Saturday, 27 July 2013

Something I found in Australia

Hey all, haven't been writing much because I have been busy but I did find something very nice that I haven't seen in my life before. That is, the 1971 Toyota Crown MS75. This car has been restored up to its 90% original condition. All the lights, windows, dashboard are all original as when the car was launched years back. The only non original parts in the car now is the exhaust manifold, the springs, gearbox, steering wheel, and rims. The original steering wheel and rims are still with the owner. The MS75 uses two ventilated disc brakes at the front and two drum brakes at the rear. It has the original radio in the car with the button on the floor next to the clutch that must be pressed in order to tune the radio to the desired frequency, plus the old fashioned hand brake next to the steering wheel. The car is in mint condition and runs really well! No rattles no funny noises. Cruises really comfortably and takes the corners without being a hand full!

The MS75 came into Australia only from the 2nd hand dealers and the exported models of the MS75 came with the twin circle headlamps while the Japanese domestic models had the rectangular headlamps. Only the sedan and wagon versions of the MS60 were built in Australia. The parts however are like any other old skool Japanese car, hard to find and getting more expensive. Some parts are still shared between the coupe, sedan and wagon.





What does MS75 mean:
- The 'M' is basically the engine family that came with the car.
- 'S' means the chassis family while the '75' is the model of the chassis which in this case is the coupe version of the 60. The sedan version of this car would have the code MS60 if the came with the 'M' family engine.

This coupe has the 4M-C engine under it which is the liquid-cooled 2.6L Naturally Aspirated straight six cylinder 2 valve per cylinder Single Over Head Cam Single Carburetor engine thats able to produce 120HP at 5600rpm and 190Nm of torque at 3000rpm. An all cast-iron engine with an aluminum cylinder head. The gearbox has been swapped with a bullet-proof W50 series 5 speed manual gearbox.






Only has 63, 400miles on the odometer which is about 110, 000km! Not much for a 40 year old car!













The interior looks brand new and the car has seat belts! The owner still has the original steering wheel in his place.












Friday, 29 March 2013

Slotted brakes for the KE35!

For a long time, i've been having so much braking problems because the brake rotors that I've been using are the old used AE86 standard brake rotors, which were passed its life. So I bought these endurance slotted front and rear rotors from Race Brakes, New Zealand a few months ago and nearly forgot about it. So it finally it arrived in the mail and I got them fixed up! The brakes on the car even with the standard road pads have improved incredibly(pedal firmness, response of the brakes, and most importantly the brake bite is much more).

The fronts were a bit tricky to install. From the old standard rotors, the off set piece has to be reused and bolted on the new rotors so don't throw away your old rotors before you install the new ones! Whereas the rear solid slotted rotors were a direct fit.

So when buying the rotors, what information that the shop would need are the diameter of the brake rotors you require, its PCD, the thickness of the brake rotors and the thickness of the off set piece. The more information the better.
The top ventilated slotted brake rotors are the fronts and the bottom solid slotted rotors are the rears. 

Original Japanese Watanabes from Klang

Hey all, 

Before this I used these 15inch Taiwanese Works Equip look a like rims that came with my Toyota Corolla KE-35 Hardtop Coupe, till everyone said that it looks horrible with the car and the 15inch were too wide until they were touching the body after a certain steering angle. So I decided to go see my old friend at Klang, Kazuto Garage where I bought my first Watanabe rims for my Toyota Sports 800. So happened that he has a set of Matt Black 14inch Watanabe rims with the standard off set and 6.5J. He quoted me RM2800 for a used set inclusive of touching up and I've never regretted since! Ever since i've switched the rims, the tires don't touch the car's body anymore and the back tends to kick out that slight which is what I've been wanting! 



Some specs of the rims: 

Diameter: 14inch
PCD: 114.3
Width: 6.5J 
Off-Set: Standard