bazz54

Depends on how bad it is and that can be hard to find out until you get a wire brush on it. Provided you still have a good thickness of metal left you need a good rust neutralising paint. 18 years ago I bought a house with an incredibly badly rusted tank for the central heating oil. I thought it was useless but painted it with Hammerite and it is still in use today; guess what I use of the cars?

Including VAT and delivery, that charger is ~£110 which is far more than I would ever pay for a charger. It isn't even clear what it's maximum charge rate is; I would want at least 5 amps, pref 8 amps. I normally use a battery charger once every ~6 weeks or so just to ensure the batteries in my cars are fully charged (it is well established that they last much longer if you avoid letting them get below 50% charge). Just depending on how much they have been used, they sometimes prove to be just about fully charged by the alternator, but will sometimes take quite a lot of charge. I just use a bog standard 5 amp charger and ensure it doesn't over charge by keeping an eye on it and using a cheap plug-in mains timer. Regarding the battery voltage; that is very dependent on temperature, so saying that it should be a minimum of this or that is a bit uncertain. The key issue is that a battery will continue to give at least 9.5 volts or so during cold cranking and that really needs a load tester to assess it (about £30).

Is this anything than more spray on varnish? Varnish has been used as an insulator/corrosion protector for decades, especially stuff like military radios for use in tropical locations.

I hit a bird (in another car)and bits got through to the radiator so there was a nice smell of cooking meat for the rest of the journey

I have used white spirit over many years, and on several different cars, to remove tar and have never had a problem. I believe that Halfords tar remover (which I have also used) is essentially white spirit. Pure white spirit would evaporate and leave no residues, but it will remove all traces of wax and polish off the paint leaving it appearing slightly dull. Whatever product is used to remove tar, it will do the same - if it will dissolve tar it will certainly dissolve wax. Regarding T-cut, the clue is in the name "cut" and this is how wiki defines a cutting compound; "Cutting compound consists of an abrasive suspended in a paste. Like most abrasives, it comes in various grit sizes dependent upon how much matter is to be removed. It is used on automotive paintwork to cut through (abrade) oxidised paint or to polish out scratches in the paintwork. The oxidised paint is duller than fresh paint and the cutting compound is used to expose this fresher surface". The problem is that some paints re-oxidise again very quickly after the top surface is removed, so the benefits may be very short lived. Probably the main use for T-cut is by dodgy garages for tarting up rough cars just before being sold.

The way it restores colour is by abrading off the top layer (usually oxidised through aging). How else do you think it works m8 ? I've used it too, but not since I saw what it did the first time.

No don't use T cut; that really is harsh; it is an abrasive. The spirit will have taken off polish/ wax but should easily polish back up.

White spirit works well on tar and seems perfectly ok on paintwork. I think the stuff halfords sell is just that but costs lots more than the White spirit you can buy in any DIY store.

Although I own adjustable wrenches, they are the wrong thing to use on anything that is seized. No matter how tightly you think you have adjusted them, they always have some give in them and are good for rounding corners off nuts and bolts. When I took off the front calipers on mine, I started off using a good quality ring spanner, which was a good fit, but didn't have enough leverage. So I used two big jubillee clips (sort of thing that goes on a rad hose) to fix a length of scrap metal tube on to the ring spanner to create an extension bar and that did the trick. I really hate having other people work on my cars, but there are times when you do think that something like gardening would be an easier 'hobby'

Thanks for that!

how be this "garage" man getting his ideas???? How lean is lean? What be the colour of your plugs; should be light biscuity brown if good, but more whitish or even glazed if lean (old Haynes repair manuals for all cars used to have a series of pictures which showed the trend). What be the colour of yee tail pipe; should be black or mid-grey if normal, or lighter grey if lean, but not as indicative as ye plugs. These old "garage" men can be villains when the find a young lad like you. I be a young lad too once and they did me good and proper. Car was overheating, so they just took the thermostat out and said they'd fixed it. That be one Mr Nudd back in 1976 - I ain't forgotten or forgiven him. I didn't realise what had gone on for quite a while, until I too had become an old (automotive) seadog. Damn their black hearts to hell!

I've never met any woman who did not think the Gen7 looks good....except maybe some female owners of Gens 1-6 :rolleyes: Of course, the latter would say it is a girls' car anyway!

is the gauge you are looking at the one that's part of the hose which connects the can? If so, might have something to do with the valve in the low pressure port connector closing and the can being empty? If the air con is working, there has to be at least 20psi in there or else the AC clutch wouldn't go in....and it wouldn't feel cold.

I've measured temps as low as 6'C (just by the vent) on a hot day. As I have said soooo many times, DIY cans are a false economy :rolleyes: To do diagnostics, you really need gauges on both the low and high pressure sides and then there are "logic" tables that you can use to figure out what goes. Try www.AA1car.com Think you should see 25-45psi on low side in a good system and 170-190 on high side with ambient temp of 25'C. When you use cans, the high pressure can be too high because there is air (less compressible)in there and compressors dooo hate that.

Agreed, worth checking to see if OK, if so, leave well alone

Paraffin first then

Hi planc; would be interesting if you can find it; looks like it should be a couple of quid but ....??? Also looks like it should be easy to clean; it's just a one way valve but can get gummed up with oil vapour/dirt, hence some people using the little catch tanks. If it were stuck, 5 mins in some paraffin might well work. Being a pre-face lift owner, anything that helps keep oil sweet is of interest.

There are a number threads on US forums urging the periodic replacement of these valves, even though it is not in the Toyota schedule. The argument is that these valves clog, the PCV does not work properly and oil quality deteriorates more quickly. There are even suggestions that this is a factor in the Death Rattle issue. Apparently, an oem valve in the States is about $10 and a pattern part $5 ( link), but a Google search for UK parts came up with prices of up to £40! Has anyone replaced a Celica PCV, and if so, where did you buy and how much was it?

Think I have sorted it. I started by trying a drop of meths. When the stain was wet with meths, it was perfectly clear, but became opaque again as the meths dried, and the stain was not washed off. The only stuff I had in the garage in terms of a light polish was some household metal polish - known from previous jobs to be much milder than T-Cut, so I decided to try that on a tiny area. Worked brilliantly; pretty much sorted I think. Finished off with one of Autoglym's plastic care prods. Gen6GT, wasn't saying petrol was a problem, just that it definitely was not sticker residues. Having watched 1000's of "Crime Scene CSI" episodes, I now have the degree equivalent in splatter patterns. Lets say a small egg hit the cover dead central and then spread out in all directions; you get the picture. Now lets suggest a cat peed on the lens and that splattered out in all directions; I rest my case. Suspect the heat from the headlight caused it to dry rock hard, or chemically react with the plastic. Bad pussy; retribution will follow! First time I'd realised those covers are plastic not glass. Thanks for the suggestions - mild polish did it. As for superglue on a cover; acetone does superglue but suspect it will also do the cover. In your shoes, I'd try a 50/50 mix of water and meths soaked in to something very absorbent (ask wife/girlfriend/mother) and keep it fixed on there overnight, then see what the edge of credit card does.

No Gen6; you can see that something was spilled, poured or "sprayed". Need a little caution; don't want to make any worse as bet they cost something silly.

I'm not sure what the recommended torque is for the plug, but the aluminium washers supplied are annealed, i.e. metallurgically soft (that's why they are always made of aluminium, or copper on some makes) and so you get best sealing if you pinch them so that they are compressing (and conform to any scratches/distortion on the sealing face), but should not be flattened to buggery, by which time they have become hard. If that's done, using a new washer each time, they might not need a breaker bar to tighten or loosen them...even if you are a lady with a Gen6 Bet it is not difficult to damage the sump drain port threads!

The plastic front of one of my Gen7 headlights has a strange opaque area which I initially though might be dried cat piss, but it won't wash off in warm soapy water. Scratching it with a finger nail seems to do some good along a narrow line. It sort of looks like some kind of solvent has been spilled there. Not at all sure what happened by I think is will need some sort of polishing to get it clear. Anyone have any ideas what best to do ?

I'm sure that my 140 takes less than 2 litres for a refil. I personally believe that the single biggest reason for using fully synthetics is their superior flow when really cold. It all goes back to the old business of more wear occurring during the first 10 minutes when cold than the next 3 hours on the motorway.

Question that arises about all the "wax" coverings is how good are they are neutralising the rust that's already there. A lot of the older "underseal" products allowed rust to flourish beneath them - out of sight and out of mind. Where you cannot get access to paint a surface (eg inside sills) stuff like Waxoyl is probably good, but where you can get access, isn't painting with a good anti-rust paint better, though may take more effort? My Gen 7 is now 9 years old so this is begining to be an issue for me.

If there was air in there, it would feel soft to begin with, then firmer as you go further down, as the air gets compressed. Did they replace both the clutch plate and the pressure plate? You don't have to replace the pressure plate if its ok but it is always a good idea given the huge amount of work involved in going back in a second time if it turns out to be faulty. A clutch should never feel softer at the bottom so this suggestion that "they all feel like that" is not right.