Delayed updates here then.
DVLA just made it into 2021, car is on the road and has a few thousand miles behind it since then.
I had to remove the one leg equipment for MoT purposes, but I have kept it for erm, reasons.
I made as best of a job as I could of repairing the 90s head unit. It’s pretty broken still but I’ve sorted out bluetooth input, so it works OK for now and keeps the dash looking right.
During the process I was in hospital twice with kidney stones, which was not pleasant, but at least fixing the head unit provided something to do.
Polished up the faded paint areas a bit.
The thermostat was weak and acting like a VW diesel, so fitted a new one of those, and changed a couple of the engine mounts that had collapsed as they were causing mega vibration at idle. The rear diff mount clonks a little coming on and off power sometimes, I’ve changed the rear one but the front one is a fair bit more expensive, so that’ll need to wait a bit.
It’s had a new cambelt as that was 4 years overdue. I made up some stickers with the 90s UK Toyota slogan on for the rear window. It would usually be inside but as you can see, the rear tints are mega mega dark and you can’t see anything.
I also put the refurbished wheels off the G6 on here with some new Michelin CrossClimates, as they were an optional fit for this car and suit it much better than the knackered standard ones.
I have lashed some Lanoguard wax around the sills and wheel arches, in a vain attempt to protect it from the UKs miserably long wintery salty roads. I then took it for a drive round Yorkshire to improve the looks of it, as it was too clean.
It’s been a reasonably faithful winter companion so far, we’ve had a couple of bits of snow here and there but nothing too meaningful, and importantly it’s got a great heater.
That brings us to today, where I think I’m managing to sort out something that’s bugged me since I got it. That fancy clutched centre diff I mentioned above? Well, it wasn’t really doing much of the job of a clutch. If you had it switched on (as was default in some of the cars it was fitted to) it would start binding up on tighter turns going forward and making lovely noises, where reversing was like trying to move with the handbrake on.
Fortunately this car has a switch that just cuts off all pressure to the clutch pistons, so I had been able to use it and probably would have been OK - 4wd anyway but only locking when you needed it. However, didn’t sit right with me that it wasn’t intended to be used that way, with the switch only there for towing or using the donut tyre.
I changed the centre diff oil which was clean, so that at least gives me some confidence no damage has been done, and there are no bad noises in normal driving. After odd long journeys, I noticed if you put the auto locker on, it wouldn’t bind and would drive normally. I’ve started down the road of doing some drain and fills of the ATF with the newest stuff Toyota make for this box, and it’s early days but so far it’s looking like that’s cured it.
Oh, I’ve also added a small tweak to the startup sequence of the car to fill any passengers I might have with confidence in my driving. Ignore the interference buzz, the head unit does this for the first couple of minutes in cold weather.
