Time for a update.
Well it’s been a while since my last post so it’s time to update you all on what’s been happening.
As we all know that we are still basking in hot weather and we haven’t seen rain since the end of May.
It’s getting hotter and hotter and unfortunately cerberus has been suffering with the heat as well.
Whilst out in the hot sunny weather in traffic my clutch had started to play up again.
It got to a point where I almost couldn’t change gear and the clutch was biting at traffic lights.
It was time to replace the clutch master cylinder.
Fortunately on the mr2 it’s a easy job to remove. 2 nuts and a spring clip and it’s out.
Rather than getting another nackered master cylinder from the scrappie Toyota sell a rebuild kit to make it like new again.
Very easy to repair. A simple circlip and it pops apart.
Once it was rebuilt I refitted the master cylinder into the car.
The next difficult task was to bleed the system. The problem doing this is that the reservoir is so small. 2 pumps and it’s empty.
It took me ages to get all the air out but I got there in the end.
Sorted. The clutch felt great again. Or so I thought.
Now when the engine was ticking over and you press the clutch I got a squealing sound.
Wtf!
Even on the road, you change gear and you get a squeal as you press the clutch.
This one was very worrying. It sounded like the clutch bearing was failing and the bearing was squealing.
I had my mechanic friend pop over and he confirmed that it was the clutch bearing.
Shit!
Now in a normal car this wouldn’t be a problem but in the lambo there is no room to split the gearbox so it was going to be have to be engine out again.
Nightmare!
So that was the end of the summer for me and the car.
One evening I decided to take a second look and got the wife to press the clutch while I laid under the car when it was ticking over. I bet she thought about driving off the axle stands when I was lying there. LOL
It was squealing away.
I was busy prodding around with a screwdriver and remembered I heard that sound before. It sounded exactly the same as a chain rubbing agains a chain guard.
Weird! As there’s no chain.
I jammed my screwdriver in between a metal plate under the gearbox and suddenly the noise stopped.
WTF!
I released the plate again and the noise returned.
So I removed the small metal plate and there was the evidence I was looking for.
There was rubbing marks on the plate where the flywheel rubs against the plate when you press the clutch.
This plate must somehow much have become distorted with the heat.
So I gave it a good beating with a hammer to make sure it cleared the flywheel.
Once refitted the noise has now totally gone.
So the clutch is now as good as new.
Phew. That was a lucky escape. I really didn’t want to take that engine out again.
Now with the car all fixed I took cerberus out for a evening meal with the wife.
As we were out till late I finally got to test the HID xenon lights.
There fantastic. I can now see where I’m going down a pitch dark road. Finally.
As always the car draws a crowd in the car park as people want to watch me drive off.
I have decided that Cerberus could do with a little tweek performance wise but need to upgrade a few things first.
I need to fit a bigger intercooler for the turbo and need to fit a big oil cooler to keep the temperature down when under higher boost.
According to mr2 experts I could increase the bhp to around 300 without to much trouble as long as I do these mods first.
So more when I carry out these mods.