Leeky1

Great work there Sheepers! I need some "peter" or equivalent in my life... Time and money would be nice too.

Nice build thread. And I'd have to say the best looking Celeste i've seen.

Loving this build thread. Looking forward to see your progress.

Since the last update a lot has happened. I had the car shipped back down to chch last Dec. It had a lot of patches and structural stuff done to it while up in Feilding. None of it makes for exciting project updates. I've since bought myself a Mig and various resto toolery. So am still in the process of patching panels and plug welding back on to the car. If anyone is interested I'll take a few pics of the car as it is and of my attempts at fabrication/welding.

Can I have his number? I need a second opinion on saving my Celica's roof.

Quick update. Apparently jacking up the car to take wheels off wasn't a good idea. This last pic is quite epic for me. I'd say it's 20% going back together. Should be finished in another 6 yrs or so!

Wow, impressive car there. It's certainly had some $$$ thrown at it along the way. I've been restoring an RA28 for last couple years and seeing beautiful Celica's like yours keeps me motivated to get it finished one day.

Nice work Sheepers. I'll be picking that issue of pcar up to give me motivation (just so you know, I always read car mags while taking morning dump). On another note; is the right rear guard a replacement? Or did you fill in petrol flap and convert to TA25 filler?

Nice car. I'm surprised I never saw your car on trademe when you got it. I've looked at every Ta/Ra Celica on trademe for the last 6 years. What kind of mirrors are you gonna get?

I'm a big Honda fan from way back. Loving that CRX, man I really want one of those for a track toy one day.(Yes I know you had a race car for sale, but I'm broke ass)/too much on the go). Any reason there's no B16A's in any of these? They must be pretty cheap these days?

That is looking sweeeet! Simmons on Rx's are nice. 21million aussies can't be wrong. joke. I don't mind the chrome either, but if you drive around with the bonnet off your gonna blind other motorists and cause an accident. Loving the seats too.

Ok, you win. Your Celica is clearly rustier than mine. Not by much. Starting to take shape though, not much room for the radiator from the looks.

Yup. Looks like it's got some convex(outey) and concave(inney) curves to it. Would need to be shrunk just right, too much and it'll be a pain in the arse to get to sit down properly. If it's an immaculate show car then you should take the window out if you want as good a job as possible. Othwerwise you gonna have to expect some little specs or the odd small crease.

Actually I was going through all the boxes of parts and realised the 4 pieces of trim that go from head liner down along rear of hatch are pretty poked. Wouldn't have some spares would you? Hey I was reading an old copy of 4&rotaries at work today and yhey mentioned a guy called sleeektoy from toymod.com who reproduced his celica GT badges. Was that you??

Hmm sounds promising, but I think the price to ship from Perth would be astronomical. I think my gaurds aren't beyond saving. Cheers for those mock ups!! Pink doesn't look too bad aye. Maybe with purple sparkle?

Not as easy as it looks getting these panels off. Had to do this both sides. Basically opened up sides were the door hinges are located. Bad design. This is where fresh air enters in to the heater box. So once I got the sills off I could see this area completely blocked with dirt. It had rusted right thru into the car, where the belts bolt to car body. After blasting. Will cut all this out. The floor. Sorry for all the pics! Won't post again untill I start making some real progress with the patching, re-building process.

Hi Mike. Great pics, definately make me keen to get mine up and running. I have to thank you, because you are the reason I managed to get my hands on this car to start with. I must admit sometimes I feel like it's going no where , but then I'll see a couple pics online of mint RA28's like yours and It keeps me going. As for parts, I don't supose you have or know of rear guards and a roof?

Cheers for the advice and comments guys. The main reason I went so far with the strip down is because I'm cheap and only wanted to get it sandblasted one time. I borrowed a drain camera from work and poked it into all the panels etc and pretty much found every little bit of rust in the entire thing. So made sense to clean up the internal structure first and then build it up. If I could get rear guards and a roof I'd be stoked but chances are slim to none so I'll just fix what I got. As for bog, I realise it'll need bog, but I meant no grind/bog/paint going on if it's possible. Thanks for your tips, I like the fact you say if done properly, it'll last forever. When I showed my mate the car with the out of it, 1st thing he said was "it's fucked, get another body." Yeah these thing are just sitting round everywhere. Car had some dodgy rust repairs about 10 or so years ago. the rust was ground/cut out. Steel plates tacked on/over, lead poured around the plate, then bog used to smooth things out. Sounds good in theory, but they didn't stop the rust and it kept eating away unnoticed.

Cheers. Although all I've done is pull it to pieces! Getting it all back together and lined-up is going to be the REAL challange. @ KK Or maybe just slap some flat steel on there and make my own original? Plans are just to get it tidy and running. Don't have the budget for wild mods, plus it's gonna be a sunday cruiser. @Truenotch- I finish work at 5 then had to pick my boy up from daycare. 'spose I could leave him in the car while I have couple beers in pub. Then come out after an hr or 2 and give him bag of chips and raspberry/coke. Oh wait, it's not the 80's no more. Might try sort something for next month tho. @MrMcdoll- That's real badass. Will take some pics of it this w/e if its fine.

12 months 2 earthquakes and a relocation to Palmy...this is where it's at. By leeky1 at 2011-06-01 By leeky1 at 2011-06-01 These last couple pics were taken early Jan. Got it back from sandblasters and it sat in garage while all the shit went down in chch(incl my house being munted). So I had to throw the motor and box back in, pop rivet all the panels back onto it to get it transported up the north island. Now i'm in process of taking it back apart and get some serious steel welded in there.

Maybe I should just bring my parts over to your's with a few dozen piss. I thought I'd get a cheap gun, go grab some sand from the sea(although that shit that come up in the earthquake looks really fine) throw on some sunnies and a paper breathing mask and go nuts in the driveway!

Na I didn't buy it. That sucks, was hoping this would be a cheap way to clean up all my rusty bits. Which is almost everything not plastic or glass So what do you recommend? Just bite the bullet and find someone to blast all the parts cheaply?

Went down to the local paint/panel supply shop otherday and noticed a small Sand blasing gun for $35. I'm getting my car Garnet blasted soon as I feel that's the best way to clear out most the rot but for the smaller panels etc that I've already pulled off I thought I might get away with buying one of these and doing it at home. Any had much experience with these and is there anything I need to be aware of? I'm trying to restore my car a cheaply as possible while still doing a thorough job.

It's hard to say if it is really. There's quite a bit in places I couldn't take pics of. When i started pulling out the interior out I got pretty bummed out when I saw what was underneath, but since I'm gonna take my time and do it all properly I figure I'll end up with a pretty sound car at the end of it. At first when I saw your 23 I was thinking "WTF are they doing to that awesome classic!!" But seeing as it was pretty much full of bog and rust your actually turning it into something pretty cool. Are you guys really going to put some kind of gun thingy on it? I can just picture some old senior citizens shitting there pants seeing that beast in their rear view mirror! @ BIG A Thanks for the words of wisdom. I'm pretty new to this kind of thing and pretty much everyone I've talked to has different opinions on what and how to do things. So does the soda remove paint/flaky rust, but not really dig out all the rot? I'm really just want to do things right so as to not make things harder/more expensive later on.

I'm not afraid to spend money on it, just afraid of the what the missus would say if she knew just how much! Plus I've got kids and mortgage so money's not exactly sitting there waiting to be poured into this project. But....I got a mate who's a panelbeater who I do plumbing for so we got a deal going. Basically he tells me what needs to be done on it and I do it. I'll eventually make up all the patches and get him to weld them in. So it's real a budget DIY project. But in saying that I'm going to do everything as well as can be done. There'll be no bog or crap in this. I'm going to take it apart as far as needs to be done to eliminate every last bit of rot. As for plans... Want to keep it oldschool like this. Same wheels and color.