car change looms : -

indeed the blue dolphin has just about wiped me out and I'm fast running out of pennies to keep it running. Timing belt change and service coming up along with new front tyres. Yes they all need done before I could consider selling the car but what to do afterwards.

If I sell it the options are to get another MK1 MR2 but a supercharged version. Std this comes in about 140BHP / 140ftlb but a £300 pulley conversion takes it too 180/180 which is darned nice.

i like the shape of the mk1 it just rusted on our shores and didn't have the grunt of the modern traffic. Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) cars have no rust on them and a supercharged mk1 is not slow. Not as fast as a turbo version but not slow either.

If I import a s/c version I need to get one for way less than I can sell the turbo. That is the sticking point right now.

Life, go figure

another year -

indeed on the 24th this month I passed yet another birthday, somewhat older but no more wiser. On the up side I had the day off so I'm quite please about that.

snow fun -

indeed it was. Went to bed on monday eve with snow all around. Woke up 430am tuesday morning and checked the road outside. Covered in snow, fun drive to work this morning I though and went back to bed. Couldn't sleep so.............

530am got up and dug the car out of its snow mountain. Drove to a nice flat open carpark I know nearby and............


doughnut time! 30 minutes of throwing the car around at like 15 mph doing doughnuts and spin turns. Just fabby ;¬)

I liken it to public service, when I left the car park had almost no snow on it. I on the other hand had hard packed snow filling the rear wheel arches right down to the wheel so every bump caused a crunch as the snow / ice was thumped by the wheel. Had to knock it off using my scraper. Good to know I am still a kid at heart.

made breakfast and then went to work. Seemed kinda boring after that to be honest. Need to clean the car now with all the salt from the road. Boo hoo

um - we're leaking fluid and a serious amount at that

indeed after pickingup the car I had noticed when I got home there was a burst of coolant that flew out from the engine cover. Now thinking that it was just an airlock I 3/4 filled an empty bottle with water and added that to the cooling system.

After adding the full amount I though mmmm not so good. This morning I added about 3/4 litre of anti freeze and thought not much more about it. Going to an mr2 meet out at Edinburgh I stopped at Harthill Services to meet up with the rest of the crazy gang. More coolant came bursting out of the car. Very bad

So I had a look and bugger me with a slice of lemon was there not a pipe with the clip sitting off the joint! The car is stinking hot and pishing coolant like it was going out of fashion. Lucky Paul turned up with a complete tool kit in his car and we (well he) got the clip back on to the joint. Mmmm not so clever methinks.

Anyhow its looking sorted now so I'll add some more coolant tomorrow and that should be it topped up for the final time.

Goodyear F1 tyres 195x55x15 have been priced at £62 each including fitting so hopefully next month will see then fitted.

I have done some figures calculating costs v miles and costs per month. Time to start taking the train I reckon as the figures are just too frightening to print here.

its fixed -

indeed Marc at The Garage kicked that thermostat into touch and hey presto a working cooling system.

All that's needed now is a complete belt change, timing - alternator and air con. Gonna hurt that one for sure

grrrrr bleeding thermostat -

indeedy it didn't come off. More annoyingly the bolt from hell got a little rounded into the bargin. Ho hum to the garage we go.

I'm not happy and hindsight is a wonderful thing but no point getting upset about it, again.

lovely weather -

standing water on a roundabout aint much fun it has to be said. Lucky I know the road very well and reckoned with all the recent rain there would be water on the inside of the roundabout and just kept it nice and slow with a balanced throttle.

Sure enough a large puddle just at the apex that reached out about halfway across the lane, front drivers wheel catches this puddle and the steering gets tugged into it further. As I hold the wheel steady the back end starts to drift slightly and now the front is beginning to drift out from the apex. Of course it straightens itself out and we carry on as normal but not through any skill on my part. Well ok, I didn't actually do anything but I didn't need to do anything except keep it smooth.

Ho hum roll on spring and the warm weather

thermostat is kaput !

sigh, the thermostat has died after 88k miles and in the middle of winter to boot. Bl00dy brilliant. Tomorrow will be spent checking if I have the tools and access to the thermostat housing in order to change it. Plus the appropriate number of buckets to catch the 13L of coolant likely to leak out in the process. Ho hum

Still it was a white christmas so I'm not bothered at the moment ;¬) Enjoy it everybody

car wash and insurance news -

first off the insurance renewal. Decided that in the next year I will fit an Electronic Boost controller or at the very minimum the chargecooler I have sitting in the box room. Renewal time is apon me so I decided to ask around and get some quotes on std as the car is and then after I had added the above mods. Surprisingly Norich Direct, Prestige and Elephant all said no to the modifications I was planning and even the std car was going to be rather expensive.

I spoke to Adrian Flux and they quoted me very nicely and even the planned mods would be no bother either. Oddly enough I took them up on their offer before they changed their minds. Woo hoo

Washed the car today as the amount of grit on the road is turning the car a sh1tty shade of brown and I'm having difficulty seeing out the sdie windows. Ho hum. Now its winter up here in bonny scotland and the last few days have ben somewhat cold. Nothing out of th ordinary for this time of year just plain old cold. So i turn up at the jetwash and its frozen. Go to the next one and its frozen too. What is wrong with these places that they can't keep the jetwashes operating in cold weather. Not even snow on the ground just a bit cold. At this point I'm running out of options and daylight so plan Z is hatched. head to the parents!

Now normally I would be quite happy just to wash the car using bucket and sponge but because of the grit and mank on the car from the roads I wanted to jet wash the blighter first and then sponge it down. So headed off to my parents and set up their hose and soaked the car. Upon applying the soapy water with the sponge I realised the soapy water was actually freezing on the car body! Ok, now thats cold. Of course the water that was on the car was freezing meant that the water that was falling to the ground was.... yup its was freezing on the ground too. Mmmm maybe this wasn't such a good idea afterall???

Got the car washed without breaking my neck and it looked pretty good I have to say.

The weather is pretty cold as I have said and the roads are just greasy and horrible to drive on so I am taking it really carefull out there and just crusing round the corners and only giving it the gas when I know its all straightened up. Don't get any prizes for digging a hole in the crash barrier or the tarmac.

let there be music -

indeed the stereo is back in the car but I have mounted it in the upper DIN slot instead of the previous lower. Why? I reckoned the LED temp gauge would be better masked by the overhang of the radio making the gauge easier to read in daylight.

Took a fair length drive tonight and car feels quite stable. Very nice indeed

fog light switch -

its now fixed and back to its clicky operating self. Fantastic all I need to do now is clean the car and it will be looking good.

back to the garage again -

this time the front fog switch has been broken so the fogs don't work. Ho hum, at least this won't cost me anything

well its back -

new sensors fitted and the wiring done properly (how can I tell?) Seems to work ok but never tempt fate.

The tracking was slightly out but has been straightened anyway. Cool. Now I need petrol :-(

groan -

turns out the alarm was missing a bonnet sensor and the passenger door did not trip the alarm either. Now fixed and just the tracking to be done

will it be fixed ?

well the alarm system is again getting looked at after the re-wire and hopefully this will resolve the current issues. I'd like to think it will resolve all the issues but not likely.

I'm getting the tracking looked at also since it feels slightly out to the left so hopefully back to its true steering self.

Coming back from a car meet on Sunday there the front undertray decided to get close to the road. At 70mph the last thing you want is the front tray falling down. Its now a little shorter than it was before and completely bent at an obtuse angle. Hopefully be able to straighten it out with a little heat and patience.

Also, JohnO has an ECU reader than runs from the diagnostic port for his mini and it may fit mine too. Something to try in the near future methinks.

A

yea - the ignition works

shame the immobiliser doesn't. Ho hum, getting that fixed tomorrow.

Also will need to get the tracking looked at as I feel the steering wheel is not quite straight ahead for driving. Weather pretty cold and very greasy on the roads so I have been driving very gently as I have no wish to end up in the ditch or the crash barriers.

Roll on the summer ; - )

good news bad news -

turns out the fault with the car electrical system is down to the main ignition cables being glued onto the ignition barrel and not attached using the connector block. Bl00dy 'ell. Someone in the past has either broken or actually cut the connector off and then to fix the fault glued the ignition wires back onto the bottom of the barrel lock. I still have yet to think of a reason why this would be done let alone a good one to justify it.

Have ordered a 2nd hand loom for fitting on Monday coming but if the barrel lock is damaged on the connector end then I'm looking at getting a new barrel lock for the ignition. The problem with that is a new key as Toyota will not supply a lock cut for the existing key. So if the barrel lock needs changing then I have to consider the option of changing all the locks in order to keep to only having one key.

Oddly enough this does not fill me with happiness and no amount of Cadbury's is going to change it. Becks maybe but not mere chocolate

radio out of the car -

still same fault happening though with a slight difference. This time I had hit a fair sized bump on the m74 and the pas light blinked then the power started to disappear and the rev counter / speedo droppped to zero. Still at this point no warning lights.

Fcuk it I thought - dipped the clutch turned the ignition off turned it back on and all the warning lights came on cranked the engine and popped it back into gear.

This is beginning to seriously pi$$ me off

groan -

the car stopping electrical fault is still alive and distinctly unhealthy. Car cut out again on way home from work. Loads of crackling type noise from the radio area, turned the radio off and the noise was still there dashboard lights all a flashing then the whole lot died.

Quick crawl onto the hard shoulder of the M8 and restart the car which it does no problem of course. I've had a look round in the gap and can't see the problem and it definitely sounds like its coming from under the radio area or it could be the radio itself.

Anyhow I'm taking the radio / cd player out and seeing if the problem returns. Process of elimination begins once more. Groan

so that's what is behind the dash board then -

indeed I have taken apart the dash board, well centre consule anyway and the tray under the steering column in an effort to find the source of that crackling noise that causes compete power failure. I found a couple of things that gave me pointers to the source of the problem

• a couple of connector blocks that had some strands of copper reaching out


• all the radio cables and boost gauge cables were getting crushed behind the centre consule


• a couple of other wires that lead to nowhere

So I taped up the connector blocks removed any pointless wires and tidied the wiring so nothing was getting crushed. Have been for a few drives and no problems noted.

Will keep my fingers crossed that the problem is sorted