it looks awesome

Yeah I have been told that a few times due to my tanned skin...
Oh wait... Your talking about the car hey?
Dang.

Well the celsior does not spend tonight in my garage, it is at the mechanics getting new brake pads, new water pump, new thermostat, 10,000km service, and of course, a new timing belt.
Basically the radiator has to come out to make room to get to the timing belt, so its a 1 day job if he rushes, but a 2 day job if he can take his time with it which I told him to do.

Wow it must be a tight squeeze in that engine bay then but it's better not to rush stuff like that.

This is a much older picture, but its a good one to use to show how cramped it is in the engine bay.

not kidding about cramped you wouldn't wanna drop a tool down a small hole coz good luck fishing it out if it didn't fall through

TM's CraZy TaXi wrote:

not kidding about cramped you wouldn't wanna drop a tool down a small hole coz good luck fishing it out if it didn't fall through

Unfortunately I know what that is like... Quite a few times...
I still have not found my 14mm socket!

Damn!

I wouldn't wanna be the one running cables for an amp through that engine bay/firewall.

haha yea, dropping tools and parts is dumb, they stop in the weirdest places.

i'd imagine your 14 socket will be somewhere out on a road somewhere by now, though you never now, you might get it back one day

Yeah Simon I think it is gone forever! Has your brother complained about working on my car yet? haha

TM - It took quite a while to find a method of getting the wires through, but eventually got it, the hardest part so far was getting the 2 1/2" airlines from the boot to the front bags! That was a mission!

yeah i definately could see that as a mission but for the end product it was well worth it.

Thanks TM, glad to see some people like it.
VIP cars are not very well known in Australia so they do not get alot of attention. Alot of people do not understand the stretched tyres and negative camber look however I am doing this up to be a traditional japanese VIP style car.


To add to the list of dramas, while the Celsior is having a good $1500 spent on it, my daily hack (EL Falcon on LPG) the battery just died in a shell servo at Hexam, 90mins later and $176 NRMA puts in a new battery.

Damn dude that sux ass about your dead battery I had a similar issue before being able to pick up Meglette & baby Corey from the hospital. So do know how you feel there.

Yeah your situation sounds a little worse then mine, I was only heading back to my house.

Would not have even been driving the ford if my Celsiors radiator did not have a crack in it!! Lol.

Well the battery was on its way out anyway, at least I will not have to worry about it any more.

Yeah well they don't last forever do they as much as we wish they would.

Fingers crossed I get it back today!

Well the bill finally came in and I got my car back...
It runs smoother, engine noise is quieter, I had a rattle from my brakes before, turns out last time brake pads were replaced, the pads that went in were too small for the caliper and they were moving around. So thats all fixed now, braking is back to being silent While removing the air intake, they found a crack in my top tank of the radiator, so that was sent away and a new top tank fitted since the rest of the radiator was still good.


So the parts list was as follows (Remember this is a full service, timing belt, brakes fixed etc)

Labour - $686
Water pump genuine toyota - $182
Thermostat and seal genuine toyota - $39
Timing Belt Kit with tensioner genuine toyota - $425
Brake pads front - $88.54
Brake fluid - $6.55
genuine toyota long life coolant (Anti boil, Anti Freeze, Anti Corrosion) $43.10
Fan Belt - $52.00
Power Steering Oil - $13.68 ($1.24P.L)
Radiator top tank - $235

Total $1610.25
GST - $161.03
Total $1,771.25

sounds ok, any reason most of it is genuine stuff? i thought aftermarket was normally cheaper?

good to hear they sorted out the problems and that though, and yea, timing belt is never a small job.

cause its better

I told him I wanted things done right, so I guess he went genuine toyota parts because of the guarantee maybe?