Category: Toyota Corolla T Sport “E12”
It’s only nuts and bolts.
That’s pretty much how I refer to any job on a car. Nuts and bolts. Something that should be simple with the right instructions. That is until one snaps, then it’s panic stations.
One of the jobs I’ve been putting off since hearing about it, is replacing the “lift” bolts on my engine. It was one of the first things I read when buying the car that earlier models came with badly designed and badly installed bolts that actuate the “lift” part of the variable valve timing. It was said they can snap when the engine is in use or when trying to get them out to replace them with the new improved bolts that were fitted to later models. Having one snap on me and having to try and fish a broken bolt out of the head is possibly one of my worst nightmares.
Guess what… it happened.
I was all set today to get the rocker cover off, whip out the old bolts, fit the new ones and give the rocker cover a lick of paint. Of course all this had to happen late in the afternoon after watching the Formula one but after reading the how to (here) it didn’t seem like it would take that long.
Don’t ask my why my rocker cover has writing on… I don’t know. I really think this car has a shady past and the engine is involved in that somehow (maybe a replacement?). The rocker cover put up a bit of a fight to remove. It took a good few “taps” with a wooden block and hammer to free it up, a good sign it hasn’t been off before. If that’s the case, I had a good chance that the engine has the old, weak bolts.
That was proven when the first one I attempted to remove, the intake side, came undone too easily. It seemed to have quite a bit of thread coming out though so I wasn’t sure at first. My fears were realised when I came to the end of the thread and only found half the bolt. Panic stations. Can I drive the car like this?… How can I get the broken bolt out?… Do I trust myself to drill it out?… All questions that popped into my head. Luckily, and I use that word loosely, the second bolt came out fine but I’m still stuck with half a bolt in my engine.
Apparently you can still drive the car around, it just won’t have “lift” so it isn’t really advisable to go over 6K RPM. I’m not even starting the engine until it’s fixed though because, A: I don’t want to risk any damage occuring and 2: I don’t want to put all the rocker cover back together just to take it off again. I’ve ordered a Snap On screw extractor set which should arrive and then hopefully I can have a go at removing the broken bolt. Until then… I’m cycling everywhere.
Well after that big blow I decided to crack on with refurbishing the rocker cover. I’ve stripped a few Honda ones before and always done Nitromors and soapy water but with this one I’ve done it a bit different. Firstly, it was covered with dirt, oil and grime so I had to get rid of that. I used some of my Citris degreaser from my bike and a good stiff brush to work around the entire cover to clean all the muck off. Parts of it were pretty thick so needed a good few coats of degreaser but it all soon came off. I then went to work with a wire brush, getting off any stubborn corrosion before using some sand paper to key up the surface. The original paint (if there is any) didn’t really look damaged so I didn’t feel the need for Nitromors. After a good clean with some hot soapy water and a blow dry I could start painting.
I wanted to retain the OEM aluminium look but I didn’t have enough VHT paint left in my can so I had to apply a couple of layer of black. Black is boring though. I do however have a can of bronze paint left lying around, unopened so tomorrow when the black is completely dry I’m going to give it a coat of bronze and see how it turns out.
That’s about it for today. One tiny snapped bolt stopping me in my tracks. I just hope I can use this extractor kit properly when it arrives and remove the bottom half safely.
New shoes.
MOT job number one done.
The handbrake on the Corolla was far from perfect. In terms on “clicks” it was on around 16 and to be “in tolerance” it should have been between 6 and 9. Even pulled up it didn’t seem very strong so today I set about changing the shoes and adjusting the handbrake.
The Corolla is a bit of a weird one in my eyes as it has both discs and drums on the back. The hydraulic caliper and disc does all the main braking while the drum part is used only for the cable operated handbrake. Non of my cars before have had this setup, it’s either been one or the other and even when the Civics had drums I changed them out to discs before having the chance to work on the spring mechanisms. I thought it was going to be a bit fiddly with all the new tight springs but honestly it wasn’t all that bad.
I got the car up in the air and stripped down both sides at the rear to expose the brake shoes contained inside the hub section of the disc. The old shoes didn’t actually look too bad but with new ones already bought I thought it was best to change them anyway. It’s actually a pretty simple process of:
Knocking out these clips and pins that hold the shoes in place, then…
Prising out the adjuster from the underside and removing that spring, before…
Grabbing each side, pulling them apart and trying to maneuver everything connected to the top around the hub and out of their fixings. Then you have to flip the shoes over and disconnect the handbrake cable but that is it for removal. A piece of cake! The trickiest part is getting the shoes to lift over the hub and out of their fixing points but with a little wigging here and there it came off.
Fitting them wasn’t too bad either. Everything is the reverse of removal but this time you have to fight tighter springs. Long nose plies and flat blade screwdrivers make things a whole lot easier to persuade everything to go into place.
Adjusting the handbrake was easy too. The “star” adjuster at the base of the shoes is done first so that the shoes slightly drag on the inside of the disc and then you head inside the car, remove the centre console and play with one nut until you’re happy with the reach and effectiveness of the handbrake. Mine is well within tolerance now so that’s one less thing to worry about during the MOT!
I have found something else to check out though. I’ve heard once or twice when I’m driving a scuffing sound coming from the front drivers side wheel, usually at speed when I hit a dip in the road. On inspection there’s a nice shallow gauge in the tyre but I can’t quite see where it’s coming from. I can be fairly certain the arch liner is catching slightly inside the arch but there doesn’t seem to be anything catching the edge of the tyre like that… I’m going to switch the tyres around and see if a different tyres appear with the damage after a drive as I can’t be certain the tyre wasn’t already like that. Either way, I’m not stupidly low so can’t imagine why it’s catching the arch like that if it is catching…
New nuts & a cock up with a knob
When I realised how quickly my news alloys had been sent to me I had a bit of a panic abouts wheel nuts. I didn’t have any to suit the more tapered seat of the alloys and no local shop seemed to sell them. Luckily I managed to borrow a set off Kyle which had the correct angle but they didn’t really have a large surface area. I had a look around as to what was on offer and with the wheel studs being a fairly common M12 x 1.5 thread I had a lot to choose from. While I was at it I went looking for a weighted shift knob to help out a bit inside the car but unfortunately there didn’t seem much to choose from on that front. Toyota use a M12 x 1.25 thread for the shift knobs and that doesn’t offer a lot of choice.
I ended up going back to BuddyClub for both items. I bought 3 sets of their P1 Racing Nuts and a Type B shift knob. They arrived today, quick as a flash but I saw a problem straight away. The shift knob has a tiny M8 thread inside it and there’s obviously no way that is going to thread onto a M12 gear stick. I was slightly confused as the listing on the website specifically said Toyota and the part codes on the box and on the site matched up. After a quick Google I found out the M8 thread actually belongs to automatic transmissions but that the standard size for Toyota is most definitely M12. It then occurred to me the part numbers were based on the thread size. The one I’d been sent read BC-RSK-8125B, meaning M8 x 1.25 (Type B). What I actually need is the Subaru listing which is BC-RSK-12125B, or M12 x 1.25 (Type B). As soon as I’d seen the error and worked this out I sent Buddy Club UK an email pointing out the error and asking if I could exchange the item but as of yet I haven’t heard anything back.
The nuts on the other hand are perfect. They have a lot more surface area to engage with the alloys than the nuts I was borrowing and they’re, well, a lot prettier. In terms of unsprung weight, the BuddyClub nuts are more than half the weight of the OEM nuts but at 27g vs 66g per nut, it really isn’t going to make any noticeable difference at all. A weight saving of 468g isn’t really that much in the grand scheme of things but I guess every little helps right?
Apart from these two buys I’m trying to get a few bits and bobs sorted for MOT time. My handbrake is pretty bad at the moment so I’ll be replacing the shoes and adjusting that at the weekend. I’m sure a CV boot has come loose too so I need to investigate that and do a few other checks so hopefully I’ll have a few more Toyota posts coming up.
Be on the lookout for a new video featuring Kyle’s EP3 too. It’s now running 400bhp. 😉
I’m still here!
Don’t worry, I haven’t gone anywhere! I know I haven’t really posted much, or anything, in the last few weeks but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on things. I’ve got a fair few projects on the go and the updates on one, or another haven’t been good enough to post. Until now.
This is the standard, dirty, Corolla. She’s sitting on 16″ OEM alloys wrapped in Falken 205/55/16 Tyres. The alloys are well passed their best with lacquer peel, curbing and embedded brake dust. I was meant to be replacing them with a set of 16″ OZ Racing alloys that I’d picked up cheap. Was. Past tense.
What’s on their now, is a pretty much brand new set of BuddyClub P1 alloys and Pirelli 225/50/16 P Zero Nero tyres. They’re meant to be lightweight but the chunky wide tyres have added enough weight to make the new gear weigh the same as the old worn gear. Chunky tyres look so much better than stretched tyres! (My opinion) The way the dish of the alloys is exaggerated a bit more by the lip of the tyre. Ooft!
They work. They really work! I love how they’ve transformed the look of the car but the only problem now is I want coilovers to level the car off. It’s too high at the rear…
Free Performance
I’ll start by saying I’m not a performance enhancement master but over the years of playing with cars I have learnt a thing or two from various sources and come to my own conclusions about performance. One of the things I focused on with my Civic was weight reduction. It’s one of the first things you can do to theoretically increase performance. If you look at figures then it will definitely work and in the beginning it won’t even cost you a penny.
I think the very basic idea of weight loss is quite simple. In terms of my Corolla (taking the Parkers list values) it weighs 1255KG and produces 189bhp. This gives me a power to weight ratio of 150.6 BHP / Tonne. The factory car will obviously come with a lot of extras that you won’t necessarily want on the car if you’re thinking about racing etc so let’s just say you find 100KG to remove. Nothing has changed on the engine but suddenly you’ve increased the power to weight ratio to 163.6 BHP / Tonne. It’s all there in the figures. If you strip out weight you increase the potential locked in your car.
There are of course a lot more complex ideas surrounding weight (centre of gravity, unsprung weight etc) but keeping it basic let’s just say less weight is good.
I had a little play today, removing all the rear interior and seeing how much weight was locked up in that. In the rear alone I managed to find (roughly) 59.3KG which should have taken the rated weight of the car down to 1195.7 KG and increased the power to weight ratio to 158.1 BHP / Tonne. Stripping that weight out didn’t cost me a thing, but on paper it’s made the car quicker.
If you’re interested, the weight was locked up in these parts:
- Boot floor – 5.4 KG
- Spare Wheel (Steel) with 185/65/15 Tyre – 14.6 KG
- Parcel Shelf – 1.9 KG
- Rear Seat (Single – Upper) – 7 KG
- Rear Seat (Double – Upper – Inc Seatbelt) – 11 KG
- Rear Seat (Single – Lower) – 2.8 KG
- Rear Seat (Double – Lower) – 3.5 KG
- Left Side Rear Plastics – 4.1 KG
- Right Side Rear Plastics – 4 KG
- Lower Tailgate Cover – 0.4 KG
- Left & Right Seatbelt Units – 1.7 KG
- Seatbelt Clamp – 0.3 KG
- Under Seat Left & Right Brackets – 2.6 KG
That’s just removing the “easy” things. I could have started stripping out the sound deadening stuffed into the side panels or chipped away the tar sound deadening from the floor. I didn’t remove the speakers or touch the head lining or pillar trim either.
Everything is back in now and it’s back to daily spec but that was just an experiment to see how much weight was in the rear. When I get a chance I’ll strip down the front too to see where savings could be made there but after saving near enough 60KG today I don’t think 100 KG is that far off before you start having to spend money on lightweight parts.
For those interested, the list I made for the Civic can be found here:
Brass Bushings.
Ok, so here’s what happened with the bushings. Truth be told, I actually went to fit these first, before the shifter because they looked so simple. Simple. That word. I should know by now a simple job is never simple. In all honesty this could have been a 5 minute job but for me it’s going to take just a little bit longer…
The standard bushings in the end of the gear linkage cables are rubber. Over time they deteriorate and stretch and the gear changes become very sloppy. I think this is one of the main reasons for the missed gear changes and frustration trying to select a gear. When I looked at mine, one bushing (the horizontal one) was strangely deformed and half slipping out of the gear selector end so they definitely needed doing! Replacing them with the brass bushing will make everything that bit more precise and tight. Exactly what it needs.
The kit contains two expertly made bushings, two clips and two pins (oh and a bit of sand paper). It really is, or should be, a simple job. Accessing the cable ends from the passenger side wheel arch you can easily reach in, slide the old locking pin out, pop off the washer and prise out the old bush. It shouldn’t take that long at all and it didn’t for the vertical bushing! The most difficult part turned out to be fitting the new C clip. I couldn’t get enough force to pop it on by hand so I ended up tapping it in with a hammer and my breakers bar acting as an extension.
The horizontal bushing however, is going to be a right pain. As I already mentioned it looked very out of shape before I even took it apart but when I did get the gear selector cable off the bush didn’t come with it. It was stuck, mis-shapen to to shift linkage pin. I gave it a bit of a wiggle and that just tore the bush out. It didn’t completely dawn on me at first but the reality soon crept in. I tried to cut the remaining rubber off the pin with a knife but it wasn’t cutting through. That’s when I realised what had been left behind was the metal collar. The metal collar of the rubber bush, seized to the pin. Great. I’ve began soaking it in penetration spray and tried to work it loose with a selection of pliers but it’s stuck fast. Heat could be an option but there are rubber hoses and petrol lines close by and I don’t really want to risk setting one of those alight.
At this point in time, I’m stuck. I’ve had to refit the torn rubber bushing around the seized pin and reassemble the linkages. I’ve spoken to Ant who produces these brass bushings and he has said others have had the same problem and it is possible to remove the linkage pins as a completely assembly to tackle the seized collar. If that is the case it’s going to have to wait till next weekend now.
Shortshifting.
The short shifter is in!
I have to say, comparing it to fitting a short shifter on an “EG” Civic it’s a lot simpler despite all the “advancements” in technology between the cars! On the EG it was a case of stripping away the centre console and then getting under the car to disconnect the linkages (via the bitch pin) before dragging it all out, switching it over and re-assembling. On the Corolla I did everything inside the car! Genuinely it was such a simple job. The instructions provided with the short shifter made it all that bit clearer too.
I’m not going to do a write up as, well, the instructions in the kit are brilliant but essentially it’s a case of removing a few bits of clipped in trim and then unbolted the centre console. Pulling out two pins to disconnect the linkages. Unbolting 4 bolts to replace the rubber washers with metal washers. Popping out the plastic securing collar (which was the most awkward part) before removing the shifter. Simple!
Now there’s an obvious drop in height on the shifter but the whole thing has stiffened up too. It’s brilliant. Shifts are nice and precise now. There’s no more play and so far, no more missing gears. I went for a bit of blast and in places where I’d struggle to hit a downshift before, I was selecting the gear perfectly. I have also half fitted the brass linkage bushings but the tight fitting of the shifter in the housing has made a big difference. I will have to get a new weighted gear knob now for that extra shifting force but for now I’m very happy with how it’s all gone together and the benefits I’ve felt.
The brass linkage bushings are next. They are half done… but more on that tomorrow.
Something old and something new.
Today, I’ve took delivery / gone to collect a few more parts for the Corolla. The first, something old, is a set of O.Z. Racing Saturn alloys. I’ve been searching eBay for a cheap set for weeks and came across these listed as “For Parts / Not Working” because they were a bit curbed. The last second snipe came into play again and I managed to pick them up for the low price of £32. This evening I drove up to Liverpool (which probably cost me as much in petrol as the alloys did) to pick them up. I don’t really think they’re as badly curbed as the advert described so I’m pretty happy with this little bargain. I might attempt to refurbish them myself but I think it’s more likely I’ll get them professionally done. A nice deep bronze should go down well I think.
From the looks of it, these wheels were produced in 1997! They’re not the lightest by a long shot but they’re only going to be “daily” wheels.
The new parts come in the form of a short shifter and brass shifter bushings. I really think a massive weak point on the Corolla are the gear changes. The OEM gear is so sloppy that getting it into gear can be really awkward sometimes and if you’re trying to do a quick gear change before entering a corner you don’t want to have to try two or three times to get it in gear (which does happen).
After looking around Corolla Club UK I read that these shifting problems are usually caused by the sloppy, weak rubber bushes in the gear linkages. A member on the site has produced some brass shifter bushings which are a direct swap for the rubber bushes and stiffen up the whole linkage making shifting more accurate. He also produce replicas of a short shifter that is no longer in production for the Corolla which again comes with some metal bushings instead of rubber.
I have to say, I’m very impressed by this guy. He seems to have stock of these parts and as soon as I’d made payment he’d bagged them all up securely and sent them with recorded postage to me. When they arrived today I was pleased to see not just the parts but a small bag of Haribo’s and an excellent guide on how to install both parts. If only all people provided a service like that!
The short shifter can be purchased HERE
The brass gear linkage bushings can be purchased HERE
Hopefully I’ll get chance to fit the shifter and bushings at the weekend and the wheels will be refurbished as and when I can afford it! I’ll have to make some more random woodwork to pay for that I think.
A bit of flashing.
Wow I’ve forgot a lot when it comes to taking photos!
The old girl got a good clean and wax yesterday so I took her out in the evening for some photos. I took a flash with me to try out the TTL system again to see if I could get some of the results I was getting “back in the day”. Back then I had two remote flashes, triggered by PocketWizards and they could go anywhere and light up anything. This one flash on TTL sucks.
I couldn’t get the car lit how I wanted it so had to do my best to work with the line of sight trigger. I really wanted a second to cast an extra layer of light… Black cars are hard work with flashes though.
Also car related; I’ve found an awesome driving road. Quiet, tight corners, hills and undulations. I’ve taken a few runs at it and got them all on GoPro but the wind noise is terrible. I’ve tried the sponge in the back and putting a layer of petroleum jelly around the join but the wind still blocks out everything. It doesn’t help I have a quiet standard exhaust but still when the GoPro states the non waterproof door for up to 100mph and I’m using the waterproof door with wind noise taking over at 30mph you know something isn’t right…
6 Month Oil Change & One More Thing
I’ve got to start by saying this isn’t the most exciting of all posts but it’s another job ticked off. The oil change! Sam (Thanks Sam), kindly brought some Comma Xtech Oil and a Blueprint Filter along to Japfest for me, and today, in the glorious sunshine I swapped old for new. You all know how it goes by now, it’s just one of those jobs to keep on top of to keep the engine healthy. One thing I may invest in though is a magnetic sump plug to see if there is any crap floating around inside the oil.
The “One More Thing” part is something I didn’t expect, nor do I know how it happened. I went over to Cannock Chase today and enjoyed a nice bit of mountain biking (videos to follow) but after, when leaving the car park I was aware of a grinding, dragging, kind of rattling sound coming at random low engine RPM. It wasn’t an engine noise but something underneath so taking an educated guess, I figured it was the heat shield. When I got home and checked under the car I found the first under car heat shield had actually fallen off and was resting on the exhaust. It was easily pulled out after slipping off one exhaust rubber but it seems the front two mount have snapped off and then the rear mounting has pulled through. It’s a bit of a strange one but no damage done to anything important. The heat shield won’t be replaced any time soon.
Function 88 