After having its leaking head gasket replaced under warranty, this Delica needed its head bolts re-torqued.

Access to the head bolts on the 4M40 turbo diesel is easier than on many engines because the camshaft is not in the way. Half of the bolts are actually external to the cam cover!

Unfortunately in the Delica the engine sits mostly under the dashboard, which greatly limits access from above - and the intercooler is also mounted on top of the engine.

This car was already running an aftermarket air filter with a heat shield partition that sealed against the bonnet when closed - but having a full cover makes it street legal and avoids hassles.

It’s made from 1.6mm aluminium sheet, and attaches to the existing partition and a headlight bolt. There is also a hole for the air filter mounting, replacing the original bracket.

Here’s a photo from a nice angle. The Silvia on the left is waiting for an engine and a few other jobs, and will hopefully be on the road soon!

I picked up a small electric walk behind forklift that had been scrapped.

The batteries (4 x 6v) were completely dead, so I replaced them with a couple of normal car batteries. It won’t give as long a run time as the original setup, but I only need to use it occasionally.

There were some wiring issues to correct, and I still need to fix a broken hydraulic fitting, but it’s working - and proved to be quite useful for carrying things like gearboxes around

Mentioning MR2 and gearbox in the same sentence generally results in people running away as fast as they can.

It’s not a fun job due to the lack of space and the amount of parts in the way due to the mid engine layout, but I managed to swap the gearbox without pulling the engine out - which saves a bit of work by not having to disconnect all the wiring, drain the coolant, etc.

Some of the plumbing had to be removed to get access to various bolts, and the engine had to be dropped down on an angle to let the gearbox clear the chassis.

Once it’s out the space doesn’t look so small - but there are a lot of annoying hoses in the way from above!

The old gearbox appears to have an internal problem - most likely a bent selector fork. Note the leaves sitting on it - from inside the engine bay!

This car had a whole list of things to do, and is going to be a very nicely set up track car that’s also usable on the road.

The main things added were power steering, some serious chassis braces, and a new ignition system that should work better at high boost levels.

I also removed the air conditioning to save some weight, made up an intake heat shield, installed a larger swaybar, race seat, fixed up the two stage boost controller, and sorted out a few cosmetic items.

This is what the engine bay looks like after painting the cam cover, installing the new ignition system, power steering, and the intake heat shield:

Underneath the car there’s a new swaybar, a diff brace, and this rather massive chassis “butterfly brace”

It bolts on over the original chassis rails, then the “wings” link the two. It looks pretty impressive, and being all stainless steel it won’t rust!

The only issue is that it reduces ground clearance a bit, especially in the middle where the brace has to clear the exhaust.