1989 Toyota MR2 MK1- new wheels 22/6

I've been hankering after one of these for ages, but had assumed that they would be ridiculous to insure until I was a) over 21, and b) not a student.

As it turns out, ' flux quoted me a smidgen under £500 for TPFT on a 5k mile / year policy (am away at uni in London for 2/3rds of the year anyway so I'll be surprised if I get anywhere near that).

So! I started scouring the 'net, local rags, car mags...
Found a Mica Blue one (best colour IMO) on the 'bay, here.
Price seemed reasonable so I hopped on the train and met my dad at High Wycombe station. Grabbed a bag of chips and went to have a look at it.

While we waited for the owner to arrive, we checked over the body.
Initially looked very good - 3 arches were excellent, only the NSR arch was a bit crusty where wet mud had lodged between the arch and the fuel filler pipe. There was a slow leak from the OSR tire, which combined with having sat for a while resulted in a flat, but the tires themselves are almost new. The paint was good, some small scratches and dents but nothing major.
Interior = ultimate blueness! Decent nick in there, only bad bit was the top of the steering wheel which had lost it's blue to wear or sun damage.

The 'slight jerk while driving' mentioned in the auction showed up on the run back - it seems to happen at fairly low revs (this is relative, bear in mind it doesn't redline until 7.5k ) and is almost like an unstable idle - fluctuating up and down. We're going to look in to this later in the week.
Oh, and I'd imagine the trip back was quite a challenge, with the strange hesitancy at low revs and the clutch slipping all to hell when you clog it ;D

I spent yesterday afternoon giving it a good wash, and a decent hoover inside as it was filthy. We handed it over to the MOT station nextdoor to see what it needed doing for it's paperwork... and they passed it first time! Couple of advisories - discs were a bit corroded and the NS front ARB linkage had a bit of play in it.

Went down to my dad's unit this morning and had a bit more of a play - scrubbed and pressure washed the engine bay (previously a lovely uniform shade of mud brown), changed oil/oil filter/air filter and plugs, topped up the fluids, took the wheels to the tire shop around the corner to get balanced and got the rears re-beaded to stop the slow leaks. I'm going to have to do a bit of work on the alloys themselves at some point though, as they're a bit scabby. Started down one side with some G10 and a few rags and the paint's coming up nicely, going to do the other side next time I go down there.

Imminent work:
>Finish paint sprucing
>Fit new clutch
>Fit new cambelt and alternator belt
>New front pads
>New shocks + bushes (the front shocks are leaky and the whole front end is wallowy like a wallowy whale)
>Sort hesitancy problem
>tax and insurance
>Drive!

Also needs doing:
>Wetvax seats to remove last of dirt
>Recolour steering wheel (leather dye?)
>Spring clean Alloys
>Rear discs at some point
>Doubtless something I've missed, will update if I think of something else.

GRATUITOUS (but poor mobile phone quality!) PICTURES ;D

^Post cleaning (also, nice mk3 golf on polished Porsche rims in background)



^The blue room!

^ picture quality made worse by the copious amount of steam coming from a recently washed manifold

^Settling into a bunkbed for the night!

Really need to get shot of the pickup now, as we currently have 8 vehicles! So that's going on the 'bay tonight I think. Will get some better photos of the Mister Two when I remember to take a camera with me...