Old guy with a great old ride--but you knew that part!

[Old Radar]

Hi all! I'm the original owner of my '89 MkIII turbo. I've been loving it for nearly half my life. I've always been one of those guys that believe the Toyota engineers got it right when they developed the MkIII so I've never had the impulse to modify my car. I have had to replace a few things--the stereo crapped out years ago, a visit to Vermont in an ice storm cost me a right rear tail light and a little body work and I was talked into a new engine after a couple of BHGs but that was before I knew anything about the torque issue. It's a great car and is still my daily driver and I cannot think of a comparable car on the market today that I'd rather own--in fact I can't think of a comparable car!

Sadly, time waits for no car and parts are beginning to be hard to find. Toyota no longer makes struts for the TEMS and if you believe the Tokico Illumina IIs will be back in stock by February 2015, you're in the minority. I lurked quite a while on this site looking for a suspension solution I could live with but once I decided I would have to give up on the Illuminas and therefore let go of the TEMS--and it was a wrench--I considered several options. I never really wanted to "lower" the car so initially I was going to go with KYBs and new OEM springs but then couldn't find the springs. More lurking and research brought me to Jonathan over at THMotorsports and he convinced me that coilovers were my best alternative and the Fortune Auto 500s wouldn't slam the car. (a couple of weeks ago I didn't even know what "slam" in this context meant!)

So with new suspension on the way, I thought I might as well take care of those tie rods that are a little loose and if I'm going to do that (and by that I mean "have that done"...) shouldn't I replace that 25 year old steering rack? Of course I should--it's already exposed and everything!

Finally (I hope) since I'm having all this done, it's long past time to do something about those wheels. You can see from the picture they are kind of mottled looking. It's the clear coat that is wearing away. I checked with Alloy Wheel Repair Specialists (AWRS) here in San Antonio and they want $600 to refinish the set. There's no damage on the wheels, just worn clear coat. If I'm going to spend that kind of money, and since I can no longer say there are not mods on the vehicle, I might as well look for some updated wheels that will go well with the new lower suspension--17 inchers instead of the OEM 16 inch. Jonathan suggested Enkei, but I didn't see anything that really grabbed me. I'm not really into the 5-spoke design and don't care much for black or machined rims. So I'm hoping for suggestions from the crowd!

Well this went on much longer than I intended. In the preview the photo is really small but is clickable for a larger image. I can't figure out how to make it big in the post. Maybe someone can clue me in...

 

[Silver MK3]

Welcome! The Supra looks really clean, it's cool that you're the original owner. I'm the second owner of my Supra. I am in the same boat as you with the suspension, so I'm very interested in your results with the fortune auto coilovers. How much do you plan to lower the car?

It sounds like you want to keep the car mostly stock appearing and just keep up with the maintenance and such on it. One super easy thing to do is use a vinyl wrap to recover the corner trim pieces on the windshield that used to be black but are now chrome as the paint has worn off over the years.

What kind of wheels are you looking for? do you want a wheel that looks aftermarket, or would you want an OEM wheel off another car that could appear stock on the car?

Also, to post bigger pictures use a photo hosting website like photobucket. We'd love to see more pictures of the Supra!

 

[Grandavi]

That, sir... is a beauty. I have had 17 and 18's on my car (18's currently) and they all work well. My final will be 17" rear and 18" front as I want to gain back a little of the sidewall on the rears. If you go to my build thread and look at what my car was originally when I bought it, those are 17's and the pattern is a Enkei rip-off I believe. It works very well on our cars.

I used HSD Coilovers and after a year or so of playing with the settings I found the right "softness" that gives me comfort on the highway without banging my head into the roof everytime I hit a bump. They aren't expensive really and work well. My car got dropped about 1" and that's as low as I will take it. The HSD are pretty well the same as Stance (which I believe Jonathan carries) and both are good choices.

I'm not sure if you are going to do any modifications to the drivetrain, but the one thing I found really woke up the car was simply the 3" exhaust. If you ever go that route, and aren't looking for huge numbers for HP (which isn't really necessary anyway) taking it a little further and doing a 57 trim CT26, Lexus AFM and the 550's with the 3" exhaust is how the car should have been built initially. Of course that's assuming you look at a BPU setup. Stock is fine, but I found that the car was just damn peppy after that initial upgrade. No need for intercooler upgrade, etc... as long as the block and head are strong still, the car will surprise you if you choose to go that route.

Love seeing survivor cars like yours. You kept that body really straight and clean!


... oh... and I do not miss my TEMS.

 

[jugodegolf]

Old guy. There are quite a few of us "old guy's". Welcome and cheers :beer:. :bowdown: Your car. Stock wheel options. I haven't seen these in person but I could see going this route for oem wheels.


I have become fairly attached to the chrome mk4 wheels, but you said you didn't like the 5 spokes.

 

[3p141592654]

Me too, original owner.

For wheels I suggest you look at getting some late model Lexus or Toyota "take-offs". They are generally cheap, and made to the same quality as the sawblades you have. For example, IS250 and IS350 wheels are direct fit.

 

[suprahero]

I too vote for the polished MKIV wheels like George mentioned.

 

[Old Radar]

Thanks for the warm welcome and advice!

Silver Mk3--I'll try that Photobucket thing and let you know how the Fortune Auto coilovers work out--should I do that in this thread or somewhere else?

Grandavi--Wow! You've got quite a saga going. I'm looking forward to reading the whole thing. I can sympathize with the issue you had with your tail light seals. When I had my lens replaced and the bodywork done after my ice storm incident, they didn't get the whole thing sealed properly and after hard rains I would find water in the spare tire well. It took some time and contortion to find where the water was coming from but I got it sealed before the rust monster found it. I have to say, whether it's an innate trait or you picked up the skills from necessity, you are light-years ahead of me in ability and desire to mod. Even the vocabulary is unfamiliar--I'm going to have to find out what "doing a 57 trim CT26, Lexus AFM and the 550's" means... As far as plans for my car, I don't want to lower it more than about an inch. I like the studded feature around the rim on the wheels your car came with--Suprahero has it also in his signature shot. Who makes them and are they a pain to clean?

Jugodegolf--You had me going there for a minute! I thought that was a different wheel without the pain-in-the-ass-to-clean obstructions and little pockets in the cut outs. Upon closer inspection I realized they are sawblades with the irritating parts painted black. Too bad. They do look nice, though.

3p14+--I appreciate your suggestions and I gave them a look. I think my problem (as far as wheels go!) is my life-long preference not to go with the herd. I owned a red '83 MkII for a couple of years, so I've driven a Supra for over 27 years because I like the fact that it doesn't look like every Camry or Honda Accord or Camero or Datson/Nissan Z Car that I passed. Now many of you might think this isn't really true because I never modified my ride to make it completely unique, but even when my Supras were new, I wouldn't see more than one or two others on the road in an average month as opposed to passing all those other guys multiple times an hour. That's rare enough for me. Since I've been thinking of finally changing my wheels, I've been really looking at wheels--a lot--and they all seem to be very similar. Sure, there are different "families" 5-spoke, double-5, 9-spoke, etc. but all are some version of the others. Looking back, that's one reason I've been happy with the sawblades all these years--they don't look like everybody's Cragars. I'm leaning toward something like Suprahero has in his signature--even though they are 5-spoke. I'm intrigued by those fake stud-looking features on the perimeter of the wheels. The fact that I'm having trouble finding them on the market makes me even more interested.

Suprahero--Who makes your wheels and what are they called?

 

[te72]

Radar, I'm not on here as much as I used to be at my old job, but I'd like to welcome you to the forum. Your car is beautiful, and I must say I admire a guy who sticks with a car for nearly 30 years, that's awesome.

As for wheel suggestions, I believe Jay (Suprahero) has Work Equip wheels. They are a semi-popular choice for our Supras, and with good reason. Depending on your budget, you might look into CCW or HRE wheels. At least in the case of CCW, those "studs" that you like the look of, are actually bolts. The wheel is usually a two or three piece construction, meaning the "barrels" (the rim itself) of the wheel and the "face" (spokes) are all bolted together. This allows a variety of widths and offsets to create a well matched to your car wheel setup.

For more options, check out CCW here:

http://www.ccwheel.com/wheels.php

 

[jugodegolf]

Old Radar, Jay's aka Suprahero wheels are a great way to go. My original 89 went through a few changes. Here is an old pic that shows the ride height diff. Left one is tokiko's w/ eibach springs vs right stock height. The left is stock 92 wheels and the right is wider mk4 wheels. Chrome is very easy to keep clean vs. stock painted in my humble opinion.

In regard to the lexus, 550's that is BPU basic parts upgrade which makes the car alot more worthy in the realm of keeping up with the vettes.:evil2:

Mark S. Has a Turbo R. He has pics of two sets of wheels Rays and Sparco's worth a look also. Link to his introduction
http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?121282-Newbie..-Some-pics-of-my-Supra-twin-turbo-1jz

 

[Old Radar]

Okaaaay, well I checked out CCW, HRE and Rays Engineering and now I'm depressed. Now refurbishing the sawblades for $600 seems like a really good deal. Damn it. Any decent knockoff brands with bolts that aren't necessarily functional?

 

[suprahero]

As stated above, my wheels are Work Equips. I think they were 1800.00 from Japan when I bought them about eight years ago.

 

[Old Radar]

Well, here is an interesting turn of events. After becoming despondent over the potential outlay for quality wheels in the style that caught my eye and the fact that I would have to go with a larger diameter rim than I had anticipated due the unavailability of 17" rims in that style--and I didn't even want to think about the extra mods that would be required to make that happen...I saw an ad in my local Craigslist titled "got Toyota car rims&stirs".

The darkish grainy phone photo showed a stack of four rims and "stirs" with that oh-so-familiar sawblade design. A crazy idea burst into my brain and I quickly looked back to the picture that fellow "old guy" jugodegolf posted earlier in this thread of a chromed sawblade with the vents painted black. I liked the look immediately and now I saw it might be possible to experiment along those lines and still keep my sawblades unsullied in case the experiment turned to shit. When I went to look at the rims, they showed signs of having been stacked and re-stacked for some time. The surfaces all had scrapes but no gouges. The caps were all intact. The "stirs" were all hard, mismatched, worn and worthless. The seller accepted my offer of $120 for the set and I loaded them up.

Now, I know they are doing some good work with chrome-like paint and have even heard of powder coating that looks just like chrome. My question for the crowd is: does anyone have any first or second hand knowledge of how those options look and last? Let me hear from you! In the meantime, I re-post jugodegolf's photo.

 

[Old Radar]

Okay, after a lot of research and calls to several tire repair shops and chrome shops, I couldn't find anyone in the San Antonio area that would consider chroming my wheels. Most places do chrome work for the aircraft industry--one place only does propellers and another said they only do small components and all their staff were over 60 years old and wouldn't be able to lift a alloy wheel. I visited the folks at Wheels America who said they send their wheels for chroming out to a shop in Dallas and it would take three or four weeks. After seeing the work they did right there in their shop, I decided to have the wheels powder coated and machined. First they powder coated them gloss black and then machined the faces. Finally they powder coated clear over everything. I'm really happy about the way they turned out. The sales rep turned out to be a Supra fan and really liked my car. He gave me a great deal and only charged $400 for the set instead of the normal $600.

I can't wait to see rubber on the wheels, but the coilovers don't get here until next week and I'll have everything changed at once.

Here is a shot of how I found the wheels and what one of them looks like now.

 

[jugodegolf]

Well done.

 

[Silver MK3]

Okay, after a lot of research and calls to several tire repair shops and chrome shops, I couldn't find anyone in the San Antonio area that would consider chroming my wheels. Most places do chrome work for the aircraft industry--one place only does propellers and another said they only do small components and all their staff were over 60 years old and wouldn't be able to lift a alloy wheel. I visited the folks at Wheels America who said they send their wheels for chroming out to a shop in Dallas and it would take three or four weeks. After seeing the work they did right there in their shop, I decided to have the wheels powder coated and machined. First they powder coated them gloss black and then machined the faces. Finally they powder coated clear over everything. I'm really happy about the way they turned out. The sales rep turned out to be a Supra fan and really liked my car. He gave me a great deal and only charged $400 for the set instead of the normal $600.

I can't wait to see rubber on the wheels, but the coilovers don't get here until next week and I'll have everything changed at once.

Here is a shot of how I found the wheels and what one of them looks like now.

Wow, that looks great. Now I'm considering that on my car. How did they get the center cap so shiny?

 

[Old Radar]

Thanks! Actually, "they" didn't do anything with the center cap. I stripped the old paint off with Orangestrip, a "green" stripper that I got at Home Depot. I got the most gentle stripper they had since I didn't want it to eat through the plastic. These particular caps have a thin aluminum plate on top of the plastic--as opposed to the caps on my original '89 wheels that are all plastic. I suspect (but don't know) that these wheels were from an '86.5-'88 MkIII and Toyota converted to all plastic sometime between then and my '89. Can I get verification from some '86.5-'88 owners? Anyway, Wheels America said they couldn't shoot the caps with powder coat because they would melt in the oven--even if I took the metal plates off the plastic. Left to fend for myself, I buffed up the caps and re-painted the sides and letters black. It appears that the aluminum plates have a clear plastic coating on them because Mothers Mag and Aluminum Polish didn't react with them at all. I tried to find a paint shop that would clear coat them but most places weren't interested. I thought they could just shoot them with what was left over in the sprayer instead of wasting it. The one place I found that that said they would do it wanted $50 per cap to spray--I laughed and said I would be afraid to ask what they would charge to paint a whole car! I've ordered a spray can of two stage high gloss clear coat from the Eastwood company to finish them off myself.

 

[Silver MK3]

Thanks! Actually, "they" didn't do anything with the center cap. I stripped the old paint off with Orangestrip, a "green" stripper that I got at Home Depot. I got the most gentle stripper they had since I didn't want it to eat through the plastic. These particular caps have a thin aluminum plate on top of the plastic--as opposed to the caps on my original '89 wheels that are all plastic. I suspect (but don't know) that these wheels were from an '86.5-'88 MkIII and Toyota converted to all plastic sometime between then and my '89. Can I get verification from some '86.5-'88 owners? Anyway, Wheels America said they couldn't shoot the caps with powder coat because they would melt in the oven--even if I took the metal plates off the plastic. Left to fend for myself, I buffed up the caps and re-painted the sides and letters black. It appears that the aluminum plates have a clear plastic coating on them because Mothers Mag and Aluminum Polish didn't react with them at all. I tried to find a paint shop that would clear coat them but most places weren't interested. I thought they could just shoot them with what was left over in the sprayer instead of wasting it. The one place I found that that said they would do it wanted $50 per cap to spray--I laughed and said I would be afraid to ask what they would charge to paint a whole car! I've ordered a spray can of two stage high gloss clear coat from the Eastwood company to finish them off myself.

I've got an 87 and mine are all plastic I'm 99% sure. It must have been an option for the cars that came with the polished wheels from the factory or so. I would definitely try and clear them yourself before paying a shop $200 to do it, that's ridiculous.

 

[Old Radar]

I wasn't aware that there was a polished wheel option. The wheels I bought off Craigslist had the same silver-gray paint that my own wheels have. When I removed the paint from the caps is when I noticed the tops were clad in thin aluminum. It's easy to tell without stripping--just pop them off the wheels and check the underside for the little tabs folded under the lips. See the attached pic. My theory is that it was cheaper for Toyota to simply produce an all plastic cap that was complete in one step instead of adding additional material and the process to combine the two pieces into a single unit. That's just my shot-from-the-hip assumption. I've done no research to verify.

 

[supraguy@aol]

The wheels came out very nice.
Sorry that you couldn't find a 17" option that you liked, as I think 17's are the proper size for the MkIII if you're looking for modern yet understated.
I know there was someone who had custom 'rebarreled' sawblades made that gave them increased width, but I don't know if they had a change in diameter or not.

 

[Old Radar]

Thanks! I've been looking at a lot of pictures of MkIIIs lately and I have to admit, the ones that really catch my eye are the ones with sawblades. I'm not saying that the aftermarket wheels don't look good--some of them really do. But, I guess the purist in me identifies the real Supra "look" with the OEM wheels. I'm looking forward to seeing the machined version on my car and hopfully I won't wish they were 17 inchers.