JonGS3

Streeter delivered!

I'm super tempted to look into having the struts rebuilt just because they more or less match the color of my car but I imagine the Bilsteins are probably going to be better quality either way...

JonGS3

Grill installed! It didn't come with mesh so I got some black hex mesh that took forever to cut to shape. Fortunately, I managed to install it relatively straight. Then I couldn't let the tired rad support show through so I hit it with some semi-gloss black spray and used a black paint pen on the hood release latch and actuator bar. I'm debating on a set of red Hella horns to add a little color accent and fill up the void a little. Also need to find a black hex bolt to replace that worn out grey one in the dead center of the support bar.

Now I'm extra motivated to get going on the paint and clearcoat correction. Body matched spray paint is on order as well as a touch up pen to work on all of the rock chips in the hood.

firelizard

iTrader: (1)

Looks good! The hex mesh is similar to what Tom's used for the VA300. Yours kind of splits the difference between the Tom's hex and the original TRD expanded mesh.
I got the same TRD badge as you but clipped off the "TRD". Then the enamel fell out of the logo, so it's all silver

You can just spray paint those bolts and that horn bracket.

dwoods801

is the grill a real TRD part? Or one of the much more affordable units I have seen on ebay? It looks it fits pretty well, did you have it painted? Or it just happened to be a good match?

JonGS3

Authentic Toyota It came color matched. I saw a handful on Buyee in other colors but you have to scroll pretty deep to find them

JonGS3

Bad news: ABS/VSC lights came back on after driving over an expansion joint on the highway so I'll have to go back to figuring out what the deal is with that.

Good news: Sportivo springs are in! Ride height doesn't seem too drastically different. They're about the same overall length as the black springs and a nice middle ground between those and stock. Sharp hits are smoother but of course at the cost of body roll and turn in. Since I've been hitting dead ends trying to find Toyota/Lexus OEM bushings that fit the Sportivo sways, I think I may try going poly to bring a little tightness back. I also replaced the rear forward lower control arms which seems to have solved the soft knocking I've been hearing from the rear left corner so I'm super happy about that.

The rear knuckle bushings at the camber bolts are on the to-do list as well since they seem pretty worn out and flex really easily.

firelizard

iTrader: (1)

Is your front swaybar upside down?

If it is, it can crush the VSS wiring on compression, and cause that fault.

JonGS3

Damn I hope not and don't think so. There wasn't any damage to the wiring on the original one when I removed it...

JonGS3

Got some more work in progress tonight. Lower interior is pulled out (again).

The vinyl around the center console trim is pulling away.



Got some adhesive with clamps drying overnight to hopefully hold it back together. If it holds by the morning then I'll do the rest of it.



Carpet is out for sound deadening. Closed cell foam around the vertical sections and Second Skin Luxury Liner Pro along the floor. Two sheets is enough for coverage on each side. 100% coverage of the floor is recommended which isn't really realistic with the raised sections the seats bolt to. I think this should be pretty good though. Here's hoping the carpet will fit back over it tomorrow.





Front seats getting the dye treatment.

Before





This was just from cleaning the driver's side



First coat of dye drying



I had just enough to get a full coat on each seat with a 2nd coat along the front facing wear areas.

I've got a black passenger seatbelt to go in upon reassembly but I still need to find one for the driver's side. I wasn't able to find a second black foot vent to go under the driver seat so I hit my tan one with black spraypaint. Better than nothing I suppose. A blackwood steering wheel should get delivered tomorrow from ebay. Then I'm down to just needing the driver's seatbelt and a black airbag and the interior swap will be fully complete!

JonGS3

Trying to bond the center console vinyl back to the frame didn't really work out so I gave up on that for now but the rest is all back together.

Treated seats





Black passenger seatbelt installed. It might be the only one still in existence that still has clips for the trim piece that fits into the seat trim so it actually snaps into place and stays.



Carpet went back in very well. Surprisingly the only fitment issue was getting the center console back into place. It got hung up a little on the luxury liner strip I put over the rear tunnel hump but I was still able to finesse it back into place.



I added a tiny bit of weatherstripping where the center armest cubby fits into the console to reduce creaking when I lean on the armrest



And more soft tape added over the cubby clips to keep them from creaking too



I then applied silicone grease to all of the door and window seals and then used a less than elegant solution to block wind noise coming in around the front door seals. The seals all badly need to be replaced but I'll need to convince myself to stop spending money on fun parts first.



The blackwood wheel showed up today and is super mint. It was advertised as brand new but without original packaging which I think might actually be the case. It's in perfect shape but was covered in a ton of dust from wherever it's been sitting for the last who knows how many years. It was advertised as for the ES330 so I had to swap the cruise control wiring since it uses a different connector from our cars. I was also pleasantly surprised to find the airbag came with it which was not mentioned in the ebay ad. Of course it's a different generation airbag from ours so I couldn't install it but I'll need to see if I can get the black cover off without mangling it.

JonGS3

Just took a quick drive. The steering wheel seems to be off by a spline...one of these days I'll put one on straight the first try. The car is noticeably quieter though! The weatherstripping pretty much reduced all of the wind noise on the driver's side but I'm still getting a slight whistle from somewhere around the passenger A pillar. But compared to how loud it was when I first drove it up from Florida it's like a completely different car.

JonGS3

For anyone who may be interested in following my path of making terrible financial decisions, I have just recently spent twice on this car vs. what I paid for it. I think my original purchase price was $4k and I'm at almost $8,800 in addition to that Definitely not bragging because it's pretty stupid but it's definitely been a mostly enjoyable process and how could I ever put a price on that?

I've been saving all of my emailed receipts/order confirmations and used this lazy day off to save them all as PDFs as part of my documentation. I broke it all down on a spreadsheet to send to my insurance company to make sure this thing is properly insured. I then separated them all by maintenance/repairs, which have been quite reasonable for a 20+ year old car, and mods/upgrades, which have gotten a bit out of hand especially with the yahoo Japan auction temptations.

Audio is only $164 so far which is just wiring and speaker adapters for planned upgrades which will probably be another $1400ish with what I'm planning

Body is about $850 so far with about half of that being the TRD grille and trailer hitch receiver. If I'm successful in the paint restoration then that will save me a lot.

Engine is about $1200 which is all maintenance short of the wiring I just ordered to upgrade the battery/alternator positives and grounds. Although that kind of borders on maintenance too.

Exhaust is at $885 for the mufflers but $600 of that was just to have them shipped here. They're the only thing I'm including the shipping cost in the part cost given how much it was. I decided to hold off on having those installed in case I can find a TRD mid pipe.

Interior is about $3000. About $1200 was for the 90% complete black interior from the junkyard with the rest being piecemealed together plus all of the sound deadening. I only counted the shifter bind and one of the rear seat stay clips as maintenance with two of the A/C blend doors being preventative items. This was the biggest cost and in hindsight I should have held out for one that came with a black interior but the flipside to that is then I probably wouldn't have ripped it all apart as much as I did to do such a deep cleaning.

Suspension is at about $2600 with about $600 being the TRD parts and the rest being maintenance/preventative replacement. This doesn't include stuff I ended up not keeping installed like the Tein and black TRD springs and I'm hoping to find buyers for them to recoup their costs. This was in line with expectations since "normal" owners of old and high mileage cars like ours aren't spending money on suspension replacement unless it's absolutely needed.

But at least at this point I think I'm over the biggest bulk of my spending. Short of audio upgrades, the next big ticket items will be door seals and the windshield. I'd still like to do the driveshaft guibo, diff/subframe bushings, and evap lines/hoses all at once so that will be a chunk of money too but they aren't so bad that I can't hold off for awhile.

Then we'll see how long it stays on the road which will hopefully be long enough to make all of this worth it.

JonGS3

Airbag cover swapped and new floor mats are in. The interior swap is almost complete.

JonGS3

This morning I woke up with an orbital buffer and a dream. In anticipation of attempting to respray the bumpers, I figured I should get it all cleaned up to see how bad the paint is overall and get an idea of what I'm dealing with.

First, I thought I'd try my hand at working over some of the worse paint chips in the hood since some of them were starting to either bubble and crack or show signs of rust.

Before









Used a razor to break up the worst bubbles. Wet sanded the worst spots. Applied touch up paint followed by a little clear.











Then wet sanded down to try and smooth those spots out followed by rubbing compound.





]

JonGS3

Then gave it a wash, pulled it back in and went over the whole car with synthetic clay bar, then pulled it back out and washed again with Dawn dish soap:





Not sure what this weird dull spot is. Looked like someone tried to touch up something in the car's prior life










Hood looking super hazy from the compound