in your living room. Looks like you are doing a proper job, keep it up

[Wonga Spar]

Great story about collecting the engine, glad it's all worked out so well!

 

Looking better and better!

[skippyboyo1]

any updates on this? do you still have it?

[HarleyFDMD]

On 7/13/2020 at 4:20 PM, skippyboyo1 said:

any updates on this? do you still have it?

First time back on the forum in ages! But yes i do still have her! Not much has changed. Still haven't sorted the GTE engine out lol

[HarleyFDMD]

So since rediscovering the forum last night, this evening i dragged the supra out the garage to show you guys the sorry state it has become..

During lockdown i took it into work and finished rebuilding that subframe that i had laying around for ages!

I fabricated a jacking point into the bottom of the subframe to prevent me from having to jack the back of my car up on the diff - as diffs are damn expensive nowadays!

The aqua blaster at work made light work of the control arms

Then it was out with the old and in with the new..

While installing the new subframe i also replaced the diff with an A02B LSD

[HarleyFDMD]

Also here's a complete waste of time -

I had a pair of UK spec rear calipers that i purchased years ago and have been meaning to fit ever since, so while doing the subframe i also stripped and painted them in nissan GTR burnt orange before installing them with chris wilson pads, do-luck braided lines and slotted discs.

Then i took the car home, put it in the garage again and then bought a set of wheels that mean i cant use UK rear calipers

They came up for sale in the UK at a very good price and i just thought i couldn't pass it up! They're brand new - were still in their boxes un opened when i collected them. But yeah, the UK calipers are now rather redundant!

[HarleyFDMD]

But.. back to why the car is in a bit of a sorry state.

While doing the subframe i noticed a small patch of the sill was starting to bubble. 'Nevermind' i thought.. 'I'll just sand/cut it out and do a small local repair" so i started sanding... and i wish i hadn't. Filler. Lots of it.

So my shiney show piece NA5 had been hiding a little secret all these years - at one point in its life it had suffered a bit of a knock on the offside. The outer skin of the sill towards the front had been pushed in and poorly patch repaired. The patch that had been welded in still sat half an inch or so inwards so filler had been applied over the top. The patch had then started to rust from the inside out and eventually through the filler also. Which leads me to my current position...

Not ideal, but not life threatening i guess. Everything beyond that outer skin is clean and straight. Finding replacement sills is proving very difficult though so i think its going to be a custom job.

The rear quarter on the same side also has filler in it, probably from the same incident. But I'm yet to delve into that just yet!

[HarleyFDMD]

So this is how it looks tonight..

The worst its ever looked since the day it arrived on a low loader out the back of my parents house 6 years a go.

Its going to be a slow process because i feel like I've taken on too much to soon.

I now have the engine i still need to get built, sills to have rebuilt and a rear quarter that inevitably going to require work, a respray and interior stuff that i started and didn't finish.

Really i should have just focused on one thing at a time but my impatience got the better of me and now I've likely made the whole thing take longer.

See you all again in 2022

[HarleyFDMD]

Forgot to mention previously - 

How's this for a nightmare... 

Sound deadening. Any one ever tried to remove this stuff during the summer with a heat gun and a 99p homebase scraper?

10/10 would not recommend.

Basically at some point in its life someone had covered the entire inside of the car in sound deadening - like literally front to back. Now that's great and all but what was constantly niggling at me was the fact that it wasn't all that neat. It looked like tin foil patchwork.

So i figured I'd remove it all and start from scratch.. with nothing more than a heat gun, a scraper and a tin of thinners - i know it sounds exhilarating but trust me it wasn't. 

Once it was all removed (which took days, not hours) i got it in the booth, wiped down, masked and primed

Once primed i got it all flatted back down and based in Mercedes obsidian black - no pictures unfortunately but tbh it just looks kind of factory.

I chose Obsidian black because that's the colour I'll eventually be painting the rest of the car. I like the car being black but the factory 202 is too high maintenance. It looks good for 1% of the time, for the other 99% its covered in water marks and swirls - you ask any 202 owner and they'll agree, but that's the nature of straight gloss black.

Obsidian black is metallic and the metallic does a good job of hiding fine swirls while still maintaining depth. My S class is Obsidian black and i can wash it without the need to polish it straight after - something i could only dream of with the 202 on the Supra.