Two Problems (Shifting/Rad) and what the hell is that noise???

[Grandavi]

Well.. winter is holding off, so my upgrades are put on hold until the snow hits, but I have some problems with my 88 Supra, and wonder if anyone can clue me in to what I should be looking at.

First... the car is damn hard to shift into second gear, or out of second and back into first... third and fourth are fine. Is this a fluid issue?

Second, the "rad" light on the right side of my dash comes on when I start the car up now, but goes off as soon as I take a corner. No heat issues (if you trust the stock water temp gauge) that I can see, but when the last mechanic touched my car, he left off the vacuum hose that comes from the top of the waterpump elbow. Dont know if this would have screwed anything up because I drove with it off for about 3 weeks before I noticed it. Not even sure if that is a Rad light.. its just shaped like one.

Third (final), my lower ball joints are being replaced in a couple weeks (when they arrive) and I was doing some small swerving to see how bad they felt (doing an "S" drive down my street) when I noticed that if I turn sharp, it "thunks". You can see the hood vibrate when that happens. Will the lower ball joint just do that? (non-7mGTE related question.. but relavant to a MKIII.)

Just asking the gods here to bless me with wisdom so I dont end up repairing the wrong thing. Just a note regarding the rad, I do have one sourced (a larger rad) just because I have been told that one of the main issues with BHG on 7MGTE's is the heat on the back pistons (the rad is insufficient). Going to be hard piping the intercooler at the same time as I upgrade that.

Any helpful info?


Thanks!

 

[ATL88Supra]

sounds like the linkage is sticking, may want to pull out the trans and check it out before something brakes, add some water to the overflow tank not much just enf to make the light go off.

 

[Rennat]

change the fluid in the transmission with some redline.
do you have new shifter bushings in there too?

 

[gaboonviper85]

our cars don't like to be down shifted past 3rd....don't use gears to slow down...that's what breaks are for.

Put water in your over flow tank

 

[Rennat]

our cars don't like to be down shifted past 3rd....don't use gears to slow down...that's what breaks are for.

Put water in your over flow tank

wtf? down shifted past 3rd?... uhh... theres no point if your just going to downshift to 3rd, it barely has any amount of engine braking. i always downshift to 2nd coming to a light... its part of the reason why i bought a stick. its so i could downshift and save my brakes.

why do you even think that people shouldnt use the gears to slow down?

 

[ATL88Supra]

saving brakes eh... and all this time it thought it was for the neat vroom vroom sound when coming to a stop :3d_frown:

 

[RazoE]

wtf? down shifted past 3rd?... uhh... theres no point if your just going to downshift to 3rd, it barely has any amount of engine braking. i always downshift to 2nd coming to a light... its part of the reason why i bought a stick. its so i could downshift and save my brakes.

why do you even think that people shouldnt use the gears to slow down?

exactly, I downshift to 2nd at every single stoplight and then shift into neutral just before the ECU resends fuel to avoid stalling.

 

[jdub]

change the fluid in the transmission with some redline.

Red Line MT-90 to be exact

 

[suprafanatic]

The rad light is on because the coolant resivor is low, so add some like everyone else said. as for the shifting, it could need new fluid, or your syncros may be going bad. But either way using Red line MT-90 can help

 

[Grandavi]

Okay, Im taking it that the Redline product far surpasses what is currently in the trany (stock fluid), so thats an easy one.

Have not replaced bushings and no idea if the previous owner has done anything to the trany at all, but I doubt it. I haven't looked at doing this, but believe I can do this with the trany on the car by removing the shifter boot. I really dont want to remove the trany until the clutch itself needs to be replaced and at that time I will look at the possibility of the syncromesh gears being hammered a bit by the previous owner. He has shortened the shifter, which originally I hated, and now I dont mind, although the shifter ball comes off in my hand (thats something for me to fix once I find the ball I want with threads that match (this one he just used hockey tape and friction fitted... )

As for downshifting, I have always downshifted... never realised that the Supra hated it. I have noticed though that the brakes have a bit of a "shudder" which is probably caused by doing this so I haven't went past second gear to slow the car, just to smooth out the brakes as using first gear for braking usually gives uneven wear to the rotors. First I have heard of a Supra not liking second gear to brake though, so I will adapt!

Looked at the resevoir for the rad and it is low, which is probably why after the engine warms up and I take my first corner the light goes out.. so easy fix there, although... if the resevoir is low, I have another problem...

I looked at the lines, and found the bottom oil cooler lines are wet on the outside with both oil and either water or antifreeze.. (hard to tell if antifreeze or not) I may also have a heater core pinhole leak because when I run the heater (this is Canada... lol) I can smell antifreeze from the vent. Must not be a large leak because this is the first time that I have noticed the resevoir getting low.

Amazing how people can ignore the engine... so many small leaks on the hoses in this car that could have been taken care of with minimal effort and $$$... I probably wouldnt mind if it was a Tercel.. but a Supra?? (gotta go drive over to the previous owners house and smack him on the head)

Just goes to show you that when you buy a car and the guy is not sure what type of oil it takes that you can pretty well assure yourself it wasn't maintained correctly. If it wasn't for the fact I love the car.. I would have walked away at that point.

 

[sneakypete]

if your balljoint is blown, i wouldnt be testing its limits if i were you. get that fixed asap. not too hard to do yourself. but yes, the clunking is a symptom of a bad ball joint.

since the mechanic left the coolant line from the radiator to the overflow off, i would check to see how much coolant is in the radiator. it may need to be topped off in addition to refilling the overflow bottle. if fact, while your at it, you might as well flush the system all together and start with some fresh toyota red coolant and distilled water.

first thing i would do is start finding these leaks and replacing the hoses. then get your system pressure tested to see if you found them all. its likely you have air in your cooling system.

-pete

 

[Grandavi]

Actually.. it was the "GREEN" hose that was left off on this picture (I colored it). I assume its a vacuum hose, no idea what its for at this point.

 

[Poodles]

Ah, that's no biggy, would just be a vacuum leak.

Now, on to your other questions:

- First gear is ALWAYS a bitch to downshift to on Toyota trannies and it has a strong lockout, you have to rev match to get it in.

- Second gear syncro seems to take the most abuse, the Redline MT-90 will help you get more time out of it, but know that the syncor is getting worn and you'll eventually need to rebuild it. Mine's been great for over a year on MT-90 and it used to grind like mad going into second.

- Radiator light is just low coolant in the overflow. It might be expected as it's getting cooler out as well, but keep an eye on it and check for leaks.

- Balljoint are easy to check. A mechanic can do it for you or the TSRM shows how to do it.

- If you want an upgraded radiator, get a quality one. I know I'm gonna get flamed a bit for saying it, but any of the chinese crap that doesn't have the proper top mounts are garbage. Koyo/fluidyne/PWR/ARC/CSF all make great radiators for our car, some of them require small modifications as they are made for the 1J cars, but actually fit and bolt in properly.

Oh, and if you do spirited driving as much as I do, downshifting saves your brakes from overheating...which they like to do very quickly.

 

[grimreaper]

ah, that's no biggy, would just be a vacuum leak.

Now, on to your other questions:

- first gear is always a bitch to downshift to on toyota trannies and it has a strong lockout, you have to rev match to get it in.

- second gear syncro seems to take the most abuse, the redline mt-90 will help you get more time out of it, but know that the syncor is getting worn and you'll eventually need to rebuild it. Mine's been great for over a year on mt-90 and it used to grind like mad going into second.

- radiator light is just low coolant in the overflow. It might be expected as it's getting cooler out as well, but keep an eye on it and check for leaks.

- balljoint are easy to check. A mechanic can do it for you or the tsrm shows how to do it.

- if you want an upgraded radiator, get a quality one. I know i'm gonna get flamed a bit for saying it, but any of the chinese crap that doesn't have the proper top mounts are garbage. Koyo/fluidyne/pwr/arc/csf all make great radiators for our car, some of them require small modifications as they are made for the 1j cars, but actually fit and bolt in properly.

Oh, and if you do spirited driving as much as i do, downshifting saves your brakes from overheating...which they like to do very quickly.

nice!

 

[supradjza80]

Ah, that's no biggy, would just be a vacuum leak.

Now, on to your other questions:

- First gear is ALWAYS a bitch to downshift to on Toyota trannies and it has a strong lockout, you have to rev match to get it in.

- Second gear syncro seems to take the most abuse, the Redline MT-90 will help you get more time out of it, but know that the syncor is getting worn and you'll eventually need to rebuild it. Mine's been great for over a year on MT-90 and it used to grind like mad going into second.

- Radiator light is just low coolant in the overflow. It might be expected as it's getting cooler out as well, but keep an eye on it and check for leaks.

- Balljoint are easy to check. A mechanic can do it for you or the TSRM shows how to do it.

- If you want an upgraded radiator, get a quality one. I know I'm gonna get flamed a bit for saying it, but any of the chinese crap that doesn't have the proper top mounts are garbage. Koyo/fluidyne/PWR/ARC/CSF all make great radiators for our car, some of them require small modifications as they are made for the 1J cars, but actually fit and bolt in properly.

Oh, and if you do spirited driving as much as I do, downshifting saves your brakes from overheating...which they like to do very quickly.

Listen to this guy. And anyone that thinks that a car shouldnt be down shifted (as long as it is done properly with rev matching etc.) is either not capable of driving a stick, or cannot tell when there transmission obviously has a problem. Any manual transmission should be easy to down shift. Every car I have ever had has been extremely easy to down shift, even into first with a proper rev match (although I do this very rarely).

 

[Grandavi]

Thanks Poodles! (I had a Apricot Toy Poodle.. named him Conan... your name made me think of him.. lol)

I took the car out for a bit of a drive. Definitely lower ball joints shot, but hoping thats all I find wrong in that area. Overall, I think I am leaking about a cup of coolant per week, and not sure where. Oil is still honey brown, so dont think its a BHG, just probably an old line somewhere leaking, will track that down.

As for downshifting, I tried it out. Never really paid attention before, but I downshift, but not into second... I skip that and go into first when I'm slow enough. And thats only because I need to start in first. Second gear is the one I have to rev match to use.

Looked even closer and I am going to have to replace the clutch master cylinder. Its got play in it, and although I replaced the line, I'm still losing about 1/4 of the reservoir per week. When I release it, I can feel the very end part of the pedal coming up in the brake and gas pedal.. very odd.

Anyway, all my questions answered, I have the plan.. now to do it Fix time!

Just a small aside... anyone ever repaint their wiper arms? Im going to do mine (bought a used set because the screws in mine are rust welded and I figger having two sets for a 20 year old car can't be a bad idea). Im planning on just sanding, and using a gloss black tremclad paint.. should be sufficient.

again, thanks for the info! Too bad I found this forum after I bought the car.. lol. I would have paid less for the car

 

[Poodles]

Don't use gloss black paint on the wiper arms, they're satin from the factory.

I sanded mine and painted with satin engine paint so it can take the heat of the sun

 

[Grandavi]

Don't use gloss black paint on the wiper arms, they're satin from the factory.

I sanded mine and painted with satin engine paint so it can take the heat of the sun

Whoops.. lucky I read this, was just about to head out to buy the paint. Thanks for that!

 

[toy fanatic78]

Thanks Poodles! (I had a Apricot Toy Poodle.. named him Conan... your name made me think of him.. lol)

I took the car out for a bit of a drive. Definitely lower ball joints shot, but hoping thats all I find wrong in that area. Overall, I think I am leaking about a cup of coolant per week, and not sure where. Oil is still honey brown, so dont think its a BHG, just probably an old line somewhere leaking, will track that down.

As for downshifting, I tried it out. Never really paid attention before, but I downshift, but not into second... I skip that and go into first when I'm slow enough. And thats only because I need to start in first. Second gear is the one I have to rev match to use.

Looked even closer and I am going to have to replace the clutch master cylinder. Its got play in it, and although I replaced the line, I'm still losing about 1/4 of the reservoir per week. When I release it, I can feel the very end part of the pedal coming up in the brake and gas pedal.. very odd.

Anyway, all my questions answered, I have the plan.. now to do it Fix time!

Just a small aside... anyone ever repaint their wiper arms? Im going to do mine (bought a used set because the screws in mine are rust welded and I figger having two sets for a 20 year old car can't be a bad idea). Im planning on just sanding, and using a gloss black tremclad paint.. should be sufficient.

again, thanks for the info! Too bad I found this forum after I bought the car.. lol. I would have paid less for the car

The clutch master cylinder leaking definitely wont help shifting either

 

[Poodles]

Very true, if you don't get full release it won't want to shift.