There's a lot of little spots of surface rust. I'd clean those up so that they don't lead to major cancer spots. Do a light sand and respray + clear coat.

Looking at the pictures it seems that someone (maybe the PO) sprayed the shock towers with black paint to cover up, what looks to be, oxidization/rust and covered up the problem. Personally, I'd start sanding down that black paint to see what's hiding under there, fixing that first since shock tower rust is a problem on 2g's and if it goes ignored can cost serious fabrication/money to fix or lead to scrapping the car. Once you do get it sanded down hit it with a wire brush to knock loose everything. Once you clean everything up and are ready to repaint it Rust-oleum makes a spray paint called Automotive Enamel that's cherry red that matches our R87 paint fairly well and it prevents rust to boot.

If there is rust eating through the strut towers then it more than likely started inside your wheel well. It would be a good idea to do the same thing to the wheel wells, instead of spraying it red though get rubberized rust encapsulator spray to prevent it from happening again in the future. Eastwood sells the nice stuff but most auto parts stores have a similar version of it, it just might not work as well.




As far as everything else goes, there's a lot of flash (surface) rust on all of your brackets. What I did was pull every bracket that I could and took them to a local powder coater to get sand blasted and coated satin black. You could also pick up a exhaust manifold heat shield, which is both functional (keeps heat out of the engine bay) and cleans up the front of the motor if you coat it.

As far as everything else goes, buy a bunch of cloth rags and a gallon of Simple Green and start wiping off that 20yrs off dust and oil that's stuck to everything.

This is what my engine bay looked like when I initially bought my car compared to hours of wiping everything down with Simple Green and getting those brackets and heat shield powder coated.

rusts is likely the worst thing to see. but I prefer wire brush or better sand blast. then flat black paint. you dont want small parts to stand out. you want the eye to see the bigger parts. turbo, valve cover, IC pipes, etc..

gofer said:

Looking at the pictures it seems that someone (maybe the PO) sprayed the shock towers with black paint to cover up, what looks to be, oxidization/rust and covered up the problem. Personally, I'd start sanding down that black paint to see what's hiding under there, fixing that first since shock tower rust is a problem on 2g's and if it goes ignored can cost serious fabrication/money to fix or lead to scrapping the car. Once you do get it sanded down hit it with a wire brush to knock loose everything. Once you clean everything up and are ready to repaint it Rust-oleum makes a spray paint called Automotive Enamel that's cherry red that matches our R87 paint fairly well and it prevents rust to boot.

Home Depot : Rust-oleum Cherry Red Automotive Enamel
​

If there is rust eating through the strut towers then it more than likely started inside your wheel well. It would be a good idea to do the same thing to the wheel wells, instead of spraying it red though get rubberized rust encapsulator spray to prevent it from happening again in the future. Eastwood sells the nice stuff but most auto parts stores have a similar version of it, it just might not work as well.

Eastwood Rubberized Rust Encapsulator Undercoating​

As far as everything else goes, there's a lot of flash (surface) rust on all of your brackets. What I did was pull every bracket that I could and took them to a local powder coater to get sand blasted and coated satin black. You could also pick up a exhaust manifold heat shield, which is both functional (keeps heat out of the engine bay) and cleans up the front of the motor if you coat it.

As far as everything else goes, buy a bunch of cloth rags and a gallon of Simple Green and start wiping off that 20yrs off dust and oil that's stuck to everything.

This is what my engine bay looked like when I initially bought my car compared to hours of wiping everything down with Simple Green and getting those brackets and heat shield powder coated.

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gofer I so appreciate Your post. Can I get the eastwood stuff in canada ? Are all the bolts in the engine bay replaceable ? I think I found a post with bolt sizes and types on the engine bay. if I cant find simple clean is there any other alternative ? Tommorow I have a day off I can attack that engine bay. I read something about a product rust remover Castle something. does that work well on rust removal to loosen up bolts ? Castle Thrust that was the name

How's your engine mounts? If they are pretty worn it wouldn't hurt to swap them out.

Along with the exhaust manifold heat shield that was already mentioned, grab yourself a battery tie down bracket too.

Ok I will make a list on the top. My battery tray has some surface rust too. I can do the same thing I will do to my brackets.
Edit ; Is that white tank the coolant reservoir ? If so I think it is empty. But my lines are filled to the top.

This was before

And after


Now granted, I repainted the bay, but I did a lot of semi gloss black powercoating on tons of the brackets and such. Along with new hardware throughout. I have a few new pets going on this winter that'll clean things up as well.

woow looking clean

My valve cover was oil covered like that too. Replace the oil cap or even just get a new seal from the dealer and you should be good to go.

YERFDOG said:

My valve cover was oil covered like that too. Replace the oil cap or even just get a new seal from the dealer and you should be good to go.

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Could it be that one of my valve bolts is stripped ?

Attilas said:

Could it be that one of my valve bolts is stripped ?

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If somebody cracked the valve cover in the process of stripping the bolts then maybe so. I'd clean it, replace the cap (pretty cheap) and see if it continues to leak.

YERFDOG said:

If somebody cracked the valve cover in the process of stripping the bolts then maybe so. I'd clean it, replace the cap (pretty cheap) and see if it continues to leak.

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Roger Buying the cap tommorow morning. Found Simple Green at canadian tire. Cleaning time tommoorow. I will post pictures after I clean er up.

+1 on the Simple Green. On mine, I wrapped everything electrical related (elec. plugs, fuse box, ecu) with aluminum foil, sprayed simple green and then light hosed everything down. A rag and simple green on areas that got missed.

Obviously take the battery out right ? I was thinking rag simple green couple times. Outside its freezing temps. cant really hose er down. I am in Alberta Cochrane. Havent seen over zero for more than 1 day since November. Its getting sad man. But the gst pulls hard on even 4inches of snow with the studded nokian tires. Passing even trucks with winter tires and 4WD doing 70mphs. The best 400 $ I spent on my car for this winter. Anybody running all seasons is crazy...

Wouldn't be a bad idea to take the battery out. I know what you mean about cold. I'm in So. California. It sometimes gets into the 50's (brrrrr).

Attilas said:

Obviously take the battery out right ? I was thinking rag simple green couple times. Outside its freezing temps. cant really hose er down. I am in Alberta Cochrane. Havent seen over zero for more than 1 day since November. Its getting sad man. But the gst pulls hard on even 4inches of snow with the studded nokian tires. Passing even trucks with winter tires and 4WD doing 70mphs. The best 400 $ I spent on my car for this winter. Anybody running all seasons is crazy...

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One thing I wish I had time/money to do was get some snow tires this year. We've had a decent winter with a good amount of snow and temps staying around 10*f. I've been DDing my talon, and it does great, but with some snow tires id be unstoppable.
Im still rocking my maxxis ma-z1 summer tires haha.

If you have a garage or lean-to, hang some visqueen or tarps up to close an area off, and use a kerosene blast heater to warm the section up. Makes working in the bitter cold bearable. Been doin this with my mx3 and sisters 4runner (Mx3 is getting a regasket and bay cleaning, 4runner some electrical diagnosis and repair), it helps alot.

Cleaning and time will go a long way, the rust spots like others have said would be the first thing to tackle. Gl!

Those toyotas are beasts! Update I got everything needed to attackthe bay. No time I was taking an exam today to qualify for courses to be a mechanic. Finished an hour ago. I think I passed. More pictures to come tommorow.