Ownership Verified: My MK I MR-2 (AW11). The Night Rider.

Okay found some more time today to work on removing the engine.

Excuse the pics, sometimes phone lens gets dirty.
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Was surprisingly easy to drag out.
 
I've been disassembling the old engine and cleaning up parts which I will be reusing.

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Coolant hoses removed:
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Coolant passages full of shit:
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Bolts on the front water neck mount were pretty rusty and the top one sheared in half:
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Autobox removed:
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Sump removed (will be reused as new engine didn't come with one):
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Some kind of plastic and RTV shit caught on the oil pickup strainer, wonder how much got past (previous owners mechanic didn't do a nice job of re sealing the oil pan, overused RTV):
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Obviously water in the oil from head gasket failure:
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Removing cams:
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Head removed:
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Block:
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Hone marks still seem good:
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Head gasket failed on cyl 4:
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Alright that's it for the old engine, for now. After this I started cleaning up parts that I will be reusing.

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Alternator was pretty dirty, no money atm to rebuild it but it was working fine so will just get a clean for now:
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Starter also, sorry for terrible pic:
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Re finishing spark cover:
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Refinishing valve covers:
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Casting lines don't look so nice, so I sanded them off:
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High heat primer:
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My method for curing paint overnight:
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Spraying red:
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Okay valve covers done.
I broke the engine bay temp sensor removing the engine:
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So I went to the junkyard to find a replacement:
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Also my valve cover washers/seals were really worn:
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Replacements are used and not perfect but a lot better:
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Also found a facelift strut bar:
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I felt like test fitting the valve covers and ITB's together, but first I got replacement screws for the ITB's. They originally use a phillips head which easily get ****ed upon removal, so I bought screws with hex heads:
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Fitted inc. throttle linkage:
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Anyway that's it for now, progress is a little slow. A lot of weird shit happening to me recently, run of back luck etc..
 
Really nice work on the valve cover! Both the covers on the Mi16 and the Polo need such work with some high temperature paint...
 
Really nice work on the valve cover! Both the covers on the Mi16 and the Polo need such work with some high temperature paint...

Thanks, yeah its definitely a nice improvement and pretty easy to do.

Holy shit! That is nice!

Thanks!

Wow, you are doing a beautiful job there, awesome!

Thank you!

Nice, things move on. Those ITB's gonna sound like Iceland football commentator..

Haha, lets hope it actually runs when I get it together.

As you might remember from the pics of the engine when I first got it; it was pretty dirty and oily. Its an old engine and chances are the oil seals have never been replaced, so I thought I better address this.

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Removing cam timing gears:
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Notice the oil:
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With the cover removed its clear to see the camshaft seal was leaking:
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Removing old seal:
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Inserting new seal:
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Both seals in and head cleaned:
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Front main seal:
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Repainted the backing/cover plate with high heat paint:
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Made a nice robo skull image:
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Fitted:
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Torquing cam sprocket bolts (47Nm if I recall?):
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New Toyota waterpump:
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All my money is disapearing, so I didn't buy the whole pump assembly. Reusing the old pump backing:
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I noticed that the water pipe which I cleaned up had started to rust slightly already, I must have rubbed off some anti corossion coating? So cleaned it up again, primer and high heat black paint:
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Vacuum caps for vacuum nips on ITB's (Going to get vac signal from T3 ITB adapter ports):
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Okay now for the main update. I managed to install the clutch hardline which runs from the front of the car to the rear. I knew it was going to be a pain and it was. Nothing too complicated but have to remove a number of components (Under body covers, E-brake adjuster/splitter mechanism, front chassis support, front sway bar mounts, fuel tank straps, front heater hoses).

Lifted car in preparation:
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The hydraulic line is split into two sections, one short section from the clutch master to the under body of the car, then a second section which connects to the first and then runs to the engine bay of the car.
This is the factory pass through hole for the clutch line:
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Fitting the line was not really something that could be captured easily with photographs, plus there wasn't a lot of room under the car. For this reason I have only taken pics of mounting the clutch line to the existing brackets (luckily the auto brackets are the same as the manual ones, just with an extra space in the bracket.
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Here you can see the line came out very close to its proper position, it will be fine to bend it slightly to its final position:
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Front section of line, blue circle shows where lines connects into the clutch master cylinder (not yet installed):
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Not the most interesting pictures, but it was literally just me spending 3-4 hours trying to thread the line through various obstacles, finding out it wasn't possible without removing certain parts and repeating.
I'm glad its done though, probably the hardest part of a manual swap in an MR-2.
 
A small update: Despite what I decided on before, I've changed my mind and want to install the face lift tail lights.

This means the original lock is no longer usable as it doesn't protrude out enough. Of course you can simply put in a facelift lock but then your original key won't work obviously.

I thought I would try to re-pin the facelift lock using the pins/wafers from my original lock. To do this I went to a junk yard and found a facelift boot lock.

Here are two pics showing the lock with facelift and pre-facelift lights.

Pre-facelift:
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Facelift (Note that the lock now needs to protude much further because the light is now over it):
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Old lock on left, facelight on right (Tail piece actuator has already been removed from old lock in this pic):
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In order to remove the barrel the front cover must be removed:
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C clip holding actuator must also be removed:
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Now the barrel can be removed, to do so insert the key and pull it out (doesn't have to be the exact key for the lock):
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Original lock has a cover which was too difficult to remove with damaging, perhaps replacement cover can be found but I wont be using this lock anymore:
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Original on left, facelift on right (Note: facelift lock uses 7 pins while original uses 6 but still have the slot for 7th, at least on mine):
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Key in original lock, notice that all the pins are pulled down into the core (flush) allowing it to spin in the barrel:
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Alternatively the same key placed in the facelift lock, see how one pin is not pulled down all the way. This prevents the core form rotating in the barrel:
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Pic showing how key is inserted in pins/wafers:
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Pins/wafers and springs removed from both locks, as mentioned before the original lock had 6 pins while facelift has 7:
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Here are the pins/wafers from my original lock fitted to the facelift lock, make sure to remove the spring from any slot that is not being used or else it could come loose and jam everything.
Cleaned everything up too.
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It works!
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Here are the original pre-facelift tail lights (sorry for shitty pics):
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And now the facelift ones:
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I took some time to further disassemble the old 4AGE from the MR-2 (overheated engine). I took some photos during the process.

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The surface rust spots are caused by water in the oil (due to head gasket failure):
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By the way, the main (easily observable) damage I found from the overheating was that the pistons are seized on the piston pins. Meaning the pistons don't rock on the rods unless your force them to.


Anyway I finally bought the clutch master cylinder which I needed to be able to install the clutch pedal and complete the manual conversion.
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I had to file out the holes by hand as I didn't have a large enough drill bit (for the center hole):
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Three pedals, finally.
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Before the engine blew I had taken the car for a safety inspection, everything was fine apart from it needing new tires. Instead of buying new tires I though I'd find a nice set of aftermarket wheels with tires (was already planning to do this at some point).
Just yesterday I picked up a set of ATS Type 5's from up north. They need a bit of restoration but I already knew this before buying them, seller was kind enough to send detailed pics etc.

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Specs are:
15" x 7"
4 x 100PCD
ET30
57.1mm center bore.

Some center bore rings and they should be good. The tire aspect ratio is one size too small but what can you do, its hard to find the right tire size, with good tread..on wheels you like.
Also they are bridgestone's. I'll just change them once they wear out.


Installing the water pump, with new O-rings of course:
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Torqued to spec give by the BGB:
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Water pump inlet O-ring:
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Inlet pipe:
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There are quite a few misc. gaskets which needed to be replaced. I thought I would try to make my own using gasket paper which is supposedly designed for this purpose (from BNT).
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Another one for the heater outlet:
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Now when test fitting the bypass pipe with the ITB's there was a little problem:
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As you can see circled in red, the water fitting and ITB adapter are very close and actually touching. If I recall correctly it wasn't allowing the adapter to mount up perfect to the head either:
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There were also some issues of interference with the vacuum barbs, the gap between the bottom of adapter and top of pipe is less than it seems:
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This one was minor:
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So firstly I filed down the ITB adapter so that it could mount flush with the head and have a little clearance from the water fitting. It seems like not much, but this was enough:
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Next I tried to bend the water pipe so that it wouldn't interfere with the vacuum barbs. It was easy to bend the last part to avoid the barb on cyl 4, but the other one was more difficult.
I found it difficult to bend it and keep the mounting holes in the right position, it also needed quite a bit of force since it was already bent into an S shape on that side so I couldn't do it while bolted into the engine.

So although I don't like it, this is what I ended up doing, cut off the pipe leaving a good length to attach some heater hose to.

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I'm still not that pleased with it, will of course have to find a way to secure it and stop it from flying around.
I may find another pipe and try again, however, when I bent the pipe enough it had some stress marks on it seemed like it wouldn't be a good idea to use it.

The bend required looks a lot less in the pics. I tried using a shorter vacuum barb but there is not enough length with the pipe there directly under it.

--UPDATE: I'll probably try to use an angled vacuum barb and see if it works (I did try with a 90 degree but of course you have to spin it to get it in and it interferes with the front flange of the adapter).



Anyway engine bay has been cleaned and is almost ready:
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That's about it for the progress.

I also spent some time cleaning up the garage which seems to get messy and chaotic too often. I happened to take a pic comparing the relative sizes of the auto vs. manual trans:

Auto on left: Manual one is not too difficult to pick up for me (I got stick arms), but the auto... no way.
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Also here is a random shot/teaser of how the wheels look which I mentioned before. The tires are one aspect ratio too small which is creating more wheel gap, its just what the wheels came with though:
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Interior is also back together after all the covers were removed from shifter/clutch pedal install:
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Sorry for this post being a bit weird, I forgot to post updates here so this is just a collection of a few updates put together.
 
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You are doing a great job! Can't wait to see the final project.

I'm curious about the gasket paper. Where did you find such a thing? I'm thinking my laser engraver could cut that and make some beautiful gaskets.

Thanks! Appreciate it.

I bought the gasket paper from a local auto parts store. They had three thicknesses available and I just bought one slightly thicker then the OEM (due to old OEM one being compressed).
It's also available on Ebay if you search "gasket paper".

I asked the person at the store and he said it is designed for use on engines and water passages/oily environments. Just not for exhaust gaskets etc. obviously.
 
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Thanks! Appreciate it.

I bought the gasket paper from a local auto parts store. They had three thicknesses available and I just bought one slightly thicker then the OEM (due to old OEM one being compressed).
It's also available on Ebay is you search "gasket paper".

I asked the person at the store and he said it is designed for use on engines and water passages/oily environments. Just not for exhaust gaskets etc. obviously.

Thank you for the info. If I buy a project car in the near future, I think this would come in handy.
 
Wow, seriously cool stuff going on in here!
 
Excellent work, and I love the period-correct wheels!
 
A little update. I installed the rear main seal and timing belt.

Cleaning up the mating surfaces:
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Again I used some gasket paper to make my own gasket:
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RTV for a better seal:
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Don't worry I wiped off the excess RTV in the corner:
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And the new seal finally in:
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Also have been doing a bit of shopping.

New timing belt:
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Brand new Exedy clutch kit for a blacktop (since I'm using black top flywheel):
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And something a bit more fun. An Apexi Power FC made to be plug and play for the 4AGE 16V bigport (Specifically for the AE86 but should be workable with the AW11).
Apparently they don't make this for the 4AGE any more, I just hope it'll work and save me some money and time buying a brand new ECU and wiring it in.

My actual plan is to try the stock ECU to see how it copes with the ITBs (JDM map ecu), according to a few internet people it can cope relatively well as long as you use a vacuum manifold (of course). Who knows, we will see.
Even if it does run I will eventually switch to the Power FC and get it tuned.

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Anyway onto installing the timing belt:

I know the timing marks seem off in this picture, but I checked and its just parallax error (can't get camera to see both cam sprockets dead straight).
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Covers fitted:
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Little bit of copper anti seize on the crank pulley:
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One thing that annoyed me every time I looked at the interior was the shift boot I bought. It didn't have any retainer on the top and looked really unfinished.
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So I noticed that a lot of old Honda's have a nice retainer and picked one up from the junk yard:
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Zip tied onto boot:
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Better:
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The shifter tends to look cleanest with a long-necked knob like the OEM Mk1 knob, but they do force you into more of a pistol-grip on the shifter.
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The 6-speed one in my 2ZZ is from a Matrix XRS and has both the knob shape and a long neck, so best of both worlds; I think there is a 5-speed version out there too for other Toyotas.
 
I read through quite many posts, and it's great to see the progress. Also nice to see pictures of before and after cleaning :)
 
The shifter tends to look cleanest with a long-necked knob like the OEM Mk1 knob, but they do force you into more of a pistol-grip on the shifter.
The 6-speed one in my 2ZZ is from a Matrix XRS and has both the knob shape and a long neck, so best of both worlds; I think there is a 5-speed version out there too for other Toyotas.

yeah I would agree. It's just that I like the size and feel of this ball shaped one, plus I really wanted a Razo lol.


I read through quite many posts, and it's great to see the progress. Also nice to see pictures of before and after cleaning :)

Thanks! I just want to get it done now, I miss not driving it.
 
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