A little clean up

I finally brought the original engine home from the body shop. To say the least the engine and tranny were nasty. I took some heavy duty degreaser and a firm toothbrush size brush and went to work. I mainly did the tranny as I plan to pull it off the block to change the clutch. The tranny was caked in grease and grime along with primer and bondo dust from the shop. Below is the before and after shot.
More updates coming soon.

Two years in.....

Well it's been 2 years since I purchased this Corolla. Since i picked up the Levin parts car (see below) I'm motivated to get this car done! I finally brought the engine home to start going through it. A few months ago I had a new windshield and back window installed. Until now that was it. As a refresher, Here is a picture of the Coupe from March 2006 and the most recent shot as it sits now.



Look for more regular updates as I try to get this car on the road soon.

New parts victim, the project will resume

Yes it has been a looooong time. Other than adding new window glass, the project has been pretty much put on the back burner until now. Since I could not find or don't know what parts I have left, I set out to buy a GTS parts car. After a short search i managed to work a deal for this 85 GTS Levin converted Hatch. The engine is blown, but I don't care, I wanted the car to make sure I have all the pieces to put my engine back in the Coupe. Eventually I will part out this parts car, but for now, this should get me moving again.
Thanks for the look,
Rich

Ya it's been a while....

Nothing new to post lately. A few weeks back we had that nasty hot weather and since then been busy with other stuff. I'm hoping to get rid of the "parts" car soon and bring the engine home for clean up. I hope to get back on this project soon.
Thanks,
Rich

How bout a "mock up"

Not a whole lot going on. Still waiting on the glass guy to install the windshield and replace the rear window. I did pick up one new part...the Radio antenna :) Going to the junk yard in search or more knick knack stuff.
Hopefully I can do some stuff tomorrow.
Just for fun a while back when I got the black meshies mounted up, I did a photoshop hack job to see what it might look like....I think i'm leaning towards the blacks meshies instead of gold.

Almost done with the interior...

The glass guy was supposed to come by today to install new front and rear glass, but the blow out flaked. So while waiting on him (all day), I decided to try and get the interior done as much as possible.
I cleaned up the rear seats (which are a little faded on the head rest section) and installed them. They still have a little dog hair, but I managed to get rid of most of it. After that I worked on the dash. Instead of wiring up the Digital cluster, I figured it was safer to install the stock cluster and make sure everything works before I take on the Digi cluster. The only issue I ran into was the drivers side lower dash "cover" and the steering column cover. Both are from the SR5 which I forgot did not have a tilt column, so as you can imagine, it doesn't work. So now the hunt will start for those 2 pieces in black as well as the center section that goes around the the shifter and emergency brake. I have them in blue, but I really don't want to paint them. I also had time to get the Solex lock finished up on the passenger door too.
Things are going to slow down a little while I try and locate the parts I need (including front seats) and wait to bring the engine home from my cousins shop, so in the mean time, here are some pics of todays progress.

Rich

Almost done with the dash board areaBack seats installed, not bad for coming from the junk yard.I made my own trunk floor panel and installed the trunk carpet too.Yummy Solex locks intalled


One last thing, while getting ready to load up pictures, I found some pictures from exactly one year ago today...man I never thought I'd get the car half way together since then LOL

SCORED!!!!!

So I went to the 50% off sale at the local pick a part in hopes of picking up a few knick knack pieces from a blue 85 sr5 coupe I had seen last weekend. I got there at 7:45 and had walked a few rows when I came across an 87 Red SR5 Coupe with black interior! Ok, before you purists bust my balls, I have yet to find a clean GTS to pick out the interior. The odometer read 120,122 and the interior (with the exception of some dog hair) was super clean. To say the least I picked it clean. Other than the dash board, climate control, Radio and front seats, I took ever interior panel inside that car. I found the back half of the black carpet i needed, all the vents, seat belts in black, rear seats, headliner and all the little black parts and screws, even the trunk/gas latch was clean and is now in my car. I picked it all up for $130!!! I took a picture of my haul, but for some reason it didn't keep. I can finally get around to finishing the interior and get the junk car out of the garage.
Tonight I finished up the drivers side door. I installed the Solex door lock and swapped in all the black parts from the SR5. As you can see from the pics, they are super clean. All I did was dust them off a little, next week I'll get in there and do a super clean detail on all the parts. Here's a couple pics of tonights work.

I know what you 're thinking, but these panels will have to do until I can find a clean set of Black GTS pieces

New Goodies!

I picked up a bunch on new molding pieces from my Dad's shop. I'm still missing quite a few, but I got the major ones that needed changing. Tonight I installed new rubber and trim pieces on the driver and passenger doors as well as doing the dreaded side moldings. The door moldings are tough to keep even, but I'm pretty happy with the final result. Tomorrow morning the local "pick a part" is having a 50% off day, so I'm hoping to get lucky and find me an 86 in the yard.

Picture d here is my 2 year old son Nick, scuffing the paint a little so that the molding will stick better :) Nice job Nick!

Final results...phew it's even :)

It's all in the details

I've been spending some time doing a bunch of little things. Rear taillight trim was faded and had over spray on them. I masked them up and shot them with some "body trim' black and they turned out really good. I also picked up a pretty decent rear deck in piece in black, black brake light housing, trunk carpet and repainted the plate that holds the carpet in place at the trunk opening. To tell you how sick I am, every bolt that comes off the car gets cleaned with a tooth brush and then shot with black semi gloss. I doubt anyone will notice any of these little things, but I want to "sweat the details" that's what makes it fun.
I also got the Black SSR's mounted up on the tires....now I need to decide if I want to have a set of the Gold SSR's powder coated black or have the black rears powder coated Gold. I mounted the gold and blacks on their own side and now I just have to figure out which way to go. The Gold wheels really make the paint "pop" in the sun, but once I have the Zenki Black lip and the black body moldings back on, black wheels may give it that "sinister" look. I'm not in a big rush to decide, but I'll have to eventually :)
Rich

Wow some progress!!!! Rattle can style

I finally got a chance to work on the car tonight. Originally when I bought the car, I had intended on restoring it to factory original colors, well that obviously went out the window. During that time I manage to buy a sweet uncracked blue dashboard from Mike in WA (kitsune) for a great deal, but that problem now is that the blue dash won't look good with the current color. I've been trying to find a nice black one, but with no real luck. So, I remembered way back in the day when my dad painted the maroon door panels on our 73 240Z with black vinyl spray paint and it came out good. Figuring the new paint couldn't be any worse, I decided to go for it.
I took a trip to Pep Boys and 6 bucks later I was out the door with a can of Dupli-Color Black Vinyl Paint. I prepped it using by washing it throughly with a mild detergent and water. Dried if off, shook the can of paint for a couple of minutes and started laying down the color. I started by painting all the bottom parts you most likely will not see along with the sides and back, saving the main part of the dash for last. I applied about 5 even coats using less than a full can. The color laid down really good and is even too. It doesn't have that duller factory look, but more of a "Armor All" look. Either way I don't care, I'm happy with it and it's one more thing knocked off the list :)

Taking it apart again

Well I just found out that our painter at the shop is leaving after many years so I had to rush and get him to finish up a few knick knack things that were bugging me. The inside of the drivers fender was missing some paint and you could see the old color (not really a big deal, but I knew it was not right). I also didn't realize it until I installed them that the frames around the headlight housings needed to be painted body color too. So after thinking I was putting the car back together, I had to take it apart LOL. I'm gonna be busy for the next week, so most likely no updates until then.

A little cleaning on Fathers day

Well for Fathers day you'd think most fathers would want to veg out in front of the TV. Not me, I decided to clean out the Corolla. The interior was covered it what looked like mud. Basically it was bondo dust mixed with water and caked everywhere. So I cleaned that out and here's a before and after pics.
Before:

After:
Ok so it's not perfect, but it's a lot better than it was and I can actually work inside now.
I also changed out the heater core. The original was broken when they pulled the engine out. Since I have the parts car so close, I pulled the dash out and pulled the heater core...man what a pain in the ass. I did not install it in the car yet, but I will next week. Here's a pic of the heater cores with an arrow pointing out the broken one.

The Parts car is home

I picked this car up last year and have been using it for body parts. Since it was a pain to go back and forth to the body shop to pull parts, I decided to bring it home. This should make it easier to swap parts and go back together correctly on the new car. The only bad part is having to park the truck outside and living in Fontana aka "Fontucky" or "Fomton" that's not the safest thing to do. I gotta get one I need done quickly :) Hopefully the car being home will help move the project along quicker.

A couple knick knack things

Ok, I warned you, I'm going to post even the smallest updates. Tonight I swapped out the right side headlight assembly. Turns out the one that was on the car was from an 85 and the grille mounting tabs are different. So I swapped in the 87 assembly from the parts car and installed the "Kouki" grille (Kouki represents the later model Corollas 86-87). I also added a picture of the Solex lock that I installed on the trunk last week. These locks look similar to the type of locks you find on vending machines. I'm not sure how much tougher they are to pick, but I figure it couldn't hurt to add them.

Damn parts car

Unfortunately not much to share this week. I did get a chance to stop by the shop and pull the right headlight off the parts car. While doing that, I busted my middle finger knuckle open. So other than that, not much to show this weekend. Ouch!

Drilling some holes...yikes!!

I've been dreading mounting up the Toyota/TRD Coupe Rear wing on the car. This one requires drilling a crap load of holes and it does not come with a template. Luckily I have the trunk from my parts car to practice on. First I made a template using cardboard and then did a test run. The test run went pretty good and I made a few modifications to my template. It was scary as hell drilling into the trunk, but it turned out pretty good. It's off to the left by about 3/32". It's bugging me a little, but not enough yet to try and fix it... I'm worried that I might be "picking the fly shit out of the pepper". I'm going to think about it for a little before I decide to do anything if I do.Practice makes perfect?

The 16 holes I had to drill into the freshly painted trunk.
Ahh scary...drilling the holes. While we're at it, check out that paint finish...like a mirror :)
Temporarily mounted up, I still need to clean of the rubber along the edges.

Ok Finally caught up..todays work log

Now we are finally caught up to todays date. During this past week I picked up a Koyo Radiator and another pair of wheels from Kevin. These are black faced SSR Reverse mesh wheels with a +1 offset which will give it much more "lip" for the rear. I also picked up new "eye brows" for the headlights covers and mounted those up. I also drilled some holes in the trunk and added the garnish as well as the garnish that goes around the license plate.
I also went by the junk yard today for their special half off day and I got lucky and found a GTS Hatch. I scavenged a bunch of hardware, rear seat belts and other knick knack goodies. Here's some pictures from this past week and todays work.

Almost caught up...Finally the car is home!

I've almost got you up to date for this project. On May 13, 2007 I finally got the car home. It still has a long way to go, but in the mean time I had to start putting on parts. Here's how it sits as of last week (yes it sits high on the stock suspension with everything gutted). The next post will have you caught up to this weekend.

A year later...almost done at the body shop

Since I'm getting a great deal from Dad, they only work on the car when they have time between jobs. So a year later, here is what the car looks like. Unfortunately the color doesn't "pop" on cloudy days. Here's a few pics, including myself and the kids

Some goodies for the project

During the last year I have been buying parts for the car. I picked up JDM (Japanese Domestic Manufactured) parts that are different from the US parts. I got both front and rear bumpers, grille, side markers and taillights. Also picked up more misc parts like a JDM Digital gauge cluster, Optional trunk wing, Momo steering wheel, HKS Oil Cap, HKS Radiator cap and East Bear Aero Mirrors.


And the best score of all courtesy of Kevn...a Brand new set of SSR Mesh Wheels Brand New in the box!