Banpei's two door panda Trueno from Japan

[banpei]

Today, I dropped by the AE86 to pick up the car battery and put it on a trickle charger during the winter. I also made use of this opportunity to drop off a couple of things that I've been accumulating and also fit the A-pillar garnish I repainted at the same time I did the seat belt locks.

This is a side-by-side comparison between the repainted items and the original one:

For some strange reason, only some of the interior parts have greyed out this badly. It's mostly the roof garnish, pillar garnish and the mid console. Other parts are still quite okayish.

But this also brings some new problems:

50 shades of blue!
You can see that the paint matches quite well with the dashboard, but not with the lower section of the dashboard, nor the lower a-pillar garnish, nor the door card (it's about as dark as the lower section of the dashboard.
I'm in doubt about which shade of blue to take as a reference here. I personally feel a shade darker would be the safest bet to match most of the other interior panels.

I also dropped off some parts for early next year.

This RHD speedometer cable came in a few weeks ago. Even though I no longer have a bouncing speedometer after I replaced the speedometer, the speedometer cable is still noisy from time to time. Will have to wait until next year.

Also, this shifter rebuild kit arrived:

The shifter is still rattling from time to time. When I replaced the TRD shortshifter with a C's shifter plus original baseplate, I lacked a new snap ring to lock things in place. Instead, I reused the ring on the TRD shortshifter. I suspect this ring might be thinner than the OEM ring, causing the shifter to have a little bit of play. The other suspicion is that the spring inside the C's shifter isn't strong enough and therefore needs a stronger spring or spacer installed.

As I tried to order the snap ring from Toyota, I was quoted a depressing amount of money and an expected time of arrival of a few weeks. I vividly remember the polyurethane cup for the shifter taking two extra weeks to arrive, on top of the estimated ten days. Anyway, I found a rebuild kit in Japan to be slightly more expensive, but then I would have all the necessary parts ready if the shift lever ball seat on the original baseplate has pitted due to the rattling. Another project for next year.