altezzaclub

lol- Do it cheap and slow. So long as you're not buying chrome plated surge tanks and some of the other bling you can buy then it shouldn't be too bad. That's why I figured you might need a year or two accumulating all the bits for a full conversion. When you've dropped the new motor in you can always sell the hot 4K & buy her flowers!

yep- but as you say jordi, once its converted it is done, and you can find a better box later. Grab it if its all there, flywheel, clutch, pedal box everything, and go for it!

Just buy it and use it... That's about what I'd expect to pay for an average one, and you can expect it to whine a bit in all gears except 4th, which is fine around town. When I finally get around to rebuilding my K50 I'll put a topic up about it. If you're doing the conversion from auto you will need a lot more than a gearbox though... I will add that I aquired that K50 for a slab of beers from a fine gentleman on these forums, so they can be considered 'not expensive'..

Floorpan is the same as far as I know- Cost- $10grand ! Don't expect anything less and if you can do it with change then you get a pleasant surprise. Most guys don't write everything down as they do it, and many conversions are pretty ratshit around the edges. You can assume any 30year old motor will need a sizeable rebuild... FWD 3SGEs need turning around, like a 4AGE. The Altezza one drops straight in.. I was thinking tonight about 'what if someone rear-ended my Altezza' and if I could get the wreck off the insurance company.... Celicas/MR2s are also earlier generations of the motor and don't make the same power. I could give you pretty exact figures, but for about $3grand you could rebore the 4K to 1500cc and fit twin SUs, a cam and an exhaust system. That might keep you going for a few years while you raise the dough for the engine swap. here's what we did- http://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/42407-the-girls-ke70/

Not really.. if the plug is misfiring for any reason it might come out wet. Check all the plugs and if one is wet then swap it with a good cyl and try it again. If the missfire stays at that cyl then swap the lead. if it is still on that cyl then do a compression test... maybe a valve has jammed open from corrosion.. The head gasket usually fails between cyl 2 & 3.

I remeber reading Andy Capp cartoons when I was younger- a layabout who was always dodging work & drinking beer while Flo his wife worked. I think it was set in Northern England. I wasn't sure how that related to some modern-day interpretation of 'flat-cap'. Lovely car Riley, the sad ones are those that start off Granny-stock an end up more like this.... although usually matt black.

You have to be able to drive it to tell I reckon. Maybe some gearbox guru has got a way of telling from looking at it, but it is as dicey as buying a motor you can't run. It you could play with a few & move the gearlever through the gears you will get an idea of how much slop is good or bad. Can you buy a complete car & sell the rest? Wreck from wrecker? Non-regoe'd heap from Gumtree?

Ah- that's good to know. It means the Weber definately does make a difference. Like my SUs, guys often do carbs/cam/exhaust all at once and I wouldn't know what just changing the carb did. Post up the solution when you find it-

Arrgh! What's a flatcap?? I have seen plenty of nice cars ruined by the "matt black, chopped springs, dildo gearknob" drifters, and I do get the feeling most the beautifully done (and expensvie) KEs are owned by guys over 20... but its al a phase that passes.

Nice- If you can buy it for under $900 grab it.

Probably as may opinions as there are oils on the market... Ask Billzilla, and read 'Bob the oil guy' for background, although I haven't chased race oils on his webpage.

Weelll.... I went out into the rain and sleet & swapped the oil sender units between the Pintara and the KE70. Different connections so it was a bit micky-mouse, but a drive with the Pintara unit showed everything as it should be. Light on with key, no light at idle. Checked each with an ohmmeter, 2ohms on the bench for the Pintara, 30ohms for the KE70... More, but no specs for that. Re-fitted them, phoned the spares shop, they have a KE70 one there, $10... jump in the Blue Streak aaannndd... It works perfectly!! So, light shows nothing at 900rpm, then a slight flicker as the revs dip below 800rpm momentarily and bright as usual when engine off. I dunno- must have been a dirty connection on it? Something inside? dirt? air bubble? Anyway, I'll see how it behaves over the next week and I'm so glad I don't have to change the pump!! Cheers Team-

Possibly Celicas or possibly Coronas, both of which had T motors overseas and you might find an import. There is even a Lite-Ace van at my local wreckers, but minus motor & gearbox. Where did your box come from?? Are all the ADM AE86s & AE71s using 20spline? I'm mulling over the T box change, so I'm also trying to find out which car to raid for which part.

Sounds like no idle circuit. See if you can hear & feel the solenoid going 'click' when you turn the key on. If it is, then it is probably opening the idle circuit, and then the nest thing is dirt in a drilling or the idle jet. Pull the carb apart and hose petrol through the idle circuit with a syringe, and make sure the idle jet is clean. They might have fked up the rebuild somehow and without the idle jet working the mixture screw won't work. The solenoid shuts off the idle circuit, so it won't make any difference once its running on the main jet.

OK, the use of the gauge was to see if the sender unit was reading correctly. Let me see if the Pintara sender fits tomorrow, and if it doesn't then getting that gauge would be good. Once I've tried it I can return it or pass it onto someone else who needs it. That will say either new sender needed or new pump needed. I can't see how the oil pump is worn out when the motor isn't that high a mileage, still under 200k, maybe there is something else I'm missing.... faulty sender, shit under the release valve, pump bleeding around the gears, worn bearings...

yep- I fitte it without any sealant, thinking it would work best that way, but it leaked at all 4 corners. Lifting the motor in place and dropping the sump a couple of inches got 3-bond in there, but only the front stopped leaking. Just been a nuisance for the last year or so... ..and lying in bed thinking about it, I realised the only relief valve I can access is the oil filter over-pressure one on the side of the motor, the actual pump relief valve is in the damm sump! I'm going to have a replacement pump sitting there before I drop the sump anyway! I like that 18R mod for more pump volume, but I can see you need stacks of stray bits sitting around the shed to do things like that. No aftermarket oil pressure gauges at the wreckers either, they are a thing of the distant past.

Sorry to hear that, they obviously don't intend to keep it. Hopefully it was an easy ride home and it will be sitting in some back street in a trashy part of town.

Yep! Don't do anything until you have done that! Even if you have to buy a compression gauge, it will last you all your life! Then check the low cylinder's tappet gap. It would be painful to pull the head off and find you didn't need to because a tappet jammed the valve open...

Ah well, I'd better do somethng about it then!. I've dropped the sump in the past to tackle that dammnable gasket leak, it meant jacking the motor up and suspending it, but I couldn't get the sump out of the car at that time. If it has to come off the g'box then it will have to. Thanks Shane, PM sent..

Shocks don't do that, springs do that. I suppose you want to convert to coilovers, where the spring is mounted over the shock and it has a threaded spring base you can wind up and down. Not so simple, they will need the body reinforcing to take the stress at the shock mount. Alternatively, gas shocks will raise your car slightly.

I've just been chatting to one of the guys and thought I'd copy this over and anyone else can add more ideas. I find that buying a car and having a garage do a service on it leaves a lot missing, so the more you can do the better. Things to do when you buy a car- Get a little notebook. Write down date & Km of last service. Keep the notebook for as long as you have the car and write down all the things you do. Jack up a front wheel, feel for bearing wear by shaking it vertically then steering wear by shaking it horizontally. This will be on Youtube somewhere I'm sure. Take off the wheel & little bearing cover and check for grease in the wheel bearing, then set it to 'just not tight' so the wheel spins freely. Usually this is "tighten to just over finger tight and back off 5minutes" but it should be right on the point of feeling a few mm looseness with a wheel on. Check the nuts and bolts in the suspension & crossmember and whatever else you can see while lying under it in the sun. (I use a torch ) Anything with a dark/clean ring around the nut/bolt is moving so its loose. Check the brake pads & look for leaks in brake lines and shocks, and check steering boots on the rack. Check tyre wear and if it is uneven across the tread or feathered at all take it in for a wheel alignment. Do the other wheel, then the back wheels & suspension.(no bearings to shake there) Change the oil and oil filter, air filter and petrol filter, points and plugs. Change the gearbox oil and diff oil and the radiator water & antifreeze. If you're keen, pump out the brake fluid and fill with fresh, it absorbs water which rusts the cylinders.. (This will be only time you need to do these in the time you own the car.) Set the tappets, plug gaps and points, and set the timing. When its warm after running set the idle mixture and speed. Open the doors, bonnet and boot and oil the hinges & grease the door slides that holds them open. Write down what you did & the date. You might want to see what they've just done in their last service, check what you can of it, (mechanics lie like real estate agents!) and do the things on that list that they didn't do. Once a year change oil and filter together, using a genuine Toyota filter. If you do 10,000km in six months change the oil only then, depends on how much use the car gets. I usually go for once a year as we only do 10-15000 km a year. Write down date and Km. If the diff and gearbox aren't leaking you don't need to worry about them once you've changed the oils, its just an annual oil/filter change, plugs and points, and every few years an air filter. I usually have some reason to be under a car every few months and I check all the nuts and bolts & look for leaks, easy enough. Get a dwell meter and it will show you the slow closing of the points as they wear over 6months, so just re-set them and re-gap the plugs. Otherwise it slowly loses performance over a year or two.

That's hard to measure unless someone has KE25 springs sitting free in the shed... Can you compare ride heights? Ground to top of arch.

4AGE it appears... http://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/51097-4k-twin-cam/

Other ones to look at would be worn throttle shafts or worn throttle linkages holding the throttle plate open or not.. I've had it where it idles when you release the throtle slowly and it settles in one place, but if you drop the throttle off quickly it reverts to a slightly different place and kills the idle.

yep- told the daughter we would hit the wreckers and see who left a stand-alone gauge in their car... The thought of changing the pump makes me quail... is it time for the giant step to completely un-needed 5K pistons, or shall we soldier on with low idle oil pressure until next year sometime...