1986 Toyota MR2 - an uncontrollable evacuation of the bowels

[Sweetpea]

You may have been wondering what I've been messing about at for the last few weeks.
Well, it's a fair question.

The two wheels I'd refurbished now have Goodyear tyres on and are holding up two corners of the car.
I have two more wheels in the garage for some TLC.




One of them has had a thump at some point. It's put a ding in the rim… (The last thing you want is a ding in your rim. Or so I've been told.)




…Which isn't too critical. But it also runs across the face of the wheel.




Which is upsetting. I wonder if it was damaged in the same incident that damaged the centre cap.
Any road up, a quick tap with a pin hamper (the edges were a little high where the alloy had been pushed aside) and a quick skim of filler and everything is golden.




Or, more accurately, it's metallic silver now on grounds that I've painted it.




Slightly annoyingly (actually, extremely annoyingly) the spray pattern of the clear coat was catching the edge of the tin slightly from where it dripped onto my wheel. So I have what appears to be a run. (Right in the middle of the photo.)




So my little head ran round options for sorting it out. Light sand and polish? Sand and another clear coat? But eventually I decided that I'd leave it alone. When it's the biggest blemish on the car I'll fix it. But given the general state of the car I think that'll be some considerable time!

So with that done the other scummy wheel is going in the blaster…





That's not all I've been up to.
My daily car's paint work has been suffering from lack of attention. The sides weren't too bad (apart from a few stone chips) but the flat surfaces, especially the bonnet, were terrible. If you washed and waxed it the car looked ok-ish for a while but as soon as it rained it just looked rubbish again.

So, thinking that the MR2's paint is going to need some work (read 'respraying') I invested in one of these and built a box to keep it in.




Then I hit the Lexus with the G3.
So far I've done the roof, bonnet and boot. It looks noticeably better. Especially the bonnet which was a disaster zone.




No chance of winning awards but hopefully it'll stay clean for longer.

And lastly I've been playing with making my own car stickers.




Getting there but further work required (FWR as we used to say at work).

James

[vulgalour]

Machine polishers and G3 are magical, it's amazing how bad paint can be and they'll still rescue it. Nice progress on the alloys too.

[Littlepixel]

Radio Tees! 95 VHF! (96.60 Tfm)
Yes. I grew up in Stockton.
Love your Mister Two.
And your witty writeups. Long may they continue.

[georgeb]

Nice to see an update, James, it's been too long!

[greeners]

Well James, I must blame you for taking away hours of my life reading this from start to finish, although to be fair you've lost years.

I've got to say what a great approach to restoring a car, and I think if it ever end's you'll end up with an almost factory fresh car, which at the rate these cars are disappearing will be a stunning triumph.

Keep going, and please please don't loose your sense of humor

[Sweetpea]

May 21, 2017 19:55:57 GMT vulgalour said:

Machine polishers and G3 are magical, it's amazing how bad paint can be and they'll still rescue it. Nice progress on the alloys too.

I'm going to need a bigger machine to polish this out though but!

May 22, 2017 9:14:48 GMT greeners said:

Well James, I must blame you for taking away hours of my life reading this from start to finish, although to be fair you've lost years.

I've got to say what a great approach to restoring a car, and I think if it ever end's you'll end up with an almost factory fresh car, which at the rate these cars are disappearing will be a stunning triumph.

Keep going, and please please don't loose your sense of humor

Thank you for your kind words. It'll never be finished though. It'll be many small iterations making it slightly better each time. And learning something new each time (hopefully).
Sorry for those hours you'll not get back. If it's any consolation I get hooked in to peoples threads too. Spent ages this weekend reading the Penelope Pitstop thread again. Just 'cos it's brilliant. So...

May 21, 2017 22:49:51 GMT georgeb said:

Nice to see an update, James, it's been too long!

...I lay the blame for my lackluster performance firmly on Frankenhealey 's doorstep!

May 21, 2017 22:04:52 GMT Littlepixel said:

Radio Tees! 95 VHF! (96.60 Tfm)
Yes. I grew up in Stockton.
Love your Mister Two.
And your witty writeups. Long may they continue.

Ah. Radio Tees... Not forgetting 257 Meters Medium Wave... I lost them a bit when they became TFM. Probably because the music and the feel changed. It took me bloody ages to recreate that car sticker by the way.
Radio Tees (for those that don't know) was around in Teesside, County Durham, and North Yorkshire (where I lived) from the mid 70s to the late 80s when it was bought by the Metro group in Newcastle and rebranded as TFM.

Radio Tees was least partly responsible for my career. I fell in love with radio listening to Radio Tees and eventually became a radio engineer. I still work in the broadcast industry. Mostly looking after TV these days but, at heart, I'll always be a radio engineer. Can't be bothered with TV. It's just dull.
Give me some good music, some decent speakers and a darkened room and I'm truly in heaven!

Radio Tees is responsible for a great deal of my life. I'm very fond of the old station!

[Littlepixel]

May 22, 2017 21:09:45 GMT Sweetpea said:

May 21, 2017 22:04:52 GMT Littlepixel said:

Radio Tees! 95 VHF! (96.60 Tfm)
Yes. I grew up in Stockton.
Love your Mister Two.
And your witty writeups. Long may they continue.

Ah. Radio Tees... Not forgetting 257 Meters Medium Wave... I lost them a bit when they became TFM. Probably because the music and the feel changed. It took me bloody ages to recreate that car sticker by the way.
Radio Tees (for those that don't know) was around in Teesside, County Durham, and North Yorkshire (where I lived) from the mid 70s to the late 80s when it was bought by the Metro group in Newcastle and rebranded as TFM.

Radio Tees was least partly responsible for my career. I fell in love with radio listening to Radio Tees and eventually became a radio engineer. I still work in the broadcast industry. Mostly looking after TV these days but, at heart, I'll always be a radio engineer. Can't be bothered with TV. It's just dull.
Give me some good music, some decent speakers and a darkened room and I'm truly in heaven!

Radio Tees is responsible for a great deal of my life. I'm very fond of the old station!

I have some painstakingly-redrawn RT artwork if you want a PDF for future endeavours?
(Font is Souvenir Bold if you ever need it )


Both my Pa and Ma worked at Radio Tees at various points in the 80s and early 90s. (On air, but in let's say more niche programming)
I used to get the odd freebie 7" which has nothing to do with my massive music obsession...

Do you remember the days when local DJs used to drive around in Local-dealer-sponsored cars? Graham Robb, Mark Page, John Simons, Alex Lester - all in Nissans with their names emblazened all over the car.
"DJ Cars" might be a good thread on here thinking about it.

Ah. More innocent times.

[georgeb]

May 22, 2017 21:09:45 GMT Sweetpea said:

...I lay the blame for my lackluster performance firmly on Frankenhealey 's doorstep!

You too?

"Have you put the garbage out?" "No, the Frankenhealey told me not to." Get's me funny looks, but nobody dares question.

[varelse]

May 22, 2017 23:41:54 GMT georgeb said:

May 22, 2017 21:09:45 GMT Sweetpea said:

...I lay the blame for my lackluster performance firmly on Frankenhealey 's doorstep!

You too?

"Have you put the garbage out?" "No, the Frankenhealey told me not to." Get's me funny looks, but nobody dares question.

Oh, I thought you were referring to a different kind of performance...
I was going to say, that's not very fair of you!

[Sweetpea]

May 22, 2017 22:54:42 GMT Littlepixel said:

Do you remember the days when local DJs used to drive around in Local-dealer-sponsored cars? Graham Robb, Mark Page, John Simons, Alex Lester - all in Nissans with their names emblazened all over the car.
"DJ Cars" might be a good thread on here thinking about it.

Ah. More innocent times.

Sadly I never saw the cars. I did meet Alex Lester though.

Radio Tees management had told him to go out, meet his adoring public, and give out some car stickers. So he announced that he'd be in Northallerton on a particular day...
A friend and I (probably mostly me) felt it'd be exciting to witness our hero with his public and the general brouhaha that surrounds a media star. So we pedalled off on our bicycles to see the spectacle.
We found Mr Lester wandering round a car park completely alone and looking utterly miserable. He actually looked as if he was considering livening things up a bit by pinching one of the cars. So we pedalled over to lighten his day and came away with a car sticker. Which was a total waste as I was too young to own a car.

Fast forwards a few decades and I find myself on an engineering night shift looking after a few national radio stations, a lot of international broadcasting, and a small hand full of 'on air' TV studios.
Just across the road, doing his radio program, is Alex Lester. Now known as 'The Dark Lord' (or The Dork Lard or any number of other phrases).
"Hmmm" I think... "I could go and introduce myself again."

I picture myself pushing open the heavy door of studio 6C while he's got a record on.
"Hi Alex! Do you remember meeting two young boys in a car park round the back of a supermarket in Northallerton....?"

Hmmm... Perhaps not...

[Wilk]

Great progress 👍

As for the polishing, use clay before hitting it with the mops, that way you're not pushing contaminants around in the cutting compound causing more scratches/swirls

[Sweetpea]

It’s been a while since we had a bit of Shakespeare in this thread. Time for a little culture.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
No, but your bum looks like a car tyre…”

That’ll take some explanation.

I’m going to nail my colours to the mast. I’m not a fan of stretched tyres. My road car has non standard rims on it and the fronts must be a nat’s chuff wider than the originals. The result is a mild stretch which I really don’t like.
It’s got nothing to do with tyres coming off the rims and killing bunnies. I just don’t like the look. And it makes the rims too easy to curb… And I can’t see why you’d spend money on fat rims and not fill them with tyre. And, ultimately, I’m just a grumpy old fart.

But, my young whipper snapper, you will be old soon enough. I reckon the next big thing from the East will be for the driver to sit backwards in the car with a large mirror so he (or she) can see where they are going. There’ll be some of those 70’s wing mirrors on the rear wings pointing forwards for good measure. The really cool people will muddle up the pedals too.
You will look at all this and say - ‘but why would you do that?’ and ‘surely it’s dangerous to sit the wrong way round?’ and ‘but it just looks naff!’

Then you’ll know that you are old too! Get used to the idea, oldness is coming faster than you’d ever believe…

So what’s all this got to do with my crumbling MR2? Well it has the opposite state of affairs. The early ones had 5.5J rims and 185 tyres which means you get a lovely curve in the tyre wall as the tyre comes in to meet the rim.




See what I mean?
Now isn’t that beautiful? Look at that pert little curve in the wall… Tell me that doesn’t remind you of a gorgeous woman’s bottom?

No!? You really are a bit odd you know?
I’m going to try and start a new craze for tyres that are a little too fat for the rims. Just need a catchy name for it.

So, all the wheels are done (as I write they are back on the car) and I can pack up the big home made blasting box.
From this…




To this…




Easy to store now.

I was planning to take the car on the Kent Run this year. That was in April… Clearly I missed that target by a country mile. So what have I been doing?

Excuse alert…

Well the weather turned nice and I needed to start sorting out the back of the house where the paint was pealing off.
We are one of the few houses in the street that still has the cast iron guttering and I’m trying to keep it. But that’s a problem when nature is trying to do this to it…




In order to centralise the pipe in the socket they dropped a few fragments of cast iron in the gap between the two. Which was fine until the rust took hold and it literally crushed the inner pipe.
You can get new cast iron pipe. But have you seen how much?! MIG welder at the ready…







The penetration could be better. I cut a slot to weld into and could probably have gone deeper. But it’ll be fine. Just has to hold it together really.
It’s all ground back now. When it’s painted you’ll never know it was in so many bits.

That’s my excuse anyway. I was thinking of getting the car back on the road next month though. Wonder if it’ll pass the MOT?

James

[vulgalour]

You know, when you spend your time reminding everyone of their mortality and how their relevance to coolness is only a fleeting thing the universe has a way of punishing you. Like inflicting thankless Italian cars and cast iron house components on you. I hope you're happy now.


p.s. nice pipe repair and I agree on the tyre sentiments.

[georgeb]

Jun 27, 2017 19:55:52 GMT Sweetpea said:

I reckon the next big thing from the East will be for the driver to sit backwards in the car

The way most of them shape, it's here already!

[darrenh]

that came out really well, in the face of the internet which says mig welding cast iron has the same effect on bunnies as 165 tyres on 8J rims

[ollieh17]

balloon tyres I call them

[bstardchild]

Jun 28, 2017 11:51:11 GMT ollieh17 said:

balloon tyres I call them

And it's still a good look on the right vehicle

[ollieh17]

Jun 28, 2017 17:31:10 GMT bstardchild said:

Jun 28, 2017 11:51:11 GMT ollieh17 said:

balloon tyres I call them

And it's still a good look on the right vehicle

definitely. Balloon tyres over stretch for me! 

[vanpeebles]

May 22, 2017 21:09:45 GMT Sweetpea said:

Ah. Radio Tees... Not forgetting 257 Meters Medium Wave... I lost them a bit when they became TFM. Probably because the music and the feel changed. It took me bloody ages to recreate that car sticker by the way.
Radio Tees (for those that don't know) was around in Teesside, County Durham, and North Yorkshire (where I lived) from the mid 70s to the late 80s when it was bought by the Metro group in Newcastle and rebranded as TFM.

I remember Toms Talk-in on TFM on a night. He used to get all kinds ringing up.

[Darkspeed]

As low profiles can also be "stretched" "balloon" does not do it as a description for me - "Relaxed" fits the bill better - with a description that embues a more comfortable fit with some room for movement. Or we can just go full "Muffin Top"