The car was fine like that for a while, I did some more little tidy up work and maintenance, like an oil change (Castrol Edge fully synthetic) with new filter (genuine Toyota), painting the window wiper arms matt black with Kill Rust paint (they had surface rust) and, as I had a headlight out, replacing the standard lamps with a couple of Hella H4 conversion lenses, with Phillips Crystalview lamps, which also came with the 5W park lamps in the same icy blue colour - heres a pic at night
Much better. Shortly after that however, when checking the fuse box, I found this (picture was taken after removing the fuse, which was still intact, but all the plactic had melted off it and the metal was soft) - its where the EFI fuse goes, by the way
After spraying the contacts liberally, I was hoping the contacts underneith weren't too badly damaged and would be fine until I could source a new fuse box. I put in a new fuse, started the car, and it just couldn't seem to hold idle, and would missfire and backfire. So, I checked the spark plugs (requiring removal of the intercooler) and found some worse for wear Champion plugs. I replaced those with a set of NGK Iridiums, and the problem remained. Also, the car was getting very hard to start, and the radio was kind of flickering, when the key was in the off position. In short, I had some electrical gremlins. Fuse box out.
So, the car is now in the garage, and I've been tidying up the electrical systems whilst ordering a new fuse box (its been a real pain to find one) and a new "Thermo Switch Coupling" (I found the wire was broken off while I had been looking around the engine bay). Also, replacing the thermostat (it wasn't flowing) and the alternator belt (to all those buying replacement thermostats for a 3GGTE, DO NOT buy the ones from Repco, Autobarn etc. They are crap, have no jiggle valve, or the jiggle valve is facing the wrong way, and on top of that, the genuine item is actually CHEAPER).
Along with that, the left and right engine mounts have been replaced with new high performance items (they have rubber fully bonded around the mount). I will also replace the front and rear mounts, along with a new heavy duty diff mount, but that will be after I get the car on the road again. Did the left and right first as I have the battery removed along with the intake piping and intercooler, so heaps of room.
So, this brings me to the dodgy stuff I've found. I'll start with electrical first. There was an alarm system installed previously, the harness was unplugged, and some of the wiring cut to remove some components, and the cables just dangling even though the main looms were still wired in. A relay interupting ignition wires was still wired into the alarm, which was redundant. A harness for a turbo timer still wired into the ignition system, cut, left dangling no protection. The wire for the handbrake had been tapped into, the new wire cut, left dangling.
The wire that goes to the solenoid on the starter motor, it had been re-routed via a dodgy crimp join, to feed one side of a relay coil, the other side of the coil taken straight to the negative terminal on the battery. This relay was then switching an unfused wire from the battery to the solenoid. Now, I for the life of me can not understand why someone would do this, and I'm an industrial electrician. So, I've ripped all that out, and also the starter motor, seen as its been hard to start and the battery was fine (load tested) and I'll take it to an auto electrician to get checked out / reconditioned.ECU wiring had a piggyback harness wired into it. This was not dodgy, was done very tidy, but my aim is to run with the factory ECU until I can afford a Power FC or similar, as the piggyback is a very old, obsolete piece of crap which required someone with a knowledge of both it and DOS to tune. Not worth it. So I sold it on eBay!
The other dodgy thing was on the pressure line from the turbo housing to the wastegate actuator. I'm sure many will recognize this as a simple boost tap to modify boost levels, however the T-VSV valve (the other line coming from the wastegate actuator, you can't see it in the following photo) hadn't been blocked, which means that there is another form of boost control as well once in 3rd, 4th and 5th gears - not good. (The vacuum line heading to the boost sensor had been tapped and now had been blocked off, so I'm really hoping the person who installed it also had a boost guage set up and wasn't trying to run sky high boost - it wasn't hitting fuel cut though, and no defender is installed).
To remedy this, I've ordered a spring and ball type manual boost controller (better than bleed type as it allows for faster spool up and has better control), along with an Autometer Ultra Lite Vacuum / Boost guage with mounting cup. I've bought some silicone hosing, and replaced the vacuum line going to the BOV, and am extending the wastegate actuator line to position the boost controller somewhere more accessable, and just to generally help tidy up the engine bay. I've also bought an Apexi turbo timer, which can display AF ratio (although not very accurate, will at least display rich / lean conditions), battery voltage, O2 sensor voltage and can be configured for either full auto timing (using the 02 sensor to determine run on time) or preset timing. I also blanked off the T-VSV lines (below). Once all fitted, I should be able to safely set boost in all gears to a safe 10 - 11 psi.
That's it for now, once I get all the parts delivered and the fuse box replaced I'll update with the details and pictures. If I get a chance too I'll get around to installing the heat wrap I bought for the turbo dump pipe, in an attempt to lower under bonnet temperatures, but that is going to be a real pain of a job!
Can't wait to drive it again!
