A wheel change

Now that is a seriously funny title........oh it isnt? Oh well then :)

Jim has had a period of nine days off and used them to do up the Soarer no end.

First of all, the most major upgrade was that the Wolfrace Kendo wheels arrived and they look soo good its totally changed the look of the car from really good to totally amazing! Everyone has commented on the look since we have fitted these. Speaking of which, fitting them was no mean feat, Jim had to get hold of adapters and spigots to make the modern wheels fit the old wheel hubs and even then he had to fix them because the bolts in them were busted!

Next up, the brake hoses that had arrived at last were fitted which was a real puzzle due to each one having a different configuration of male and female connectors. Whilst this was being done, Jim also replaced the front brake pads.

Once this was done it was time to fit in all of the speakers for the in car entertainment system since we already had the JVC head unit. He has put a huge 'bazooka' subwoofer and Phoenix gold amplifier in the boot and fitted Infinity rear speakers and a JVC center speaker and amp in the front. Films on the built in TV are really like the cinema now - only with better seats! :)

Next up was painting the bottom half of the car the same white as the top to turn it from two tone into a single colour. No mean feat as it is a special Pearl white which required multiple layers of paint to replicate. As you can see from the photos, it worked out really well and looks almost as if it came out of the factory as one colour. On a roll with the painting, Jim painted the brake calipers red, too, befitting such a high end sports car :) You can just see this in the photo of the wheel below.

There were various problems with the lights at the front and we managed to fit one brand new sidelight and indicator and Jim managed to get a very similar indicator from another Toyota from ebay which is the one pictured below.

We were lucky in that we managed to obtain a timing belt tensioner (also from ebay) so Jim got a new timing belt fitted it and attempted to sort out the timing - it had been running too fast since we got it and sounded like it was straining itself every time you started it up. Fixing this, however resulted in terrible performance from the car so it must have been set like that intentionally, resulting in us having to put it back to its original state.

Another great addition to the car is the PA system which allows you to create your own horn sound and even speak out of the bonnet of the car to stunned pedestrians! Endless fun :)

As Im sure you'll agree from the pictures, everything is going very smoothly with the restoration and there isnt a whole lot left for us to consider. Maybe a total manual transmission conversion will be in order at some stage and we are looking at getting a total suspension overhaul too although it means losing the TEMS.


I have also added a couple of new links to the right.