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bazz54

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Everything posted by bazz54

  1. In theory, they are legally obliged to show that the system does not leak before they refill it. That is because the gas is a powerful green house gas and there are tight restrictions on allowing it to get in to the atmosphere. So they put on a vacuum pump, pull out anything that's left in there and wait to see if they get a good vacuum showing no leaks. But quite how sensitive the test is to very small leaks is hard to say. The oil gets injected in to the system as the new gas goes in. In the past, AC specialists had a variety of kit, but increasingly they all seem to be using pretty much the same highly-automated units, but I'd still much rather have a specialist do the job than some bloke at one of the chains.
  2. The driers are full of beads or small pellets of what are called molecular sieve and these filter out water vapour from the system. Water gets in because it can diffuse in through the rubber hoses, then it can start and corrode from the inside out. Except for the Gen7, the cars I've had all had a sealed unit drier with the sieve inside, but the 7 must use some kind of re-fill pack? An AC system in good condition needs a regas about every 4 years and I take the view that I'm happy to use a good professional, usually charging ~£50(?) to do it. A pro will take 30-45 minutes to do the job (anything less is worrying). Be sure to check that you get leak-indicating dye added.
  3. That coloration looks more like a straw temper film due to heat, but it's not present on the sloping sides of the cat which seems odd. Why would all that pipe have a temper film; so far from the welds and I doubt if exhaust gas temps would be high enough to do that?
  4. I'm really surprised, looking at the size of those O rings; they all seems to be non-standard sizes. Both the i.d. and the cross sections all seems to be unique fits. So, not 10.0 or 11.0 mm id and not 1.5mm cross-sections. So, is it really the case that a 10.6 x 14.16mm ring is something unique to Mr T. There are kits of AC O rings for sale on ebay, but they all seems to be standard sizes. I wonder what independent AC specialists do?
  5. I wonder what the mark-up by the Toyota dealers is? I wanted a refurb kit for the front caliper a few weeks ago and the local dealer wanted £102. Got some genuine Toyota parts via ebay for £26.
  6. That's all good; the Gen7 is never described as a having too much torque. As for sparrows farting at cruising speed on a motorway; it must have been a motorway resurfaced by exceptional workmen the day previously. You could put an electric motor in a Gen7 and it would still be noisy on the motorway. I went to my mate's garage a few days ago for my pre-MOT and he reckoned my exhaust will get through; so my Yorkshire gene is baulking at the idea if replacing it before it is absolutely necessary .
  7. No; genuinely, the "Edition" models was something I only found out about when you told me last week. I recall Gavin Lewerne saying that the box ratios on the 140 (different from the 190) raised some interesting questions about which actually drives better, but I've no interest in fighting arguments over it, but I will simply state that the pre-face is the best-looking car , and if the 140 is the best driving car, that's fine . Please keep us posted on your new exhaust - my time can not be that far way and I'm not really that keen to pay Mr T's prices for a mild steel. The MoT is in 2 weeks time; think we're OK. Re 'they can take their time over it', so are they making the components which will be "pulled together" when you go in to have them fitted?
  8. Good point! But as we all know, it is one area where some "margins" seem to be acceptable. I wonder if Alunox has a good noise meter?
  9. So it's legal on sound level, but does that mean it could still be noisier than the OEM?. Personally, I think the standard Gen7 is noisy enough (though mostly road noise), so stainless is appealing, but don't want want any more noise. Sorry to ask but is the Red edition a 140 or 190; suppose it has to be the latter ? My 140's exhaust has lasted a long time, but will need replacing one day.
  10. I smeared it thinly over the piston seal before inserting it the bore (though with brake fluid on the piston) and also on the dust cover that protects the outer end of the piston.
  11. I don't think red rubber grease is silicone; isn't it made from natural plant oils? Replacing the disc after the caliper rebuild, I wiped off all traces of the old copper slip on the hub and disc...and then put on some nice new copper slip, and the same on the back of the road wheels. For the caliper rebuilds I used red grease in contact with the rubber (but wetted the pistons with brake fluid), and used a syringe and a needle to put ceramic-filled silicone grease down inside the slider bores, so that deals with metal-on-metal contact. The thing that struck me is how tightly the rubber gaiters grip on the slider pins. I started off using some pattern parts, but then got some Toyota parts and found the gaiters to be about the same in the way they resist motion of the sliders, and that was using Toyota red grease too (Toyota's is actually pink!). MoT time soon, but looking good at 19 years old .
  12. Did you miss the bit about the road wheels needing to come off before the disc can come off? And that would require the five wheel nuts to come off before that and that's when you'd notice the handling getting awkward.
  13. I had my front calipers off for total 're-buildings' last week. It always amazes me that when you take the road wheels off, and the calipers off, there's nothing at all holding the discs on; as long as there's no rust, they just slide off the studs. I'm fairly sure that on every other car I've had the discs are held on by some means. I'm not complaining - I recall times when taking the the discs off one car was "just a bit hard" .
  14. Thanks for that Ams; as soon as I have time to take the existing ones off, if I need to replace, I'll keep that in mind.
  15. Well, my pre-face 7 must be on 255, so going to 295 should make a "noticeable difference". Let me see how the current ones clean up; I think I am being lead in to temptation here .
  16. No, I have never given that a great deal of thought. Is your thinking that if somebody needed to buy new calipers, big ones (and the appropriate disc)do better than little ones? If you do upgrade, does any change need making to the brake balance?
  17. Yes, I've always been 100% happy with Brake Parts (or Brake Parts Int" as they used to be). There certainly used be a refundable surcharge for return of the old ones; may be as Celica numbers have declined they've stopped doing that?
  18. Thanks for those comments. When I re-built the Toyota calipers back around 2012, I got the parts from Brake Parts and all went very well and, up till lock down, they been fine. However, I do recall that they did have a bit of rust on the cylinder bores, which I removed with steel wire and that worked out well. At ~20 years old now, I'm not sure what to expect; they might clean up again, but I'm just preparing for "worst case" situations.
  19. The 20 year old front calipers on my Gen7 are pretty much seized on; the lockdown has not been good for them. I fully refurbished them 10 years ago, and I periodically clean them up, and they may clean up and work again. As often as not the pads are seized in the caliper and the pistons and sliders are free. In case I need to replace them, I’ve been looking at the price of “replacement calipers” and these vary wildly. What I’m not clear about is whether there are such things as “brand new” calipers (except from Mr T) and whether all the other ones for sale are actually old refurbished callipers. Perhaps the price variations reflect the quality of the re-build, perhaps not. I’ve generally gone to Brake Parts for calipers, but their prices are not as competitive as they used to be, but maybe their quality is better, and this is an area where quality counts! Any thoughts?
  20. I have a couple of calipers, which are used, but in good condition. Obviously the insides of them are wet with brake fluid. I have capped the hydraulic connections, but we know that brake fluid readily adsorbs water vapour and then becomes a bit corrosive. Does anyone have any good ideas about how best to store used brakes parts? B
  21. Worth pointing out here that a few Gen7s start to show a little bit of rust on the edge of the fuel flap; best dealt with quickly before it spreads to the visible surface.
  22. Looks bloody daft to me. Wouldn't have one if you offered me £300 to use it.
  23. Anything black and gooey is bad in my opinion; it hides what's going on beneath it, which may well be metal rusting away merrily. The first thing to go on to the cleaned down underside should be a zinc phosphate anti-corrosion primer paint followed by a top coat paint made by the same manufacturer as the primer, i.e. you are using a 'paint system', with each component fully compatible with the other. In any place where this fails, you will see rust stains very quickly and easily and can then re-work the affected area (usually small). On a car of this age, some localised failures are inevitable due to inadequate removal of the original rust. Black goo just hides that until it eventually drops off in large chunks revealing all the rot that has been going underneath it for weeks-months-years. This requires a lot of effort and allowing the coats to dry, the car is probably going to off the road for 3 days?
  24. In the second video, he changed his test procedure, as suggested by a number of his viewers, and also looked some other agents. His final conclusion was he got the best results from the Seafoam Creep. The key part of his test method was the use of his digital torque adapter, which was an AC-Delco model, which I'd regard as a quality bit of kit. I'm quite amazed at the intensity of the disdain the guy has attracted; it may not be the definitive study, but no one is being specific about what he's doing badly. One thing he could have done additionally is some statistics, which would have given some objective analysis of the quality of the data. As I said before, in the absence of any other data being available to us, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and so I have spent a whole £13 of my own money on some Seafoam Creep, and time will tell if it makes an impression. Maybe next Xmas, I'll try a tin of Silkopen. I'm open-minded. As for two litre family saloons, I really do like my Rover 600, which of course is a Honda Accord with some Rover body panels. I had a string of 600's as company cars in the 1990's and bought my present one in 2004. Unlike some Toyota Celica engines, the Honda is very frugal in its consumption of oil and those engines will very often run to 250,000 miles and beyond ...and the rear subframes last very well too .
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