Smitty's Toyota Corolla Ke70 Wagon.

[smitty]

Bought R100s Ke70 wagon for use as a daily. Very nice, close to no rust. Basically mint.

 

Picked it up on the weekend using a quite fancy towing rig I borrowed from a friend (Who has been using it for 20 years without fail). Would have used an actual trailer but my mum's Rav can't handle it and my friend's truck was being used to move house.

 

So we got the car onto the tow rig:

 

And the tow rig was working great! Until... Disaster Struck!:

 

One of the tires popped while towing. We didn't notice for a solid couple of minutes and as of that not only was the fender dented back, wires pulled out and bumper broken but the rim is also absolutely destroyed.

 

So we chucked on one of the back wheels, taped the wiring to the car, and went on our merry way...

 

Then that popped too.

 

And it popped a lot sooner than the other tire. Meaning that we were scared. Not only because 2 of the tires popped, I mean, how often does that happen? But the car also had only 1 spare tire, R100, lent out the spare tire and never got it back, lol. Second flat also destroyed what was left of the bumper end cap AND pulled out the wiring we had taped to the side. And with pulled out I mean that the wiring is absolutely gone. Nothing is left. 

 

Anyway, we chucked on the last tire and drove into Taupo (30ish ks away from where we had the last blowout) and we left the car with some friends for the time being:

 

 

Kinda sad story. Hoping to pick up the car soon. Meanwhile buying some stock ke70 wheels so I can get the car onto trailer. Then need to find someone in Napier with a ke70 to check what all the wiring is that I am missing. Also want to buy right end cap for my front bumper, lol.

 

Discussion, for if anyone has any tips.

[smitty]

Woo! headlight swap!

 

No, not really though. Picked up the car yesterday using my friend's truck. Bought some (stock) wheels from a guy at my dad's work to get it onto the truck

 

Which now leaves the car at the first picture. Have taken the bad fender off. It's not actually that bad. What's worse is the wiring, absolutely fucking gone from headlight to dash.

 

My dad (sparky) may be able to help with the wiring, but if it's too far gone I'll have to acquire a new one loom. Know a guy in Napier who has a basically wrecked 2 door wagon sitting outside his shop but he doesn't want to part with the loom. Other than that the fender can probably be pushed back for the time being and it needs some work but not a lot to get it back on the road.

[smitty]

So about half way through taking off the dashboard and I realise there is a little panel on the driver side where all the wiring goes to. Turns out nothing in the dash is gone, only the connectors from the engine bay to the interior.

 

I will still take off the last part of the dash off though, to finish cleaning all the dirt and dust away.

 

Which leaves me at my last question. I have removed all of the screws and so now the only thing holding the plastic to the car is the climate control stuff which is screwed in place. To remove the screws I first have to remove the chrome/metal plate, anyone know how I can remove this?

[smitty]

Bought a new loom from the wreckers but it seems to be slightly different from the loom in my car. Anyone know if there are any differences between models and what that would mean for the loom?

[smitty]

[smitty]

OH BOY NOTHING FITS TOGETHER...

 

But first:

 

It looks okay for a start. I've had to drill some holes into the radiator support because the guy I bought the front end from already scrapped the car that he got it from. Although I am having doubts if that car was originally twin headlight too, seeing as the bonnet, which is in worse condition that I thought, is actually flat front.

 

Anyways, lets get to the problem at hand. I've already had to mess around a bit to get all the guards and the valence to fit properly with each other but this takes the cake...

 

You can't really see it from that angle but:

 

And then now you can definitely see what is wrong:

 

After all of my expert professional drilling, one headlight sticks out further than the other, by a fair bit.

 

Right:

 

Left:

 

Upon closer inspection it looks like the left is an entire centimetre ahead of the right!

 

So I'm not sure if the headlight is meant to stick out like that or if it is meant to be flush with the bonnet, because it seems like the right side (flush side) is bent back:

 

While the left side is not:

 

So maybe the twin front bonnet has a different curve at the front? I mean, otherwise I'm just gonna push it back a fair bit and hope for the best.

 

Also I'm missing my middle connector for the grille, which is why it's not really lined up properly...

 

Actually writing about it now makes it seem a lot less worse than what I thought it was, lol.

 

If anyone has any twin front spares hit me up!

 

 

Also, my driver side guard is fucked. Proper fucked, can't open the door.

[smitty]

Yay!

 

Local wreckers had a recess front wagon with an intact bonnet and latch support. Now all I need is a new driver side fender and for everything to fit properly...

[smitty]

All of the wiring is now finally working, other than the horn which had to be relocated because of the front end. But that will soon be connected too.

 

Other than that we have fixed the dent in the front fender until I find another fender:

[smitty]

So I bought stuff!

 

Money I should have spent on registration stuff or maybe Uni I spent on rims.

 

Still need to polish the barrel a bit and buy hub-centric rings but other than that should be sweet. Also maybe centre caps, but I might have a try at 3d printing some.

 

Also all of the wiring is now working including lights, indicators and horn. They just need to be aimed properly:

[smitty]

Alright more money than I wanted to spend later and I finally got the car revinned. Although I thought I didn't have to get a repair cert, I still had to due to the nature of why it was deregistered.

 

Anyway, other than that everything was fine (headlights still need to be adjusted but no one noticed).

[smitty]

Yeah so I bought another set of rims, been looking for some Hayashi Street fins for a while and found out that Joe (Goat) had some laying around that he wasn't using. Even sent them up for free, true gc.

Anyway, before:

And after:

 

Running 195/60 on 6jjx14 with +7 offset. Do you guys think I'll have guard rubbing problems if I run 2" blocks in the rear and lowered springs in the front?

Now just need to get all the body the same colour, and maybe some centre caps (if anyone knows of any send me a PM).

[smitty]

Car's been stolen. Anyone see anything in Napier/Hastings area like this, or maybe parts or something, hit me up. Cheers

Hope I'll find it back in one piece.

[smitty]

Fun's ended again...

Slammed into the tow bar of another car going downhill in the wet when the brakes locked up:

Excuse the black and white but it's the only film I had on me at the time.

 

Luckily it seems like I'll only need to get the inner fender and rad support straightened out and then get a new bumper and driver side fender, which I both probably needed anyway.

And the other car I hit seemed pretty unscathed except for a tiny scratch.

 

Ahh well unlucky. If anyone's got some spare quad headlight panels and a bumper laying around hit me up.

[smitty]

I've got everything fixed now just waiting for my fancy film to come back. I need a replacement bumper still but it's pretty much close enough.

Here's a couple of progress pics:

[smitty]

Everything's back together now just need to get a new bumper (I've replaced the park lights with indicators for now but I don't think that'll pass the wof):

[smitty]

Quick update just for the record.

So I sold this about a year ago. Kinda regret it now. It was cooler than I give it credit for. It now lives on in what I assume is ke70 heaven, as it met its demise a while back now, when the new owner snapped and bent the front suspension in an accident near Auckland.

Rip ke70 gone but not forgotten.

I mean who am I kidding it's probably living on as a franKE70stein somewhere with probably the third time it's had dodgy front end repairs done on it. I don't think there's one fully straight ke70 left in the country.

Final picture I've got of it before it disappeared for good, so long good friend: