The Restoration Page 2
Once the engines were removed I started to recondition the engine bay. This involved removing everything and stripping the surface back with a lot of elbow grease. Once she was cleaned, sanded, rust converted, primed and painted (gloss black) she looked as follows:
More work followed. Coma was an automatic, and although Toyota were great by using one standard chassis for both makes, they used different pedal boxes. This meant that I had to rip out the dashes to access the stearing columns, remove and switch both the boxes, then remove the clutch hydraulics from Orange and install it into Coma... not particularly hard, but it took a long time.
After my mid year exams were finished, Paul and I really got stuck into it. We borrowed a 850kg floor crane from the Aero Department (Ta Tony) and heaved the 1GG out of the Supra. Tip for young players - do not remove the spark plugs after you have hosed the engine down, you might pour a whole lot of water into the engine!
The exhaust pipe and rear cross member had to be removed to fit the engine into the bay (the stearing box and arm are really good at fouling on the engine), and once she was in she looked like this:
A sweet sweet fit (once you grind off about 10mm from the top of the stearing box).
While we were fitting the engine mechanically we sent the engine wiring loom (as seen below) off to Sydney to get reengineered. This service although hefty ($450) saves a lot of heart ache if you don't know much about EFI wiring. We sent it to Quickfit Motorsport in Hornsby (thanks Steve) and they promptly send it back to you within about a week.
Out-sourcing is definitely required for the more complicated welding - say if you need to chop 6 inches out of one of your turbo pipes because it fouls on the radiator. We went to Colin Hill Engineering in Oxley. Colin is a great guy to get to do any custom work - he's got the gear, the know how, and he gives you a good price too. Colin also altered the intercooler piping and made a custom air box flange up for us. Thanks Colin.
Another issue with the fit-up was the radiator. The north-south mounting doesn't leave a lot of room between the front pulley wheels and the radiator. Because of this you need to throw away the Supras engine fan and install some thermo fans onto the radiator to suck the air through. Shop around as you can usually get a good price (mine were $90 - a cheap brand, but thinner than the standard Davies Craig fans).
When the wiring got back we got very excited. All assignments were put to the wind to work on the car (in the rain too - my tarps have started to leak). Then on Tuesday 31 July she turned over - woo hoo!
I know it's illegal, but we had to take her out for a thrash, I mean, test-drive. Imagine, green little Coma, orange passenger door, no bonnet, no front quarter panels, no lights, grill or bumper, and no exhaust piping, hurtling up General Bridges Drive with three guys inside smiling - that was us!
The most recent work has been tidying up electricals and minor body things (bonnet mounts and latches). Oh, and this page is also listed on the Toyota Mods Webring which you would have noticed on the first page. Next big step is brakes and exhaust...
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