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Newbie starlet owner 2015 - opinions on waterless wash?


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Well I picked up my very first glanza on 4th Jan, needed a few bits doing to make it spot on,

Here she is as bought

IMG_1256_zps35edbb71.jpg

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Bodywork was spot on, and spec was good:

Recon ct9

Greddy BOV

Blitz turbo timer

FMIC

Fse FPR

HKS actuator

Side exit exhaust

HKS mushroom air filter relocated just behind bumper,

Car was losing coolant and temp guage wasn't working (dangerous combination I know)

Changed the thermostat and realised that's where she was leaking coolant from so two birds with one stone there,

Next was servicing work,

Oil, filters, plugs, new red anti freeze, timing belt a few other little bits, thanks to I'd-workz for all these bits and a little bit of money off too from website prices 👍

Then bought some magnecore leads From a member here :) when I went to change the king lead it was rusted into the distributor cap so snapped off -.-

One phone call and trip to the local Toyota dealership later and new distributor cap and rotor arm were in, and a good job really as the rotor arm that was on there was pretty shagged.

Had a few hours tidy up under the bonnet with some abrasive metal polish on the rocker cover and intercooler piping, and replaced some rusty bolts and bits

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Here is the engine bay at present,

Next up from relocating the number plate, bought a dremmel on the recommendation of another member on here and set about cutting the front bumper apart :) came out quite nice

D82F4CE7-E7FD-4F2F-B82A-E9984D30756D_zps

Last job done was making the speedo work, which was as simple as a broken converter so speedo now works but reads in KPH which doesn't really bother me :)

Still got a few bits to do:

Painting or replacing the intercooler so it looks a bit fresher,

Plug and play ecu so I can get rid of the FCD time Bomb that's on it at present,

The strut brace is coming off for painting tomorrow,

Gonna fabricate some sort of surround for the exhaust

More cleaning and tidying and then eventually once I've absorbed enough knowledge from scouring the forums I'm going to forge and td04 her as I have a lovely freshly recon TD04 sat in the garage begging for use,

Always having had one car and always having been a company car I've thought a lot about buying something I can actually work on but never had the time or patience or money to do so,

So it's been a busy 6 weeks and a swift learning curve but have gained a lot of knowledge off of this forum so thank you to everybody that has helped me with advice and/or parts so far and no doubt I'll need plenty more in the near future 👍

Edited by tommyn1991
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Welcome

Marlons old car never did trust this car he use to rag it every where in Enfield nice to see you looking after it more then he was he offered it to me but noway I knew what was wrong with it ..

Good luck thou mate and hopefully it's in good

Hands now

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  • 1 month later...

Well on the way home tonight I rolled to an undignified stop... Checked fuel and spark and couldn't come up with any reason why it wouldn't start, couldn't figure out what was wrong...

Half an hour later had a more thorough look, plugged the king lead back in and I'm back in business. But I swear first time I looked it was fine 👍

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Since I bought my starlet in January I've had to replace the thermostat twice, and just recently it built up so much pressure in the cooling system that the top hose burst in 2, which despite looking cool as the whole lot went straight onto the manifold and created a hella load of steam, I can't figure out why?

I replaced the hose and all seems okay, then today I noticed its building up a lot of pressure again and the hose was solid,

It's not gonna be something silly like the radiator cap not letting off any pressure? Or maybe thermostat again?

Anybody had this issue before?

Just hoping I'm not gonna end up with head gasket problems

Any advice much appreciated

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It's possible to be the radiator cap mate.



I've had this exact problem recently mate. For me, added pressure was causing water to expand into the water bottle overflow. I tried a few things, and was head gasket. But it's a really easy job to do on the drive with minimum of tools. It takes only a few hours, including the removal of intercooler pipes and what not.



But if the rad cap is broken, it won't allow water to go into the overflow.



I bought a dog of a starlet and was abused. Simarly, I was finding little, or no, maintenance for it in the past 3 years. Since it's been up to me to sort out.



If it's not the radiator cap, then it'll be the head gasket. Don't despair though. Easy job. Just wans some £££ and time. Can do some serious maintenance on it like, valve lapping, valve stem seals, Water pump, cam belt, tensioners, poly bush engine mounts and nice blue ASH silicon hoses on the rebuild.



Or just do the basics. SKim and a head gasket. I'd say, if the heads coming off, do as much as you can. Lapping valves gives you more bhp. Valve stem seals might as well get done.



It's easy enough for you to do yourself. Or cheap enough to just let a garage do.



Either way, lots of information on here to help you.



Hopefully it's just the rad cap. But as said, I bought a neglected starlet and that's my experience. Hopefully yours will be different.


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Thanks very much for that, very useful info, well tbh I'm no stranger to head gasket changes as I had a K-series MG for a good while haha

the rad cap that was on it the seal was all perished so I replaced it but did so with a pretty looking one from flea bay and the bastard gets so tight I don't think it's letting any pressure off so the header tank always stays empty,

I've had a fairly incident free 4 months so I'm expecting to have to spend some money on Maintenance soon enough,

Depending on whether a new Toyota cap solves the problem I'll take it off the road, do head gasket, timing belt and a few other bits and aim to have it back on the road for the few weeks of summer we might get in a couple of months!!

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Was bored today and remembered I had a set of white decals that I decided not to put on the car in the end, I measured up and the glanza badge from the back was a perfect size for the front badge so I took it off, sanded in back, sprayed it black then applied my white glanza sticker, resulting in...

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Quite pleased with it just as a temp fix til I can track down a replacement

Edited by tommyn1991
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