Hey guys,

Please refer last post.

I picked up a 94 TR SE magna yesterday. Its a dark silver colour 176,000 kms. well looked after car. upon inspection of the car it had a really bad vibration. but because of the condition of the overall car i bought it. I really wanted the V6 and still do lol.

but It Has the 2.6 ltr motor in it fuel injected motor. It does have a really bad vibration when put into Drive and reverse. In neutral and park its really smooth. So atm at lights i pop it into neutral. The vibration is really bad. its not slight. Ive notivced it better some times compared to others but at no temp of the motor its just random.

So the obvious things could be the engine mounts. Had a similar problem in a pintara and it was fixed when I replaced the mounts. So im thinking the same thing here may apply. could it be the step down motor, timing has slipped and is out, trans is rooted?

Any things I should be aware of that commonly go wrong with these cars?

still gauging what the fuel economy is going to be like. from all reports crap. ran it to empty put 20 liters in so will see what it gets. so far its not looking good lol.

one thing I have noticed is the fuel gauge is all over the shop. its manipulated havily by movements such as corners braking ets. never had a car move the fuel gauge so much.

all in all Im pretty stoked with it. coming from a home built 200 rwkw turbo bluebird to this is a bit of a difference. but not a bad car.

Im pretty handy with repairs so any work will be carried out at home.

thinking of going to u pullit this weekend and getting some engine mounts and seeing if it helps. yes I should buy new ones but im still in the mindset of dropping a v6 into the car so not willing to spend to much on this motor just yet. unless i can get some decent economy out of it. I get 450kms from my 89 camry from 40 liters of fuel. not expecting the same but would like to be 10/100 at least.

I have a pretty large mechanical, interior, paint and conversion background so hope I can help out where I can.

Luke

Try giving the throttle body a bit of a clean out, I think a bad isc, tps, or both can lead to idle problems, manual is available here: http://www.lisho.net/?page_id=3
When I had my TR it idled low in gear, worse with air con. I think it's just something they do as they get older. V6 conversion in a 4cyl needs an engine mount moved and re welded I think, not sure which one or how far though.

Cheers mate, Ill take the Tb off and give it a clean. Ill download the manual and check the voltage for the tps and see where that is at. Also will clean the AFM ellement and body. replace the O2 sensor aswell just incase.

I was really hoping it would be a straight drop in with the V6. Ill hunt around this forum to see whos done it before and whats involved. ill keep it simple and use a tr\ts motor. dont mind a bit of fabrication.

Ahhhh... the good old Astron 2.

Yes they're known for some interesting rattles when stationary. Check out the engine mounts first as these are the easiest to check. Mine used to be really worn in the old 1st gen and when I replaced them it was a huge improvement to the way it drove and the way the car idled.

As Tim said, it could be a number of things, start with the engine mounts. Where abouts do you live in SA? North or South?

You can also adjust the idle with a screw on top of the engine (rocker cover or throttle body, I can't remember exactly), try turning this up and getting the idle abit higher. It's only a bandaid fix but it may stop it for the time being. The vibrations could be anything, engine mounts/tps/isc/fuel injectors/spark.

I'm north/west champ. I'll go to u-pull it this weekend if the weather is ok and grab some engine mounts. If I see an improvement then might get some new ones.

I'll check the timing tonight. And bump up the idle a bit to help mask it a little. It's had new plugs, air filter, cap, button done recently. Leads seem fine. Got a new fuel filter to chuck in.

At idle in park it's perfect. Hardly moves. It's just when it has load put onto it from the box it starts to shake lol.

My other half wants me to do the v6 conversion. If I can get a damaged car at the auction for a few hundred.

But for the time being I'll do what i can to get this thing running right. Ill take some photos of the car and post them.

Hasn't suffered the paint peel and is dead straight. Very much a grandpa car. just needs the front and back bumpers resprayed.

Thanku for the advice so far. Appreciate it as a noob

Yeah sounds exactly the same issue I had which turned out to be engine mounts, bumping the idle up until I had them replaced definitely made it tolerable.

If you do need new engine mounts, I have a full set here somewhere that I can try to find, was going to cast solid urethane ones but they looked in too good of a condition to cut up. Not sure if they will show any signs of splits once they have the weight of an engine on them though, I never saw them on the car.

if you think there all right champ let me know what you want for them. It looks like the back is the worst of them all. the side ones are hard to gauge considering there hidden pretty well. I upped the idle and checked the timing. much better.I can live with it at least lol.

as for the fuel. i managed 160kms with maybe another 10kms in it from 20 liters. not massively impressed. but its alot of weight for a 4 banger to pull around so to be expected.

From 60 litres I was getting about 450 kms on my TR 4 banger, so sounds about right.

From what I inderstand that seems to be pretty common for the 4. The v6 on the other hand I've read more between 500 and 600 from a tank.

Been reading through some of the members cars and am impressed with what people have been doing to these cars.

Out of curiosity. How interchangeable are things like suspension and seats etc. from model to model?

I've seen some later model parts been fittted to the earlier models.

The TR and TS models most if not all things are interchangeable, only diff is between specs (ie: putting elite parts into an executive usually involves wiring loom mods etc)

I have the 3.0 manual TS, I get 10/100 around town and 8.5 on the freeway, less than the 4 cylinder but even redbook lists it as 12/100 for the 4 cyl auto.

So pulled the ATM out tonight and piping to throttle body. Gave the afm a squirt with electronic cleaner. Easy job. Just unclip airbox, undo pipe from afm to throttle body and out she comes. Removed the pipe to tb and associated pollution gear. Using a 19mm spanner, 14mm spanner and 12mm ratchet I pulled the fuel filter out and replaced that.

This is when I noticed the head gasket has been leaking from the back of the motor. I also could see the rear engine mount better and it's got a Nice split in it.

I'll replace the mount and may do The head gasket. I've done them on these motors before and there pretty easy. Luckily I have a second car if it shits itself lol.

So put 50 liters in this next batch of fuel regular unleaded with 70% highway and 30% city and got 390 kms. 12.8 - 100 kms.

Now I have to decide if I fix the 4 or replace it with the 6.

If I keep the 4 I'll replace the head gasket vrs kit $60. Rear engine mount $98. 02 sensor $60. Injector clean $120. New cat $150. Custom cai $20 and possibly new rings and bearings $150 head recon $300 timing chain $150.

Or rip the 4 out and go the v6. Wrecked car about $400. Welding $100. Exhaust ???? $300

Seems information on fuel economy and the power of these motors is all over the place. If I can get 550 kms from 50 liters I'll be happy.

But do I spend the cash on the 4 and freshen her up or just drop a used 6 in??? It's a hard one

Decided that considering the state of the 4 curently and no v6 cheap wrecks available for this weekend I decided to pull the head off and see what damage I'm dealing with. Just pulled the plugs out, manifold and rocker cover off last night before i went to bed. Spark pludgs 2 and 3 show signs of coolant. Whoever put plug 3 in cross threaded the head so that will need to be fixed. Had to use a breaker bar to get the plug out.

Will remove the inlet manifold today after work and pull the head off and see what corrosion damage there is. I can see it's leaking from the back of the motor so I'm expecting The worse.

Hmmm, will be interesting to know. It sounds like a head gasket to me.

Keep us posted on how it goes. I suggest maybe posting up a ride thread and posting your progress of the car in there. I did that for my TE and it's easy for people to look up how your car is going.

If you end up doing the V6 conversion I would be interested in coming over and helping out.

will do mate. to update Ive replaced the headgasket. went between 2 and 3 like I thought. turns out the head is a repo. perfect condition but had it machined to be safe. Injectors cleaned, TB cleaned, thermostat replaced, new leads, plugs, cap, button, water pump belt. had to replace the exhaust manifold as when I went to remove the o2 sensor it was threaded.

fuel economy is better. up to 450km for 50 liters of fuel. so 60kms more

Got new engine mounts today for it and some woodgrain :) got two sets of woodgrain. one lighter and one darker. just have to decide what I like best.

next is replace the cat and fuel pump. try and get this thing up to 500 plus kms. then put it on gas :)

normally its the 02 sensor that plays a big part in fuel econmy going by this program i have a program called car calculator your useing 15.86l/100km which is bad

according to red book we all should be seeing at least 750km per tank on long trips and about 550km city driving

Overall Green Star Rating
Fuel Urban (l/100km) 11.5
Fuel Extra Urban (l/100km) 7.6
Fuel Combined (l/100km) 9.0

i will upload the car cal in a min

ok here it is http://www.mediafire.com/?7q84kmq3eb8a132 let me know if it doesn't work

ive replaced the 02 sensor when I removed the old one. are u basing those numbers on the full size of the tank? how I work out my economy is fill my tank to the brim get X amount of kms then fill it back up. the amount of liters needed to fill the tank is how many liters used. atm my economy is about 11.1 per 100kms. 320 kms over 50 liters would give me 15.86

i would be checking for error codes

edit

didn't see you had a blown head gasket problem

change it asap and you should see a big gain

umm keep reading through bro. allready replaced the head gasket. pretty sure the cat is the next problem. cats break down when overheated and become clogged. due to the fact the previous owner had used chemi weld to fix the head gasket id dare say it had ovberheated before. how bad i dont know. with me it over heated twice and I stopped driving it. new head gasket and other stuff and no overheating issues.

my tps could be out as I still dont have that 100% yet.

me and electrics dont go down well together.

should have the last two mounts bolted back in about half hour - 45 minutes. 3 of them were flogged and one the front near the radiator i can twist a full 90 degrees hahaha. rest are just split. back one nearly split right through on one side. should notice a much more vibration free car hahaha

my car vibrates in drive but i just move forward abit and it stops lol


i will be poly filling mine soon