As well as all of the work I'm about to get into here, the MR2 had also had its fair share of work done in its previous ownership.
Service stamped up to 66000 miles, after that the history is recorded with invioces only.
In 2022 the car was treated to the following.
New 3 piece clutch.
Clutch master cylinder. (2021)
2 front lower ball joints.
2front shock inserts.
Front anti roll bar poly bushes.
4x Goodyear tyres (2021).
2x front brake callipers.
Recon steering rack plus new poly bushes.
Hand brake cable.
Service filters.
Throttle cable.
Engine mounts. (2021)
Drive shaft seal. (2021)
The alloy wheels also look to have been diamond cut fairly recently as they look almost brand new however there doesn't appear to be paperwork to support that.
There is also a full set of new silicone water hoses installed on the car.
There is a good amount of invioces through the 2000s as well as mot certificates. The car also comes with a spare key.
Despite having lots of new parts fitted over the last couple of years the engine bay was showing its age when the car entered the workshop. Nothing a good steam clean can't sort.
The service parts are as shown above. Cambelt, water pump, tensioner, oil-air-fuel filters, plugs, leads, distributor cap, rotor arm.
Oil, antifreeze and cam cover gaskets were also changed but not pictured.
Old and new cam belt kit side by side. A good tip when fitting a new belt to count the teeth on both the old and new belt to insure they are the same.
Pictured from inside the driver rear wheel arch we can see the new cam belt kit and new water pump fitted in place.
Due to the engine being situated at the rear of the car and the radiator at the front, it is essential to bleed the air out of the water system from the 3 bleed valves located on the radiator, luggage compartment and engine. With the valves open and with clear hoses attached to the bleed valves, the water level rises up the clear hoses to the same level as the filling point on the engine. At this point the system should be full of water and all the air should have been purged.
Cam covers were treated to a repaint.
Service complete and the engine now clean and tidy.
Sills look to be ok for the main length. There is a section at the rear of the sills leading into rear wing that has previous repairs. These will be checked out and re-repaired if needed. The main thing hear is that the sill covers have been removed for inspection, something you probably wont see anywhere else if you've been looking to buy one of these MR2's. Most sellers don't want to remove the covers through fear of what they might find.
The front valence was in a bad way having been repaired with fibre glass and then painted over with what looks like silver hammered finish hammerite.
The passenger side of the front valence was in the same state having had rotten metal filled over.
With the valence removed the extent of the rot was clear. The bottom half of both sides will have to be replaced as well as a section in the middle.
The mounting flanges for the lower rubber splitter would also have to be replaced.
A new front section complete with mounting flanges is made ready to welded in.
Corner sections are cut out and used as templates to make new repaire sections. They are then welded in place and the welds ground flat. The cut out rotten sections are in the background for reference.
One last upper section is made that leads into the lower front wing. Panels for this car are unfortunately unavailable these days so any repair sections have to be made from scratch hear at the kjclassics workshop.
Test fitting the front valence after all the metal work is complete and it's nearly a perfect fit at this stage without even any bodywork.
The back side is chemically treated to remove the remaining surface rust.
Filling the now repaired front valence to smooth out the welds.
Front lower wing sections also need attention.
A small plate was all that was needed. Simple enough to make without the need for special tools.
The rear wheel arches and quarter panels are a common issue with the mk1 MR2. This one was no acception. The biggest problem with this car as iv already mentioned is the lack of repair panels available. This ment I had to make the rear quarters my self which is a very time consuming process.
From inside the boot the extent of the rust on the rear quarter is far more noticeable. It looked like the this section had been previously repaired and then under sealed to prevent it getting worse. Quite how long ago that was done is anyone's guess.
The only way to rid the car of that rust is to cut it out completely and start again with new metal.
The new panel will have to be spot welded to the inner quarter panel at the bottom and so the inner quarter is stripped to bare metal and then sprayed with weldable paint.
A rough template is made of the quarter panel with lines drawn on where bends, stretching, shrinking and rolling will have to be done to achieve the shape.
The English wheel is used hear to put shape into the metal as well as to smooth out hammer marks made by the hammer and dolly. This section is not the biggest panel to make but it was quite a complicated one requiring the metal to stretch, shrink and bend in all directions.
The finished panel looks pretty close to the original but will have to be trimmed and adjusted to fit the hole correctly.
The finished panel welded in place leaving a gap at the wheel arch as that to will need to be cut out.
The inner wheel arch was a big disappointment as it looked pretty solid when I brought the car but unfortunately I was fooled by fibre glass repairs. The fibre glass had been hiding a large amount of rust that would need to be cut out and replaced.
The rust extended all the way around the wheel arch.
The outer wheel arches were just as bad. There had been a repair panel welded over the rot. The tack welds are still visible around the arch but this rot really should have been removed before the repair panel was welded on.
The outer rot is cut out to make repairing the inner arch easier to repair. I would have liked to repair the inner arch with one piece of metal but the metal shrinker had broken from over use that day so I had no choice but to make it in smaller sections . Not that it matters as its out of sight and it is no longer full of rotten holes like it was when I started.
The outer arch is then welded in place and the welds ground down. The rear sill section is also re- welded as the previous repair was only tacked in places and filled over.
Driver rear quarter is also full of holes but no where near as bad as the passenger side. A much less complicated plate can be made to repair this.
The driver wheel arch is also in much better shape than the passenger side needing only a new lip welded in rather than the whole wheel arch.
The rapair on this side did however get worse the closer it got to the sill and so some work was also done to repair the sill. The method for welding the arches in place is to do a series of tacks. To try seem welding these in one go would only result in a huge amount of heat build up which would cause distortion to the wing. By doing a series of tack welds the heat is kept to a minimum.
All the welds are then ground back ready for body work.
The plastic covers are removed from the underside and from the front wheel arches to check if any work is needed in these areas. As you can see they are still in great shape.
The car is masked off ready for paint. The two rear wings, rear bumper and n/s front headlight are painted white and then the wings are masked again once the paint is dry and the whole lower half of the car is repainted silver.
Paintwork finished and the masking sheet removed but the job isn't done yet as some refinishing will have to be done to the new paint i,e wet sanding and buffing to make perfect.
Really pleased with how the rear quarters came out now they are painted. You wouldn't no they weren't original.
The underside is stone chipped and painted as well as the underside of the engine getting a good tidy up.
Plastic covers replaced after painting.
Inner wheel wells were cleaned up and painted along with the under side .
Weeks of the car being jacked up at the rear end for all of the welding proved to much for the rear shocks. When the car came back down onto its wheels the driver side shock burst. It's not really good practice to put just one new shock absorber so 2 new KYB gas shock inserts where fitted.
The radiator cover was missing when I got the car and unfortunately I couldn't find a replacement so the best option was to make something from sheet aluminium.
A new battery was a last minute addition to this job. It had been slowly getting worse and worse and when it came time to start the battery was flat. After a good charge the battery quickly went flat again so a new one was the best option.
The car now finished speaks for its self.
£11,500 ono
Viewings welcome by appointment. Please contact Kingsley at KJClassics on 07979995720 or kjclassiccars@gmail.com
Text or email preferred as signal is poor in workshop.
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