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Joe's '91 405 Mi16 (and '90 SW and '92 Mi16)...


91MR2

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Ok guys, little side project while we wrap up the front suspension stuff...

My car, as I imagine most of yours, has a pretty blown apart glovebox. Still can't figure out for the life of me why it is such a heavy yet delicate affair, but they all seem to be destroyed at this point in the lives of these cars. I am attempting to rebuild mine with a combination of gorilla glue, epoxy, and mesh tape. It will be a bit of a project, but I'm confident it will be nice once done. Here is what I've done so far: Took out all parts, sanded all sharp the edges down, and then used the gorilla glue to re-attach the parts in place. Next step will be fiber-mesh tape with the glue to add surface strength in all the repaired areas. Finally, will brush on epoxy over everything, and then finish with a spray adhesive over the entire repaired areas. Here is the early progress...

 

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What are you using for epoxy?

I fixed some plastic motorbike fairings with Lords Fusor line of repair adhesives and was blown away with how good it was.  Glued cracks together and used it to fill in gaps from missing pieces and it refinished beautifully. 

Rabin

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Hi Rabin, just standard jb weld, but I haven't even gotten to that part yet. Just using gorilla glue to get the pieces back together with the fibermesh, once that is all good and hardened, then a matrix of jb weld will go over everything. I do not intend to even use the glovebox going forward, but with the way the 405 dash is put together, you kind of need the internals of it to attach the glove box door accordingly, plus when the hvac flapper goes, you need to access through the glovebox. But also trying to find a way to make the entire glovebox assembly removable once this project is done, because from the factory, they are not designed to come out unless you pull the dash (absurd). Hoping to have this done tomorrow, will update then...

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Men, that a lot of work for such a common part, did you looked at getting a replacement, i've had to change it on my Mi16x4 once a friends gun went off inside. Its was a easy job i changed it in the scrapyard where i bought the replacement for 5$. As memory serves the euro glove boxes are very different in shape.

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Some more small but important updates today..

Finished the glue/mesh/epoxy on the glovebox...then sprayed the entire repaired areas with a matrix of spray adhesive, and then once dry, sanded out some areas...overall, satisfied with the job...per Savo's suggestion, may layer it even further with some fiberglass matting/resin...good idea...

Next was carefully heating up my foglight bezels, and re-installing the new oem foglights (of course after cleaning everything)...came out nice...

Finally, did a second session of cleaning 30 years of dirt and embedded grime on the inner barrels of the wheels...this job sucks...

 

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Hi all, picked up some more parts today, thought I'd give an update with where we are at:

For starters, every fluid will be new...

Engine: new timing and accessory belts, new valve cover gasket, new coolant hoses where needed (some had some swelling in areas), general tidying up from previous repairs, ie. better hose clamps, zip ties where necessary, etc.

Gearbox: adjusted clutch/linkage for better feel, otherwise good...

Brakes: all new, nothing to do but bleed...

Suspension: new lower balls joints, new strut bearings, new strut bellows, new Boge lowering springs (with oem shocks), LCA bushings and sways bar bushings to be done in the fall (not needed, but why not...)

Steering: new inner/outer tie rods, new rack boots (all 3), general clean up...

Interior: removed all seats, door cards, deep cleaned everything, removed all parts of dash to repair broken tabs where needed, in process of rebuilding entire glovebox, in process of taking apart power driver's seat to clean out all the old grease and re-assemble with new...

Exterior: new oem foglights, removed all wheels for deep clean including inner barrels, cleaned and polished the paint, hired pdr to remove all dings, will receive final cleaning/wax once done...

Progress has been slower than I had originally planned, but the car will be better in the end, as we've found little things along the way that would have undoubtedly reared their head at a later date...so no regrets there... 

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Fantastic job getting the car sorted - and done properly!

Curious what kind of rubber is mounted on the rims?  Those cars are so light and handle so good I’d be tempted to run so pretty aggressive tires to really let that chassis shine.  

Rabin

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Rabin, i can answer that question, i recognize those yokohama S drive 205/60r15 on the first picture of the car from there side grooves, they are a bit over stretched on the factory rims and a bit too tall. But knowing how short the final drive is they may be a better choice. i'm i right Joe ?

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Hey guys, small update...

Suspension work is complete, hoping to have all fluids changed this week, including fitting the new coolant hoses, as well as the new valve cover gasket...Hoping to be driving it very soon...

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Joe, if you've changed hoses on an MR2 then the 405 is simpler, but there is some things that can help you. To drain the system use the radiator drain first, then go the the engine drain, it is located above passengers axle bearing carrier, it's easy to miss, look for a plastic 8mm allen key slot, removing the passenger front tire and inner fender liner is a must, and first hose i usually remove is the two long ones that go to the back of the engine this gives you some more room go get at the smaller hoses at the back of the engine, they can be a pain, also be careful on the heater core hoses i recommend cutting them and pill them off because of some years the pipes are brittle plastic, good to hear form you, get us some more pics?.

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That's interesting about the brittle plastic pipes.  When I was dismantling the 404C in November 2016 I was trying to save the heater hose that goes into the thermostatic tap and was twisting it hard and the thermostatic unit's tube cracked apart.

Doing it more delicately by cutting the hose would have saved the old part - the heater hose needed replacement anyway - but in the end I got a brand new thermostatic unit so it's all good again.  This is the only piece of plastic in the whole cooling system of the 404C!

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18 hours ago, Goce said:

Joe, if you've changed hoses on an MR2 then the 405 is simpler, but there is some things that can help you. To drain the system use the radiator drain first, then go the the engine drain, it is located above passengers axle bearing carrier, it's easy to miss, look for a plastic 8mm allen key slot, removing the passenger front tire and inner fender liner is a must, and first hose i usually remove is the two long ones that go to the back of the engine this gives you some more room go get at the smaller hoses at the back of the engine, they can be a pain, also be careful on the heater core hoses i recommend cutting them and pill them off because of some years the pipes are brittle plastic, good to hear form you, get us some more pics?.

Goce, thanks for the info. My mechanic has basically had all the hoses off already, he wanted to replace everything that had ballooned up, and fortunately nothing broke in the process.

Photos soon, I want to clean everything up a little first...

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Ok all, suspension work is done, brakes have been bled, every single fluid replaced, and for the first time in a month, the car is on the ground again...the ride height is perfect for me...

 

 

 

 

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Your front ride height is a bit lower than before, now it matches the euro Mi16, you are a bit high in the rear, so you may want to take the torsion bars one tooth back, the 405's can have the pendulum effect in the rear if they are too high, drive it and tell as your thoughts on the ride dynamics and handling.

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Thanks guys. It was exciting to get it back on the road, but was saddened when an old running issue popped back up, a stumbling issue that develops, as well as a surging idle and on/off CEL. The stumbling issue had been at least temporarily solved with a new distributor cap. However I did not replace the rotor at the time. When we put the car back together here, we put on the new rotor, and now the running issue is back...

Seems insane that the new rotor can cause a running issue, so I'm going to hang my thoughts on seeing what the code/s is/are with the CEL...will report back soon on that...

Just to re-cap, here is a list of everything done to the car in the last 2 months:

For starters, every single fluid (engine oil, gear oil, brake, PS, and coolant)...

Engine/gearbox - timing and all acc. belts, cap/rotor/plugs, new VCG, repaired/replaced any suspect coolant hoses and water jackets

Steering/suspension - inner/outer tie rods, all 3 steering rack boots, Boge lowering springs (on oem shocks per everyone's suggestion here), strut bellows, lower ball joints

The car has come a very long way these past couple months, and I'm very excited for it...we're getting close, just not there yet...

 

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To change the rotor you touched the HT leads. Sometimes some of them don't fit very well and can mess with the ECU.

It's just a theory but fixing the issue with a new cap then bringing it back with a new rotor seems strange.

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I've had to chase an intermittent poor running on my Mi16x4 couple times almost always ignition related, most often it was the HT leads, they go so deep inside the head that they have a lot of places to arc against, i've had brand new oem HT cables arc on the valve cover, so couple years in, me owning it i started to wrap the HT cable ends that go in the cylinder head with insulation tape on all 4 cylinders i was changing plugs every 2-30 000 km sometimes sooner when driving it hard especially on LPG. Also i've had to change the graphite contact in the middle of the distributor cap they can show symptoms like you are describing. I've helped other mi16 drivers in my city diagnosing the ignition issues by simply driving their car i was at that point that i can disting a arcing HT cable from simply having dirty plugs because it never seen more than 3000 rpm, those peoples reactions are still in my memory when i drove there car to redline thru first three gears hitting the rev limiter on each shift, haha?

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  • 91MR2 changed the title to Joe's '91 405 Mi16 (and '90 SW and '92 Mi16)...

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