Some of the things I had to sort out prior to starting...
- Exhaust system... The current exhaust system is in very bad shape. It's been on there from the previous owner, and has been shopped, swapped, butchered, raided, repaired and just about everything else under the sun you can do with it. It looks worse than a dog's breakfast!!!! It's time for a change and the person I would mostly trust and has a very reputable name is Norm Buttler of Buttler Exhaust Shop. I've heard his work before, and he's probably been around for more than 10+ years... So I paid him a visit... Firstly, so I could meet the famous Norm Buttler, and 2nd, to get an idea what he could do, and how much it would cost.... This is all sorted, and hopefully, once I've finished the engine, the MR2 will be rocking up at his exhaust shop.
- New Selector shaft seal... I went past Toyota spare parts shop to purchase a new Selector shaft seal... About AUS$93 later, with selector shaft on the way from eastern States and about 8Litres of Toyota coolant, which I required as well... Thought I might as well give the cooling system a flush, since I'm at it... ;-)
We ended up putting the MR2 onto a couple car ramps, and removing various panels of the back of the MR2... Bonnet, Boot, Side Covers (Both sides), internal trimming of the boot, etc...
We pretty much started unbolting/removing any electrical connection... Pretty straight forward and nothing that special... this must be about the 3rd time I have removed or disconnected the harness from this car... I pretty much know the MR2 harness off by heart... ;-)
We pretty much spent all of Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning working on the MR2 to get the harness removed... the most difficult was the removal of the electrical connectors to the Starter motor... There are 2x connection, 1 being for the full voltage, and the other being a signalling or switch cable. The Full voltage one is a simple Nut that needs to be loosed, and the switch cable was a plug that needed to be pitched and then pulled.... Yes, 2x Long screw drivers, a pair of pliers, a flash light, and a lot of cursing and swearing... we got it out and voila...
We had to remove the exhaust just to get to the connectors of the Starter motor... after removing the exhaust... As I was commenting previously... it is in pretty bad shape...
One thing I was shocked by, was the condition of my engine from undernieth... It's been probably in excess of about 3-4 years since I have inspected the MR2 from undernieth, as I always had the oportunity to do so when it was in at my other best friend's workshop, Jan's workshop. I used to hang about there every week-end, and Jan has taught me a lot about cars and the mechanical side... If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be doing this today...
Anyway... I also ended up removing the under-tray of the MR2.... and that was totally shot, torn up, broken bits, etc... I need to find a replacement, although it's not very important. The only purpose of this, apparently, is so that not too much dirt gets into the engine bay... With the new engine going in, I definitly need to find a replacement... but for now, I'll leave it off. It is totally covered in oil...
The next task was to remove the engine harness from the 20v Blacktop engine, which was pretty much a 10-15mins affair, as the majority was already done. As you can see from the picture below, the 20v BT engine harness is considerably more complex than the 16v Harness. From the picture below, you can pretty much see/compare the 2 harnesses, where the 16v harness is towards the back and the 20v Harness is in front.
I've given the harnesses a quick inspection to see if all is OK, and no broken connectors, and pretty much wrapped it up into a box ready for delivery to Doug. I'm a little anxious about sending it this far, but it turned up successfully at Doug's door step about 5 days later.
Task for this week-end has been successfully completed... The next task is to start with the removal of the 16v engine from the MR2... This is next time... ;-)
