Mondo

I used a "How To" off here, and a few phone calls to Luke at Z Centre. The hardest part I found was getting the auto bearing out of the back of the crank - that took hours and hours! But there's apparently a way to remove it using grease and a bolt. If you wanted to go the manual route, it's probably worth putting a Wanted ad on here rather than automatically buying a "kit" off the Bay. One thing to make sure of is that whatever kit you bought comes with the manual balance bar. I still have the auto one on mine and it means you can't connect the TT clutch boosters properly, making the pedal quite heavy.

Leeroy mate: I got my Zed in June last year and me and a mate (who's very mechanically-minded, admittedly) did the full manual conversion in 4 days, with neither of us having ever worked on one of these before in our lives! Swapping an autobox for another one would be much easier than the manual conversion, but the conversion does transform them, as Z32bolt said. The engine side of things is undoubtedly a nightmare to work on but the transmission honestly isn't as daunting as it might first appear. Just stick in there and either let a specialist work their magic or tackle a gearbox swap swap yourself, and you'll no doubt fall in love with her all over again! :thumbup1:

I just think it looks nice (and not one I've seen before). If you need some new gaiters knocking up for the gearstick and handbrake, gimme a shout :)

I've gone with GL1 based on some info that Ted fired my way. Let's hope it's a match (or I'll have to get the whole car resprayed sooner than expected...! :lol: )...

I like the look of that steering wheel...!!

Thanks for that, Si. What's the difference(s) between GL1 and KH3...?

Does anybody know the colour code for the non-metallic black paint used on early Zeds please?? As my car was originally silver, I can't get it off the plates under the bonnet and Body Mech need to know it... Thanks.

Now that I really like...!!!

Sounds decent on paper, that one :)

Not a single GT-Four for sale on there at the moment!! Except for my mate's ST165 that he rebuilt from the ground up, but it's not going to be a performance car in comparison to the later variants :(

That's a beautiful CS, Tom!! :shock: Looks to be in superb condition and the OZ Chronos are a nice touch (although purists would argue that a set of Roulettes would be more in keeping). Plus the ST185 doesn't have the Superstrut, which is (financially) a good thing. I'll go and have a look now, mate :)

Chargecoolers are a weak point, as is the Superstrut suspension. 60k miles is the usual point the front suspension starts to call it a day and the clutch has a similar deadline. Check the exterior condition of the radiator top - if it's looks brown, it'll need replacing sooner rather than later. Heavy cars. Not quite as cheaply tuneable as a lot of people believe, but still pretty rapid and a lot rarer on the roads than, say, a comparable Evo or Subaru. It's just a shame they never achieved the iconic status of the Escort Cosworth, etc. I was tempted to get one before I got my Beams, Tom. I'd say expect to pay a minimum of £2k for a half-decent one... anything less than that and they could just be buying someone else's problems! Best place to look is Celica Club as there's usually one or two for sale on there and, as with here, you can usually find a good few pages of information from the current owner as to any mods and how they've looked after it. :)

Full leather front seats with red topstitching would be £600 plus any associated delivery costs, Leeroy. As I said: anyone looking to revamp the cabin "cheaply" could do a lot worse than the Exotik products. They'll just never look as good as a full leather, professionally fitted bespoke retrim, that's all.

Okies, here's my opinion for what it's worth. And this is in no way an attempt for me to try and get more work or anything - this is simply my "professional" opinion :) Synthetic leather never feels or really looks as good as real leather does. The properties between the two are very different and, because of those differences, any new seat covers made from the two will have different characteristics to each other. Real leather wears much better than synthetic. It has a smell that is all it's own as well. Now I've used synthetic leather in the past when a customer has specifically asked for it (usually to keep costs down) and one thing you can't really do to it is use any sort of heat on it. Cos it'll melt! Leather, on the other hand, can be subjected to some pretty extreme heat if need be (as long as it's been properly treated during manufacture) and heat is one of the major keys to ensuring a perfect fit and wrinkle-free finish at the end of a retrim. Without heat, there could well be some baggy panels or wrinkles. So these synthetic covers will look good once they're fitted. But they might not necessarily look great. As a (fairly) cheap and cheerful way to breathe life into a tired old cockpit, they'll do the job no problem and at a price I can't match. But I wouldn't expect perfection by any means... or a long lifespan either. That's my two cents, anyway.

Whoa there... crazy bloke say what now??!!

Wasn't there a thread in recent months about "ordinary" rings deteriorating very rapidly and causing leaks? Or did I imagine it...??

That's all I can think, Si! :lol:

Just realised I can actually reopen it myself, so I have done! Drama over... :)

Er... why has my retrim thread been closed please...?!

I think it was these, but it's been a couple of years since I bought them so...

You can use them as long as there not too tall. I used LED strips in my dash cluster and the effect looks like this:

Ages and ages ago, I got a boot spoiler off Gibster-TT. It was the lower half of a Bomex two-piece and I wanted it specifically because I wanted to change it a little bit and make it (in my opinion, anyway) a better shape to fit the Zed's rear end. So I set about temporarily fixing it to the boot and then started extending the end sections so they curved down to the sides of the car. I knew in my mind that I wanted to avoid having any kind of "muffin-top" effect from the back that the OEM early spoiler suffered from. So here's what it looked like a couple of days ago: Why am I posting this, you may wonder? Well, it was collected this morning and is now winging it's way to Body Mech for the boys there to finish it off, fit a brakelight and spray it black! :D Time's got away from me and my own work's building up so I decided to send my efforts off to them as they do superb work from what I've seen, and also I like to support the forum traders wherever possible. :) It should be back with me at the end of May. Can't. Wait!!

Really truly sorry to hear that, Paul!! :( Try and keep your chin up, mate. RIP Paul's Nan :crying:

Happy birthday, matey!! :happybday:

If you wound the odometer back, it wouldn't tally up with previous MOTs...