G.Lewarne

LOL should have gone to specsavers

not really, almost the entire length of the intake is in the plastic manifold, there is only an inch or so where it bolts to the head before it hits the valves - you can actually see and inspect them very clearly with the manifold off - no curves or anything in there. The other thing is that unless you change out the PCV system with a catch can and filter - even the most highly polished mirror-shine honing wouldn't last before it gets covered with oily grime ruining the effect anyway I can now confirm a decent MPG improvement - I think its three fold - all my A/F sensors being new, thoroughly cleaned throttle body and IACV with new gaskets, and evidently fixed a minor vacuum leak right at the manifold with the new intake gasket. I am actually surprised at the difference its all made

Replaced my intake manifold gasket. When I was doing my throttle body work the other week I noticed some oily grime around the intake runners for number 1 and 4 cylinders. Got a new OEM gasket from Mr T. On removal my old gasket was brittle hard, flattened, and there was oily traces all over the manifold mating area. Good clean up and refit, overall only took 30 mins. Result: engine quieter, smoother and improved throttle response. Tentative MPG improvement as well, but will need to drive more to confirm.

Thanks to a stone getting jammed between brake disc and pad on front drivers side - causing a lovely big groove and pad material damage, replaced my front discs and pads.

yeah, I'm not going to bother. I got it clean inside, just the discolouration left. Ill leave it at that because the replace price for a new one is, frankly, stupid. Even the parts guy on the phone scoffed at it lol

but but but...... it bothers me EDIT: BAWAHAHAAAAAAAAaaahahahahahaaaaaaa hahahahaaa So I just rang Toyota to see how much a new reservoir is, purely out of interest. Its more expensive than my new rear subframe I got off them at £200 + vat hahahaha

gunge would be the wrong word - more like nasty hard crap on the inside of the bottle - like a scale

Flushed and replaced my power steering fluid today with fresh Dex3 ATF. Tried cleaning the nasty blue gungy buildup from inside the reservoir - even took it right off and soaked it in a strong bicarb solution for a couple hours (thoroughly rinsed and dried after of course) - but it came out no better. Has anyone every successfully cleaned theirs, and if so, what did you use? Lastly, why do all Toyota PS reservoirs go that nasty blue green colour anyway?

so, a funny thing happened to me today, was flushing and changing my power steering fluid. Drained the bottle, disconnected the pipes, cleaned the bottle, reconnected main pipe, blocked off return pipe and bottle return hose pipe. right-o, easy - lets go!!! so i have this bit of clear hose attached to the return line to collect the old fluid as i flush through and replace with new. missus in the car, engine running, turning the wheel for me...all goes fine...until... i say "thanks love all done now" as i pull out the hose from my collection bottle, at which point she instinctively turned the wheel to re-centre it..... at that precise moment, a big, farty, air-lock + hot fluid ejaculation erupts out of the hose pointed right at my face.......me, the garage wall, the engine bay all covered......it was both hilarious and nasty at the same time So, today I flushed and replaced my Power Steering fluid with ATF Dexron3 and got my face covered in hot sticky goo For anyone wondering - I used nearly 2 litres of fluid - took nearly a litre to flush through until old stinky nasty burnt crap stopped coming out, plus a bit more for good measure - then the best part of a litre goes in

neat experiment. So far I'm liking the FLAG stuff - with a couple coats seems to hold up well. In 6 months my front brake disc hubs still aren't rusty

MOT dude couldn't find any of the brown stuff left on mine that I hadn't already caught and corrected. Just means that now I'm all set, ive got to keep an eye out and plan a good check over every 6 months or so to try and catch the tinworm larvae early enough

was better than the 3 and 4 year old cars had on their other ramps lol

WOOHOO !!!!!! Full pass, no advisories whatsoever. Brake tests perfect, emissions absolutely perfect. Some very nice comments from the MOT tester on its general condition and how nice it was to test. £30 later and all my hard work has paid off woohoo!

hahaha yes

I'm glad I did another pre-check this morning Between me checking all the bulbs a couple days ago and this morning, a side indicator bulb had gone, so have time to pop to the factors to get a pair and replace both of them. Gonna give it a good warm up before I take it to the station (technically 3 mins drive from my house). Ive washed the bodywork and chassis to show off all my lovely new suspension, brakes, subframes and steering parts and given the interior a thorough clean. Also picked up a full set of new bosch wipers as one of mine was starting to judder with all the recent sunsine cooking / rain spells fingers crossed no issues.

its a horrible feeling isn't it. A couple years ago I was getting my MR2 tested and the guy drove it onto the brake rollers at a bit of an angle, with the inside of the passenger rear tyre rubbing against the concrete divider between the rollers. If I hadn't spotted it and asked him to straighten it up he would have shredded my tyre and possibly the wheel along with it. I didn't get angry, everyone makes mistakes, but its crap like that that makes me nervous - when you do something day in day out you tend to not really give a crap after a while and you never know whats going to happen. My MOT tomorrow is the first with my Celica, and its a new testing station (for me) as well - although they do have a very good reputation.

I'm just not comfortable with someone else violating him with proddings and pokings and shakings lol.. But yeah - I think for me its the "did I miss a huge hole in the floor?" type of wait....

So I've got my proper MOT test tomorrow. I'm 99.9% sure everything is going to be fine considering all the work I've done - but still, I'm feeling really anxious about it for some reason. I suppose mostly because the only things I cant check myself are the emissions and brake roller tests - although I'm confident those will be fine too but you never know. What is it about MOT time that makes people anxious? especially those of us here who really know their cars and whats been done - it kinda doesn't make sense lol

what was broken?

Fitted new aftermarket Belt Tensioner and new gates belt. Well, I kinda cheated - I couldn't be arsed removing the engine mount and jacking the engine a bit to get the pivot bolt out, so I just swapped over the new pulley and springy thing onto my old arm still on the car. Result: random tapping sound gone and no weird buzzing noise

finally got the IACV and TB gaskets from Mr T (come on, 3 days, lol) and put my intake system back together. While I was waiting for the parts, totally cleaned every last bit of crud from the throttle body and all its ports and the IACV to the point it looked brand new. Result! Have got an air lock in the coolant lines though grrrr

all of them

That's the same thing I was trying to sort out and I'm very happy. After fitting and Grinning, I have also totally removed my throttle body and the IACV, cleaned them, new gaskets, and reset the throttle stop screw and TPS sensor as per the service manual. Even more grinning now applies edit: I posted the group buy last night so take a look edit 2: Mr T lied, they didn't have the gaskets, so had to order and wait...dammit

Old one was shot. Threw a code every few weeks despite cleaning. Had an eBay cheapie I used for a while which sorted it but thats in a mates mr2 after his original one left him at the side of the road . Compared to the genuine second hand one I got a while ago (worked fine no codes just old) this new Denso one is like driving a factory fresh car. I was totally suprised at just how much of a difference it made. Denso make the OEM sensor for Toyota so ita basically the factory part without the bend-over and lube up prices from mr T

Fitted a brand new OEM grade Denso manufactured MAF sensor - holy ccuk does it 'alf fly now !! I got it at an exceedingly good price and have negotiated a deal with the local official supplier. look for a group buy offer soon