So I decided to buy an L80. Found a tidy-ish one only a couple of hours away from where I live that was already sitting on longchamps, had a TR-XX rear hatch and had cool seats from a Parco. Took it for a drive and was sold immediately and bought it on the spot.
What wasn’t hilarious however is 6 days into ownership and at exactly 200,022 km, the timing belt decided it no longer wished to participate and the valves took an excursion to pistonville.
What to do?
Throw the car away 6 days into ownership? Part it out to any unfortunate soul desperately looking for L80 stuff?
Or maybe, do I do the thing?
So, with thing secured in the back of the trusty 100 series cruiser, I embarked on a perilous journey that would teach me that even though some things may bolt in and line up, the concept of 80s and 2000s parts playing nice together would come back to bite me.
To make this job easier on myself I purchased an entire engine and body loom as well as ecu. What car did it come from? Who knows. Maybe L700? Maybe L251? Maybe immobilised M100? /foreshadowing/
But it all looked like everything would plug in so let’s send it.
A trip to the wreckers later and I also had a cluster and combination stalk that would plug right in. PLUG RIGHT IN. /more foreshadowing/
Starter motor/flywheel clearance seems to be different when using the ED10 transmission on the EJDE. I’ll need to space it backwards to avoid interference.
Remember how I didn’t know what the loom was from other than it came from an EJDE car? Well the ECU was the same. After not getting any spark (wiring the 5 pin key barrel plug to my 4 pin key barrel was another headache I won’t get into) a knowledgeable friend suggested I may have an immobilised ECU from an M100 due to it having a certain yellow wire at the ECU plug end. Thanks to a user from the facebook group I was able to purchase another ECU which is apparently not locked to a key transponder. I am yet to fit or try it as I work away as an interstate truck driver and don’t have a lot of time on my one day home a week to fiddle with it but I’m looking forward to seeing if this brings those coil packs to life.
Another fun one is the combination switches. After reading a wiring diagram (again, which I do not know the origin of other than “it’s for an EJDE bro trust me” it seems the plugs I have to go to the combination switches are entirely different to the combination switches I have. Fun and games.
There is so much wiring in this harness and it’s difficult to distinguish between what’s needed and what isn’t. I’m not that great with electronics but I’m doing my best to make this not be a nightmare.
The old tyres were also terrible. Dry rotted and leaking so it was time for a little upgrade. Thank you mini enthusiasts for creating a market for 12 inch semi-slicks. Can you tell I live in the hills?
That’s all for now, I’ll update this thread when there is more progress. The car has sat on jack stands for much longer than it was on the road by a long way and as I mentioned earlier, I have very limited time to work on it/source parts so I’ll just pick away at things until it is done. Until then, thanks for having a look and any suggestions are welcome.
