Anyone like old (2nd gen) Celicas?

[clutch1]

I was car shopping for a friend on craigslist a couple weeks ago and managed to find a way to spend my money instead of his.
Seems I'm not the only one into Japanese nostalgia cars on here, thought you guys might be interested in what I snatched up, check it out!

This fine machine is a 1978 Celica with 20R engine and 3spd auto trans. It sat in a barn for who knows how long (I found a pack of M&Ms that expired in '86 under the seat), the front plates expires in the 80's. Supposedly the head gasket's blown, and the tank was full of god knows what, but overall the body is pretty solid for a WI car. It's nothing a bit of patch work won't solve on the bottoms of the doors and such.








Gross wet trunk.. but it's solid metal.


Since it was labor day and Harbor Freight had a 25% off coupon I snatched up an engine hoist from there and came home to get started. Me and a friend had dinner then got to work.



3 hours later the hoist was assembled, the engine/trans was out, and my phone had managed to fall into the trans fluid pan and survive. Whew.



The car was actually a 2 for 1 deal, I also got a 1981 Celica in the deal, too. It's rusty as hell but has a 22R that's supposedly good with a 5spd transmission. So I figure I'll pillage the drive train and swap it into the good one. I'm going to store the NSX this winter (instead of keeping it in my 1 car garage) so I can work on it instead of biting my fingers until spring comes. Maybe it'll make winter a little more bearable.. maybe. Gonna need to figure out a way to heat the garage without dying, too.
From there's it's fix any rot on the body, straighten out some accident damage, clean and undercoat the whole bottom, pull the rear end and clean up / paint the rear axle, do a mild cleanup in the engine bay, freshen up the engine as necessary, delete the AC misc stuff that's hanging around in the bay, and then paint it, lower it, slam some rims on it, and enjoy. Basically a mild restoration and have a little fun with it while I'm at it. If anyone's interested I'll keep some pics flowing in slowly. It's a fun project, so I don't want to rush the process. :biggrin:

 

[clutch1]

I got Celica #2 today!


















And took most of the stuff out of the engine bay.. bumpers, lights, etc. Planning on how to do a basic wire tuck and stuff.






This is the rail for the rear window seal. I was looking into why it didn't seat well, and this might be why. Luckily I started scraping on it, and it seems like it's all scaling, and not actual rot. It's still solid metal. So I think I can clean and seal it and it'll be legit

 

[Peace Frog]

Not much of a fan of these cars, but I love your restoration project, cool enough for me. Mom bought something of that generation before I was born. The most notable stories being 1) She drove it from CA to University of Albuquerque where she studied for a year or so, and 2) she accidentally locked my older brother in it one time and says she ran into the store and called just about every phone number she knew for help. Fire Dept came first and broke a window.


Have fun!

 

[clutch1]

Typical old econo car, everyone knows someone who had one, ain't that how it goes?



Here's today's report;
Finished pulling the fenders,which were held on with some strip-caulk style stuff along the top that actually dried and was horrible to get off. But we got em with a heat gun. Each one had 2x 12MM bolts on the bottom which looked like trouble and didn't want to budge last night. But I hit em with PB Blast and they just spun right out tonight. I was stoked about that.



Found a little rot under the fenders.. but this will be cake to cut and patch, won't even need bodywork since it's all under panels.



Then in order to keep cleaning up the engine bay I had to get the evaporator out to weld its hole up eventually. So out the dash had to come.



So you know how replacing front speakers on an old Wrangler is either pull the dash or alien-arm them? Same idea here. It's behind the cluster and above an air vent and looks like it would be a real treat. This one only came with one speaker, but had holes/studs for another passenger side one and holes for rear deck speakers, too.



A little bit more work and the evaporator HVAC box was ready to come out. This setup is kind of cool, it's a 3-piece HVAC box, with the main middle one that houses the heater core, the center section which houses the AC, and the passenger side piece that houses the blower and recirc flap. As long as I'm this deep I may just pull the whole business to wash it all.



I'm super torn on paint choice. I love it in black, but don't want to do black. I like the idea of a dark dark root beer brown that looks black until the sun hits it, and have been stuck on that since I got the car.
But the satin black is pretty cool, too, almost like it has now, but would need to be "better" lol.
Or just a metallic black, kind of like a lot of new Fords rock.


Or a different color?? Ugh the sky is the limit unfortunately. And there's not many examples online to base it off of so I gotta just do what I feel like doing I guess.

 

[03 raw nsx]

I love your project! I had a 1980 with the 22r that was lowered on TRD springs with American Racing vectors (13 x 7 LOL).
Can't wait to see the progress. Personally I prefer the look of the 81 vs the 79.

 

[westernb4]

Great thread. Please keep the updates coming.

 

[peiserg]

I had an 81 celica that my dad bought new. He gave it to me with 294000 miles on the original engine and tranny. 9000 miles later i crashed it .

Used maybe a quart every 5000miles. Was awesome testament to japanese longevity.

 

[clutch1]

How'd you keep it from rotting out?! In old-car miles that's amazing.. heck even in new-car models it's impressive around these northern parts.

Today's update.. fall weather is moving in. The NSX is coming home from the body shop on tues or weds, so the '78 will lose its cozy home in my 1 car garage until I put the NSX away for the year, so I'm going to go ghetto and put up a 10x20' tent in the driveway to keep in tinkering even if its raining. I started getting the '81 ready to pull the engine and trans out, disconnected all the stuff attached to the engine and now it's just the driveshaft, trans mount, and speedo/slave connections and I'll pluck that out. Then the poor '81 can get rolled aside for who knows how long. Some friends seem interested in turning it into a drift missile, so I say more power to 'em, I hope it gets a new life somehow.

The only pic I snapped of any interest was the "custom" wire between the coil and the distributor.... 8ga AudioPipe amp power wire with plug wire ends crimped on. What in the..

 

[clutch1]

Tonight I went and did a little more "tinkering" and an hour later the engine fell out.



The front clip isn't removable on the facelift 2nd gen Celica, so I decided to leave the trans in and drop that out from the bottom instead of hoist the whole thing over the core support.



The clutch looked to be in good shape from what I could see. Very blue and pretty.



Better look at the engine mount damper. I think I'm going to swap subframes to keep the damper on the '78, here's hoping we'll be in business, I broke the bolts free and we'll crack on another day.


Now to decide which engine to tear into first.. there's so many options between the two. 22r.. 20r.. hybrid engine. Well no matter, they'll bo go in the garage for now until winter. Engine bay finish work comes first.

 

[7tcatvert]

Isn't 1978 a MK 1?

I am pretty sure my 85 was a MK2....

 

[03 raw nsx]

The Celica had a few changes from start to 1978
1971-1974 gen1
1975-1977 gen2 (include fastbacks)
1978-1981 gen2 (78-79 round headlights, 80-81 square headlights 'facelifted')
1982-1985 gen3 (square body with pop-ups, 84+ headlights rolled the other way)
1985.5- ?? gen4
???? gen5 with

Supra
1980-1981 gen1
1982-1985 gen2
1986- ??? un-noteworthy heavy body gen3
????? gen4 last supra that has risen to collector status

sorry that's all I can think of from memory.

I had:
1974
1980 coupe
1984 supra

....yes I was a Toyota guy, until they made the Prius :tongue:

 

[7tcatvert]

Interesting I thought the supra and celica were basically the same except motor and a few trim items i.e. Headlights

 

[03 raw nsx]

Interesting I thought the supra and celica were basically the same except motor and a few trim items i.e. Headlights

Yes, except the inline 6 (supra) vs inline 4 (celica) and associated transmission.

 

[Albert86]

What else did you find in the trunk of ole #2 (with the bullet holes in in it)

Guy I work with has a Celica Supra turbo track ready.
Took a couple of laps as a passenger with him at the track and had a nice time (130 mph straights).

Have fun with your project.

 

[clutch1]

You can tell Gen1 because they look like a Mustang, LOL

It seems like Gen2 gets forgotten, kind of because it's just another economy car. Hoping to make this one a little more special (just like my daily driver Prizm, something fun, lol).

The beater one had a few boxes of parts in it.. but all just trim and stuff. I haven't found anything "really cool." I'll have to take a picture of the springs on it, they heated them up to lower it by pouring power in from a MIG welder, covered in birdshit beads where they flexed it down. Pretty hood.

Yesterday was dropping the trans out quick, was nice and easy.



And since the beater had the nice engine mount damper mount on the subframe, I decided to swap them. As it turned out, one was bent where the control arm connect. But I smashed it a couple times with a hammer and it was as straight as the good one. Lol. Here's before the bending.


Here's a little more rot, no big deal.


Then we pushed the beater to the side of the garage where it will.. honestly probably wait to die Here's my roommate's Shiba on the hood, thought it was pretty JDM as stuff.


Upstairs neighbor's old Hilux and my 22R waiting for something to do.


Pressure washing time.. did the bay and undercarriage. Much, much better. I'm feeling really good about how clean it is.



Trunk is much better now, too.


So with that the '78 is ready for the bay to get its cleanup and the bottom to get undercoated to seal it all up. That's a problem for another day, tonight we decided to take a look into the engines.

Started with the 20R out of the '78 that the previous owner "had running but the headgasket blew or something."
Pop off the valve cover, unleash the stench of black satan oil crud.


Remove head. Unleash piston with a hole in the top. Heh.


Sigh so I kept tearing down just for fun.
Here's one of the spark plug holes, with absolutely ruined threads.


Then we have this.. a tube that goes into a water jacket that had one hole ruined on it. Looks like the bolt broke, they tried to drill it out, failed, and then welded on some weird thing to 'hold it.'
[/img]

So the 20R needs a full rebuild if we want to do anything with it.. which I don't now, LOL. No hybrid 22R with 20R head, either. We'll use the 22R from what it looks like. We pulled the clutch off the 22R next and the flywheel has a little crack in it. That's as far as I got!

All of this has been made possible because of my NSX being babysat at the bodyshop. It got a new front bumper and we're waiting on the emblem to come in. They got one, but it was wrong, so it's just chillin waiting for the right one now. Looks weird with no front badge.
[URL=http://s465.photobucket.com/user/isaact1234/media/Mobile%20Uploads/DAF48570-9BF4-466A-8CA0-658D193DD6AC_zpsmo4gmmpw.jpg.html]

 

[clutch1]

Not many pics today.. but I did finally take blade to car
Cut off the brackets I don't plan to use, including the shitty battery tray!





I also buzzed off the spot welds for the leftover bits and got those nice and flat. PLUS bought a gallon of the Java Black Pearl and a gallon of clear!
Next up is going ham with the wire wheel in the rusted areas, finding what needs to be chopped out, chopping it out, then beginning welding all the holes shut!
I had it up in the air with the wheels off to undercoat it today, but the more I looked at it the bottom of the car needs attention in some of the seam areas, where rust has started to pop some. I want to knock all that down, seal it up with POR15 (or cut and replace if necessary), and THEN undercoat it. So that can be another winter project. The main goal right now is to get the engine bay shaved and painted by winter time, because I can't spray paint in a tiny garage heated with an open flame, ha. The rest of the stuff, bodywork, etc, I can do.

 

[clutch1]

A bird took a shit all over my engine bay, lol.








And then I decided I had to relocate where the speedo cable enters the car so that it's not right in the middle of the engine bay. Now it goes in down low just behind the gas pedal.

 

[clutch1]

A bunch of welding and grinding later it was time to sling filler in the bay.


Round 1 began





Working on round 3 when I ran out of energy for the night





I'd say we're about 75% there for major bodywork in the bay, I hope anyways. Once I get another couple hours of sanding in I think it's going to be time for a nice thick layer of primer and then we where we're at. Primer is great at bringing out the areas that need attention.


A little bit of free time inside and the HVAC boxes now look pretty good, I'm ready to stuff them back in at some point.

 

[clutch1]

All the sanding culminates in 15 minutes of paint spraying, lol.













It's actually lookin way, way better than I expected. Going to start sanding more tomorrow to see where we're at and when we can do the fun stuff, like real painting.

 

[clutch1]

Shot paint last night.. it looked great!


For 15 minutes... Some random drizzle cloud came in and teamed up with the wind to blow about 2 minutes worth of little sprinkles all over the fresh clearcoat. I was sick. But I guess such is life when you're working in a driveway under a dang tent.


So off to sanding we go..


It was super windy today, so I hung up my new ebay purchase, heh.


Had to sand this roughness all down to a uniform flatness.


A few raw, cold hours later


Now to wait for good weather. I guess I need to wait until there isn't a single cloud in the whole entire sky? I dunno, don't paint cars unless you have a garage. lol.

 

[cmc140]

I really enjoy this thread, thanks for sharing. You are certainly one hard working guy.
Why don't you do the paint in the garage behind the car?

 

[clutch1]

That's where the NSX is! It brings up a paradox, if the weather is poor enough that I can't paint outside, it's also poor enough that I don't want the NSX outside to get rained on, haha.

Glad you're enjoying, seeing threads like the one where you're doing a full restore on your NSX full of pics inspires me!

 

[cmc140]

Ah my project isn't this involved. The welding, sanding, and painting is a massive amount of work.
Just roll the NSX out and cover it. I've had to cover my NSX up a few times to paint parts in the garage. Just take a page out of Nigel's playbook and build an auto cocoon!

 

[akira3d]

My first car was a '79 Celica GT that my mom bought for herself new in 1980. It had a custom paint job (dealer called the silver with black stripe color scheme "batmobile") and chromed wire rims. It was one of two cars I learned to drive on (the other was my dad's early 80's Toyota Corolla custom convertible). After I got my license, I shared the car with my mom while I was in high school and then she gave it to me when I went off to college. I had it repainted white because my mom had never maintained the paint and the silver had oxidized to the point it was dull grey.

Despite being my first ride, I don't really have a lot of fond memories of the car or dealing with Toyota's service department. I did like the '79 Celica's stick better than the Corolla and, surprisingly, felt it way better than the '88 Celica GT my mom bought to replace her '79. After college, she gave me the '88 Celica...which I drove until I bought my NSX.

The white one in this pic was mine:

 

[clutch1]

Damn is the 5speed really that good? Better than the NSX? haha. I got a kick out of the manual for the '81 I got, all it was was a bunch of warranty info and how to order Toyota clothes. Sounds like awesome service. Is that a first gen in the background? I got my goal done of having the engine bay painted by the end of my vacation.Then I spent the last couple nights fiddling with the interior. I took the carpet out, chipped out all the crap stuck to the floor, etc. I'll have to wire wheel the floor down in the future and seal it up.I found this, tooThen I removed the whole rear interior, too. I was pleased to find out that the entire rear quarter window comes out as an assembly. So that means the rotted rail on the one side where the gasket sits isn't part of the car, it's part of the window assembly. Maybe the parts car will have one in better shape! Otherwise with it out of the car it'll be easier to clean up, still. Brought the seats into the living room, lol.