Distributor adventure

Just change the distributor cap to fix it. Easy?

No.

There was a drop of oil under the car every now and then, which was dripping from the AC compressor (definetly not from the compressor itself). Couldn’t find the source, but then reading an article about the 4A distributor and the distributor seals, I wondered if this was a good time to do a overhaul.

Cap was old and used and so was the rotating bit so nothing spectacular there. Just needed to buy new parts.

I took the whole distributor off the engine and inspected it on the floor.

dist_fix

All the seals were either hardened or destroyed, so I needed to get some new stuff. I went to see the guys at the local shop for such things. I got some Viton seals for longevity.

dist_fix3dist_fix2

I cleaned the whole thing inside out as well as I could. There was some oil inside, but nothing serious. I read the installation instructions from the manual and started slowly to tighten the bolts. I had the first bolt tightened with fingers and used my 1/4″ ratchet to get the second one slightly more tight. There was almost no resistance when *tink*

And this happened:

dist_fix6  dist_fix4

Luckily, I had a second distributor on my spare engine, which got the same treatment. New seals, cleaning inside and swapped the new cap.

The seals did the trick. No more oil dripping off the AC compressor.

Replacing both serpentine belts and testing a new pulley

belt_hole

Is it bad if the belt has a hole?

pulleys

(On the left, original Toyota pulley. On the right, the one that fits BMW and now fits MR2 too)

I’m not the biggest fan of original toyota pulleys (they’re expensive and heavy) so I decided to check out if I could find an alternative. The toyota pulley is 90mm dia, around 20mm wide and has a 10mm hole.

I found a BMW tensioner pulley, which is 70mm dia, 25mm wide with 10mm hole. It is a Dayco 89046 and has a bmw part number 11 28 1 748 131. Fits at least E34 518/520/525.

pulley_installed

Seems to work pretty well. And now it fits AW11 too.

Turbo project – something to show

Mr. Manon from Manon Racing Products, NZ made me a turbo manifold 🙂

20140925_155918

I havent yet bought the actual turbo, but I have a manifold at least! It is custom made to fit a BorgWarner EFR6255 or 6258 turbine into AW11.

Here are some measurements of the engine compartment I took for Mr. Manon to see if it would fit. The engine in the picture is a naturally aspirated one and the trunk side is not very accurate. Also, seems that at least my engine sits somewhat tilted towards forward for unknown reasons.

Measured distances should be accurate to 10mm.

engine-4agze

Click the picture for a bigger, clearer one.