Random snap : Snow hachi

had some fun in the snow yesterday, but I think its time for Subaru 4wd as I was lucky to get the Levin back into my driveway............

random snap: patiently waiting..

..during a pitstop returning from a roadtrip today. we both needed a break from the cold.

I just love the 2-door Trueno shape..

Random Snap : In for Winter

My daily Corolla is getting parked in the newly refurbed home garage overnight from now untill the weathers better, its win win , no more cold starts and window de-icing.
And also in snap is one of the new metal Import plates , Thanks Dave ;)

***2x1 love..

Today my Trueno got a little treat. The 23 year old paintwork was starting to show the years. The bonnet (or hood for international readers!) was getting quite dull and faded from the heat of its eager little 16v,

 
and there were lots of swirl marks and general ageing on nearly every panel...
 

 So it turned out the guy who did the excellent job on my front bumper and splitter (the splitter which is subsequently showing some battle scars earned during an interesting street parking manoeuvre lol) also does some excellent paintwork correction with a machine polisher and various cutting compounds and magical potions. So after a quick wash my Trueno was locked into a shed with Mr.Paintwork Guy and the results a few hours later speak for themselves :)

The car is so shiny now its actually hard to take a photo of it, and the "black" part of 2x1 black over graphite is a really interesting highly metallic colour, that can look black, dark green, and even a purplish brown depending on the lighting. Just waiting for a nice sunny day, 2011 maybe, and my camera back from Kev *ahem... and we'll get some good shots. Big thanks again to Shane for the excellent work on the bumper and polishing :)

Another day...

Being on a 3 day week has its advantages, although I dont have as much money to spend on quality parts, I do have time to get lots of work done on my own car's.

Today I got the full fuel system fitted and hooked up.Which includes this custom foam filled alloy 20L tank , a good few meters of braided fuel pipe and an inline Sytec fuel pump.These feed up threw a new toyota fuel filter , through a custom braided fuel rail pipe and up to the 16v rail and returns threw the original fpr. its all bolted in place and just needs a small custom firewall around the tank eventually....

As well as getting the fuel system completed , I got a start on the omex600 wiring and also cut and modified an origanl dash top to fit around the cage.The dash top is now ready for flocking.When it gets back to me I cant wait to see My custom Stack/Pivot gauge cluster dropped into it..Thats all for today, hopefully more shit gets done over the weekend.....Beer time x8 !!!!  

The hidden Corolla.....

Sarah's Levin is also coming out of retirement. I spent all day tidying up the place and trekking around  in the Subaru wagon with the trailer in tow, to pick up Sarah's car and get it to the garage.

Alot of work got done to her Levin earlier this year and last year, but we have a list of jobs that need doing now, to have it just right! Among other things, it will be getting fresh dampers, some work on the brakes and its maybe time to refurb my TE's while we're at it.

Its cool to have them together , next time Dave is about we will have the fleet of 5 ae's together for the first time, can't wait! 

  

Birth of a TE37. That is all.

I want another car just to have more TE37 in my life :)

Back on the road***^^^

I got my 1g starter reconditioned and fitted it with the spacer, blead out the cooling system then after the t-belt job so Finally I can enjoy my Lev again! I got round to taxing it this week as well , only nct left so when I can afford two new tyres I'll  throw it through for my final window badge!

I had it down my garage today and fixed the passenger door handle as it was stiff and sometimes not opening the the door at all and also fixed a squeaky door card. I cleaned it up then and enjoyed the sounds of the open itbs screeming away for the first time in months!! my daily corolla is a Daily car again yeeeeow!!!!!!!!

My Levin refresh ^^^

My "daily" Levin has been off the road for about 3/4 months now so it's about time to get back driving it! I miss the fun of driving/drifting my hachi every day.A few small jobs built up over time on it so I gave it a rest as I planned and saved for a few parts.
The weekend just gone I push started it and got it down to my daily work garage and got started on it.
First off was to charge the battery and strip it down for a timing belt kit and vvt cam gear change.

Along with the (hopefully good ) used vvt gear and timing belt it got a new Toyota tensioner and idler pulley.The old cam gear was rattling away like mad and this is my 2nd time to change it so I hope I got lucky with this gear as Toyota want 350+ euro for a new one!!

  

It all went back together then with a full cooling system full of fresh coolant for the winter!

As it was sitting up for a few months , the starter finally gave up on me, it was starting to go even before I let it sit up idle.So now was the right time to pull it out and get it re-con'd .So thats where I left it Sunday, I should have the starter back tomorrow. 

 I'm REALLY looking forward to getting back into my Recaro for a bit a drifting over the winter, even the short trip to the garage had me excited again!!!!

So that's my timing belt , battery and starter motor sorted now, next in line is a good boot lid, which I just picked up tonight , and a big thanks to the mega cage builder Roco Ronan for that, not a spot of rust on it!!!! 

Along with the boot lid , I have found two small patches of rust under the boot seal , which is causing a leak so that will be sorted when the boot lid is getting done very soon hopefully. I'll update with some pic's as soon as possible.

random snapage : mean as hell trueno on te V's

front end refresh pt3

The weather wasn't really permitting yesterday but I fitted the bumper anyway! My custom rewired bumper lights in, fresh metal number plates on (unfortunately I'm too paranoid to show the number lol), and the 2500K PIAAs I got last year and I am very happy with it now.

Between the redline rear lights and finally sorting out the front bumper, along with some newly achieved "moar low", I am 100% happy with the exterior look of the car. The Run Free Alfa skirts and rear bumper will stay, I think they match the bumper+lip combo nicely! She will get a full paintwork detail in the coming weeks and then all I need now is some sunshine and a proper photoshoot :)