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:
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: