Black2na's MR2 Spyder build thread

Black2na

Senior member
Nov 25, 2010
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back in march of last year Jlee and i went and picked up a 2002 MR2 spyder the he had found on craigslist it was a salvaged titled car and it was only had 3 wheels when we bought it so after 4 hours of loading it up on the trailer we got this
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Sadly this is the only pitcure from that night as you can see we used jlee's old tundra to pick it up. not much work got done to it after that between working way to much and spending 2-3 months restoring and painting Jlee's car it just got pushed back well finally last weekend we Jlee and i put the car up in my body shop and started in on it and got a fair amount done not as much as we both would have liked with a local car show comming up in 2 weeks but alot of the serious work got done which is nice
painted the underside of the new hood and fender thursday night
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Here how we started our friday
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While josh cleaned up and greased my brakes i welded up the captured nut for the lower controll arm so i could weld a nut to what was left of the broken bolt 2 passes with a mig looks big but i got good penitration
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Welded a nut to the end thankfully it didnt take the threads with it!
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teaser pics with new wheels after josh finshed rear brakes
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while josh was doing audio he came across this inside of my passenger door LED droplight FTW!
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finished welding on my firewall on sat after spending the morning doing parts run not super pretty gonna grind it down a bit before i primer and seam seal and reundercoat the firewall but im happy plenty strong!
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and of course what would a build thread be without a huge list of shit you still have to do to the car before it see's the road again and in my shop there is always more metal then paper. so i found it more fitting to write the list in sharpe on a piece of sheet metal
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Im gonna order more parts to hopefully finish the car next weekend ill keep it updated! been a long time but after working on everyone elses cars mabye it my turn to finish one for once!
 

RiDE

Platinum Member
Jul 8, 2004
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Bookmarked! I always like these cars and the SW20.

My friend is looking for one as well... except he doesn't fit in it. lol
 

JCH13

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2010
4,981
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Looks good! And you have the appropriate to-do list to boot :biggrin:
 

jlee

Lifer
Sep 12, 2001
48,518
223
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What kind of damage did the car sustain so it got a salvage title?

Imagine the front right wheel getting ripped out of the chassis, suspension and all. Black2na will be able to tell you in more detail since he's the one who fixed it.
 

Black2na

Senior member
Nov 25, 2010
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Jlee as it pretty much correct basicly the suspension got ripped from the car so the whole right front suspension needed to be replaced and the firewall needed to be re welded to the panels it split from the impact sending the tire into the firewall hard thats why i had to weld onto it all and all not a bad hit at all into the car for WAYYYY less then i would have bought one for and its a fantastic car! glad to have it back on the road now i just need it to pass inspection this week so i can register it and enjoy it!
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this is a picture of the morning after we got the car back to my house it shows the way we picked it up in full note the seperated wheel with brake caliper and rotor still intact

Also Big thanks to JCH13 and Jlee they pushed me to work on this and helped me complete it in the short time crunch we had before the car show on sat....which was more or less a waste of time but it made me finish my spyder! which is awsome!
 
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ThatsABigOne

Diamond Member
Nov 8, 2010
4,422
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81
Wow, this is an excellent job. That is interesting that you were willing to invest into a car that has been damaged really badly. Do you have any idea what might have happened to the car, to get the suspension ripped out?
 

jlee

Lifer
Sep 12, 2001
48,518
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Wow, this is an excellent job. That is interesting that you were willing to invest into a car that has been damaged really badly. Do you have any idea what might have happened to the car, to get the suspension ripped out?

Previous owner lost it on a wet road. There's a lot less money into that car (including purchase price) than it would cost to get another one. ;)
 

RocksteadyDotNet

Diamond Member
Jul 29, 2008
3,152
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The Spyders were only good with the 5 speed manual.

The SMT is a piece of shit. It takes 2 weeks to change gears. I kinda want one but in Australia they were only sold with the SMT! :mad:

Manual + 2ZZ would make this car so awesome.
 

jlee

Lifer
Sep 12, 2001
48,518
223
106
The Spyders were only good with the 5 speed manual.

The SMT is a piece of shit. It takes 2 weeks to change gears. I kinda want one but in Australia they were only sold with the SMT! :mad:

Manual + 2ZZ would make this car so awesome.

This is a 5sp. Unfortunately they don't give 2ZZs away... :(
 

Black2na

Senior member
Nov 25, 2010
629
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Yeah a mk2 just happens to be sitting in my garage so once I get about.6-7k I can go ahead and drop a 2gr in it. And its in the pictures from the weekend just under plastic cover!