I decided to buy this one over the other 6 or 7 i looked at for four simple reasons:
1) Its (nearly) completely stock (except for the muffler and a range expander on the radio) 2) Its incredibly clean 3) It was only $6000 4) and had only done less then 100 000kms, of which only 20 000kms were done in australia
I was very lucky to find one at that price which was so very nice.
However it is 18 years old now, and it does have its troubles. Most of which are pretty trivial but i've been listing up as ive been driving it for the last fortnight..
It seems that the brake accumulator is constantly pressurising. I've read threads here and here and here. Basically my car shudders when breaking at speed, which i thought might originally (before reading those threads) that it could be a warped rotor. In fact I think it could be a combination of the two, or one causing the other. Either way I'm thinking it may be best to get the accumulator gassed or a refurbished one and then if shudder still exists but the constant re-pressurizing goes, i know whats left.
Another fault was the display for my climate control had the LCD run. I've already put an order in from this guy. It should be shipping soon.
There are a few bits and pieces of the interior damaged, like the handbrake cloth cover is damaged, and the shifter release button is cracked and the front passengers seatbelt buckle has lost the plastic cover. These are all bits which i hope to replace pretty much today which i've taken off work to visit the doctor but hopefully am well enough to wander into the wreckers too.
The last real "annoyance" is the 12 stacker cd player laser reader is on the fritz. Its obviously been reading discs for 18 years now and even stationary it will have read errors. I'm going to replace it with a first aid kit and the head unit with a CV radio in one din, and a mp3 player in the other. Something dark to fit in the colour scheme.
The actual goal for this car however is simple: In december my small group of friends is going to be fully completing a project car (should be done this month or november). That car is an old Nissan 260z JDM. Its motor is the 1JZ-GTE, the same in my car, its going to have roughly 30-50more kw than my car and will have probably 300kgs less weight. The goal is to have both cars ready for a road trip, a trip from Brisbane down via the coast road to Sydney then Melbourne, then inland to Canberra and back inland through to Brisbane. Reliability is the only factor we're looking for to complete that goal anything else is just gravy
Anyhow, I just wanted to thank everyone for the information which is available here, a lot of which is incredibly detailed. I really find the community here very mature which is a nice change from various other forums so a big congratulations to the moderators for keeping it that way.
Thanks for welcoming me here,
Cheers
Peter Nitschke Junk Filterer South Australia UZZ30 UZZ31
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 11:27 am, by: Jol Alexander(Courage)
G'day mate and welcome.
Yep they are lovely cars eh.
All your faults are pretty common for our cars - but as you ahve pointed out, they are getting on. 100K - awesome!
Speak to some blokes here and find out who the soarer mechanics in your area are, getting a run of the mill mechanic to look at your car is just a waste of cash.
You got any plans to put rims on her, lower, tint ect?
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 11:39 am, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
Jol Alexander wrote on Friday, September 04, 2009 - 11:27 am:
Speak to some blokes here and find out who the soarer mechanics in your area are, getting a run of the mill mechanic to look at your car is just a waste of cash.
I'm actually specifically lucky in this case - you see I'm best friends with a toyota school taught mechanic. We were best friends since year 8 in highschool and started out apprentice mechanics together. Whereas I dropped out because holden is ass and the culture was awful, he aced the first year exam to get the top score of apprentices in qld and was snapped up by lexus.
6 years later and we're still best mates and he knows everything i could possibly want someone to know about my car (and me ;) )! Not denying there may be better specialists around and I'll be using them too, but for the most part it gives me an excuse to ask him around if there are car troubles
I won't be lowering the car, I think its a cruiser not a sports car (i want to stay as far away from pretending its a supra as possible), I want the ride height to make it easy to go over speed humps and down driveways. I have considered some coilovers in the distant future, just because the current suspension is a little hard with 4 people in the car. I will be putting on rims eventually, with some good rubber. Nice subtle rims. I believe that your rims should never outshine the car. If people are looking at your wheels and not the car, they're looking at it wrong. Tinting is a must. It needs the tint to look cool I'm getting to that after i fix the few issues left. Its also the cheapest of the cool upgrades I can get for the car. Another thing I've thought of is actually in the long distant future is the supra box transmission ecu. I've been driving manual vehicles for 6 years now, i've done 170 000kms in my manual car and I miss shifting gears. I think a manual box in the soarer would ruin the classy, curising feel to the car, but it'd still be neat to have more control of the transmission.
Friday, September 04, 2009 - 02:40 pm, by: Nathan Machin(Nthside_soarer)
Welcome Aiden and very nice car you scored mate, you will find the forum to be a wealth of knowledge and everyone always willing to help out.
I am sure you will enjoy it here as much as all of us do.
Always good to see a fellow QLDer on here, mate we have a cruise on the 13th up the sunny coast it would be a great opportunity for you to come along and meet some of the club members.
Anyway man hope we see you there and welcome once again.
Welcome Aiden,Good to have another SE Qld member,as Nathan said, join us on the cruise and meet the guys,it's always a great day,check the Qld events section for more details hope to see you there.
Saturday, September 05, 2009 - 01:12 pm, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
Hey thanks for inviting me, I'll have to keep an eye out. It'd be nice to meet a few guys here as there really is quite a lot of knowledge here and good ideas. Hopefully I can take some of the influences into my car
Scott Wilkes DieHard Tasmania 92 TT Factory Manual
Saturday, September 05, 2009 - 04:54 pm, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
You mean where the big thing that looks like a oil filter and has a pump pumping break fluid into it? When you turn on the car it sucks a whole lot of break fluid into it? Isn't that the accumulator?
Top left hand corner of that picture if you zoom in should reveal a snippet of the break booster with the accumulator pod thingy to the left? Unless i've mistaken that for something else?
Scott Wilkes DieHard Tasmania 92 TT Factory Manual
Saturday, September 05, 2009 - 05:08 pm, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
So if they mainly came on uzz30's etc than probably going to work with the accumulator from one? I doubt toyota would have gone to great deal to develop a specific one for a limited amount of models in the jzz range.. well no harm trying anyway right?
This was a very luxurious model for the twin turbo model, i mean its got all the electric windows, electric sunroof, electric seats etc etc so maybe it was optional too to get it specced with the accumulator for breaking reasons? I don't know the full history of the car only since its been in Australia it has had some exhaust tips on it.
Saturday, September 05, 2009 - 06:56 pm, by: James Harris(Haro)
Nice and clean looking Soarer mate. Bizzare about the brake thingo, ive never seen that in a TT either.
Yeh mate get your ass along to the cruise next weekend, put some faces to names and im sure you will get some great tips about your soarer. Its a bit of an early start but if the day is anything like today was - it will be well worth it.
Welcome again
Peter Nitschke Junk Filterer South Australia UZZ30 UZZ31
Saturday, September 05, 2009 - 09:31 pm, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
Wow thats crazy, I'm made to understand from my import plate that its a 1991 Soarer so who knows
Thanks again for all the welcomes, and I'm good for earlyish mornings, usually awake monday till friday from 6:30am and I can't wait to introduce myself personally
Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 07:51 am, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
Hey Walter, yeah I'm actually in kenmore, but generally when talking to people from not western suburbs they don't know of it but they do know of indro, so i refer to it as the landmark.
We should probably PM details and meet up
As for the accumulator I havn't solved that yet, I'm doing a break flush tonight hoping that its having trouble pressurizing because of an air bubble in the brake lines, but if that fails i've got access to a halfcut from a chaser which also has a spare working accumulator and pump which I might try transplanting into it.
I'll let you know how that all turns out so hopefully you can solve your issue too. But I suggest bleeding your brakelines might be the best first step, it will have trouble pressurizing (from what i hear) if there is air in the line to the accumulator.
I've read there is a bleed point next to the accumulator, so I'd suggest starting bleeding from rear left hand tyre, then rear right, then front left, then front right, then the bleed point on the accumulator pump or whatever. If that doesn't fix it, it should still give a good feeling in the brake pedal
Anyway i'll send a PM and we should meet up sometime, I hear all the kid racers always meet up at the 7-11 on the corner of moggil road and kenmore road
Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 05:05 pm, by: Walter Gillmore(Cl33pa)
really? didnt know about any meet up spot around this area. lol. i live a few streets down marshall lane, my soarer isnt on the road as of yet but i would say 1 month max eta till she is , i'll drive her around with the dings and stuff until i can get it to a panel shop. check my thread in this section under saying my hello's for pics on ma beast
my boss at work told me if the accumulator is still making noise after bleeding it, i should remove it take it to work and he'll drive me to a brake specialist just down the road from our workshop. so if after the bleed it still wants to be a biatch then thats what i shall do, they can pressure test it there he says.
i shall let my housemates know about the meet up spot they dont have soarer's but still a cruise is a cruise
i shall send you a pm of my details mate. give me a heads up when your out and about. so jealous of your clean as a whistle soarer. i paid 5g's for mine as a repairable write off.
Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 07:06 am, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
Yeah, I am proud of my soarer, but in truth i spent a lot of time looking at dinged up soarers for a similar price with more KM's and a lot more issues, and when i saw this one i bought it within about 10 mins of seeing it. I had to go all the way to nearly Tweed heads to check it out after work (i work on the northside in virginia so it was a long drive).
I just bled my brakes last night, all 5 of the nipples (heh). Didn't change the accumulator from being ass in the morning sadly. It did however make my brakes feel wonderful, so it wasn't a loss, they clearly needed it anyway.
I'll have to transplant the accumulator/pump from the chaser, but I'll do it probably the weekend after next. Don't want to get stuck with it half done and not be able to make the cruise up north on sunday
Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 08:06 am, by: Tim Ross(Retox)
Chances are your accumulator is out of nitrogen and just needs regassing.
I believe most places that re-gas shock absorbers should be able to help out with it.
There is a tutorial somewhere on how to remove it.
I have a home made spanner at home somewhere which has been specifically made to suit removing the accumulator, if you want a loan of it, let me know and I will tear the place up trying to find it
Best to do some reading up first though just to be sure what I have said is correct
Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 11:41 am, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
I actually called a few brake specialists, you know each time i had to explain what the accumulator does? Obviously i should have been calling suspension specialists instead..
Some symptoms are:
1) It does the tick hiss noise each time it pressurises 2) It repeats that ticking/hissing more often when its cold. Ie: mornings it does it often maybe 10 seconds between repeats, but in afternoons, evenings its much less regular, maybe 45 seconds between. 3) It can be felt through the brake pedal each tick 4) Lights dim and aircon fans etc slow for a second each tick/hiss.
Friday, September 11, 2009 - 07:19 am, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
Not really sure what hassle you're talking about? You mean taking off two accumulators instead of one? Or bleeding the brakes - a regular service necessity?
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Aiden, looks like you got a nice car - very minor issues and a great price.
