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Only thing that concerns me here is the bits of rust on the body of the car, everything else fixable, replaceable. Must kill that rust growing on the body parts!
What I don't want to do is get a half-assed job done. I've been let down by bodywork places on other cars before, so it can only be the best that does the work on this... that means it's going to cost. I'm already having to keep my 'everyday' car far longer than I would have liked to, but it's got to be that way if I ever have any hope of saving the pennies to get this done properly. With the value of these cars having risen so dramatically in the length of time I've owned mine, everyone seems to think you are on six figure salaries to own and run one... and charge the prices to match. I remember when we were all talking about £20k 3.3's and £35k 3.6's and buying mine cost me little more than the sale of a mk4 Supra and a few k more.
Mechanicals, I'm not concerned about in the least. I can do that all myself, or with the help of my father. Bodywork, not so much
Last edited by Megatron-UK; 06-30-2022 at 01:19 PM.
I debated for months if I should strip everything down. I'm glad i did. No shop will touch this car as it's a loser on time and money for a shop. I stripped everything myself. Doing the welding and minor body work. I'll block sand the entire car. Then pay my friends to spray it. Then I'll have to wet sand and buff each piece. It's a major process getting it correct. Not to mention a color change with painting inside the frunk, Eng. compartment, and interior.
It has just had a quick spray in gloss to prevent any rusting, but it will need to be rubbed down, painted in red oxide primer and then given a proper coat of paint. But not a bad replacement for what seems to be a £190 part.
Finally got both rear wheel arches totally stripped down, including blower motors. I'll wash everything down under there before any re-assembly takes place - no rust at all on the chassis or inside face of the wings/rear quarters though. Blowers are going to receive a clean and repaint, too; one of them also has a snapped bolt on the outlet side (the square 'nozzle'), so that will need replacing.
Wastegate off. As expected all of the exhaust flange nuts were fine. Heat shield nuts/studs come off without issue too.
Damn cat pipe nuts/studs that are the problem:
I've had to cut off the four nuts holding the cat pipe on and will try to get those studs out afterwards... All 8 of the studs are really poor condition.
One the first things I did on mine was replace all the exhaust bolts just to avoid future difficulties
That's definitely a sensible decision.
Cat pipe is off.. but oh my that was a tough job. All of the nuts were cut/ground off, but the damn thing was stuck in place by the compacted rust from the threads of the studs wedged in the holes in the flange. Would it budge? Would it hell!
Ended up having to grind off the corners of the cat pipe mounting flange so that I could get a pry tool under the corners and lever it away from the wastegate.
The good news is that the valve seems undamaged and there doesn't appear to be any float/wear in the stem. All the nuts came loose relatively easy on the top cover too, so the next job is to split it so that I can clean everything up, replace all the studs and fit new diaphragm and wastegate spring.
Nasty job! But needs doing! Are you gonna pull that apart and replace the diaphragm? I'm wondering how mine is...again. It's likely original still.
Yes, that's the next job on the list - got a rebuild kit including the diaphragm sitting on the workbench. Currently got the seam between the top and bottom halves of the alloy section soaking in penetrating fluid - all the nuts are loose, but, as per the exhaust flanges, it's stuck after 30 years of not having been taken apart! Obviously can't use the same violent methods on the alloy bits, so a bit more patience will be needed... That is not usually my strong point 😂
I’m curious on the decision to rebuild vs replacing it with a new one (such as TiAL). Is it a cost thing? or the enjoyment/challenge of rebuilding it ? Keeping it original?
I’m curious on the decision to rebuild vs replacing it with a new one (such as TiAL). Is it a cost thing? or the enjoyment/challenge of rebuilding it ? Keeping it original?
Some of it is down to cost, yes; the diaphragm, gaskets and new nuts/studs as well as the 1bar spring were under £250 including shipping. From what I can see, that's at least £200 cheaper than the cheapest Tial wastegate I can source in the UK. £200 goes a long way on my budget to replacing other parts - there's a lot still to do.
I am not a stickler for originality: over the years I have removed the secondary air injection, upgraded other exhaust components and fitted clear turn signals and similar mods. This time around though it made more sense for me to refresh rather than replace - purely based on cost and the fact it was working fine (diaphragm is a preventative, rather than a fix, per se). I can totally understand if someone has a worn valve/seat or stem or something similar, then it would not be economically viable (unless you had access to machining tooling) to reuse.
Headers now coming off - I'm really glad I replaced (most of) the exhaust studs when we fitted the system around 10 years ago, it was a joy removing nuts that were not corroded or seized to studs. No drama at all for this particular aspect of the work.
However, my hunch about the seals on the exhaust leaking were proven correct, with cylinders 5 and 4 showing definite signs of a fairly significant exhaust leak. I did entertain the possibility that a leak make have come from the air injection port bungs which I fitted... but they all appear to be fine.
The left hand bank is due for removal tomorrow, but I don't anticipate anything like this on that bank. The headers themselves look in top condition, no concerns about them at all. To be on the safe side I'll check the heights of all three exhaust flanges just to make sure that none of them haven't gone out of true, then it's just a case of cleaning those flanges and digging out the carbon around the exhaust ports to make sure the new sealing rings are flush.
Left hand headers removed today, again no drama; everything released nice and easy. Again some soot around the exhaust ports, but all contained within the surface area of the flange, unlike the rh bank which had blowing onto the cooling fins.
I think I've found the source of the leaks though:
RH bank has number 5 exhaust flange approx 1mm higher then 4 and 6. LH bank has number 2 around 1mm lower than 1 and 3.
I don't know how I missed that when they were installed (presuming they haven't warped with the heat over the years), but it's going to need a little bit of work with a file to get them to the same heights.
Last edited by Megatron-UK; 07-10-2022 at 01:04 PM.
You are suppose to have movement with the headers and heater boxes. So when you torq them down there are no leaks.
Your tig weld repairs are nice. I don’t think the boxes are suppose to be welded to the pipes..
Looks like they cut the riser pipes off to realign them.
I think the 'modded' look of these headers is down to the fact that they were intended to be a 930 design and had (a few, but not enough) mods made to them to fit (slightly better) on the 964T.
My guess is that they were from a batch of 930 headers and cut/re-welded for the group buy we had on them, on this forum, some 10+ years ago. They necessitated different oil lines, turbo oil drain and some further mods to the blower pipework to fit properly... As a result, I think I mentioned at the time after my experience that I wouldn't recommend them to someone wanting a 'fit and forget' exhaust system.
However, in the grand scheme of things they were dirt cheap (£1000 at the time), and they've stood up quite well to UK weather/roads and I've also not had any troubles with catching them on curbs or speed humps - although I am still on stock suspension and ride height.
In hindsight I probably should have paid closer attention to alignment issues of the mounting faces at the time.
06-30-2022, 01:16 PM
