John S's Journal

The Toyota FIPG 103 sealant showed up the other day and yesterday I put a thin smear all around the water pump and also around the block and then installed the water pump. Today I had some time so I re-installed the radiator, snugged up all of the hose clamps and added some coolant to see if I finally got rid of that annoying leak. Started it up and brought it up to temp and it appears that the sealant works as advertised. Wishing I had done that the first time around.

If all goes as planned tomorrow, I’ll pick up a grease cartridge and pump some into the front suspension while it’s still up on jackstands. I also need to do some more brake bleeding as well as they aren’t as responsive as they should be.

I pulled the old Clarion AM radio out of the console yesterday and bench tested it to confirm that it is dead so I ripped some of the guts out of it and ordered a small Bluetooth amplifier that I’ll mount inside hopefully. It will look period and let me use my iPhone for tunes and hands-free calls if I can pull it off. I picked up a pair of ABS map pockets for the footwells so I’m thinking I might see if I can put some speakers in those. And then there is the carpet kit that I need to install. And the front valance to paint, and the front bumper to straighten out. The list doesn’t seem to shrink much.