1996 Toyota MR2

[Daniel]

Would i be right in remembering that we spotted something a miss with the exhaust system? I am sure it was the exhaust that didn`t match up to the standard of the rest of the underside of the car?

Yes you did spot something Russ, it was the bracket attached to the back of the silencer had been partially cut off and left there. Which in turn was supposed to attach to the front of the cat to stabilise them both. Still, given time etc I'll have all new - so that'll be another thing sorted.

Most of the stuff for the Rex from Mazda comes from Japan mate unless on the rare occasion they have one in the parts store in Belgium. Its not that bad in terms of timescales.

Thats a pretty crusty exhaust but yeah if it's working now then great. Guess it depends if you are keeping the car longer term.

Well I was given a timescale of 8 to 14 days, so considering that it is coming from Japan. That's quicker than ebay items from China.
I do plan on keeping this for a while longer G, I actually want to make a better go at this car than I did with the blue one.

[Daniel]

Just a small update.

I decided to the other day to upgrade my instrument illumination before winter approaches. (and I have a tendency to forget stuff quickly) Here's what they looked like beforehand, as you can see they're pretty much useless in stock form. The hot spots are murder at night because you have to dim them down but you also totally loose needle brightness as well as half of the instruments!



So I bought some 5 panel T10 LEDs and stripped the instruments down to the casing. While I had it stripped back I used some aluminium tape around all four of the internal reflectors (where the bulbs protrude through) as well as a couple of aluminium strips in the dark prone locations, typically I forgot to photograph the tape in place but I'm sure you can imagine where they'd go in this photo.



Before I started to refit the instruments I also cut and adhered red acetate to the rev line limit to stop them from going pink with the new lighting.





And the result? Pretty happy with it. It's a hell of a lot brighter in person, plus the dimmer switch still works too!




I also finally received a phone call from Toyota to say that my slave cylinder heat shield turned up! It was becoming tiresome having the clutch lines heat up and go limp just with town driving! So here we are, Toyota had to put their die press machine back into production briefly to produce a batch of these. Feel pretty chuffed about that, I'm sure most manufactures wouldn't bother doing it.



Now bolted up, but I couldn't help but think it would benefit from a bit more heat protection. So I cut and rolled a piece of aluminium the same gauge as the shield, then riveted them together to make an extruded version of the original.





Much better. May look a bit barry-boy for the time being but at least it's functional. In time it'll also be covered in reflective heat wrap to improve its function along with an exhaust wrap.

[Stuart]

No idea about the functionality Dan but I'm sure you do; however, nice attention to detail and good to see you pursuing a high standard for your MR2

[RX7]

Yep nice work Dan, like the dash lights.

[Daniel]

No idea about the functionality Dan but I'm sure you do; however, nice attention to detail and good to see you pursuing a high standard for your MR2

Well I've just been out on a quick 30 mile trip with varying driving styles and it's sorted out the gimpy pedal. Happy days. Will look forward to future improvements like the manifold wrapping, should see temp differences and have a happier engine. And thanks Stu, this one is worth making the effort for. I'll contact you nearer the end of the year for undersealing too.

Yep nice work Dan, like the dash lights.

Cheers G. Just the little details like the instruments being sorted is making me more happy about owning this one.

[Daniel]

Another part way update.

Next on my list of jobs to sort out was to remove the whole heater control panel. I noticed that while the button lights worked, there were a couple of others that wasn't. And it was annoying me, so out came the dash centre.




Finally removed the whole unit and stripped it down to components. Was an arse of a job especially with the mechanical vent cables not wanting to budge.

The areas affected are;
x5 main switch diagrams not lighting (face, feet, screen etc)
OFF, LO, •, ••, HI - not lighting.
Cool < | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > Hot legend - not lighting.



For the Cool < | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > Hot, legend facia you can see it's translucent. So as with the dash clocks I'll be adding red and blue acetate to reflect where these points happen.



And this impressive piece fits over and around all of the switches, two bulbs are supposed to light this piece up and spread the light. However they've had it after 18 years, so since I can't replace them (discontinued) I'll be upgrading these to full LED too. Just waiting on parts to complete and update.

[Rob S]

Love the comedy rubber mallet. Ex Ford technician by any chance?

[Daniel]

Ha you'd be surprised how handy that deadblow is Rob. I had to use it to unfreeze a couple of old screws behind the dash, worked a treat.

[Monster]

Good stuff Dan, your attention to detail is mental!

[Daniel]

Cheers Christian. I'm actually working on more of the dash illuminations, the heater control lighting has all but packed up (only a couple of lights working) so I've been upgrading that. Plus I'll be sorting out the light up switches too. Just the little touches makes it that little bit better for me.