Our rebuild/restoration of the '90 with only 93k miles!

IHI-RHC7

"The Boss"
Apr 1, 2005
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Hey all. This is Heidi. I thought I'd share what we've been up to this past month. Back in December, we picked up a 90 turbo targa supra with only 93k miles from one of our neighbors. He had bought it back in '99 for a pricely sum of $10k, and then proceded to let it sit in his lawn for 5 years after blowing a headgasket. After sitting uncovered for that long, the paint had turned a terrible pink color. Although it had been hit in two different spots (1 pretty bad), we knew the car had potential. I had never done an entire rebuild before, so I wanted this to mainly be my project (with supervision from Jake of course).

Here's some pics of the car as it came after we yanked the engine out and I cleaned the engine bay.
As you can see, it was pretty rough.


I had fun painting the valve covers and the block after it was hot tanked.
I then got to assemble my 1st short block.
We also hand lapped the valves, replaced the stem seals, and agonized over what seemed like thousands of shims to get the right valve lash.


I polished the cams with 2000 grit and prepped the buckets for all those damn shims. After cleaning misc. parts, the long block was assembled. We went with a stock rebuild with stock headbolts torqued to 72 ft-lbs. It's starting to look like an engine!


The tranny was in serious need of a cleaning and then was bolted to the long block along with the turbo, manifold, 3" downpipe. etc... Shiny tranny, huh?


Finally, in she goes! Now, the body needed some attention. Notice the contrast between what has and hasn't been buffed and the nice dent on the fender with the black scuff mark.


More to come in the next post, as only 20 pics are allowed per post!
~Heidi
 

mickyg

7MGE MX-73
Sep 15, 2005
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Melbourne AU
Would you believe this is the first pic of my dad's property I've ever seen (and I'm not talking about the car)? Thanks for the details Heidi! Oh, and "hi" by the way from the two of us down on the other side of the world!!!

Wow, you hand lapped all 24 valves? I did that on the 5M and thought I was going to go insane, and it has half as many! Well done!
 

IHI-RHC7

"The Boss"
Apr 1, 2005
1,310
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Here were some of the worst spots on the car when we got it. You can see a huge contrast in that last picture between pre and post buffing (most of the car looked like the left side of the pic).


The dent on the driver side fender looks a lot better after being buffed. No more scuff marks! Same with the front bumper. Last 3 pics are of the front completely finished, buffed and polished! Not bad, eh?


Although it might look like it was easy, the entire buffing process was a royal PITA! We went through 5 different phases (compounds), starting with paint cleaner followed by medium cut paint cleaner, 3M buffing compound, show car glaze, and gold class wax. I think it paid off in the end though!
Pics of the finished product in the for sale section.
~Heidi
 
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supra90turbo

shaeff is FTMFW!
Mar 30, 2005
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that's insane how well it cleaned up!

sad @ that rear quarter though... what did they, try to bash the dent out with a jack handle? :( :( :( :(
 

IHI-RHC7

"The Boss"
Apr 1, 2005
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Oregon
I believe they tried to weld studs to it and pull it out with a slide hammer, but the supra laughed at them. Several studs are still imbeded in the sheet metal. It is sad. But man, it drives SO PERFECT!!!
 

IHI-RHC7

"The Boss"
Apr 1, 2005
1,310
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Oregon
Time for someone to do some clean bodywork. ;)
Once that is cleaned up, they will have one valuable supra.
 

Justin727

T-virus infected
looks great after all the hard work! Trust me I've done this many many times before so I know what ya went thru!! lol
Just replace that fender and dont worry about poppin that dent out also cut out and replace that rear panel! then respray and be happy with such a beautiful piece!