Restomod Racing

The removing of the air in the brake system of the Corolla GT-S proved to be a challenge.  As you may

know, bleeding brakes can be accomplished by several means.  There is the method of pressurizing the master cylinder or the method of using suction at the wheel cylinder and the more common method for use by backyard mechanics, the pumping of the brakes.   When Keith was trying to remove the air from the Corolla, he ended up using all three methods.  No matter which method he used, the brakes refused to work. 

It was theorized that the air was trapped somewhere in the system.  In order to bleed the brakes he had to first fix the calipers on both the front and rear of the passengers side.  The reason was that the bleeding nipples were sheared off on them (previous owner must have broken them off).  Once fixed he started by using the method of pressurizing the master cylinder.  He first used the Motive Products Power Bleeder.  You fill the container full of brake fluid and then it is pressurize it.  The new brake fluid is then pushed into the master cylinder and through the brake system.  The air is pushed out along with the old fluid through the wheel cylinder bleeding nipple.  He started by going to the furthest wheel and moving to the closet wheel to the master cylinder.  When this didn’t seem to work, he went to the method of sucking out the air and fluid through the wheel cylinder nipple.   You use a vacuum pump that draws the fluid air into a special cup make for bleeding brakes.  When this method again didn’t seem to work he used the common method of pumping the brake peddle 3 times, hold the peddle while the wheel cylinder nipple is opened to release the air and fluid into a cup.  Once the air and fluid stops coming out, the nipple is closed.  Once the nipple is closed the brake peddle is now released.  You can not release the peddle before the nipple is closed, otherwise air will be sucked in through the nipple when the peddle is released. 

After using the three methods and none appeared to work, it was time to go back to the drawing board.  The first thing was that the brake was working before the bleeding process.  So why would it not work now?  After some research we noticed that there was air bubbles coming from the master cylinder when ever we pumped the brakes.  We decided to bleed the master cylinder.  We first started by loosening the line at the master cylinder that goes to the rear wheels.  When we pushed the brake peddle to the floor, no fluid was noted to come out.  After doing this a few times we decided to move to the front brakes.  We tightened the line to the rear brakes and loosened the line to the front brakes.  We noticed that fluid immediately came out when the brake peddle was pushed to the floor. 

We decided that the master cylinder was the problem.  To make a long story short, after replacing the master cylinder all was good.  Now the problem was to determine why the master cylinder went bad when it was working before.  What we determined was that the master cylinder piston was ruined when the peddle was pushed beyond it’s normal travel (distance pushed when brakes were working normally). 

In other words, the system was old and neglected.  Due to the neglect, the master cylinder bore became lined with small particles such as rust.  As long as the brake peddle did not move more that its normal travel, all was fine because the bore was in the clean area.  When the brake fluid was leaked out and the peddle was pushed beyond its normal travel, the pistons rubber cup now moved into the area of the bore which normally was not touched by the piston.  This part of the bore is lined the particles due to the neglect and it acted as sand paper on the pistons rubber cup.  This chewed up the rubber cup and caused it to leak.  In our case only the rear piston was affected.  The front piston was fine.  Remember that the brake system must be kept up so that the master cylinder bores stays clean.  Do regular maintance by changing your brake fluid as directed by you manufacturer.

As with most of Megan Racing products, the aluminum radiators is fairly simple installation process.  On

the 89 Turbo Supra the installation required several modifications.  When we did a trial fit we noticed that the bottom tank hit agains the lower radiator support.  It required the grinding or cutting back of about a 1/4″ to 1/2″.  Once the radiator dropped into place, it was time to trial fit the fan shroud.  On this particular installation the shroud needed to be modified.  On the stock installation the lower end of the fan shroud had a couple of tabs that slides into brackets on the lower stock radiator.  On the Megan Racing radiator it had round tabs welded to the lower tanks to be used as the lower shroud supports.  It looked like the intent was to bolt the lower part of the fan shroud to the radiator.  Since this was not how the shroud was designed, it necessitated that we grind out the tabs on the lower shroud so it would fit around the radiator support tabs.  Once this was done everything lined up.  The next challenge was the way the upper support tabs on the radiator was attached to the upper tank.  It pushed the upper fan shroud out about a 1″ from the radiator.  This created a gap between the radiator and the shroud, it also caused the fan to rub on the top of the shroud.  We once again pulled out the grinder and ground the fan shrouds bolt holes large enough to slide the shroud over the radiators tab and then use a large washer on the bolt to retain the shroud to the upper radiator support.  With all this done, everything fit.  The car now runs much cooler than it ever did.

The installation of the Megan Racing Coil-Over is actually easy.  Keith was asked to install a coil-over kit

into a 1986 Toyota Corolla GT-S.  The customer wanted the AE-86 Megan Racing kit.  You do have to have some mechanical knowledge to do the installation since there was no instructions included.  Also keep in mind that welding is required.  The kit requires that the front spindles be cut off of the original front struts and then weld them onto the coil-overs.  Beyond this, it is a simple bolt on affair.