1999 Revision 5 MR2
Discussion
It certainly did make me wonder how people manage do to these jobs with the engine in situ! Couldn't have done it on my own either, had two people well versed in the ways of the MR2 involved as well, though neither had done a cambelt or clutch before either.
Definitely wouldn't want to do it again in a hurry, but it's good to know it can be done as a DIY job with the right tools, the right people helping, and the space. Definitely not an axle stand / driveway job that's for sure.
Probably could have got it all finished on Sunday, but we'd have been rushing it. It was worth taking the extra day to make sure we get things right first time, and the extra bits we did took up quite a bit of time (crankshaft seals) - your average garage is never going to bother with those!
On the timing side of things, it's definitely worth spending the extra to get the original Toyota components. The stuff that was on there was a good few years and ~25000 miles over schedule. The belt was in good condition, tensioner pulleys were fine, and the water pump was completely clean inside - the bearing was a little noisy compared to the new one, but nothing you'd notice really. I've seen pattern belts that look very tired compared to mine at the end of their service life. Hydraulic tensioner looked OK as well, but we replaced with new anyway as it was coming off.
Definitely wouldn't want to do it again in a hurry, but it's good to know it can be done as a DIY job with the right tools, the right people helping, and the space. Definitely not an axle stand / driveway job that's for sure.
Probably could have got it all finished on Sunday, but we'd have been rushing it. It was worth taking the extra day to make sure we get things right first time, and the extra bits we did took up quite a bit of time (crankshaft seals) - your average garage is never going to bother with those!
On the timing side of things, it's definitely worth spending the extra to get the original Toyota components. The stuff that was on there was a good few years and ~25000 miles over schedule. The belt was in good condition, tensioner pulleys were fine, and the water pump was completely clean inside - the bearing was a little noisy compared to the new one, but nothing you'd notice really. I've seen pattern belts that look very tired compared to mine at the end of their service life. Hydraulic tensioner looked OK as well, but we replaced with new anyway as it was coming off.
I'd have been lost without the help of Stu and Dom (not members on here as far as I am aware) - Stu's garage / garden has probably seen half the MR2's in the South East/ Anglia at some point!
If you have access to the tools and the space to do it, I reckon it's always worth having a go. It's a non interference engine, so if you bugger up the timing it's more of an annoyance than a serious problem. If you manage to cock it up really badly, then you can pick up a good replacement non turbo engine and gearbox for less than the parts I've replaced cost me!
If It was a Turbo, I would have hired a transmission jack / stand to do this I think. The Turbo box is much more substantial.
If you have access to the tools and the space to do it, I reckon it's always worth having a go. It's a non interference engine, so if you bugger up the timing it's more of an annoyance than a serious problem. If you manage to cock it up really badly, then you can pick up a good replacement non turbo engine and gearbox for less than the parts I've replaced cost me!
If It was a Turbo, I would have hired a transmission jack / stand to do this I think. The Turbo box is much more substantial.
It works!
Timing is all good, clutch is working. It's a bugger to bleed on an MR2 due to the length of the line. Tried to do a normal two person bleed, but it wasn't having it. A vacuum bleeder got the worst of the air out, and then finished the job with the traditional two person method.
Only thing that isn't quite right is the undertrays. Need to drill out some snapped bolts (crappy mild steel M10's that rust and snap). Needs more cable ties for now!
Alignment also needs doing. We had the whole rear end off, and it now has another subframe as one of the ARB bolts snapped in a captive nut. That'll get drilled out and retapped at some point, ready to be a spare for someone else in need. So even if we put the track rods back on the same side, it wouldn't be quite in line. We can do DIY alignment with string and a trackace, but it was getting on a bit, and it's not too far out, so I'll get it sorted before work tomorrow.
Also need to wire the amp back in. Low on the list so it didn't get done.
Timing is all good, clutch is working. It's a bugger to bleed on an MR2 due to the length of the line. Tried to do a normal two person bleed, but it wasn't having it. A vacuum bleeder got the worst of the air out, and then finished the job with the traditional two person method.
Only thing that isn't quite right is the undertrays. Need to drill out some snapped bolts (crappy mild steel M10's that rust and snap). Needs more cable ties for now!
Alignment also needs doing. We had the whole rear end off, and it now has another subframe as one of the ARB bolts snapped in a captive nut. That'll get drilled out and retapped at some point, ready to be a spare for someone else in need. So even if we put the track rods back on the same side, it wouldn't be quite in line. We can do DIY alignment with string and a trackace, but it was getting on a bit, and it's not too far out, so I'll get it sorted before work tomorrow.
Also need to wire the amp back in. Low on the list so it didn't get done.
Had a long weekend up in Norfolk with a couple of fellow owners, Henry and John. One of H's friends owns a boat restoration business on The Broads, and very kindly made some room for us to work on our cars. We all had our own list of things to do, some were more extensive than others. The big ones were J's cambelt, and Henry's polybushes. Polybushing is easy, I hear you say! Well yeah, but ask anyone who's worked on H's suspension components and you'll understand... That car does not like being taken apart.
I just had a 22mm Ultra Racing front ARB to fit, and a few cosmetic bits and pieces, most of my time was for helping H and J with theirs.
Day 1 (friday) went well, nothing to report really. We had time so we took our time with preparing everything. a solid 10/10 day all round really.
Day 2 s
t on us from a great height. To start off with, my rear window exploded on the way to the workshop in the morning. A van going the other way flicked up a stone, and it went through my window like a bullet:
Obviously it's completely fked, so H kindly delayed work on his one to help me get the window out with as little mess as possible. Surprisingly we barely dropped any on the floor, and there wasn't that much in the car either. J cracked on with getting access to his cambelt, and I was going over to assist when needed as I've done a cambelt with the engine out of the car.
Much tape was used (didn't have any duct tape annoyingly):
And getting as much of the sealant off as we could:
The problem we have now is obvious - It's Saturday on the easter weekend, we're our in the sticks in a workshop on the Norfolk Broads, my car has no rear window, and storm Katie was due to blow over our way very soon. This is probably a good point to mention that moods were already rather sour all round - the jubilee clip on H's coolant temperature plate failed just as we arrived at the workshop so it dumped a good few litres of coolant on the floor, and anyone who's DIY'ed a cambelt in situ knows how easily that job will ruin your mood...
My luck did turn though. A few messages via Facebook sourced two rear windows in breaker cars within 30 minutes of the workshop. Result! The tricky bit is getting them out in one piece. Fortunately someone put me in contact with Chris at Hank Windscreen Specialists, who came out first thing on Easter Sunday to remove a breaker rear window (took him about 10 minutes to do, absolute pro!), and came and fitted it to my car, and only charged me £70 for his services.
So, H's polybushes. We started with the front end. As mentioned previously, this car does not like being taken apart. True to form, the tension rod bolts were not coming free. Breaker bar plus heat wouldn't shift it, liberal applications of plusgas wouldn't shift it, a 450nm electric impact wouldn't shift it, and an air impact that's happy to dismantle boats wouldn't shift it.
So, we removed the tension rod brackets so we could get them in the vice and really have a go at them. At one point we had an 7ft long extension on the breaker bar. We bent the breaker bar.
It's not going well. But wait, there's more! When I was putting the tension rod bracket bolts back in the car by a few threads so we don't lose them, I discovered that the captive nut for one of the front bolts had failed - there was no thread in there at all! The spot welds had failed and it was rolling around on the chassis rail.
An annoying job has now become a serious problem, as this captive nut is located in a cavity with no access.
We now have a car we cannot bolt one of the tension rod brackets back on to safely, and tension rods that we cannot get free of their brackets, with old bushes that are now ruined due to all the heat cycling.
A few solutions were proposed for the captive nut problem - Option 1 - cut through the front firewall, fix the captive nut. Option 2 - replace the captive nut with a stud, weld that in. Option 3 - cut a larger hole, and weld a nut in from below.
Option 1 is ugly, but means we don't touch the chassis rail, which is structural, and is really the 'proper' fix. Option 2 is a good alternative as we don't have to cut anything. Option 3 means cutting the chassis rail, which we weren't keen on.
H decided to go option 1:
No rotational force is applied to it, so it will be OK just torqued up correctly - H will get getting it spot welded in place and a plate over the hole as soon as possible though.
That's one problem fixed. The brackets were still an issue though. In the end, we sourced some replacement brackets from a local owner about an hour away and just cut the tension rods out of the old brackets.
With the new brackets on H's, the front end was finally back together.
Moving onto the rear end, it wasn't having it. Heat, breaker bar, electric and air impact guns could not move the control arm to subframe bolt. As we didn't have a spare subframe, we decided to leave it there. Henry went to a friends who had a spare subframe and everything needed to replace it on wednesday to get it sorted with a replacement subframe. They had to cut the old subframe up to get the arms out!
Meanwhile, over at Camp Goodwood Green:
J has access to his cambelt! Lots of things slowed us down here. First off, the crank pulley bolt was ridiculously tight. On my car, and the breaker engine I practiced on, the pulley bolt came of with a couple of pulses with an impact gun, no problem. J's wasn't having it. In the end we did the starter motor trick, where we cranked the engine with the EFI fuse removed, with an impact socket and a breaker bar against the floor to crack the nut off. Other issues included stubborn timing cover bolts (only M6's so you have to be careful with them), and a lot of swearing getting the engine hanger free with the car in situ. What didn't help is that the guide we were following was missing some steps, and the BGB assumes you've got the engine out of the car.
Anyway, after much swearing and some blood sacrifices, we had the belt on. Barred it over a couple times, and the intake cam is a tooth out. At this point there was a, erm, enthusiastic exchange between myself and J. Essentially, we were both trying to do it in a different way. J had marked the belt with match marks which is great for making sure the belt goes on in the right place, but and once you bar the engine over these are going to take an age to come back round exactly due to the pulley ratios as it's a DOHC engine with two pumps driven off the belt. The only bit that matters is that the cam marks and pulley all align up again at cyl1 TDC once you've barred it over 720 degrees. At this point, any match marks you've made on the belt won't come round in the same place.
2nd attempt at getting it lined up was spot on though, and the car fired up first time once we had it back together enough to test it. This just left J to put it back together (with assistance from me and H where required).
This is the setup we were working in:
It's was so nice to actually have some space, light, and shelter while working!
The location was lovely as well:
At some point during all of this, I fitted a 22mm Ultra Racing front ARB. Nothing to report here - it was the only thing that went with no drama I think!
Finally, on Tuesday morning, we had all the cars back on the road (after a 2am finish the night before). Mine is running really nicely - turns out it's actually got a bit of ignition advance dialled in at about 12-13 degrees, which may explain why it seems a bit quicker than most NA's.
H's is running much nicer with stronger boost now - he must have had a slight boost leak before as the only thing he's done in that area is take off all the boost piping and the throttle body to change the valve cover gasket. Sounds so naughty now with the turbo flutter, which it wasn't doing before. Handles much nice now as well, just needs an alignment.
J's is running well after the cambelt change, engine sounds happier and is firing up better due to a cleaned out throttle body and IACV. He's got a pulsing/whistling noise under load at higher revs, which can only be a slight leak on the exhaust or possible intake - he fitted a new downpipe, and all the ACIS and top half of the intake manifold had been off while changing the valve cover gasket, shouldn't take too long to isolate and fix. Will be spot on then!
So, a very long weekend, and I'd certainly had enough at points, as had J and H. Enjoyed it overall though, even though I was pretty broken on Tuesday morning! Looking forward to next time!
I just had a 22mm Ultra Racing front ARB to fit, and a few cosmetic bits and pieces, most of my time was for helping H and J with theirs.
Day 1 (friday) went well, nothing to report really. We had time so we took our time with preparing everything. a solid 10/10 day all round really.
Day 2 s
t on us from a great height. To start off with, my rear window exploded on the way to the workshop in the morning. A van going the other way flicked up a stone, and it went through my window like a bullet:Obviously it's completely f
ked, so H kindly delayed work on his one to help me get the window out with as little mess as possible. Surprisingly we barely dropped any on the floor, and there wasn't that much in the car either. J cracked on with getting access to his cambelt, and I was going over to assist when needed as I've done a cambelt with the engine out of the car.Much tape was used (didn't have any duct tape annoyingly):
And getting as much of the sealant off as we could:
The problem we have now is obvious - It's Saturday on the easter weekend, we're our in the sticks in a workshop on the Norfolk Broads, my car has no rear window, and storm Katie was due to blow over our way very soon. This is probably a good point to mention that moods were already rather sour all round - the jubilee clip on H's coolant temperature plate failed just as we arrived at the workshop so it dumped a good few litres of coolant on the floor, and anyone who's DIY'ed a cambelt in situ knows how easily that job will ruin your mood...
My luck did turn though. A few messages via Facebook sourced two rear windows in breaker cars within 30 minutes of the workshop. Result! The tricky bit is getting them out in one piece. Fortunately someone put me in contact with Chris at Hank Windscreen Specialists, who came out first thing on Easter Sunday to remove a breaker rear window (took him about 10 minutes to do, absolute pro!), and came and fitted it to my car, and only charged me £70 for his services.
So, H's polybushes. We started with the front end. As mentioned previously, this car does not like being taken apart. True to form, the tension rod bolts were not coming free. Breaker bar plus heat wouldn't shift it, liberal applications of plusgas wouldn't shift it, a 450nm electric impact wouldn't shift it, and an air impact that's happy to dismantle boats wouldn't shift it.
So, we removed the tension rod brackets so we could get them in the vice and really have a go at them. At one point we had an 7ft long extension on the breaker bar. We bent the breaker bar.
It's not going well. But wait, there's more! When I was putting the tension rod bracket bolts back in the car by a few threads so we don't lose them, I discovered that the captive nut for one of the front bolts had failed - there was no thread in there at all! The spot welds had failed and it was rolling around on the chassis rail.
An annoying job has now become a serious problem, as this captive nut is located in a cavity with no access.
We now have a car we cannot bolt one of the tension rod brackets back on to safely, and tension rods that we cannot get free of their brackets, with old bushes that are now ruined due to all the heat cycling.
A few solutions were proposed for the captive nut problem - Option 1 - cut through the front firewall, fix the captive nut. Option 2 - replace the captive nut with a stud, weld that in. Option 3 - cut a larger hole, and weld a nut in from below.
Option 1 is ugly, but means we don't touch the chassis rail, which is structural, and is really the 'proper' fix. Option 2 is a good alternative as we don't have to cut anything. Option 3 means cutting the chassis rail, which we weren't keen on.
H decided to go option 1:
No rotational force is applied to it, so it will be OK just torqued up correctly - H will get getting it spot welded in place and a plate over the hole as soon as possible though.
That's one problem fixed. The brackets were still an issue though. In the end, we sourced some replacement brackets from a local owner about an hour away and just cut the tension rods out of the old brackets.
With the new brackets on H's, the front end was finally back together.
Moving onto the rear end, it wasn't having it. Heat, breaker bar, electric and air impact guns could not move the control arm to subframe bolt. As we didn't have a spare subframe, we decided to leave it there. Henry went to a friends who had a spare subframe and everything needed to replace it on wednesday to get it sorted with a replacement subframe. They had to cut the old subframe up to get the arms out!
Meanwhile, over at Camp Goodwood Green:
J has access to his cambelt! Lots of things slowed us down here. First off, the crank pulley bolt was ridiculously tight. On my car, and the breaker engine I practiced on, the pulley bolt came of with a couple of pulses with an impact gun, no problem. J's wasn't having it. In the end we did the starter motor trick, where we cranked the engine with the EFI fuse removed, with an impact socket and a breaker bar against the floor to crack the nut off. Other issues included stubborn timing cover bolts (only M6's so you have to be careful with them), and a lot of swearing getting the engine hanger free with the car in situ. What didn't help is that the guide we were following was missing some steps, and the BGB assumes you've got the engine out of the car.
Anyway, after much swearing and some blood sacrifices, we had the belt on. Barred it over a couple times, and the intake cam is a tooth out. At this point there was a, erm, enthusiastic exchange between myself and J. Essentially, we were both trying to do it in a different way. J had marked the belt with match marks which is great for making sure the belt goes on in the right place, but and once you bar the engine over these are going to take an age to come back round exactly due to the pulley ratios as it's a DOHC engine with two pumps driven off the belt. The only bit that matters is that the cam marks and pulley all align up again at cyl1 TDC once you've barred it over 720 degrees. At this point, any match marks you've made on the belt won't come round in the same place.
2nd attempt at getting it lined up was spot on though, and the car fired up first time once we had it back together enough to test it. This just left J to put it back together (with assistance from me and H where required).
This is the setup we were working in:
It's was so nice to actually have some space, light, and shelter while working!
The location was lovely as well:
At some point during all of this, I fitted a 22mm Ultra Racing front ARB. Nothing to report here - it was the only thing that went with no drama I think!
Finally, on Tuesday morning, we had all the cars back on the road (after a 2am finish the night before). Mine is running really nicely - turns out it's actually got a bit of ignition advance dialled in at about 12-13 degrees, which may explain why it seems a bit quicker than most NA's.
H's is running much nicer with stronger boost now - he must have had a slight boost leak before as the only thing he's done in that area is take off all the boost piping and the throttle body to change the valve cover gasket. Sounds so naughty now with the turbo flutter, which it wasn't doing before. Handles much nice now as well, just needs an alignment.
J's is running well after the cambelt change, engine sounds happier and is firing up better due to a cleaned out throttle body and IACV. He's got a pulsing/whistling noise under load at higher revs, which can only be a slight leak on the exhaust or possible intake - he fitted a new downpipe, and all the ACIS and top half of the intake manifold had been off while changing the valve cover gasket, shouldn't take too long to isolate and fix. Will be spot on then!
So, a very long weekend, and I'd certainly had enough at points, as had J and H. Enjoyed it overall though, even though I was pretty broken on Tuesday morning! Looking forward to next time!
5harp3y said:
i had one for a few months, the most annoying, hateful thing to work on. everything was frustrating to do!
It's not so bad once you've worked on one for a while. The documentation in the workshop manual is fantastic, pretty much everything is covered with diagrams for every step. The only problem with them is there's so much detail, and it assumes some things - for example the timing section assumes you have the engine out of the car, and goes into a lot of detail that most people will never need, like how to time the cams if you've removed them / removed the cam pulley etc. The cylinder head removal also has you removing the cams, which is not necessary if you just need to get the head off - it's assuming you will be doing other work that will require the cams out at the same time. So you have to pick and choose which bits you follow.Access can be an issue, but you learn to work around it. a lot of jobs are made 10x easier by having a access to a service pit.
Just remembered another thing I've done - had quite a few sheared undertray bolts. I've drilled and tapped most of them now, and replaced with A2 stainless M6 bolts and washers. Should never have that problem again! Cobalt drill bits are the one for this, they go through mild steel so easily.
danllama said:
Sounds pretty savage, i'm broken after a day working on mine normally.
And you've just reminded me how much I've got to do
It was difficult on day 3 / 4. Doesn't help that we were delayed by the window and coolant incident, and Henry lost a good 5 hours or so of working time having to run errands to get bits for his car. And you've just reminded me how much I've got to do
The location certainly helped though - having light, shelter, space, and being in the middle of The Broads was nice.
Definitely.
Next big job is getting a spare set of control arms and tension rods shotblasted and coated, polybushing them, and fitting them with new ball joints, track rod ends etc. Feels like theres a bit too much preload on the coilovers at the moment as well, so I'll need to check that. Give the suspension a clean up, and that should be the suspension side of things sorted then.
Brakes are being a little problematic, seems there is a very slight leak somewhere. All the unions look dry. My suspicion is the bleed nipples are not sealing 100%, so they are letting a very small amount of air in. Only takes one or two goes with the traditional two person bleed method to clear it which supports that theory as that would suggest the air is sitting right at the top of the caliper. Bit of PTFE tape on the threads should sort it.
Next big job is getting a spare set of control arms and tension rods shotblasted and coated, polybushing them, and fitting them with new ball joints, track rod ends etc. Feels like theres a bit too much preload on the coilovers at the moment as well, so I'll need to check that. Give the suspension a clean up, and that should be the suspension side of things sorted then.
Brakes are being a little problematic, seems there is a very slight leak somewhere. All the unions look dry. My suspicion is the bleed nipples are not sealing 100%, so they are letting a very small amount of air in. Only takes one or two goes with the traditional two person bleed method to clear it which supports that theory as that would suggest the air is sitting right at the top of the caliper. Bit of PTFE tape on the threads should sort it.
Cleaned the air filter:
The cleaning spray is crap though, don't even bother with it.
Been having some TB related issues recently - either ISCV or TPS. Got a spare TB, checked the calibration of the TPS and popped it on. Idle wasn't right with this TB - cold idle was too low (800-900RPM). Took it out for a test drive anyway, and had a rather scary failure:
On the face of it, nothing really scary about that - however the TPS was wedged against the engine hanger and had wedged the throttle partially open. The car accelerating by itself is rather alarming...
It was completely my fault, as the TPS test was all within range, I didn't need to calibrate it, and I didn't check the screws were tight. Lesson there is check everything, don't assume!
Turned out the ISCV on this spare TB was shot, and the TPS on my TB was shot. So, quick swap around of parts, and I now have a working TB again.
In other news, turns out my Rev5 wing was on setting 1. Obviously it needs to be on maximum attack full JDM spec setting 3:
I'm sure it'll make a huge difference.... :lol:
The cleaning spray is crap though, don't even bother with it.
Been having some TB related issues recently - either ISCV or TPS. Got a spare TB, checked the calibration of the TPS and popped it on. Idle wasn't right with this TB - cold idle was too low (800-900RPM). Took it out for a test drive anyway, and had a rather scary failure:
On the face of it, nothing really scary about that - however the TPS was wedged against the engine hanger and had wedged the throttle partially open. The car accelerating by itself is rather alarming...
It was completely my fault, as the TPS test was all within range, I didn't need to calibrate it, and I didn't check the screws were tight. Lesson there is check everything, don't assume!
Turned out the ISCV on this spare TB was shot, and the TPS on my TB was shot. So, quick swap around of parts, and I now have a working TB again.
In other news, turns out my Rev5 wing was on setting 1. Obviously it needs to be on maximum attack full JDM spec setting 3:
I'm sure it'll make a huge difference.... :lol:
Another year down, 26,500 miles, it passed it's MOT no problem at all. No advisories either.
Been to a few track sessions over spring / summer. I did a single session at Japfest, Silverstone, and I won't be doing another one. Too many cars on track, and too many track day heroes. Will be sticking to open pit days and club organised events. It was quite frustrating at times as mine only has ~175bhp, I often found myself behind something that I could brake later and corner faster than quite comfortably, but didn't have the power to pass comfortably on the straights. We can fix that though, that's an update for another time
Photo from Silverstone-
And a short video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhedNIPz_y4
Also attended a track evening at Snetterton - open pit format. So much better than the sessions at Silverstone, it's a really fun track as well. Feels a bit narrower than Silverstone which I like, and the infield section on the 300 is so fun.
And a 1 lap video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Md1ZG0AbnE
Been to a few track sessions over spring / summer. I did a single session at Japfest, Silverstone, and I won't be doing another one. Too many cars on track, and too many track day heroes. Will be sticking to open pit days and club organised events. It was quite frustrating at times as mine only has ~175bhp, I often found myself behind something that I could brake later and corner faster than quite comfortably, but didn't have the power to pass comfortably on the straights. We can fix that though, that's an update for another time
Photo from Silverstone-
And a short video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhedNIPz_y4
Also attended a track evening at Snetterton - open pit format. So much better than the sessions at Silverstone, it's a really fun track as well. Feels a bit narrower than Silverstone which I like, and the infield section on the 300 is so fun.
And a 1 lap video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Md1ZG0AbnE
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