Is the AW11 finally getting its due respect?

I’ve noticed that the AW11 has been getting more press than usual in recent months. In fact, the AW11 typically fails to get a mention in discussions regarding aspiring Japanese classics.  I have the MR2 insured by Hagerty classic car insurance and get their weekly email newsletter. For the first time since 2011 (at least according to my aging memory), the AW11 grabbed a mention, ranking #2 in their September 21, 2017 article “10 under $10K: Hot and affordable collector cars“:

The AW11 also got a mention in the comments of Hagerty’s October 24 article titled “Three Japanese collector cars to buy, sell, or hold”:

Just a month prior to this back in August, the AW11 was just only the second model covered in Bring-a-Trailer’s (BaT) then new “Why We Love Them” series on memorable vehicles from the past. Read it here (by the way, if you have never visited BaT, browse at your own risk – the site features a mouth watering supply of cool cars for auction).

Speaking of BaT auctions, a pair of excellent low mileage Light Blue Metallic (color code 8B8) ’85 cars sold for big $$$ compared to traditional normally aspirated AW11 prices (27K miles for $10,200 & 46K miles for $12,904).

And to wrap up, just 3 days ago Donut Media released their latest episode of “Everything You Need to Know | Up to Speed” on, as you guessed it, Toyota’s MR2. Enjoy!

 

Last drive of 2017: destination Ipswich

We capped off the 2017 driving season with a delicious breakfast at the Ipswich Inn and a hike at the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary in Topsfield, Mass. I downed two fantastic McMorley breakfast sandwiches on English muffins – one with bacon, and the other with sausage. Their breakfast sandwiches are superb. Parking at the Inn was a stark reminder of how obese today’s vehicles are compared to those of 30 years past:

From the Inn we cruised to the Wildlife Sanctuary. If you have never been, the North Esker Trail features breezes of epic proportions. This was our second visit to the trail and the winds did not disappoint. There’s even a new bench at the head of the trail to treat yo’self to the breeze.

On the way home we took the highway. Unfortunately, a mix of traffic and accidents slowed our pace to a crawl. And even though it was late October, the weather was hot – in the high 70s in fact. Which was ironic since the MR2’s AC happened to be out of commission due to a suspect AC clutch in need of refurbishment (tools are, however, on their way to perform the repair…more on this in a few weeks). We made it home with about 1/8 of a tank of gas to spare, filled up on Shell Premium, and did the yearly routine of preparing the car for winter storage. This year, I even learned something new: don’t attempt to fill the tank with fuel stabilizer with the tank full and the nose of the car on an incline. Trust me, it will make a mess.

Lunch at Fruitlands: reflecting on 6 years of ownership

Labor Day 2017: Mr. 2, Mrs. Tu, and I treated ourselves to lunch at the beautiful Fruitlands Museum Cafe in Harvard Mass (the griddled turkey sandwich is superb, by the way). The journey was about 45 minutes of twisty local roads…with the T-tops off, of course. Many bash the T-top cars for being less structurally rigid and prone to leaking, but I am a big fan of the wind-in-your-hair, sun-in-your-face experience. It was a blast.

We took this moment to reflect on the past 6 years (has it already been 6 years!?!?!?). It would be an understatement to say that I haven’t enjoyed Mr. 2 enough, putting on just under 1K miles during that time. What can I say – work is busy, the old house is needy, and I got into a bad habit of wheeling and dealing several daily drivers until finally finding the right vehicle (CL deals are hard to resist!). Along the way of buying (and then selling) 6 cars over the last couple of years (all with 100K miles or so – ’03 6, ’99 Corolla, ’92 318IS, ’96 Ranger, ’03 Vibe, ’05 325IT), I have developed an appreciation for wagons and trucks. Mr. 2’s current counterpart is a 2003 Tundra Access Cab with 5-speed manual, 4WD, and almost 195K on the clock (purchased with 185K and in the process of going through the 200K refresh). I call it the 300K experiment.

Doing the timing belt job on the Tundra during the Fall of 2016 brought back some memories of doing the MR2’s timing belt during the Summer of 2014. What took literally 2 months in 2014 (albeit I did a more thorough job including crank key and oil pressure sender which required fabricating several custom tools) only took me a single weekend in 2016 (this was my 4th water pump replacement, 3rd radiator replacement, 2nd timing belt). Granted, there is a ton of space in a V6 Tundra engine bay and I didn’t even need to jack up the truck to perform the work. It’s rewarding to see the progress that comes with practice; I’ve come a long way since doing my first oil change in 2011.

Over the last 6 years, the MR2 really hasn’t needed much. Yes, there is still much refreshing to be done (brake overhaul, suspension overhaul, fuel system overhaul, power window overhaul, and the list goes on…), but in general, nothing has required urgent attention. The only semi-urgent upcoming project is to overhaul the AC clutch. It started making a terrible whining noise during the first drive of this season (no noise when AC on, bad noise when AC off, no noise with AC belt off), and I just put an order in for new hardware (primarily a new bearing and snap rings – total cost $38.26 shipped from Lithia Toyota). I plan to document that here since it’s been a while since I’ve written about a repair (sorry!).

To wrap up, I’m going to keep Mr. Tu’s MR2 alive. The focus may shift from being a repair-centric blog to covering more adventures, other general MR2 related stuff, and a lot more photos. We’ll see how it goes. I’m sure the site will evolve as life marches on. Now, back to the Fruitlands and the twisty 45 minute drive home…

We finally made it!

After many failed attempts to represent at the annual Larz Anderson Japanese Car & Motorcycle Day (2014 – MR2 timing belt/water pump job, 2015 – E36 cooling system job blocking garage), Mr. 2, Mrs. Tu, and I finally showed up in 2016 to a gorgeous New England autumn day.

We accidentally made a rock star entrance. Within minutes of shutting the engine down and while still gathering our thoughts, we were surrounded by a small but awesome crowd of AW11 fans. “That must be an ’88 or ’89 judging by the wheels” one gent commented. Another asked whether or not LED spoiler brake lights were an option (only available in ’89). A third, who owned a “stripper model without all the bells and whistles”, oohed and ahhed over the power windows, fancy seats with accordion boots around the adjustable headrests (so ’80s!!!), and the removable t-tops. None could believe that Mr. 2 was a Minnesota native.

The show has grown tremendously since I last attended in 2014 with cars spilling over into the lower lot. Interestingly enough, there were no MK3 Spyders in attendance this year. Here’s the low down on a few of the MR2s and owners that I chatted with during the show (unfortunately details will be sparse – my punishment for posting this 4 months too late!).

First is Patrick’s georgeous ’87 hardtop. Perhaps one of the lightest examples of the AW11 (except for rear spoiler), Patrick’s “stripper” model featured manual door locks and windows, lack of side skirts and clear rear sunshade (part of the aerodynamic package) as well as non-adjustable headrest cloth bucket seats. Autocross/track fans would find his car ideal. At the time, I believe Patrick was in his first  year of ownership and totally in love with the ride.

Next is Don’s beautifully original black normally aspirated ’91. If my memory is correct, Don is a long time owner. Unfortunately I can’t recall many details of our conversation (or Don’s car) but I do remember them passing us (with a friendly wave) on MA-9 E as we were leaving the show. Good times!

 

Mr. Tu’s guide to winter storage

One of the annual traditions of living in colder climates subject to snow (and more importantly, salt) is winter storage. I have performed the same basic routine every winter since 2011 and every spring the car starts right up with no appreciable increase in deterioration. The steps listed below are based off of a November 2011 article in Car and Driver by Tony Quiroga, some googling, as well as a section in Popular Mechanics “Complete Car Care Manual” (ISBN 978-1-58816-723-1).

Step 1: Go for a drive! Pick a nice day and do a decent drive (30-40 miles, or about 1 hour or so) to get the car up to temperature. Optional: change the engine oil and filter before the drive.

Step 2: Get some gas. Go to your favorite station and fill up the tank. I typically use premium due to the additional additives that help improve the storage life of the fuel. A full tank of fuel displaces air (which contains moisture) that can cause fuel system corrosion.

Step 3: Add fuel stabilizer in the proper amount to the tank to keep the gasoline fresh and to prevent gumming and varnish formation. For reference, the MKI’s tank holds 10.8 gallons of fuel. Let the car run for a few minutes to help the stabilizer and fuel mix.

Step 4: Wash and wax (and clay before waxing if needed). I use the 2 bucket method for washing. One bucket contains a mix of fresh tap water and car wash shampoo and the other just plain fresh tap water. First, hose off the car (including underneath and inside of the wheel arches). Next, using a wash mitt, wipe the car down, alternating between the soapy bucket (clean) and water bucket (dirty) to rinse the mitt off between wipes. Once the car has been gone over with the mitt and is covered in suds, rinse off with the hose and wipe dry with several micro fiber cloths (don’t forget the door jambs!).

Step 5: Before pulling into the garage, place a vapor barrier (such as a plastic painter’s drop cloth) on the floor where the car will sit if the floor is concrete or earth. This will prevent corrosion from moisture underneath. Next,  pull into the garage and wax at your leisure once everything has fully dried.

Step 6: Up next is pulling the spark plugs, spraying some fogging oil into the cylinders, and manually rotating the crankshaft to lubricate the pistons and provide corrosion protection while the engine sits over the winter. First, loosen the lug nuts on the passenger’s side rear wheel. A 13/16″ socket will do on factory lug nuts. Next, jack up the rear of the car (remember to secure the front wheels with wheel chocks before lifting) and place the rear on jack stands. With the car safely supported, remove the passenger’s side rear wheel. Next, label each spark plug wire and remove the plugs using a 5/8″ spark plug socket. Spray fogging oil into each of the cylinders.

With the spark plugs still out, remove some of the fasteners holding the underbody plastic cover under the engine (10mm socket) so that the crank pulley bolt becomes accessible. Using a 17mm or 19mm socket (depending on the bolt), rotate the crankshaft CLOCKWISE a few revolutions to lubricate the pistons. Next, re-install the underbody plastic, install and torque the spark plugs to 13ft-lb (18Nm), attach the plug wires, and mount the passenger’s side rear wheel. Lower the car and torque the lug nuts to 76ft-lb (103Nm).

Step 7: Remove the battery (disconnect ground cable first), clean it with a baking soda/water mix if needed, and put it on a trickle charger such as a Battery Tender. Keeping the battery topped off in cold weather will help keep it healthy.

Step 8: Pump up the tires to 40psi to prevent flat-spotting.

Step 9: Clean and lubricate latches and hinges with oil or grease to prevent wear and corrosion.

Step 10: Break out the shop vac! Thoroughly clean out the interior, frunk, and trunk of the car to keep curious creatures from associating “snack shack” with your ride. As an added measure of deterring critters from calling your ride “home”, barricade openings such as exhaust pipes, air intakes, etc. with clean rags or aluminum foil. Also, Bounce dryer sheets have a reputation for being unsavory to our furry friends so spread a few inside (including frunk and trunk) and outside of the car in lieu of mothballs (tried that one year and the car still has hints of that unpleasant scent). Lastly, place rags between the wiper blades and windshield to prevent the rubber from sticking to the glass.

Step 11: Cover the car with a decent car cover to keep dust off. Then have a root beer, enjoy the winter, and count down the days to spring.

Optional: The guides that I’ve read also suggest flushing and changing the coolant as well as brake fluid. I’m not sure that this is necessary every year depending on mileage and use. Use your best judgement.

2014 Japanese Car Day at the Larz

2, 1, 2. That’s the number of MR2s present (by generation) at the first half of the 2014 Japanese Car & Motorcycle Day at the Larz Anderson museum. Unfortunately, I was about 2 weeks shy of having Mr. 2 back together after a host of summer engine maintenance and thus did not represent. Boo. I did, however, manage to attend the show solo, grabbed some photos, and chatted with a few owners about their cars.

First up is a 1989 N/A in Ice Blue Pearl – a cool color that was only available in ’89. Other clues that distinguish the ’89 model year include body colored mirrors and door handles as well as the LED spoiler.

Not much to say about this super red MKI, unfortunately, as I didn’t have a chance to talk with the owner. It does look to have been re-painted at some point in the past judging from the lack of pin-striping and painted fender liner clip under the driver’s side front wheel arch. The black “eyebrows” are also somewhat unusual.

I probably spent the most time conversing with the owner of this MK2 (in Aquamarine Pearl?). My memory fails me since it has been awhile (let this be a lesson in procrastination!) but I believe the owner was originally from Hawaii and is now teaching high school in MA. He’s had the car for some time and had a friendly pup sitting shotgun. Still drives the car daily although it’s getting harder to find winter tires in the right size.

Next up is a MK3 with matching hard top. Slick.

And last, but certainly not least, is a pristine single owner MK3 with only ~18K miles that was being advertised for sale. Owned by an older couple and always garaged, this car was immaculate. Having owned (and still owning) a Porsche or two, the MK3 was still special enough to garner a spot in their garage.

Overall, 2014 was a great year for MR2s at the annual Larz event. Fingers crossed for good weather in 2015, in which case I will most definitely be representing.

Gettin’ out the Speedo? Cable that is.

So, about that Speedo. Cable. Ever notice a bouncing speedometer in your MKI MR2? Chances are your speedometer cable is about to snap unless some intervening action is taken. Taking that intervening action sooner rather than later greatly reduces the unpleasantness of said action. What happens over time is that the lubrication between the speedometer cable and its sheath degrades and loses its nice lubrication properties. This causes friction to increase which increases wear until at some point the cable fails. Once the cable fails, the only solution is to replace both the cable and sheath. This involves fishing a rather long cable housing along the length of the car. Not impossible, but somewhat tedious. If one intervenes sooner rather than later, then it’s just a matter of pulling the cable out, cleaning it, and lubricating it with some fresh lubricant. Seems easy enough.

Some folks recommend accessing the cable from above. This requires disassembling a good portion of the intake. If that’s not your cup of tea, simply jack up the rear of the vehicle and access the cable from below. Here’s a view of our target with the rear jacked up:

Notice the garden hose like object highlighted in yellow. This is the screw on fitting for the transmission side of the cable. You can see the rear engine mount in the lower right side of the photo. There is plenty of space around the right side of the engine mount to access the cable fitting with a pair of vise grips or something similar:

Don’t clamp on the fitting too hard. I found that just a little bit of torque was enough to unscrew the fitting. Once the end is unscrewed, simply pull out the cable:

Notice the key on the end of the cable. This is how the transmission is clocked to the gauge in the instrument cluster. Before pulling the cable out entirely, I carefully fished the end of the cable up through the engine bay (being careful not to kink or bend the sheath excessively) to make the lubrication process easier:

Pulling the cable out reveals that it is quite long:

And that the end that engages the instrument cluster is squared:

Some folks report needing pliers to pull their cables out. This is most likely a sign that things have gone unattended longer than ideal or perhaps bend radii are tighter than they should be. Mr. 2’s cable pulled right out, no tools required.

For cleaning, I generously sprayed the cable with brake cleaner (or similar). Searching online reveals a wide variety of lubricants that have been used to lube these cables: anything from chainsaw oil to white lithium grease to transmission fluid to good ol’ motor oil. When taking the cable out, I noticed that it was covered with a medium oil, similar in viscosity to engine oil so that’s what I used. I had a little bit of oil left over in one of those 5 plus quart jugs that you can get from your favorite local auto parts store. Perfect. Here’s my process:

1. Pour a little bit of oil into a secondary container.
2. Insert the transmission side of the cable (keyed end) into the 5 quart jug and carefully feed the rest of the cable in while holding onto the square end and making sure not to kink the cable.
3. Dip the cluster side of the cable (square end) into the the secondary container. Keep dipping until the cable that is pulled from the jug is covered in oil.
4. Now carefully feed the oiled cable back into the sheath. You may need to add some back and forth rotation as the cable is fished in to get it to go.
5. Once the cable is almost all of the way in, gently rotate it back and forth to get the squared end to engage.
6. If you were like me and fished the cable to the top of the engine bay, rewind and carefully fish the cable back down to the transmission.
7. Pull the keyed end of the cable out just a little bit and rotate it while feeding it into the transmission until you feel the key line up.
8. Screw the fitting on and lower the car. Job done!

Checking in…is it really 2014 already?!?!?!?

It’s hard to believe that over a year has passed since the last post. Shame on me. Mr. 2 is still looking fine, enjoying the good life in a spacious one car garage. Mr. Tu is finally about to wrap up grad school while spending time on the side fixing up a late 1930’s colonial in the greater Boston area.

2014 is going to be the year of overcoming inertia and finally making some progress on getting Mr. 2 mechanically sound. To assist with this lofty goal, I am issuing a challenge – To represent MKI MR2s at this year’s Japanese Car & Motorcycle Day at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in October:

The Mrs. and I attended last year’s show and spotted not a single first generation MR2. The lawn abounded with plenty of classic Datsuns, a few NSXs, and an overwhelming number of unfortunate Hondas. It’s time to represent.

On the honey do list before October: timing belt and drive belt change, related seals, distributor rebuild, engine tune up, new water pump and coolant flush with Toyota Red, and lubricating that pesky speedometer cable before it snaps. Bring it on.

Blast from the past: taking a peek at the OEM subwoofer

Since I had the seats out I decided to take the OEM subwoofer out as well and have a look inside:

Here’s a closer look at the back of the driver:

And the back of the enclosure:

For future reference, the Pioneer 12-264TAP (now discontinued) is a virtual drop in replacement for the OEM woofer. Mine was still in decent shape so I left it as-is for now.

My seat is loose…TIME-SERT thread repair to the rescue

This one’s somewhat of a mystery to me: one of the seat bolts on the driver’s seat became stripped which ended up ruining the threads on the weld nut that it threads into. I misdiagnosed the problem at first as the weld nut itself having come loose, but was relieved to discover it was only a stripped thread once I took the seat out. Here’s the offending bolt (right) compared to an undamaged bolt (left): You can see from the photo where the crest of the thread has been damaged. Below is the mount that was stripped (front right mount on the driver’s seat): Removing the seats is straightforward: there are four M10X1.25 bolts (Toyota Part # 90119-10185), one on each corner of the seat, that secure the seat to the floor of the vehicle. Use a 14mm socket for these. I did find that some of the rear bolts were slightly rusty (also observed when I removed the passenger’s seat) so be cautious and use some penetrating oil if the bolt appears difficult to remove at first. Here’s what the interior looks like with the driver’s seat out (after a little bit of cleaning and collecting spare change): Yes, that is a factory sub-woofer under the driver’s seat!!! Here’s a close up of the damaged thread: I tried cleaning the thread up with a tap, but unfortunately it was too far gone. So…options? Probably the easiest option would be to drill the thread out and re-tap the hole with a larger thread. Easy to do but it would mean having an odd bolt in the mix. Another option would be to use a helical or threaded insert. The idea behind these is to drill and tap a larger thread, and then use a coiled wire or threaded bushing to bring the thread back down to its original size. Using a pair of calipers, I measured the thread depth to be  approximately .355″ (9.02mm). The shortest helical insert (i.e. Helicoil which resembles a coiled wire) available on www.mcmaster.com is 10mm in length. Not wanting to take any chances with the helical insert failing due to insufficient thread engagement, I searched for alternatives. My search ended with the TIME-SERT branded inserts (visit their site at www.timesert.com for details or check out this video). These are externally threaded bushings that feature a flange at the top of the insert to locate the bushing and prevent it from wandering deeper into the repaired hole. The insert is held in place by using a driving tool to permanently expand the bottom threads of the insert which in turn expand the external threads into the base material. A useful feature is that the inserts can be cut to size for applications where the shortest insert is still too long. For this application, a 9mm long insert is available (Part # 10127, $1.52EA). A M10X1.25 kit is available (Part # 1012, $79.92) that comes with all the tools required plus five 16.2mm long inserts: From top to bottom: driving tool, tap, counterbore, and drill. I also purchased the recommended driver oil ($4.42) and a tap guide (Part # 30125, $7.01). The first step in the installation process is to drill out the damaged thread. The recommended drill size for the M10X1.25 insert is 13/32 and is supplied with the kit. TIME-SERT recommends drilling out the hole using a tap wrench but I found it was too tedious given the tight space with the center tunnel of the car right next to the seat mount. I used a hand drill instead. I had some binding issues with the drill bit but managed a decently clean hole: I used masking tape around the hole to prevent chips from falling behind the carpet and used oil on the drill bit for lubrication. I’ve read that engine oil works for drilling and tapping if a proper cutting fluid isn’t readily available. The next step is to counterbore the hole for the flange on the insert. Again a tap wrench is recommended, however, space was too limited: Notice that I didn’t counterbore all the way through to the nut itself. This is because I wanted to maintain as much material depth as possible since the bottom threads will hold the insert in place. Next is tapping the hole itself. This was the most challenging part of the process since there was not enough room to use a tap wrench. I tried the tap guide but found it to be ineffective. The base of the guide is too narrow which means that a lot of care must be used to keep it square with the hole. What I found to be the biggest drawback of using the guide is that I couldn’t see the tap or visually judge if it was properly aligned. I ended up ditching the guide and found it much easier to eyeball the tap as I threaded the hole. Tapping the hole using a standard open end wrench (7mm fits perfect) while keeping the tap straight was also a challenge. I frequently backed the tap out to break chips and keep the tap lubricated. Patience is key and I ended up with a good thread: It’s easy going from here. First, clean the thread out. I used a shop vac to get most of the chips out then used a can of compressed air to clean the threads out further. While the instructions don’t mention using a solvent to clean the oil out of the threads, it may be a good idea. Once the threads are clean, thread an insert into the tapped hole by hand. Then  oil the driving tool and insert it into the internal threads of the insert. The driving tool will rotate the insert until the flange hits the face of the counterbore. At this point there will be some resistance in turning the driving tool as it is expanding the bottom threads of the insert. Continue to turn the driving tool until the resistance goes away. Then back out the tool and the repair is complete: