Howdy! my name is cole, a canadian living in america. i’m no stranger to imports (silvia, evo 1, old toyotas) and kei cars (suzuki alto works) but this is my first diahatsu. I imported this L210 to fill the role of a cheap winter beater but after some complications with importing and some miscommunication with the seller it has become an expensive winter beater. on top of that, upon receiving the car it has become very apparent the previous owner did not take good care of this poor mira. the rear diff howls like a banshee, the motor is quite loud (haven’t diagnosed if its valve lash or bearings yet) and is full of sludge.
now that i’ve invested so much in the car its tough to cut my losses and part with it, and since there is probably only a handful of these in the country at this point and thus no information, i am here!
it’s been years since i joined a forum, seems theyve fallen to the wayside when fb groups became a thing, so it’s nice to see this one is still relatively lively. hopefully i’ll be able to gleam enough of your shared knowledge to help repair my mira and in turn be able to share some of my own experience as well.
enough words, have some pictures:
my s13 drift car and celica project
the s12 i built for my mother in law:
welcome.
You have come to the right place there is a heap of info in here and helpful people also.
In Australia we didn’t get the 4wd model so some of us maybe useless with the diff situation but most other stuff we have a fairly knowledgeable bunch here.
thanks for the warm welcome. got an oil analysis back and the numbers read like oil that has been used a long time, no metals that point to bearing wear so i think i just need a valve adjustment to hopefully lose some of my motor noise. picked up a repair manual and parts catalogue from japan (along with a few maintenance items) so hopefully i can cross some numbers to get my diff noise to chill out. as soon as a bay opens up in my garage (got a friends s14 240sx im working on) i’ll drop the diff and see what the damage is.
Hey, the little engines are generally loud even after valve adjustment. it’s just a little thing with them. The gearboxes are also known for a loud diff, keep an eye on it as they’re very weak and gearboxes are slowly getting hard to find because they’re so weak and explode out of no where… If you do need any parts i normally don’t ship out of australia but i have for a american with a couple of miras, it just works out a little expensive. but thats okay because USD vs AUD is a win on your side. . Best of luck and hope you enjoy ownership.
sooooo, found out the hard way what all the drivetrain noise was. went to pull away from a stop light and something in my transfer case exploded. limped it home with a noise that sounded like a bad axle. i don’t plan on searching auctions for an l210 transfer case, let alone putting it on a pallet to ship to the US so i decided to try and gut the transfer case and see if it could function as a fwd car.
emptied the guts onto the floor, slapped it back together and sure enough… drives better than it did before lmao.
just for fun, pulled the springs out and cruised for a few days, i really thought it would go lower but the bump stops are huge on these things. i didnt want to put my dog through the trauma of a no-suspension car though so they went back in. looked cool for a minute though.
since 4wd is never coming back to this car i removed the stock shift knob with the 4wd select button and made a custom knob to try and match my tiny steering wheel i put in, would love to find some 10" steelies to widen and throw on to complete the look, does anyone know if 10" wheels clear the front brakes on the l200?
On an l200 I don’t think 10’ wheels clear the brakes from memory.
Now your like the rest of us with only fwd but you would have a proper axle unlike the rest of us that have trailing arms. Shifter looks good by the way nice match.
but you would have a proper axle unlike the rest of us that have trailing arms. Shifter looks good by the way nice match.