Lauren's 1985 Kouki Trueno

[Aram]

Awesome!

[Lauren]

Exhaust manifold wrap finished finally.



Mark had an idea to fit all studs to the head for the exhaust manifold rather than two studs and three bolts:



Trouble was we couldn't get the manifold on. So in the end we reverted back to stock. All new Toyota bolts of course.

Managed to get a downpipe to cat gasket for free from Kwik Fit. Still leaks though. So will need a thicker gasket.

I went to put on the undertray which meant the car was close to being lowered onto it's wheels once more for a celabratory drive around the yard, only to find a drip of coolant. Yep, water pump gone. FFS. That won't be cheap and whilst not quite the hardest job in the world to change is a bit of a PITA. So, not much in the way of progress today.

[Lauren]

Balls, had a thought, changing the water pump is a bit of a PITA. All the belts, crank pulley, timing covers and cam belt need to come off to get at the pump.

could take a punt on changing the front, but that can be just as much trouble trying to clean the mating surface of old gasket.

Fun job eh? Put it all back together only to take it apart again!

[Lauren]

Water pump now ordered, will have it by Wednesday 23rd April.

Trouble is, I haven't got time to work on the car till the second week in May now.

[assassin10000]

I ran all studs on mine with no issues getting it in place... and my car is lhd so I have a steering shaft in the way.

Andrew

[Lauren]

The reason I couldn't get the manifold on with studs had a lot to do with the oil cooler piping that runs off the sandwich plate. My piping runs to the rear bulhead and back round along the chassis rail due to the power steering and aircon pump getting in the way.

[Lauren]

Got the water pump, now just need to find some to fit it!

[Lauren]

Okay, finally got the car out of the container and got some insurance, which it hasn't had for three years!

It was a bit tricky getting it out of the container as the clutch had seized on. So we managed to roll it out, without too much trouble, but slightly scraped some underseal off the chassis rails. That can be fixed I think.

I gave the clutch a go using the starter motor in first gear. That got it free'd off pretty quick and then we drove it around the yard a few times testing the brakes etc:

AE86 lives by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

20 litres of V power went in and then I drove it to RRG Macc' with Mark following in the Yaris full of tools!

The car drove fine, well, it drove like a thirty year old car, which always takes a bit of getting used to. Thankfully the aircon still blows cold, which was nice and everything worked.

We got it up onto the ramps at RRG in an attempt to fix the exhaust leak where the manifold joins to the cat:

AE86 lives by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

Alas, despite Mark taking ages to cut a gasket, it still leaked and being aware that Richard at RRG had already done us a massive favour we agreed to leave it with him to address the exhaust leak and do a few other minor things. It needs a rear foglight fitting for the MOT and the washer bottle refitting once a new seal has been fitted where the motor sits in the washer bottle. The advantage of being at RRG was that Paul and Dave were to hand and quickly identified that they could still get a seal for the bottle motor and also hopefully for the exhaust.

AE86 lives by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

Hopefully all will go swimmingly, well as much as one might expect for a car of this age that hasn't been driven for three years. All will be revealed over the next few days I suspect!

[mad.matt]

I THINK, though may be wrong, this was imported by the same person that imported Ewan/Kev's current AE86.

Plate is very similar

[Lauren]

The plates tend to be dependent upon port, I've seen a few which are close to my reg that are out and about in the UK.

The AE86 is through the MOT, taxed and insured. Best of all we were able to drive it home without issue.

We had a bit of an oil leak from the cam covers which I noticed hadn't been tightened, but that seems to be sorted now. It's now done 60kms today, don't forget the engine needs to be run in, so not gone mad with it.

What's it like after a three year break? Well it's noisy, diff whine, gearbox whine, various rattles and the usual vibrations at idle, but it is thirty years old so it feels worlds apart compared to the GT86.

It's feather light though, the controls are really light too, so there is something of a recalibration required after doing 70k miles in a GT86!

That said it's thoroughly enjoyable and even the aircon still works. Doubtless there'll be a few snags to iron out but hopefully we'll get it sorted before undertaking longer journeys and JAE. The engine feels keen and though I've not revved it too much, looking forward to getting it on cam which is 5500rpm upwards.

Here it is at RRG Toyota Macclesfield who have been simply brilliant in just taking care of a few final jobs and getting the car MOT'd and even giving it a wash after three years in storage! They really have helped me out, so thank you Richard, Gary and the team. :+: