The New Supra!

[earlingy]

I found a Supra on craigslist, and jumped on it! My friend and I took a little road trip and picked it up. I'm moving up from my nissan 240sx to the supra
It's an 87, burgundy, 5spd, non turbo, 181k miles. As far as I can tell, it hasn't been abused, but it has been neglected.
It came with a fun little list of problems:

• no powersteering or a/c
• bald leaky tires (one with a nail) [Edit: BFGoodrich G-Force Sport]
• exhaust rotting off [Edit: Homemade exhaust with flowmaster sounds great]
• slipping clutch
• rear brakes completely gone
• 12" sub in the trunk [Edit: All gone! I put the original tape deck back in.]
• stock horn replaced with air-horns [Edit: Factory horn restored]

The first thing I did was freshen up my handling. I put on BFGoodrich G-Force Sport UHP summer tires and got an alignment.
I also put a new oil filter in (the other looked years old and the oil was black), replaced the drain plug, and changed to 20w50 oil. I know that isn't ideal for performance but it should help with my minor oil leak. I also got the stock horns to work and zealously destroyed the airhorn.

On the way from Advance auto is:

• spark plug wires
• ngk platinum plugs
• distributor cap and other such tune ups
• clutch master and slave cyl
• brake shims

Also on the way from 935motorsports is:

• Stage 1 Clutch Kit
• Basic brake package
• Stainless steel brake and clutch lines

My supra-brother (his is a fully restored 83 into which he plans to drop a 7mgte) gave me his old mufflers, and I was going to put them on myself, but the pipe is an oval...no circle. I was going to have a shop weld it on and they said they would for $30, but they wanted to close early so I'd have to come back monday. It isn't killer loud, and it sounds pretty good anyway, but it's a little buzzy. I figure this flowmaster will help that.

 

[bmoss85]

:ttiwwp:

 

[Mischief7m]

ditto, lets see it!

 

[ill Z]

Just out of curiousity, how much did you pay for the car?

 

[earlingy]

$1500
I got new tires and cleaned it up since this pic. As soon as I have time to spend a couple hours waxing and detailing it, I'll do a nice photo shoot and put up some real pix.

 

[jgcable]

Nice car. Has the head gasket ever been done?

 

[Boost Lee]

Wow!

Extremely nice looking car.
I look forward to seeing it completely cleaned up.

As shameful as most cheap bastards on here will be to admit it (Just because clean Supra's are getting harder and harder to find), I think for $1,500, that was a great price.

Sounds like you're on the right track with getting it back up to par.
Do you have any previous records or information on what the car has most previously had done?

Jeff

 

[kicknsupra]

nice find looks a lot like mine:icon_surp

 

[tlo86]

it does look good, just hope there is not rust anywhere,.. if not even better Lol

 

[earlingy]

I have no idea what has happened to it lately- not much though. Pretty neglected. I do have all the original papers from the dealership purchase in 1986- window info papers, dealer installed options (it came with a shadow), owner's manual, etc.

I have no idea if the head gasket has been done... it doesn't seem to burn much oil or anything. It does gurgle a little sometimes but I think that is it's lack of catalytic converter. Regardless of its past, for performance and longevity reasons, I DO plan to replace it with a thin metal headgasket and ARP head studs if it will make it that long- tires and a working clutch and brakes were higher on the list, now I'm low on funds. As soon as I sell the other car I should have the money to get inside the engine a little- any other recomendations on internals? I don't want to spend too much and my goals are only mild horsepower gains without loss of reliability/driveability.

Sometimes the low coolant light comes on, but I suspect it is a vacuum line because there is a loose vacuum hose right above where the main rad. hose attaches. The place the hose is suppose to attach is broken off, it's on my junkyard list.
There is no rust except a very small corner on the rear left fender where the plastic piece meets a metal corner.

It sputtered a little bit today while driving it in heavy rain. Couple things I suspect: fuel injector o-rings I think are the number one culprit (exact same symptoms on my 240sx ended up being injector o rings), or maybe some intake mani gaskets. It could also be fuel injectors...Could it be the k&n cone filter sucking in water? It didn't do it when I started up the car but after maybe 5 minutes of heavy rain driving it started sputtering and did so all the way home.

I also got all the wiring for the sub out from under the carpet, got the amp out, the wires leading to the battery, etc. I also took out the cd player and put in an original supra tape player. I then listend to The Talking Heads on tape as I further detailed the interior. Welcome to the 80s, folks.

 

[Boosted516]

the car looks amazing but $1500 seems a little high, considering the amount of work it needs....maybe i just got a deal on mine

 

[yayfish24]

Car looks great. I would have bought it for 1500.

 

[earlingy]

Last Thursday I replaced the slipping clutch with a SPEC Stage 1 clutch. It's pretty quick! I have never owned a car that didn't have a sloppy old dying clutch, so with this brand new hard one, I can barely drive it in parking lots...
I did all the brakes this weekend. All new pads and rotors, and I added stainless steel lines. Even though they are completely covered by the stock wheels, I painted the calipers silver. I figured if I ever get aftermarket wheels, I would want painted calipers, and it takes practically as much work to just paint them as it does to replace them.
While waiting for the calipers to dry, I detailed the entire interior. I took the backseat out and ripped up all the moldy insulation/sound deadening. Under the backseat I found almost 2$ in change, putting me at over 4$ for the whole car, heh. I cleaned all the carpets and polished all the vinyl and leather. I put some fragrance oils in the carpet and under the seats to make it smell new.

!!!!BUT after doing all that, I tried to start it for a test drive and nothing happened. Not even a starter clicking....leaving the doors open for hours this weekend, I think I ran my battery down, and it was already past closing time for the autoshops... I tried to jump it, and the starter would click, but the engine wouldn't turn over at all, and the lights flicker when I put it in start etc.

 

[tbcmorris]

Pop start it?

 

[Keros]

Put it on the charger for an hour.

Also... I realize this may seem obvious, but make sure the battery connections are tight.

 

[earlingy]

 

[Jimbo]

sick.

are you planning on swappin the bumper and tail lights to '89+?

 

[OfnaRcR4]

I have no idea what has happened to it lately- not much though. Pretty neglected. I do have all the original papers from the dealership purchase in 1986- window info papers, dealer installed options (it came with a shadow), owner's manual, etc.

I have no idea if the head gasket has been done... it doesn't seem to burn much oil or anything. It does gurgle a little sometimes but I think that is it's lack of catalytic converter. Regardless of its past, for performance and longevity reasons, I DO plan to replace it with a thin metal headgasket and ARP head studs if it will make it that long- tires and a working clutch and brakes were higher on the list, now I'm low on funds. As soon as I sell the other car I should have the money to get inside the engine a little- any other recomendations on internals? I don't want to spend too much and my goals are only mild horsepower gains without loss of reliability/driveability.

Sometimes the low coolant light comes on, but I suspect it is a vacuum line because there is a loose vacuum hose right above where the main rad. hose attaches. The place the hose is suppose to attach is broken off, it's on my junkyard list.
There is no rust except a very small corner on the rear left fender where the plastic piece meets a metal corner.

It sputtered a little bit today while driving it in heavy rain. Couple things I suspect: fuel injector o-rings I think are the number one culprit (exact same symptoms on my 240sx ended up being injector o rings), or maybe some intake mani gaskets. It could also be fuel injectors...Could it be the k&n cone filter sucking in water? It didn't do it when I started up the car but after maybe 5 minutes of heavy rain driving it started sputtering and did so all the way home.

I also got all the wiring for the sub out from under the carpet, got the amp out, the wires leading to the battery, etc. I also took out the cd player and put in an original supra tape player. I then listend to The Talking Heads on tape as I further detailed the interior. Welcome to the 80s, folks.

Thats prolly not it. Shouldn't have anything to do with the low coolant light anywho.. Check you fluid level? Sometimes the sensors in the overflow tank get stuck and make the low coolant light come on too.

 

[YoungGunSupra]

co sign on the above post. thats what was happenin to mine..just take out the coolant resevoir and flush it rinse it out. mines had a bunch of gunk in it and was getting stuck so my coolant ligjt kept comin on. GOod luck with the build

 

[hvyman]

To bring back a old thread or not to bring back a old thread?