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It drives pretty well actually, clutch is still a bit weird though so master needs replacing I expect. Slave was replaced prior to my getting it as it was even weirder before. Not quite disengaging etc. I had a measure up.. I think I can fit a K20

Meet Barry the Honda S600 Coupe! Why Barry? Well it's been Barryfied that's why! For those who are unaware the Honda S600 drivetrain featured some chains to send power to the rear wheels. These were not the most reliable vehicles and these bits often had trouble so Barrys of the day swapped out the engines and drivetrains for more local options. This particular one features a Mazda 1.4L mated to a 5 speed that goes down into an R180. You can see the bit where the axle passes through are the original chain drive parts; these are still in the car but not sure how difficult it would be to try get them going again. Probably too hard basket to find everything. I have also been supplied a restored original chassis too. Despite the wrong engine/gearbox etc it actually runs really well and sounds cool. I wish I could put Mikunis on but there isn't really space for proper side draughts which sucks because I'd love to get rid of that hump in the bonnet. Brakes are drum all round and the stud pattern is the same as Porsche which makes it impossible to get wheels that actually fit however Watanabe can make them which is cool. It's lowered somehow, nobody really knows how but shocks need replacing anyway and previous owner thinks whoever had it before him just put shorter shocks in. Also fun fact, same red as the Celica. Although both have been repainted (in fact Celica is not even OEM red) the factory reds of both cars were made by Dulux (in Aus anyway).

Thread for yarns/advice/scolding etc

Hakosuka:

OK, seeing as I keep getting more cars I thought I would collate all the information into one thread rather than hunting around for each thing. Here are the links for the old threads which will no longer be updated: TA22:

Ohh nice, I might just end up buying one as I have a few other cars that could use the treatment. Which part of Melbourne are you in ?

Today we battled high heat and surely lost some kgs worth of sweat, but it was a pretty big day! Something that's bugged me from day one is the exhaust. Now the whole exhaust needs replacement which is a future problem but it always had a rattle. I also did not like how low it sat in the rear. Looking at how the exhaust was mounted made me wonder if I'd worked on this in a previous life actually. Some strips of rubber and random metal bolted together.. kind of worked I guess? One of those bolts was loose which was causing the annoying rattle. In the back this rubber setup meant the exhaust was not really in a good spot so I cobbled together an equally terrible solution which seems to have worked, for now. The final ideal solution (aside from new exhaust) is to actually get the correct hangers in there. Anyway, rattle gone away now. My tyre guy is on the way to my shop so popped in and had the tyres fitted up to my MK3s. Looks nice, but wow the front looks skinny.. thankfully the plan is to rectify this next year. Now obviously the rear is much lower than the front on account of not having done anything in the front yet but again, 2023 will see a full front end refresh including altitude adjustment. After putting a little bit of fuel in and taking it up and down the road a couple of times a few things are apparent. It backfires a lot, in particular under partial throttle. Full throttle is great actually with max doorts. The brakes don't work/basically non-existent and also when brake is applied the car it dives all over the place. This could be related to the non-brakes and crusty suspension so that's where we'll start in 2023. I'll also finally get a timing light and try to learn all about that as I reckon there could be something wrong there too. Always something to do.

Big things today! The front is back on; mostly. I was a but dubious the driver side would go together again as the fender is really mangled but seemed to work. I guess it was always like that I just didn't realise until I took it apart. I think I will have to re-align the door slightly to get it to work perfectly(ish) but so far not too bad. New Koito headlights arrived during the week but I couldn't put them back in with the janky old headlight buckets so fired up the paint booth again. By this time in the relationship I'm far from worrying about the small details so just laid it on thick. While waiting I gave the trim rings a bit of a clean up before putting them back on as well, don't wire wheel your leg, it's a little painful. Top before, bottom after. Now, Toyota has an idiot-proof way to make sure you put the correct lights in the correct buckets. On each light there are these little tabs that sit into the corresponding part on the bucket. What they did not think about was a greater level of idiot. You see I went and grabbed one of the inner lights and tried to offer it up to the outer bucket but it didn't fit. In my infinite wisdom I presumed the lights weren't correct so went and cut these tabs off. Installed it but now the light is loose. Turns out when you put the right bulb in the right place everything works great and you don't need to cut the tabs. So as a result now I have a sweet intake, but that'll only be temporary. Super stoked with how it's come out though when you compare it to how it was. I just need to wrestle that front lip back on which I expect will be even more of an ache than before.

A bit of a slow weekend but got a little bit done. Wheels are finished enough for me, solid 10 footers. I'll get tyres mounted up to them probably after Xmas. Will the hold air? No idea, are they straight? Probably not, but at least the faces aren't rusty anymore so that's something. Sometime in the past I reversed into the side of my garage and caused this decent dent so today I tried to remove a bit of it. The guard is super wavy (like the rest of the car) but maybe it's better? Doesn't have the huge dent anymore just a bunch of small ones, good enough. The problem is the car is bent so the join down where the bottom of the door is on the sill is actually pushed in and needs to be pulled out which causes the bottom of the guard to touch the bottom of the sill panel if that makes sense. To remedy this I can probably slot the mount holes down the bottom and squiz it along, hopefully. Just a couple mm will do so the door doesn't hit it every time opening. I also found out the side trims were riveted in when they're meant to have clips and screws.. so have got some correct hardware on order but need to do the old drill brush trick on the black stuff underneath again. Waiting on new headlights and corner lights then back on the front end assembly next week I reckon.

Today I dub thee Bog the Builder, and I've been doing my "restore" on the SSRs posted previously. I'm not very happy with the finish on the lips yet so have ordered some finer grit sandpaper and a different metal polish as the autosol has left it kind of grey. If it doesn't work I'll just tell everyone I'm going for a grey brushed look. Rustoleum black centres because that's what I've got and this is the result. Front two are basically done except for the extra polish and clean up the paint lines around the edges because I didn't mask it very well. Another job I started on while waiting for paint dry is removing this awful undercoat around the edges. Now to be fair I don't hate the people who put it on as this car has seen some shit and the undercoat probably saved it from all sorts but it looks nasty and the only thing it needs saving from is me now. Wire wheel on a drill took care of it for the most part. As you can see a few times went too hard on it and burnt through down into the bog (hence the nickname earlier) but even with the scratches and scrapes there I think it looks much better already. I'll get a caramel wheel during the week and finish it off with that hopefully to make it more tidy. Still need to do the sides under the trim.

Whoops missed a week. You get a double whammy this update. I've been busy. I had my KYB and King springs arrive for the rear, these are for a Gemini but fit up mint and go nice and low. Of course I couldn't resist checking what it's like without springs.. Weirdly one side of the shock bolts on the bottom is much larger than the other? This bolt looks pretty home made so not sure if intentional so you can't mix it up or if some previous owner did some fuckery. Unfortunately the bottom spring perches are cactus as you can see but I can't get any new ones until early-ish next year from Thailand so that will have to wait. Something that's always bugged me has been the red behind the front area which stands out like a dog's dick. I set about resolving that today. Before After Also in between waiting for coats of paint to dry I set about installing the springs and shocks. I don't have tyres for the SSRs yet so put back on the boomer 13s to see what it looked like. Found out my car originally was Toyota "Orange Metallic", IE, Brown. I don't feel too bad about the house paint red now.

Big fan of self punishment?

So it's been a while on this one, a few people might know what happened but basically the shop it was in closed for reasons so the car's just been in storage. I went back to NZ not long ago and got some recent photos of it seeing as I'd not actually seen it for several years. For the time being it's in the too hard basket so will just stay in storage.

Did a bit more Celica fiddling today. Fitted up some panels I painted last week in this Rustoleum grey. Originally rusted and average. I'm not 100% on the colour, wouldn't mind a little darker but for an experiment I think it was successful. Also refinished the black around the headlights but I need to replace all of the headlights anyway as they're actually all different and one of them as you can see in the images has some weird blue tinge in it. Before: After: Did a wee quick polishing job on the bumper, literally like rolling shit in glitter but it got rid of a little of the surface grime. I have ordered some more Rustoleum black to do all behind the grille and bumper/headlights area to take your eye away from the red that's behind there then eventually want to re-do the engine bay as well in a dark gunmetal colour but that'd be further down the track. Photos of the car look very underwhelming on the internet but in real life I'm happy with how the front's coming together, despite all the colour differences. Yeah I'll probably paint that front lip proper black at some point as not sure I could match the house paint red of the rest of the car. Also a while ago I had the second pair of Mk3s arrive so now we have a set to work out the size for building.

A bunch of bits from Thailand arrived for the Celica. Various rubber seals as well as some sway bar bushes. How good is brand new OEM Toyota rubber bits for your 1974 car. Rest of them aren't OEM but made well. Fresh window seals mm.. only problem is the windows don't line up properly so I suspect there is a bunch of things bent. Not super surprised. These really helped with the door shutting nice on both sides now though which is awesome but I do still need some of the little rubber bits that go on the doors themselves to really get it minty. Baby steps.

Today I started dismantling the front a bit more to do some refreshing on the headlight surrounds as the black is fading and also try to refresh the panel under the lights whatever that's called. As you can see those bits are crusty so will refresh that. Not quite sure if I'll keep it the grey or do something else. I also decided I want to paint the area behind the lights etc in black or some dark to hide the poo red. Sat the rear wing on just for looks too, nice. I also want to work out putting a wideband sensor in the headers for tuning the carbs as there is a provision for O2 sensor in there which as you can see has been used simply to block off the hole. Most wideband sensors don't seem to look like this though so hopefully I can find a threaded flange to put in it's place.

On today's episode of rolling shit in glitter I have a go at fitting up the front splitter I've had for a few years. Never really had the space to disassemble the front end before. Considering the car is more bent than your average family bar enthusiast it doesn't fit toooo bad. I have to get some proper fasteners and do some sanding down and more bending and it might be not terrible. Then just need to buy some house paint (looks like that's what the car is painted with LOL) and make it red

Something I'd been meaning to do for ages was replace the shitty Supercheap spec wheel on the Celica. I had this Nardi for years and it was on my Accord before so just needed the boss kit, easy done. I also need to find a new dash so I can replace it as this one had the headunit bit cut out, will give me an excuse to pull the whole thing out eventually and check the hvac stuff as I can't really move any of the sliders Put the other mirror on as well, not photo worthy.. still useless but the holes are covered now.

Got some window trims! Both front and rear, they're pretty out of shape and missing all the clips etc but they won't be needed for years yet I don't imagine as it's a windows out job to fit them. Still, good to have in the hoard.

Just a quick job over the weekend. I got a replacement mirror (will get one for other side, just wanted to see how it looked first) and you can see compared to the one that was on there this is much more sleek design. Still equally useless as the actual mirror size is tiny but looks better. Also I learnt the reason for the passenger side mounting being janky is it never had one from the factory! One mirror only, but seeing as I have holes in there might as well use them so I'll get another.

Oh how things changed! Sep 2021 I was definitely feeling a bit low after all the Covid shit and endless lockdowns over here; amazing considering now I'm the opposite. As some of you would've seen I now have my own shop to tinker and work on projects of my own (but mostly mates at the moment it seems). This is separate to Moonlight Racing which is in another shop aaages away; and this shop is called Karaage Garage. Anyway, I digress. Today I didn't really have much of a plan aside from get the crusty mirrors/mirror mounts off (I reversed into the side of a shed so broke one of them off already). It seems like one side (which I also reversed into the shed but didn't hit the mirror) had the captive nuts still in the back but the other side (which I hit the shed with the mirror) didn't. This meant I had to take the inner door liner off which isn't really hard when most of the clips are broken and and use a bendy ring spanner to hold the rusted af nuts while trying to get out the bolts (which for some fucking reason the previous owners like to use Allen head bolts on everything). Got that shit off and now looking for some new, not crusty plastic mirrors. I'm not too worried about drilling new holes in the door, it's fucked anyway but it would be nice if I didn't have to. With that task done I set on "fixing" the driver door hitting the guard when it opened. This is the side I hit the shed but not the mirror, so where the fender winker is got banged up and it pushed the fender back. Anyway I just used some guard rolling/magazine/cardboard technique on it and now it doesn't contact, success. After that I thought I'd Barry it up and get some of the panels lined properly (hahaha) and the doors closing a bit better; so I did some arts and crafts. Painted these black, not sure why? Had some black paint around. Cool to see the old Toyopet logo stamped on them though. Passenger door is closing real nice now, driver door is actually sagging a bit so not super good but a little better. I think the door rubbers are kind of cactus so if I got new rubbers it should make a difference as well. It seems like there are door pin repair kits available so will look into it. Otherwise just vacuumed the dust and wood chips out of it from when it sat at the wood factory. Oh, and found the spare tyre (can't believe I never actually checked it before) and it miiight be original for Australian models. Not sure exactly but these tyres stopped production in early 80s from what I can tell so could be, or at least it's super old. Still holds air. Never actually seen a tyre that was made in Aus before. Also struggled for about an hour trying to get the clock out where I'll re-use that hole for an A/F meter as I have a spot for a probe in the headers I believe. Talk shit here

Nice, iforce ate shit. Oh well here's a current photo. Casually waiting for Cindy to open the door so I can come back over, sort the storage in NZ then ship it over.

Hmm.. yeah I tried to upload it to the forum once and for whatever reason didn't work. I'll try again in next update.

Will keep going with iForce for the images for now, seems to work most of the time. Decided to do a fun-top vinyl roof conversion. Parcel shelf looking better though!

For those having issues and are on Facebook Streetwise have more indepth bankrupcy photos you can see here - https://www.facebook.com/pg/streetwiseautomotivenz/photos/?tab=album&album_id=4191146524291161