It's been a quiet winter; mainly because I had surgery to replace my right knee last November and I've been recuperating since. I'm back on my feet, able to walk much better and with no pain, I've been back behind the steering wheel since the beginning of the year and I'm back in work. Now to the Rolla.
I've had the feeling for a while that the clutch needed to be replaced. Over the years it's got less of a progressive feeling and more like a switch. Also gear changes from 1st - 2nd, 2nd - 3rd have been getting very notchy. I decided that now I had another daily driver, the time had come to take the Rolla off the road and get it fixed. It went back to Kevin in Droitwich for the work to be done. I thought I had sourced a Helix Organic clutch from Fensport but it turned out to be the wrong size and had to be returned. In it's place they supplied a Blueprint replacement. This is exactly the same clutch that had lasted me the last 50,000 miles in the three and a half years since the engine transplant. Kevin said that the old friction plate wasn't chewed up and was about 75% worn so I had no worries about replacing like with like. I'm not expecting to do more that 5,000 miles a year in this car from now on so it'll probably last about 10 years☺. The box was refurbished by a company that Kevin uses regularly - most of their work comprises gearboxes for WRC cars so the work should be good. The box was refilled with Redline fully synthetic MTL.
While Kevin had the car he gave it it's annual full service and spotted that the supercharger belt was on it's last legs - bits of the ribs had broken off so that was replaced along with new Toyota differential / driveshaft seals. He also replaced the gaskets between the exhaust manifold and down pipe and between the downpipe and catalytic converter.
Some other things have come to light over the winter - the chrome plating on the cam covers is looking pretty bad from all the salt and the intercooler pipework needs to be tidied up. I've found a local place that can fabricate mirror finish stainless steel tubes so I'll be asking them what they can do.
All in all a good lot of work done so that I should be able to enjoy driving it throughout the summer.
There have been several cosmetic changes in the engine bay. The chrome plating on the cam covers had started to flake and there were some rust spots on the strut brace. The company that did the original chrome plating has closed and I wouldn’t go for chrome again anyway. I decided that powder coating would be the way to go and that the air box and exhaust heat shield should also be done. The work took over 5 weeks to get done which was very frustrating but now it’s all finished. The exhaust heat shield was done but after a short drive it started smoking and giving off noxious fumes so had to be replaced with a new standard item – just as well I had one to use.
Another cosmetic change has been the making of new intercooler pipework in mirror finish stainless steel tube. The pipes were made using the original pipes as a pattern but when I picked them up three of the ends were too long and the fourth was too short so they had to go back to be fixed.
When I removed the intercooler pipework I had to cut the water injection pipe from the pump to the water jet. A length of 4mm nylon pipe has fixed that and I also got a new rubber seal for the jet as well – I lost the original one.
While fitting the strut brace I dropped one of the nuts that hold the strut top mount to the body. I looked everywhere for it but it must be lodged somewhere in the engine bay where I can’t find it. I ordered 3 new nuts from the local Toyota dealer that way I’ll be able to replace the one oddly sized nut on the strut. A 14mm spanner is required for this one whilst 12mm needed for the rest – can be frustrating if you forget – as I always do. The new nuts were very dark, almost black but the originals were more grey so I painted the old ones with black Hammerite and then wiped off most of the paint – they look pretty much like the new ones.
I wanted all the work completed be Japfest 2007 on 19th May. The final part – the air box lid was fitted on the 18th May. I fixed the TRD emblem back on the strut brace and put a TRD emblem on the rear hatch (where I had one previously). A TTE emblem has been fixed to the front mesh grill – looks very pretty.
While the parts were away for powder coating I took the opportunity to clean and paint the front and rear brake callipers with smooth black Hammerite. I also painted the outer edge and centre of the brake disks with black Hammerite to tidy them up. I noticed that the rear disks are close to the minimum thickness and should be replaced some time soon. The only aftermarket disks I’ve found are from Black Diamond and DBA (but only in their Australian catalogue, not their UK one). It would be good to get them sorted before some of the car shows later in the year.