Popular Post _Matt Posted August 27, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 27, 2019 Stripped most exterior stuff off, except for the doors. Have cut off the a-pillar rain gutters after ajg193's suggestion, cleaned up all the rust underneath and plug welded them back on. Found some spots of rust on the hatch after removing the window. Most of it is just surface rust. Got carried away and stripped all the paint off the exterior side. Previously someone has stripped it and gone over all the rust spots and ground them out. Which I wasn't too happy about, but it seemed to have stopped it rusting further. Has a little patch welded in on the lower right as well. This top bit, just below the water squirter had a few small holes. Cut it out and made a patch to weld in, after I cleaned up the rust inside and painting it. All welded and cleaned up. Picked up a new engine! 4AGE 20V Blacktop!!! And a J160 6 speed. It already has the SQ Engineering adapter plate. The clutch/pressure plate and starter is already set up ready to bolt the two together. Pulled out the old 4K. Empty and dirty engine bay. Gave it a steam clean, came up heaps better. Test fit of the J160, definitely going to need to pull out the grinder! Laser cut out a 12mm stainless exhaust flange. Planning on building some high-rise headers at some stage. Ordered some goodies from SQ Engineering. Bought some Cusco AE86 engine mounts. Also have an AE86 water pump set up and some other bits on the way. 26 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted October 13, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 13, 2019 Decided to try and get this thing riding a bit nicer, previous suspension setup was a little soft and hit the bump stops a bit too often, and with the extra weight of a 4age it would of been worse. Went with a set of Fortune Auto's coilovers all around, since I'll end up chucking an F series or similar diff in and I have the skills to strengthen the rear strut towers. Picked up another pair of struts, cut them down and and blasted them. Wound them all the way down and the front ended up a little higher and the back's a bit lower. Might try and get the front down a bit more, to at least were it was. Made a stainless distributor blanking cover. Bought a Flo's upper water outlet, as it looked to be the much simpler and tidier way of doing the cooling system. Needed a RWD waterpump (inc pulley), thermostat housing and a little bypass pipe to complete the setup. And of course with everything else, when you change one thing you have to change something else. The FWD alternator bracket fouled on the thermostat housing, so I got a RWD one from Japan. Borrowed some Flo's 4age to K series engine mounts and made up my own. Sitting in the hole. Had to space the engine mounts out by 8mm, possibly because of the Cusco mounts being thinner than factory ones? Dizzy relocation kit installed, had to cut a bit of a hole in the fire wall for some clearance. Stripped the interior, pulled out the dash, heater, seats, carpet and scrapped off some sound deadening around the gearbox tunnel. Cut a big ol' hole for the J160 to fit. Probably didn't need to cut so much out, but to make it easy to drop out and fit, some extra clearance was needed. Also wanted it to sit up above the sills and chassis rails. Made up a gearbox mount. Added two extra body mounts further back so that it spreads the load a bit. Has heaps of ground clearance as well. The J160 shifter needed moving forward as it lined up with the end of the handbrake. Cut up the original shifter housing and welded it on to some ali tube and 12mm plate. Spent hours on our little lathe turning up the adapter bits. Works mint, barely any flex and feels like it should. Moved it 200mm forward from the Altezza position, 50mm more than the SQ kit and 40mm back from where the factory Starlet one was. 59 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted December 15, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 15, 2019 Bought a set 13x6.5 Work Equip 01's. Will refurbish them and then decide if I want to run them. Also scored this off Yahoo Auctions a while back. Has the plugs and also came with some black dash parts. Decided on how to raise the tunnel. Bent the handbrake section up to match the height of where the old gearbox tunnel top piece had to go. Then made up some filler pieces to fill the gaps. Plan was to keep it looking as factory as possible. Had to remake the crossmember as it needed to be built up higher. Used some tube that matched the radius and bent it to suit. Welded in filler pieces. Cleaned up. Next was to make some strips to fill in the sides. Had contemplated making them with the factory swagings, but decided it would be easier to flatten them out and make the strips flat. Then the tunnel to firewall gap needed filling. Made a paper template, transferred it to the steel, cut it, formed it and it nearly fitted perfectly first try. All cleaned up. Up next was the firewall cutout for the dizzy blank cover to sit in. Tried again to make it look factory, which I think turned out pretty good. Stripped out all the sound deadening with dry ice. Have only cleaned off the residue from the passengers seat and footwell area. Pulled out all the wiring as well. Need a F-series diff now. 52 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted January 22, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 22, 2020 Filled about 50 holes in the engine and removed all the brackets I no longer need. Laser cutting a sheet of all the filler pieces made it way quicker and easier! Where the chassis rail kicks up at the firewall is a known place where cracks can form. There was already one about 8mm long on the passengers side. Made some gussets and welded them in. Found some previous repairs around the rear hatch on the body. I think they just ground out the rust spots here and then bogged it up. Cut out and welded new steel in there. Another one here, this time just a piece of steel brazed over the top of the rust holes. Fixed! As well as a few more bits around the seal. Picked up a pair off TA22 Celica fender mirrors from YAJ, that you can kinda see. I think they look good, but hard to tell when half the cars missing. Bought a Estima F series diff. Stripped in right down, cut off all the brackets and then noticed one of the housing tubes was very bent! One end was out by at least 10mm. Had a go at straightening it, wrapped some chain around the tube and some big u-channel, and then used a bottle jack and heat to push it out. Came out pretty good, close enough to then shorten it. Drew up a jig that held it all square and inline. Shortened it by 105mm a side, so it's the same dimensions drum to drum as the factory diff. Bought some MRP adjustable 4-link arms off @Cdarust Got a Altezza Torsen LSD head to swap in. Made some upper and lower brackets for the diff. Borrowed @oftensideways rotisserie. Going to raise the rear 4-link body mounts up. About 50mm higher for the lower mount, which should make the lower arm level and somewhere between 50-100mm higher on the top arm. The angles are currently far too much and I've gone this far so may as well, will be good to get rid of the lower body mounts as they're the lowest part of the car. It shouldn't effect the rear seat too much either. 55 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted February 26, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 26, 2020 Made a start modifying the 4-link mounts. As you can see they originally hang quite a bit lower than the sill. New mount all welded up. Should be heaps strong enough! Cleaned up a bit. 17mm socket just fits through the channel to tighten/loosen the bolt. Might swap to Allen head screws, as the paint/underseal mightn't leave enough clearance. The lower arm is nice and level now. Next was to do the upper arm mounts. This is it all done coming through the floor under the rear seat. The seat just doesn't fit, but should be an easy fix by bending one of the wire spring things a little. Top arm angle looking much better. The arms should intersect pretty close to where I guessed the instant centre of the car will be. Just have the other side upper mount to finish off. Sent a bunch of stuff of to be zinc plated. Some didn't turn out as shiny as I'd liked, but not all of it's that visible and I think I'll get the engine and gearbox mounts powder coated any way. 47 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted April 1, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 1, 2020 Finished the other side 4-link mount. Bought some more wheels too. 13x6.5j SSR MKII's. Gave them all a beadblast and polish, still need some paint at some stage. Bought some new screws for the headlight trim, gave the trim and headlights a polish and assembled them. Made some new chassis rails out of some 50x50x2.5mm box section. It nearly perfectly slid over the existing chassis rails, which was ideal for plug welding it. The front of the rails/foot well section has gained 25mm of ground clearance now, which makes the sills and chassis pretty much flush, before the chassis was quite a bit lower. Also extended the rails to go all the way through the rear seat foot well and up to the rear chassis section. Should be way more rigid now! Cut out the floor that was hanging lower than the chassis rails and made some new panels and welded them in. The other side is a bit more work, as it will have an exhaust tunnel going through there as well. I should hopefully be able to tuck the exhaust right up above the lowest point. Once that's done the sills and chassis rails will be the lowest point in the centre section of the car. Might need to look at whether I raise the front crossmember or not. 46 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted May 21, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 21, 2020 Both back sections of the floor done. Has an exhaust tunnel through it to suit a duel 2" system, should be able to tuck it right up above the chassis rails. Sills and chassis rails are now the lowest point in the middle section of the car. Made a rear strut brace to strengthen the upper shock mounts and to accommodate the extra load of coilovers. Made the exhaust tunnel through the front foot well too. Notched out the crossmember above the diff for clearance. Made a mount for a Wilwood pedal box, need to figure out where to put the reservoirs and move the accelerator pedal over a little. Raised the spare wheel well up 60mm to fit a larger fuel tank. Was a good chance to also drill out the spot welds on that centre mount and tidy up the rust that was forming in between. 49 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted June 29, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 29, 2020 It's off the rotisserie for now! Needed to sort out the driveshaft which require the engine and gearbox to go back in. Got the axles sent away to be shortened and resplined by 105mm a side. That meant I should make an attempt at swapping the Altezza LSD and the 4.1 CWP into the diff head. No pics because I didn't really know what I was doing. But for those that are interested I ended up using the LSD side bearings and swapped the Estima pinion bearings onto the 4.1 pinion. The Altezza pinion bearings where thicker which made the pinion gear hit the diff case. I couldn't get the wear pattern right because I didn't have any shims other than the two that were already on the pinions. Got it close enough for the time being, will buy some shims or give it to someone else to finish off. Decided to run Coil-on-plugs instead of the dizzy relocation kit, mostly just to keep the engine bay looking simple and clean. Got a set of 1NZ coils, I'm thinking of casting up an adapter plate for them. Got the SQ engineering down-pull throttle linkage installed and got the accelerator cable shortened to suit. Made a vacuum block off plate, since I hope none of that stuff is needed anymore. Also at some stage I filled all the unneeded holes in the front radiator panel. Modded the accelerator pedal so it sits a bit closer to the other pedals, as before it was way off to the right. Two-piece driveshaft all mounted now too! Think I got the angles sorted after spending far too long trying to work it all out. It's an Altezza driveshaft with the front half shortened (yes I know the front section u-joint phasing is 90° out). In this photo you can also notice the sills have been strengthened (somehow missed that update somewhere). Used some 3mm angle and welded it the full length and ground back, so it's now really straight! Then boxed it back up to the floor, to try and stop dirt and moisture getting stuck in behind. Makes lifting the car along there way nicer! This is the centre bearing support mount, much thought was also put into this! Hopefully it's fine being welded to the seatbelt mounts haha. Still needs some doubler plates welded on to the other side of the tunnel. 43 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted October 2, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 2, 2020 Been slack at taking photos, although there's more photos than I thought there'd be. Got the driveshaft hoops done. Rear one was pretty tight to fit in the tunnel. Front one didn't have much room above the driveshaft and shifter, but it all ended up pretty good. Once the driveshaft and diff pinion angle was sorted I could finally fill in the new tunnel at the back. I wanted to tuck the radiator under the radiator support panel, but there is usually another support that goes vertical down from the centre. So pulled that out and made up a new one out of tube, for a bit more room. New thick core sort of tucks under nicely. Built some stainless steel headers. Didn't take very long to make! The no.1 runner is a little longer than the rest so they aren't quite equal length but I'm not too worried anyway. I have now welded tension springs on to the collector and cleaned up the flange welds. Made a little bracket for the oil level tube. Made a reservoir for the brake and clutch fluid. Think I'll powder coat it black or something. Made a Aluminium fuel tank. Slightly larger than the factory one and a bit more centered. The original strap mounts didn't really line up or exist anymore so had to weld some tube across the chassis rails. As you can tell I also stripped all the old underseal off, took way too long! Stripped and cleaned the heater and then got all the steel bits zinc plated. Added some new foam on the sealing faces too. Pulled apart the engine because I didn't really know what else to do/was waiting on some other bits to arrive haha. Everything looked alright in there. Have ordered everything to rebuild it apart from bearings, as I need to get them measured up. Borrowed a Ultrasonic cleaner and chucked most parts in there. They come out sooo good! 39 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted October 18, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 18, 2020 Got some stuff back from zinc plating. Was more of it than pictured but I had already started assembling the bits back together before getting a photo. Still not sure why some comes out really nice and shiny and other bits come out dull. Most of it will get painted anyway so not too worried. Bought some longer trumpets from MRP. Need to get the throttle bodies vapour blasted! Got the Estima handbrake cables remade and lengthened. They didn't work with the original mounts so machined up a new aluminium one, took far too long! Bought an AE86 boot and fuel door lever assembly as I never liked having to open the hatch or fuel door with the key each time. Now was a good time to modify it all to work. Shaved the key hole. Works perfectly! 44 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted November 8, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 8, 2020 Finished up what I think was all the fabrication and welding on the body. So gave the inside a good clean, sand and then sprayed some epoxy primer down. Came out really nice and smooth! Scuffed back the bits that need to be nice as they aren't being covered up once the interior is back in; wheel wells, strut brace and the b to c pillars. Also went around all the seams and applied some seam sealer, matched to the factory look. Then it was ready to spray the base coat and clear on. Really happy with how it turned out, got all the visible bits nice and glossy! Got some basecoat matched to the brown colour of the dash and spayed some on the dash top piece. Sprayed some flattened 2k clear on top. Got the outside, underneath and engine bay mostly sanded back, hopefully done by next weekend so it can be epoxy primed. Not really too sure on what order to do things from now though. Would like to try and avoid having to mask it up multiple times and having to sand the whole thing in-between each process. 49 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted December 31, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 31, 2020 Got the body in primer about 6 weeks ago It then took me all that time to get it up to a reasonable state so that it could then be painted. So then a couple days a go we loaded it up on the trailer (only just fit!) and dragged it into the spray booth at work. Sprayed the base and clearcoat on, it turned out pretty good! A few runs around in places, but nothing that can't be fixed. Pretty stocked really! Could of easily gone wrong haha. Gonna leave it in the booth for a few more days to harden, then take it home and get some underseal on the underside. In the meantime get the rest of the panels ready for some paint too. 56 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted January 25, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2021 Got the underseal done, used some tintable bed liner so it should be super durable. Came out so nice! Have been slowly assembling things that won't get in the way later. Installed a whole bunch of Kilmat pretty much everywhere I could. Once it's rollable again, going to try and take it in and get some new carpet installed throughout. Painted a bunch of stuff black this weekend. Not pictured is the sway bar, steering and control arms, steering rack and the new radiator support piece. Dropped the diff off to Geartech and they set it up properly and while they were at it swapped in the S15 6th gear into the J160. Need the front crossmember back from sandblasters, then that can be painted and put in. Also waiting on a bunch of new bushes and and zinc plating to be arrive before much more assembling can be done. 51 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted February 18, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 18, 2021 Got the front crossmember back from sandblasting. The bottom had a few scrapes and dents in it, so made up a skid pate type thing and welded that on. Also while I was there, added a bunch of stitch welds around the whole crossmember. Sprayed some 2k black over it and few other things. Slowly assembling a bunch of things. Diff with new seals and assembled back together and then lifted in to place. Hopefully one of the last lots of zinc plating back. The 4 round bits and top right brackets are for a front brake upgrade (two sets actually), just waiting for some longer wheel studs to arrive and that can be assembled. 49 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted February 25, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 25, 2021 Front crossmember and steering rack back in. Got one side of the suspension and brakes bolted in. Have pieced together a Wilwood Dynapro 4 pot brake upgrade with 250mm rotors. Just fits under my 13" wheels with a 12mm spacer. Got the fuel tank back from powder coating and bolted that up under the car. Has a 255lph Denso in-tank pump with a Holley HydraMat pickup mounted inside. Test fitted the wheels with the 12mm spacers on the front, when this was running I only had 6" wide wheels on the front, so it'll be interesting to see how the extra width fits. Cleaned up the side rear window rubbers and glass and chucked them back in. What a huge difference that makes to the whole look of the car! 50 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted March 28, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 28, 2021 Got some longer wheel studs for the front. Painted the hubs and installed some new genuine Toyota wheel bearings and seals. Have also changed the front springs to some shorter 5kg ones and added some keeper springs. Need to find some 100-130mm long 4kg springs for the rear, but they're proving hard to find. Painted the inside of the hatch, doors and bonnet. Finally managed to finish prepping the rest of the panels and took them into work this weekend. Had a bit of drama with the base coat being the wrong tint, as I had another 2 litres mixed up since there was only about 1-1.5 litres out of a 4 litre tin left after doing the body and didn't want to run out. Turned out the new mix was a bit darker, but managed to get 2 coats of that on and then one coat of the previous left overs sprayed on top. So hopefully it matches to the body! Stoked with how it turned out! I sprayed the basecoat and then my coworker Justin came and sprayed the clear on, so thanks to him for doing such a good job! Assembled a few bits today. Could just stare at this thing all day! 54 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted April 12, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 12, 2021 Painted the door window frames in 2k matte black and then assembled them back together. Hatch assembled and back on. Finally found some factory fender mirror, in pretty good condition too! Sanded the tail lights and sprayed them with some clearcoat. Got it off the rotisserie in the weekend, after being on it for 16 months! 56 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted May 19, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 19, 2021 Made a new parcel tray out of some 2mm aluminium and mounted some Pioneer TS-X8 box speakers on it. Also fitted the rear window, just waiting on some new chrome filler trim to arrive, hopefully it fits right. Straightened up the bumpers and bumper filler panels. The filler panels are originally covered in rubber and they had a few spots where they had formed rust bubbles underneath and just looked terrible, so stripped that all off and tidied up the steel panels. Made some mounts for the radiator. Need to get the engine in to see if there's clearance between the fan and engine before I finish mounting the shroud. Finally got the engine back from being built. Basically it's got big cams, CNC ported head, uprated valve springs, TRD headgasket, Toda cam gears, then just all the usual stuff to freshen it up. Will try and get some proper specs soon. Got the throttle body's and manifold vapour blasted and then went through and replaced all the zinc socket head capscrews that everyone seems to send with their aftermarket parts, with some nicer stainless button heads. Gave the gearbox a coat of silver metallic basecoat and then since it was getting some clearcoat sprayed over the top, I thought it'd be rude to not throw some metal flake in too. Need to decide on something cool to paint the cam covers in now! 51 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted September 11, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 11, 2021 Still making progress on this thing. Have been a bit slack at taking detailed progress photos. Engine was dropped in a while ago. Radiator and overflow bottle finished up too. Fuel lines are done as well as the brake and clutch lines, they bleed up perfectly! Built the exhaust too. Went with a twin 2" stainless system and made the muffler as well. It's now fully welded and mounted properly. Swapped to the SSR MkII's Have put the original loom back in and hooked up most things again. Need to reroute the wiper motor plug, rewire the dash to suit the tacho cluster and redo all the wiring that runs through the front guards so it can be tucked away. Then I need to figure out how to wire up the engine with the Link ecu! 48 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post _Matt Posted November 1, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 1, 2021 Made a bit of an overkill of a windscreen washer bottle that tucks in behind the front guard. Same for the radiator overflow. Windscreen back in and attached some new drip rail trim along with the stainless rain guards. Wiring of the body loom and Link ecu is pretty much done, other than a couple little things and the dash. Dash mostly back in. Made up a new base for the lower parcel shelf out of aluminium since the original cardboard one had seen better days. Made an alright spot to mount some relays and fuses. Waiting for some new door seals and then the doors can go back on. Hopefully get it started very soon, so it can go to the dyno and then get the upholstery/carpet done. 62 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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