Another one saved!

[abovetherim]

I posted a couple of queries regarding door lock wiring about a year ago as that was when I got the old girl.
I should preface that by saying i'm in the UK and the car is a UK spec standard car. '92MY


When I got the car it ran and drove but....
rear diff whine
sloppy inner tie rods
Door locks shaved and aftermarket central locking fitted (badly)
Paint is shocking with a couple of rust patches you might make out on the rear wheel arch.
No interior lights
stereo not working
Damaged interior dash trim
Ariel stuck at 3" up
leaking power steering pump making it judder at low speed.
Aircon belt missing
Serp belt idler pulley noisy.

That list will do for now.
My first job was to source door handles and barrels. I managed to get hold of them but they were for an import. Now on the uk spec 92 there is no security and no IR in the handle. So I had to swap the handle into the handle surround to get the required switches, no biggie.
I took out the central locking kit that had uttilised some of the door loom which left me 4 wires in the door that needed mating with the plug below


Now the eagle eyed of you will notice that the plug for the loom from the door handle has 6 wires and to be really helpful the wire colours don't match pre and post this connector. With wiring diagrams from the net and some uk suppliments Subaru sent me, oh and some time pulling what little hair i have left out, I managed to work out what went where.

Next onto the under dash wiring.
The ignition wiring was a mess from previous alarm install and removal so I tidied this up

Sorry no before pic.
In the footwell is where the central locking kit was butchered in. You can see in the pic the bullit connectors that weren't used as bullit connectors but crimp connector!


So after adding grafts of wires to reconnect all the cut wires to where they should be i was left with this


All of the looms I have repaired have also been wrapped in cloth loom tape.

Next onto the stereo wiring to sort out the mess there. Again cut wires, terminal blocks and the power feeds all wrong. Again no photos of this but suffice to say an hour with the wiring diagrams and my soldering iron sorted it. No photos as I was on a time frame.
To fit a stereo i had to repair/make new fixings for the cig lighter, air vent, heater controls and reinstate missing screws for the speedo bezel.

The benefit of sorting the wiring is that it restored power to the door timer control module (needed for the stereo) which in turn sorted the interior lights

Rear diff was low on oil as it had been leaking. I have a spare diff but I thought I'd play with the one on the car first. Cleaned it up a little then nipped up the cover bolts in the hope to stop the leak. Drained the old oil out and vacuum sucked as much of the dregs as possible out. Filled with the correct spec oil (the old oil was clean but very thick!) and waited a couple of days. Happy to report no more leaking and now only a very slight whine at 80 mph+, I can live with that for a while.

Inner tie rods are not available in the uk and the shipping cost from the US is a little prohibitive so i picked up a used rack with the tie rods from the same place as the rear diff. I cleaned up the threads for the inner outer join and fitted with new boots and clips then adjusted the toe by eye. Though not ideal it would get me to the MOT station (annual safety inspection) and if it passed then to a shop for alignment.
I got a steering pump rebuild kit from rockauto (again postage was twice the cost of the kit) though the one o-ring I definatly needed, was the reservoir to pump body ring, was missing. I managed to find the specs for this and picked one up locally for no cost as i know the guy at the shop.

Last thing that i have fixed is the idler pulley. Again i could buy one from the US but instead I drilled out the rivets on the cover plate and pressed out the old bearing. Took it to a bearings shop and got a replacement for $3. Pressed that in and put the cover back on with new rivets. Done

All the brakes seemed to work fine except a squeal from the front and the e brake had next to no efficiecy. So I cleaned up the rear discs inside the hat, deglazed the shoes and adjusted the shoes clearance. I also gave the front and rear discs and pads a scuffing and gresed the sliders and copper slip on the rear of the pads. All working but got a vibration from the front at high speed braking and still got the squeal from the front at low speed braking. This makes me think i have a warped rotor.

With all that done over the last month (got the parts over the last year but only did the work this month) I took the car for inspection on the 1st April. And it passed
This weekend I will be fitting new front discs and pads, new iridium spark plugs, oil filter, oil and air filter. Also check the state of the trans fluid even though it shifts fine.

I still have a couple of issues to attend to and got to do the paint but they can wait for a bit. I just want to enjoy driving the car for now and I need to finish painting my mk2 Toyota MR2 rev1 and put it back together.

That all for now
Jan

[abovetherim]

Well spank me, my drop links that i ordered from rockauto on the 4th arrived this morning. So 4 days from order in the US to my door in the UK.

This means today I fit them along with oil + filter and iridium plugs. The plugs can't be any harder than on the Ford explorer i had with the v6 sohc engine that had a habit of corroding the plugs in!

Oh also got the new front discs and pads to go on today

[JeffN]

Good to see your resurrection-keep up the good work!