Project Rust Destroyer (56K W*A*R*N*I*N*G)

Well since it's only a GTS radiator in my Trac I decided it was best to get as much air as possible through the radiator and into the engine bay. So while I wait for Rick89GTS to get an Aluminum replacement rad from ASI made I thought I'd put some extra air into the engine bay. Any extra air flowing around the engine bay ofr an All Trac is a good thing.

So I thought I'd test out another of ASI's products and ordered a 12" electric fan from them.


A preliminary mockup of the intended instalation location. Final instalation moved the fan forward about 1/2".


A new bracket I made


Another new bracket I made


I needed a relay and had a couple of starter relays that tested okay so I made a little bracket to hold one of them


The 2 electric fan support brackets ready for rust protection and then painting.


Installation is finished and shes ready to cool


Another shot of the finished installation.


I wanted to run this fan constantly when the engine is running so I ran a piece of wire protective tubing (green arrow) and 3 wires. Yellow wire goes to positive battery to power the fan. Brown wire goes to negative batter to ground the fan & relay. Green wire goes up to the ignition coil positive lead to act as a trigger to close the relay and start the fan.


Green wire going up to the ignition coil. I went to the ignition coil so I wouldn't have to run yet another wire thrugh the firewall. All wireing is contained within the engine bay.


Theres the fire breathing heat generating monster that the poor little electric fan is suposed to help cool.

This fans primary purpose is really to try and get more air moving in the engine bay. The fan is mounted in front of the radiator because the turbo/downpipe does not leave enough room behind the rad to mount it. The downpipe sits about 2" behind the radiator and I have seen turbo's turn downpipes into glowing red hunks of metal and at temperatures like that being so close to the rad your rad could potentially heat up your coolant instead of cooling it and at the very best is going to be severly restricted in its cooling capacity if the heat from the downpipe isn't removed.

So fingers crossed hopefully this will help reduce temps under the hood a bit.

 

AC fan was seized and AC never worked so the AC radiator (condenser) & fan were previously removed.

No diference yet haven't driven the car since instalation.

 

Never worked. I only had cruise control work in 1 of GTS's and it finally broke too.

Not a big fan of cruise control the only thing its good for is keeping my lead foot of the gas pedal so I don't get to many speeding tickets

 

Well I got the engine bay a bit cleaner today




Given the condition of the body I don't drive the car much in the rain but I have noticed on a couple of occasions that the engine would drop a cylinder in the rain so I knew there was a short in the ignition somewhere.

So I remove the overflow tank for the intercooler to get at the distributor and make sure each wire is securely on the cap and when I try to wiggle one of the wires it looks to me like the part of the cap the wire connects to is wiggling too. You can see the solid silver colored wire in the center of the crack that trasfers electricity from the rotor point inside the distributor cap out to the connector for the plug wire.

I don't know if the cap was broken during shipping to the Toyota dealership that installed the engine or if the dealership broke it while they were attaching the tranny or putting it back in the car but either way they should have caught it.




The wiper mechanism in the Trac was seized so I sent the dealership a rebuilt unit I had and they installed it. I have had problems with the wipers ever since so I had another set I was going to install. Apparently the idiot that worked on my car did not know how to tighten bolts with a screwdriver or just never installed them at all.






Couldn't even be bothered to put a bit of grease on a pivot point to
A - prevent it from rusting
B - lubricate a moving part

What a fucking idiot :duh: !!!!

This is why I would rather do my own mechanical work. I save the $80 plus hourly labor rate and get the job done right.

This was no hack mechanic this was suposed to be a reputable Toyota :jester: dealership.

What a joke. :lmao:

$9000 don't get you much these days :lol:

 

Is it specific to the All Trac or the same as a GTS

 

WellI was going to use it given that we can now easilly get a recharge kit and fill it ourselves but now that I have been able to get the major mechanical stuff done I have had a chance to do little things like look at alignment of body panels and trim pieces I have come to the conclusion that this car must have been in an accident at some point and although things line up pretty close theirs to many little things to really make it worth restoring so that means I'll keep it as a winter car and unless global warming really heats things up I don't think I'll be useing the AC in this car.

So pretty much the whole AC system is available. That hose looks pretty easy to remove so I'll try and remove it on tuesday for you. Let me know if you need any of the other AC parts.




The bumper is a bit higher on the passenger side causing the grill to curve a bit and not line up with the hood properly. The bumper has also been welded to the frame on the passenger side.


The hood is a little farther back than the fender on the drivers side.


I could move the hood forward a bit on the drivers side but it would through off this gap making it wider at the front of the car.


It would also make the gap at the front on the passenger side smaller and its already smaller than the top.


The passenger side should go back a bit but that would just magnify all the problems that would be encountered by moving the drivers side forward.


The top of the window on the passenger side hits the trim piece behind the door

 

Well since I have now had the chance to take the car on a 650km run the temp guage stayed in the middle of the white section all day long. Even when driving in the city after an hour or 2 on the highway the needle stayed right in the center off the white section. It used to have a tendancy to warm up a bit more in the city. So I'm pretty happy about the $50 I spent on it.

BTW I'll let you have first dibs on the AC stuff if anyone else wants parts I'll check with you first.

 

Well this is old I actually did this when I repaired the drivers side rocker panel but I noticed I hadn't posted about it so I'll include it now.


Well just like the rest of the car the All Trac body kit suffers from rust too. This is what is left from some of the clips that hold the panels to the body. You can't buy these clips seperately you have to buy a whole new panel.


Some clips are missing entirely while others are missing parts of the clips. Pretty much none of the clips are useable anymore.






So I got some 1/4" threaded rod and some 14 guage sheet metal and cut the sheet metal to fit into each of the areas on the body panel and welded a piece of 1/4" threaded rod to it.


Then I cleaned out the whole that the new clip was suposed to go into and mixed up some body filler and placed a little filler in the bottom of the whole and then put the new clip in place and filled over it with more body filler and I made sure I worked the body filler into all the corners really well.