The Garden Find

Yours will be pre-facelift though I imagine? Which I already have a set of 5 aha.

 

Under China Blue Skies

It's late January, although mostly clear it's cold. I have the car on the road now, despite most people sending theirs to nest in the winter months, mine was out to explore the world. But it was cold and my heater was not working, well just barely. The most subtle heat, enough to feebly demist the windscreen.

Ahh well you lot across the pond all have the issue with the HVAC system not working due to electronics giving up, mine is entirely mechanical bar the AC. The only things that could stop it from working would be a faulty blower or heater core. My blower worked so it was certainly a clogged up heater core.

Some history on my car which supports this too. It is in fact already a phoenix (Death and rebirth from that death for anyone missing the mythological significance) before I got my hands on it. The radiator had previously only been filled with water. This rusted it and clogged the engine, which of course lead to overheating issues. The head had to be skimmed in fact. While everything else was replaced, the heater core was not. So I assumed it to be all bunged up still.

I got prepared to flush it. Something I wish I'd done when the car was still back in bits, but that's hindsight.

Anyway I carefully flushed the core. Loads of brown water came out. It had been blocked up pretty badly. I primed it with coolant and put all the hoses back on. Time for a test.

Heat! lots of it! ahhh what a wonderful feeling, a quick drive is in order. I only ventured a few miles out. And I could sense something was wrong. My screen which had demisted nicey was starting to fog again, despite the warmth. So I pulled in back home.

This is what I found:

[video=youtube;vkQMozbIol8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkQMozbIol8[/video]


OK so my heater core is bust. I do have a spare though, from the red car. I flushed that too. My dad soldered the knuckles as they were looking tired and I was ready to change it. Too bad this really would involve a lot of work.




The leak on the old one was somewhere here-ish



Well once this was all swapped over everything was fine! Lots and lots of head and no leaks! Just what I need for these deep winter months.

I also took this down time to replace and clean the faulty injector. Get a new distributor cap, rotor and HT leads. Running very nicely now.
Red leads were extremely expensive, so we're back to black.




Time for a proper celebratory drive.














Under China Blue Skies


Still though many more things to do. I need to stick that trim on the rear quarter window back on, the clips are all broken so I need to find a way of neatly gluing or using mastic to secure it in place discreetly.
I also need to sort out the rear demister. And the biggest irritation a clunk on the front left.

But I am enjoying the drive and there is nothing really wrong with it. It drives great!

 

I can't begin to imagine how cold your fingers got. It was bad enough for me!

 

Highs and Lows

Firstly apologies for the long overdue update, life has been extremely busy involving the Celica, but mostly things otherwise.

I had a few issues with the car still. The ride felt nice, nicer than my 99 Golf, but it was not completely satisfactory. There was still that clonk.

First examination lead me to believe that it was a driveshaft floating between the inner and outer CV. The compression clip was apparently not sufficiently strong enough to retain the shaft fully in the outter CV. While this may sound pretty impossible, imagine the kind of suction you get when pulling a greased shaft out of something else. I imagine the inner CV had at one point had the drive shaft push in and then been so difficult to pull back out, the compression clip went first. The other clue, my outer CV had shed a whole load of grease onto the wheel and areas around. I thought this could be a similar cause. When the shaft pushed back in, it would expel a load of grease from the gater.

Anyway It's been resting in the correct place for some time now. each time I've checked it, its been fine. But the clunk remains.

I sought to change the shock absorbers first and the strut mounts. The mounts were looking pretty tired. Perished, but intact. It has improved the ride somewhat, but the clunk remained.
There was certainly play in the tie rods. So I changed them. That helped a huge amount, no pitter patter clonk or knocks. But the one clunk that happens on a heavy compression of suspension still occasionally happens. 99% of driving its great though. It might be related to the drive shaft moving after all. I don't know, not yet. Bushes are the last on the list, but they feel good, and were not flagged up in the MOT. Oh well 99% perfect is pretty good.

In between all this I took the car on it's first major outing. I was driving to see a friend over the bank holiday. A 300+ mile round trip. Plenty of motorway too. Well the car was fantastic. Motorway driving was smooth, no vibrations or veering about the road. It went straight as an arrow and passed a good number of much more modern cars broken down on the side of the road.

Bad points. Road noise is pretty severe. Most of the felt which had sat under the carpet had disintegrated and the stock vibration reduction paneling is poor. You can bang on the floor behind the driver seat and the car sounds like a bell. Exhaust noise was loud too. So I've got a load of sound deadening material on the way.





I'm afraid I only have the two images this time

But no worries, you'll all get more than you bargained for once I come back from the Alps.


Now for the lows. Ah yes, everything above can be considered a high.

My windscreen cracked.

Part of my inactivity is because the car has been laid up for the past 7 weeks awaiting a new one. Usually I'd still drive around with a small crack, but National windscreens managed to remove my screen and try and stick in a generation 6 screen instead. They don't fit, wouldn't you believe? Upon putting the old screen back, they cracked it all the way from top to bottom.

I've been wrestling with them on the phone the past month and have finally got a screen coming from Japan herself. It should be fitted very soon.

I hope...

 

Unfortunately the old screen, despite being cracked is currently bonded in. Well the condition of the aperture is not a complete disaster. The bottom is just fine (no rust, happy original paint), as are the A pillars. Its the top along the edge of the roof which has suffered. But only in the locations of the holes, pretty local but ahh they are pretty rough.

I'm going to give it proper attention after the holiday. It may sound a bit backwards, but I don't currently have the time to sort it properly and it'll be fine for the time being. So onto the "to do" list. Next time I have the screen out and in again I'll do it myself. The "technicians" that people like National windscreens send are just ordinary people. I think I'd do a better job myself. Or at least it's not too hard to take a screen in and out.

I'm happy to trade some speed for lack of noise! aha. The drone becomes very tiresome on long journeys. I'm more concerned with having the car comfortable to drive in for the moment, its half my daily driver after all.

 

Aha thank you, it was a great feeling to get the journey done.

It's too bad I've not been able to put any miles on it before the holiday testing and such, but my windscreen is penciled in for fitting this weekend! I'll believe it when I see it, but still, I think this unfortunate chapter is nearly over.

I think I left for Bristol with about 3/4 of a tank. I got there, went to bath and back and then back home without filling up or the light coming on, probably did another 25 or so miles once home. Uhh so I think I did at most 330 miles on 3/4, So I'm hoping to hit around 400+ on a full tank. (I must fill it up full again, last time I did my filler tube leaked pretty badly! I think I'd just forgotten to fully tighten the jubilee clamp on the large rubber hose. We'll see if I need to do more repairs to the tube once I get it back out on the road and can fill it up again. The trip into France will be a real good mileage marker, until I get to the Alps, It will probably get pretty thirsty up those passes!

 

So much happier! I've forgotten what it's like to drive! haha I'll be on the ferry on the 25th of July, so just 6 weeks now, I'll be out there for two weeks. This weekend, along with the windscreen, I've got my soundproofing and new sound system to install, so I'll be able to make a proper post on that too. I've got to get my mind in gear, now that I'm working, those 6 weeks only leave me the weekend and they tend to fly by :S - I must not forget to have my wheel alignment done amongst other things.

 

Thanks guys

I actually have a degree in photography It's my main passion really. The trip to the French Alps revolves around photography (I've got some special ideas for the car too) But yes I use a professional DSLR and lenses. The aesthetic of my photos is mainly to do with the lenses I'm using. For the shots outside of the car I'm mainly using a 50mm f/1.4, and I can render the background all out of focus with that. For the inside shots I use an ultra wide zoom, 16-35mm f/4. So I can get most of the inside of the car in shot and the nature of such a lens is that it's easy to keep everything in focus then. I also use off camera flash for the nice looking interior shots and a few others.

Ahh hopefully after the holidays Steve I can try and attend a meet! I'd like to put cars to names to faces aha. I fear mine is a bit scruffy, but what it lacks in presentation hopefully it can make up for in character

 

Back To The Future

One of the things the drive to Bristol highlighted was my rather lackluster sound system and to compliment it, rather loud exhaust and road noise. This was a pretty short journey in the grand scheme of things too. The expedition to the Alps would involve a lot more road time and demanded (in my opinion) some improvements!

I spent some time thinking about how I would go about this. I'm not demanding ear splitting loud systems, nor am I after Earth shuddering bass. Go big or go home was certainly not what I was after in this instance, rather something, small efficient and ultimately enjoyable while still being practical for the car. I spent a considerable amount of time looking for underseat subwoofers, as bass was what my system was primarily lacking. However at the last hurdle I bailed on this idea. I opted instead for new 4" speakers for the rear and to re-instigate the 6X9 speakers on the parcel shelf.

Audio seems to be an area of much contention, buy the wrong brand, or something outside of the status quo and risk being exiled by your peers, forever the one who didn't buy the thing everyone else wanted. Well I didn't care about that.

I bought myself some 4" Alpine SPG-10C2 2-way speakers to replace the stock rears. They spec nicely and were affordable. At 45W RMS they also suit my Sony MEXN6001BD head unit, which supports 4x55W RMS. And has all the other bells and whistles to go with it, usb, CD, bluetooth, DAB+ radio and so on. the 4" speakers were of course direct fit in and super easy to install. Even on their own they sound good. Very clean, great mids, but yes, not so much on the bass front. To be expected of course.

Now for the 6X9. I chose a pair of Alpine SPG-69C Co axial 2-way speakers. These were going to deliver the majority of the bass and provide more sound than I'd ever need. At 75W RMS each they are too much for my Sony, besides, it's already using all its outputs. So I needed an amp. I settled with an Alpine BBX-F1200, this supports 4x50W RMS or, 2x130W RMS at 4ohm when bridged, which is what I've done.



And oh yeah, my windscreen is finally done! Everything has condensed into this one weekend, so it's going to be super busy. Amazingly they had a brand new top trim with them. Clips too, but that was it. Humm well I didn't want to look a gift horse in the face and set about finding my original trims. I really did not expect them to have any trim bits, so mine look all scruffy as I never bothered cleaning them up. A future project there.


Ignore the parcel tape for now. It was a temporary solution to prevent any leaks. It did work, but its very hard to remove!


Somewhat amazingly they had a new trim with them and all the new clips, here is the brand new top trim.


The fit is good! And my shorts are cool.




Aside from the fact that the trims look good, they also serve a good purpose, stopping any water from getting around the A pillars. You can have the windows down and wash the screen now.


Anyway back to the audio side of things. As well as increasing the amount of noise in the car from pleasant things like my music, I want to decrease unpleasant noises like road noise and exhaust boom. I've got some thick felt and some sound damping adhesive panels. Time to strip the car out again and see if I can get it to quieten down a bit!



It's going to need a bit of a clean before I do anything.


I really didn't have much time to do this all. So not too many photos. But here is the sound damping panels I'm adding in. Plus the Blue wire snaking around is power supply for the amp.


My roll of felt. You can see the felt laid in on the boot.. just. On the left.


New speakers sitting in their new home. Not much room here mind you. I'm a little nervous about getting the covers back on without damaging the rubber.


I'm nearly finished for the day. I need to cut the felt for the front and do reassembly still though. I'm going easy on the sound damping panels as I want to hear where they may or may not be needed.
It's pretty easy to take these cars apart like this, so no worries if I want to add more.



The next day I was installing the amp and the 6x9s. Ughh what a pain! my wiring loom for the radio had been near completely chopped in half by the first owner and just twiddled back together and taped up. Not even with electrical tape. Amazing it worked really.

Anyway I got everything in place and wanted to test if it worked or not. I'd wired the amp remote on into an ACC wire. Well that didn't work out too well. I got amp thump / pop on turn on and turn off. Also it popped and thumped when navigating menus and such. This was a bit demoralising. I set about finding what wire was the real amp remote wire and once I did, I also soldered the entire wiring loom back together properly. This time round I didn't get any thump or pop when I turned on, nor did I get any issues when navigating menus or changing EQ settings.

I still have some problems though. Pretty bad interference from somewhere. A high frequency buzz is very evident. I think it's from the old FM antenna and motor. As a matter of fact as the antenna is rising and falling, the 6x9 speakers pick this up and copy the noise near perfectly. My FM antenna serves no purpose other than to look cool, but if its making things sound uncool, I may have to turn it off completely.

For the moment I've set my 6x9s on a low pass only. passing up to abouts 350hz / 400hz. This has the effect of cutting out that interference near completely. I can be heard with no volume, or up to about volume 3 on the Sony, so if you're actually listening to something, it might as well not exist. While they do sound great when full range, the two 4" speakers take care of mids and treble very well. Bass is strong and punchy. It sounds better than my 8 speaker system Golf, which is essentially my end goal. So I'm happy!

I still get amp pop on turn off, but I have a few ideas on that...



Ok it's not super neat. But it's not super finished either. I didn't want to fully commit to anything, incase I wanted to move it or re-route the wires. I'll sort it out soon.


The Sony, I need to find a way to squeeze in the original Toyota blank underneath.



And there they sit. The holes were nicely pre-cut from the previous owner. Installation was super easy. I've not heard any unwanted vibrations or the like either which is nice.




So that amp pop on turn off. As I understand it, it's likely to be that the head unit is turning off just before the amp, and is causing the pop. This is happening even on the proper remote wire. I've seen people making
1-2 2-1 on/off sequence circuits to solve turn off pop. I'm going to take the more simple route and rely on my brain. A spare fog light switch will serve as my on/off switch for the amp.
What I like about this idea is that it's not going to be too obvious that the switch does not belong in the car.

I'm going to remove the little penny tray from under the steering wheel and mount this switch there, next to my head light washer. It's a direct push fit in. I can turn the amp on when I want. And turn it off before the Sony goes off. If it doesn't solve the issue, what is the harm of just leaving it on all the time eh? And if it does solve the issue, what a nice simple solution! It'll also light up if I wire it in correctly!

 

Yeah everything is kind of slung in at the moment. I don't even have the rear carpet in yet to be honest! It would be nice to find the space to mount the amp under the dash, up against the firewall or something. Might have to make a little box for it to sit on above the ECU or something. I've not made any measurements so far yet not sure if there is enough room, we'll see. At least it's out of harm's way behind / under the seat, easy to access it to change settings too. Plus I've potentially got more sound damping to add in the cabin too.

I like how you describe your parcel shelf, something I'd like to copy. Again mine had holes in it already and it was super convenient to just get things working for the time being.


It's becoming hard work to fit the car in on just the weekends now, and I worked this saturday too Ahh but I did make progress today. I've been sorting out my starter motor. I'll post that up in a few days time though
Next jobs on the list are to get the tracking done and to fix the fuel filler neck, which is leaking at the bottom. Essentially I'm in a rush to get everything at least working properly before the holiday!