rob83ke70

Hey I finally got to go and have a play with my new toy, the ke11, this afternoon. The passenger side door wouldn't close properly, it would not be flush with the body of the car when it was closed. Took me a little while to work out exactly what was going on, but I THINK it is under control now. The striker had to move further outwards as the catch was not able to click into the fully closed position. There seemed to be a lot of muck (maybe rust preventative greasy stuff like the tube you get with a tonneau cover kit to be installed on a new proton jumbuck) stuck in the striker hampering it's movement, but I've cleaned that out and now it adjusts ok. The question I have, not having another complete ke1x to compare with, and the workshop manual not being extraordinarily specific, is, when the door shuts, it seems to lift up to go into place. There is no play in the hinges (there was on the driver's side and they are now rebushed awaiting reassembly) and the striker is moved down as far as it can go. I'm guessing this is normal? can anyone with a ke1x confirm this for me? Robert.

if you have already changed the oil (after you have done the head gasket) then the amount of water present in the oil would be very minimal, and I personally would take it for a drive. Obviously if there is heaps and heaps of water in the sump this is not a good idea, but having already put 3 or 4 litres of fresh 100% oil in the sump then I can't see the problem. The ke55 doesn't seemed to have collected any more water in the catch can either, and Kylie did spend the day racing it :) I'm probably just being a stress head, I'm rather good at that :) Robert.

have you got a vacuum leak?? sounds like something is changing (ie a vacuum leak) with the temperature change, or you might have a booster problem... Robert.

camshaft, camshaft camshaft!!!!! I keep telling people, before you go putting a bigger carburettor and exhaust on your corolla, pull the engine out, rebuild it (new rings bearings balance etc) and put a different profile cam in it, pay some attention to detail when you assemble it, and you will never look back!! If you just whack a big carburettor on a standard engine you will be disappointed. If I had have upgraded the carburettor first, I would have stuck with it for a little while and then bought a faster car. The camshaft would be one of the components that changes the engine's characteristics the most. I'm told a light flywheel makes a huge difference too, but can't vouch for that YET!! Robert.

pad surface area doesn't concern me (as long as it is the same as the original) I just want the slotted rotors and nicer pad compound to improve it's coefficient of friction (make it stop nicer)... if I can get bendix ultimate in a corolla pad I would. I haven't checked yet. Redwarf, I get somewhat confused with the technically correct names for things, I have serviced a few too many subarus with the handbrake working on a drum inside the rear disc and having the nice adjustment just like a regular drum brake... but the point is we both agree that if the rear drums aren't adjusted the pedal will travel further to pull the car up... had an instance of that happening on a hyundai excel in a very bad way... very scary to drive.... Evan, if the pedal is spongy when you pull up, ie if it sinks a bit after you stop, or just feels really soft/spongy then it's probably a master cylinder problem. there is no signs of leakage around the booster? I'm sure I paid around $250 trade for a ke55 master cylinder brand new from repco quite a few years back. I love it how they say on toyota master cylinder resevoirs that you should only use dot 3 fluid.... I've been using castrol response (dot 4) since I put the master cylinder on the car and have never had any problems. I'm quite sure that blaming fluid for seal failure is a cop out in most cases. We make a point of using dot3 fluid in toyotas (especially new ones) at work when we change the brake fluid, we used blue dot3 valvoline for a while, but the boss wasn't overly happy with it and now we are using toyota genuine (read: expensive) fluid in the new toyotas. PBR also make a blue dot3 fluid. I had no problems using the blue fluid, but sometimes with vehicles using abs the brake system takes more than the 500ml you are suppose to use to fluid new fluid through to each wheel. I personally have no problems charging a customer for two 500ml bottles if I use them. I figure that the brake system should have the ONE type of fluid in the whole of it, but I've been told by the boss that I'm only to use 500ml on each vehicle and that it doesn't matter if there is still old fluid in the calipers (as long as the fluid looks clean and neat in the resavoir and each wheel has been bled some)... I'm inclined to disagree but the boss is the boss. anyway, I digress from the topic.... I'm procrastinating, I should be washing up and cooking dinner. Robert.

very hard to get the moisture out of the sump by draining the milky oil. take it for a 20 minute drive on the highway, the oil temp will be higher than the boiling point of the water and the steam will travel out the crank breather into the inlet manifold and then out the exhaust, thus getting rid of it all... wouldn't stress too much about changing the oil yet, take it for a drive first. We have a small but significant amount of water building up in our catch can (hooked to crankcase) which is concerning me somewhat, I'm going to retorque the head gasket sometime this week when I get a chance, I'm a little concerned I have coolant leaking into the crankcase (the cylinder head was not very nice when I put it together) but I guess time will tell. Robert.

front shaft bearing in the gearbox is noisy. Robert.

thats the handbrake adjustment, there is a hole to get to it from behind the backing plate. I'd adjust it up so that the brakes are only just starting to drag. I was sure there was an adjustment on on the master cylinder push rod (that joins the top of the brake pedal) but I haven't been under there for a little while. The pedal on kylie's ke55 is quite high and requires a fair amount of effort to stop (if the pads are cold its even worse). After thinking about brake upgrades on kylie's corolla (mostly with the idea of decreasing pedal effort required) I'm leaning towards putting slotted ke70 rotors on it with bendix ultimate pads (if I can't get them for corolla girlock calipers then pads from a vn commodore rear disc fit) so as not to drastically increase the unsprung weight, after all, it is a nice light small car, and its not like we've ever had pedal fade... but I'm digressing from your problem now :y: Robert.

thats not too bad of a price. is the pedal spongy or just low? I'd look at adjusting the rear brakes or the pushrod (at the pedal) if it is just low. if it is spongy I'd buy a new mc or get it resleeved (probably cheaper) Robert.

I have taken it for a drive today and lo and behold, could not fault it.... my brother drove it a few days ago and he reckoned it was undrivable on the highway.... I drove for about 10 minutes each way at around 100km/hr and it was perfectly ok. Apparently you have to drive for a fair bit longer than that for it to start playing up..... maybe a fuel filter? Robert.

I said ONLY when the whole ordeal is FINISHED to an outcome that YOU are HAPPY with. Cars will inconvenience you... not just that particular car and that particular dealership. Robert.

it is a resonator chamber. it eliminates the "gutteral howl" of your intake system under varying driving conditions.... You probably don't NEED it but your car will sound noticably different without it. Robert.

You get them at every parts place...... the ones that go "no i don't need to know the model number" and also the ones that don't need to look things up to automatically know they don't have them..... Open the pack neatly so you can put it all back in and return it should it be the wrong kit. to the best of my knowledge there are two variants on carburettors, one has two identical sized butterflys and is mechanically actuated secondaries, the other has vacuum secondaries and the secondary butterfly is bigger. But I could be wrong, I mean its like toyota to bring out twenty million variants on three models!! Robert.

what car is it going on? I didn't like the vacuum assist (or lack thereof) on ke3x boosted cars..... Robert.

what you need to do is have a look in a brake parts catalog (make friends with your local brake and clutch shop) and find something the same size bore, twin circuit, with the same size mounting flange.... shouldn't be that hard..... but knowing cars like I know cars, it probably will be! Robert.

two fuel filters.... you are picturing a subaru brumby there!! The swift's fuel filter lives in roughly the same spot as my subaru, under the car near the tank, and it was replaced 5000km ago, but that being said, I wouldn't be surprised if it was blocked up again. I don't know when the last time it was replaced before that was, but the filter had fallen apart internally and muck was going through to the needle and seat causing flooding. I have to say that any dealership that I personally worked at, if you were charged for it, I had done it!! But that being said, I've come across lots of places since that are less scrupulous.... Robert.

aaahhhhh..... so what you are saying is that it is like the peugeot 405 using an xud9te 1.9lt turbo diesel engine, and tata also using an xud9te 1.9lt turbo diesel engine, but the tata used recycled scrap to make their engine and therefore it won't be quite the same!! I understand now :) I do remember selling what I'm sure was a holley 180 on ebay and getting a huge lecture off the buyer about how it wasn't what I said it was and a whole big story about it... I can't quite remember the details though..... apparently it was some weird variant on a holley 180, and he worked for h ume perfor mance and therefore should know? but we digress slightly there. Robert.

Good on ya sticking with the 3k, thats the sort of stuff that I like to see!! Make sure you keep us posted with photos and progress reports! I am yet to build a turbo engine, but it will happen one day.... Robert.

I'm a man of many different vehicles and many different mechanical problems, which I'm sure is taking years off my life :) I have a suzuki swift cino 1.3lt SOHC with a carburettor, and it jerks and hunts terribly when driving on the highway (and chomps fuel too) but is quite ok when driving in town. The carburettor has had a kit put through it (by myself) the ignition timing is quite ok, it starts and runs really well in town. Now the question I have, when driving on the highway, at a constant speed, obviously not much load on the engine if any, what circuit would it be running on in the carburettor? I'm assumming the main jet would be the culprit, although a fellow I met the other day seemed to think the idle circuit if there is no load. The throttle butterfly would be open past where it would run on the idle or progression circuits so I'm thinking main?? I figure the problem has got to be a lean air fuel mixture, over advanced ignition timing, or an EGR problem, now as the ignition timing is good, I'm thinking probably a blocked jet of some sort maybe?? any ideas? Robert.

Thankyou for your help everyone, I haven't had a chance to do anything yet, I've been at home with the flu in a fairly bad way all week. If the car is still there when I get to work next week I will let you know what happens :dance: Robert.

hate to break it to you but you do realise a holley 180 is exactly the same as a weber 32/36 dfv, which is a mirror image of the popular dgv.... its like saying that you are driving a toyota lexcen, but wanting to upgrade to a holden commodore because its better quality.... or something like that :dance: Robert.

LOL have you noticed that subaru genuine drive belts are made by "mitsuboshi" ?? I'm sure I've seen the same belts on toyotas, and I'm sure I've seen "mitsuboshi" written on a few things in the ke corollas... Mitsubishi is not that bad.... Trust me, I can think of worse. Robert.

dumb question time: is your air filter clean? even if you can't blow dust out of it, it might still be blocked bad enough to cause problems, especially if it is a viscous paper type. I had a mate in high school who was keen on reverse doughnuts in a mitsubishi colt, and he used to clean the air filter out every time he got home from driving on the dirt, and a surprising amount of shit came out. Robert.

c'mon this is all pretty normal in a dealership world, I've come from a dealership world so I should know. My old dealership though was one of the better ones (I've since found out) Loan cars are shitboxes that they can't/haven't sold yet, shit goes wrong left right and centre and they are the LAST things to get fixed! All work is prioritised, in the order of: Retail, warranty, usedcar warranty, internal... and CV's being noisy are NOT a RWC failable item. even split boots are NOT a RWC failable item, ONLY if grease leaks DIRECTLY onto the brake rotors are they failable, which hardly ever happens. RWC's are a joke, trust me on that!! My suggestion, would be to be persistant but remain friendly and nice to them, when they finally fix the problem, buy the service manager a carton of his favourite beer to share with the service department, and the next time you have dramas, there won't be any problems at all warranty wise. Robert.

I'm dying of curiosity as to whether fitting larger valves to a bigport spec head would be a noticable benefit... Robert.