When I had my FR-S never bothered making a build thread for it... was a daily driver that I really didn't work on much. Sold it just over a month ago and I just got a 1989 MK1b MR2 an it's my first classic which I want to take the necessary time and work to make it right. Actually picked it up myself this past weekend on a 1,900 mile round trip to bring it home after close to a month after purchasing it. Got it for a decent price ($2500) and it's in good running shape with an okay paint job and interior. I've just started getting into it and this is its status thus far on what work I know it needs:
1. De-rust bottom of trunk, prime/rust inhibit bottom of trunk, and protect with bedliner.
2. De-rust bottom of frunk, prime/rust inhibit bottom of frunk, and protect with bedliner.
3. Remove carpet from passenger compartment bottom and check for rust, fix as needed (just like trunk & frunk...)
4. Remove non-working A/C system (not going to try and get it working and chance it causing rust since it's partly in a sealed enclosed space (frunk) unlike most vehicles)
5. Sand, prime, and repaint frunk tire/brake cage piece
6. Battery tray rework (deacidify & rebuild, in weak flimsy shape from being eaten away over the years - why I hate and refuse to use Lead Acid vented batteries)
7. Passenger headlight not able to go up and down on its own - have to manually crank it into position.
8. Driver's window switch not working (will go down but not up...)
9. Interior light switch not working
10. Repair & paint rear taillight housing
Will be redoing interior in Alcantara (two tone look with 9002 panel charcoal and 9052 perforated Starlight) except for the rear engine bulkhead carpet which is in great shape. The stock seats are in great shape, but I need a little bit lower seating position for using my Momo wheel (NOS wheel I've had for a long time and finally can use in a vehicle) so will be going to aftermarket buckets with fixed mounting. Seats currently undecided but would like something like the Momo Daytona if it would fit (shoulder area only concern). The radio gear will be coming out (head unit and power antennae) and oil pressure/temp and water temp gauges put in place of head unit... only sound I care about is that which comes from the 4AGE.
Came with a dead battery, just got in a replacement battery yesterday - Hawker Odyssey PC925MJ. Mistakenly somehow ordered the reversed post orientation one (PC925LMJ), but able to make it work.The motor is leaking from distributor, so that will be fixed along with cleaning and beefing up all the factory mounts with 3M Winoweld to make stiffened transmission/engine mounts... what I've learned that works well from tracking Honda's. Then I'll go through the cooling system and determine if it needs to be refreshed, if in good enough shape I'll then put it on the road - if not will redo the cooling plumbing. Engine overall seems to be in good enough shape for now and maintenance was recently done on it within the last 15k miles... so will leave it alone for right now (probably freshen up the valve covers though to make it look a little better.)
Full T3 lower suspension front and rear will be done at a later time - this MR2 already has Koni dampers with Eibach Pro springs and new strut tower mounts. Rather than mess with replacing bushings on 163k mile suspension pieces would rather just replace them with the stronger and more adjustable, solid spherical bearing T3 race units. Only body appearance changes I will be doing is custom mounting some racing mirrors and going with 15x7 +35mm ET Sparco FF-1 wheels in light grey which will drop nice bit of weight compared to the MK3 Spyder wheels it currently has.
Pictures of it's current as bought condition:
Will be getting the new Quick Jack as my very first version won't work with the lifting points on the MR2 (and it has some issues not being able to go down... LOL) They have done many improvements to the design since first coming out, and the new BL-5000SLX is absolutely perfectly fitted for the AW11 and I can use it with my truck or other vehicles as well. Once I get the new BL-5000SLX I will be able to get moving on working anything not interior or inside of the trunks.
Anyways, this thread will be record of my progress on Project MR2.