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Snoozin's 1981 Toyota Starlet KP61.


Snoozin

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Okie dokie then...

After a fairly rigourous weekend I have this car up in Auckland, safely in my shed. A thankyou to a number of people is in order, namely Sam (Dodgysam) for the ute, Cam (slacker.cam) for the trailer, Ed (Orion) for the roadtrip company, and John (CXGPWR) for coming to help unload all of my treasure at 10:30pm on a Sunday night.

Ended up with the car on the trailer chock full of parts, plus the deck on the ute crammed full of parts... and I still have a trailer load minimum sitting at my folks place!

We'll start with the bad things eh?

- the car is coated with epic amounts of shed filth, 7 months in a barn has not been kind

- bonnet is royally, properly fucked from the blasting

- there are a few scratches on it from where cats or possums have been crawling on it, hopefully it's a simple buff to sort these out.

- little bit of uncovered primer overspray that's visible through the fresh air vent!!! Argh!!!

- wheelarches not done in stonechip/underseal as requested

The good things!

- engine bay looks spectacular! Shiny, red and better than a new one.

- I have a new, good bonnet from Wez that will be painted to suit and slapped on

So I need to come up with a plan of attack for the car. Looking at the empty hole, with the wiring loom just sitting there I think the best thing to do is to first get an engine dummied up in the hole and begin a wire tuck to hide the majority of the wires. This post is essentially going to serve as a reminder, something to hopefully keep me focused and to get some work done in a methodical manner.

- sort out bonnet and overspray issues

- get original motor bolted in the hole purely to work out wiring

- work on loom hiding/extending/shortening to suit original ignition system (future plans won't use it)

- once wiring is done, remove engine and start on reconstructing front end with all new parts

- install front coilovers with rekitted/recond calipers and skimmed discs

- strip and powercoat front bumper iron

- strip diff housing, paint with POR15

- clean up drum backing plates, repaint, new wheel cylinders and shoes

- install U code center and appropriate axles

- figure out appropriate shock and spring combo in the rear to match front height

- tart up original 4K - maybe even treat it to a refresh

- clean up K50 gearboxes to mintness

- reinstall original 4K at this stage so I can start driving it again

Sounds expensive and time consuming but I'll see what I can manage! Pictureless update epic fail I know, but tonight I'll roll it out of the shed and pop some pics up of the bay and current state of the car/bolt the A3A's back onto it because this is a good thing to do.

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Current status: Engineless but awesome, I think. Add to this some pictures of PROGRESS! Awwwww yeeeeaaaaah. That doesn't happen too often now does it?

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After a hearty clean, of 7 months worth of farm/barn/general filth was removed from the paintwork of my baby. It still looks pretty bloody sharp, however there are several abrasions and scratches that have been caused (I can only surmise) by possums and cats climbing over the thing as it was barn stored. I've removed a few with a light polish, so I don't think it will be much to worry about.

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The current state of the engine bay... shiny! Pretty chuffed with the job overall, barring the damage to the bonnet caused by blasting - more on that later - but the spots where the brackets have been removed, and holes filled are undetectable.

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Right hand side inner guard - the battery tray has been removed from just forward of the guard and some holes filled.

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Passenger side inner guard, voltage regulator removed from the front of the strut tower and once again holes have been welded up.

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Firewall, relatively untouched bar a few holes filled...

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In behind the grille, I did consider a satin black finish on this, but as it was red from factory I thought it best to retain as much originality as possible... if I don't like this at least it's simple to go back to a satin black finish.

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Scuttle panel on both sides of the car, both of these spots had fairly serious rot in them. BAM! The rust is gone! Bugger about the overspray on the wiper mechanism but an easy fix I guess.

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Psuedo arty shot of brand new fasteners used to reattach the panels. I'm thinking stainless cap screws would be cooler... so these will be replaced.

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Argh! The bad part... the bonnet is poked, with the distortion clearly evident in these pics. A bit pissy about it, at least I wasn't charged, and Wez (1vaknd, who is the MAN by the way) has kindly assisted with providing a replacement bonnet.

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Lastly - the motivational pic (as long as it doesn't overshadow the actual progress!!!) as scribed by everyones favourite automotive artist, Nikk (Squid). When I saw it, I think my words were something along the lines of FUCK YES. Ok so the A3A's are a touch wider than what I have, but you get the general idea.

Over and out - broadcast your thoughts on my hatchback here ---> //oldschool.co.nz/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4207

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I haven't achieved a huge amount, due to awaiting coating etc on a few bits. However here's where the car currently sits (excuse the phone photos please):

11865205935_b211a084d5_h.jpg20140110_171637 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

I've dropped the old crossmember, arms, swaybar, rack etc and biffed them.

11865506453_8b7ec8742d_h.jpg20140110_171726 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Today I also cleaned and degreased the arches of cavity wax and attacked them with a rubber undercoat product. They came up pretty sweet!

Next step is to assemble the brakes to the struts, check for clearances then have some new brake lines made up to suit the Wilwoods. Is braided worth the extra expense?

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/18803-snoozins-1981-kpiz-starlet/

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So Richy, how's your 'spension coming along?

Well, it's going pretty ok for the most part. Anyway, I shall let the photos do the walking/talking/gawking.

This is how they looked all assembled at long last, everything torqued up, nice powdercoated brackets installed and hubs packed full of grease and topped off with nice new genuine Toyota dustcaps which I then polished because I could.

12668987465_ec8dfb4769_h.jpgIMG_9004 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

12669466724_9acdc588d0_h.jpgIMG_9009 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Then I tried to fit them to the car, and this is where the smile was wiped off my face a bit. Ok so it was muggy, hot and generally uncomfortable and I got quite grumpy when this became apparent:

12669464054_83c7681819_h.jpgIMG_9018 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Disc is touching the LCA! OH DEAR! Thankfully, due to the help of some Facebook buddies I've been pointed in the direction of Bugeye KP steering knuckles, which have a different balljoint offset vs the strut bolts. I have some en route to try out, so will test fit before I go sandblasting and coating and generally spending money on them.

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WARNING! ANTI CLIMACTIC UPDATE AHEAD!

 

So I'm trying to smash out one small job on this per week, or even one big job if time and money allows. Anywords, this weekend with the help of sheeper and his vice I managed to rebuild the rear calipers.

15884371986_e8f14d8545_h.jpgIMG_5025 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

These were sandblasted back to bare steel, pistons removed, bores cleaned and in the end it turned out the pistons were pitted beyond usefulness - managed to find one brand new piston, and had the other resleeved with stainless. New TGP seal kit installed, then calipers painted up with VHT caliper paint to a nice semi gloss black. Mounting hardware etc all replated.

15908201791_e160630c66_h.jpgIMG_5028 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Backing plates also painted following some straighting of the edges which were bent to hell, these were once again blasted with fine garnet and coated with the marvellous product that is Wattyl KIllrust etch primer and top coat. 

15722868870_b5bd62b2ca_h.jpgIMG_5052 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Lastly, I needed some open ended wheelnuts to accomodate the longer studs that have been installed, so picked up these "Project U" things off Trademe. They're steel so meet cert requirements etc and have a nifty spinning seat on them so you don't mess up your nice wheel paint...

This will be a finished rolling chassis by the time summer is out....

 

Discussion is below in sig.

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