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Jukka's AE72 Corolla Wagon


Jukka

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Another score this week for the car. Picked up 2 sets of Brand new old stock Hella 155 lights. 1 set of fog lamps and 1 set of driving lights. Got both, 100% brand new, with wiring harnesses, covers, hardware etc. $80 for the pair.

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I'm going to dry fit them over the weekend and see if it would look better with 1 set of 2 sets on the front bumper. We have a pretty busy weekend planned, but I'm hoping to finish up the seat rails for the Recaro and get the windshield out.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Made some progress this past weekend. Finally got around to removing the cracked/poorly patched/sandblasted windscreen. I had the wife give me a hand cutting it out using a wire cutting kit, which was pretty easy. Glad I took the old windscreen out though because I think it was either original, or a really cheap replacement one and the "safety laminate" to prevent it from breaking off in large chunks, didn't work. When we were removing it, we had a piece that was about 10cm by 20cm that broke off and landed in the passenger seat. 

Anyways, it came out and we vacuumed up all the little glass particles and chunks.

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Did find some minor issues though....

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I spotted this rust on the drivers side when the windshield was still in. I didn't realize it was as bad. Good thing is it's all flat metal, so it'll be easy to patch.

 

Also found a couple other spots along the bottom

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Still havent cleaned up the sealant yet to see how bad it is.

 

The passenger side had a nice chunk that was mostly surface rust that'll need to be cleaned up and either patched or sealed.

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  • 1 month later...

Had some free time last night so I did some fab work and got my Recaro seat installed in the car...mostly.

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The seat is 100% in and the brackets are all together, but I ran out of welding wire, so the rear bracket is only tacked in place. Gonna finish welding it up tomorrow afternoon.

I used the factory sliders and the plates I made in the last page to raise the seat up high enough to clear the factory slider release. I also off-set the seat on the sliders to it's in line with the steering wheel.

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I also managed to fab the brackets up so there is about 1/2" clearance between the seat and the B-pillar. I lined up the height of the shoulder bolster and the natural curve in the B-pillar to ensure it clears properly.

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Also did a dry fit of my flocked dash pad to get an idea of how the interior is going to look when its all completed and all I can say is god damnit I can't wait to get this thing road legal.

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Also picked up a 3rd set of wheels for the car a couple weeks ago.

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14" Supra wheels with 3 good tires on them for $100. They are actually in good shape too. No curb rash or damage, just dirty and oxidized a bit. Should clean up nicely. Only downside is that they only came with 1 center cap. But that's okay.

I'm hopefully going to have some time to work on it over the weekend and start doing some metal work on the front windshield cowl panel, finish welding up the brackets and give them a good shot of paint, and remove the rear bumper/bar to figure out where I'm going to cut for my replacement patch panels. 

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Had some more time over the weekend to work on the car, and the wife helped out too. Finished welding up the seat brackets, ground them down and got my wife to hit them with a couple coats of flat-black anti-rust paint.

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While she did that, I started working on installing my self-powered under seat subwoofer. I picked it up for $50 brand new from a buddy of mine who runs an audio shop. It's a few years old, but beats spending $200+ on a newer version that does the same job.

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Install was fairly simple. It has a couple brackets that attach to speed clips that slide in under the carpet and get held together by self-tapping screws. Ran all of the wiring up under the carpet so it's easily out of the way. The only downside is the sub has this massive ugly controller that needs to be mounted and installed that allows you to adjust gain, frequency and pass features. I couldn't think of a good location for it, so my wife suggested installing it in the glove box to keep it tucked out of the way.

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Worked out actually pretty nicely. Going to have to find a good way to route the wiring once I get the dash pad reinstalled and the stereo console put back in place.

We also installed my new all-black handbrake handle too. I picked it up back in the summer at a scrap yard, and never got around to installing it. Did a quick-mock up of the interior to see how it'll all look when it's put back together..

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It was at this point my wife pointed out how much I need to take off the lower dash and paint it black as well. The 80's poo brown really stands out against the black.

 

After the rails dried, installed the seat again and checked the clearance against the sub, plenty of space and the brackets look almost OEM.

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Next job is either going to be start to tackle the rust, or take apart the lower dash and get it painted all black. The nice thing is, the wife actually wants to help out working on the car now, so that'll help move things along quicker.

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More work last night. I wasn't planning on doing anything, but it was 9pm, my kiddo was asleep, wife was asleep, figured why not. Decided to take apart the lower dash section to get it cleaned and painted in the next little bit. All I have to say is that was the second most disgusting job I've done on the car after replacing the 36 year old carpet. There was so much dirt, grime, bugs, nail clippings and all the other grossness that's been hiding back there for the last 30+ years. 

Anyways, having my rattle gun and drill with a screw driver bit on it made short work of the million bolts and screws holding it in place.

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I also peeled off the fake carbon fiber vinyl I had on there before because it honestly didn't look very good. With the pieces off complete, I'm going to re-wrap them properly.

With the "wood" panels off, I started to see if I could find locations of the switches I'm going to install for my Hella fog and driving lights when I get around to installing them. I had this really nice flush mount billet switch left over from my old Subaru, so I'm going to use that and maybe buy another one or use a different switch style and see if I can fill in the hacked up hole that the previous owner left me.

 

I found next to the climate control there is a switch blank hole that would be perfect for one switch.

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I also found on the drivers side closer to the door, theres a nice opening in a large section of the fake wood.

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So I think I'm going to mount my fog light switch there and I'll figure out the driving light switch later.

 

I'm also thinking I'm going to re-wrap the fake wood with some black brushed aluminum vinyl or something similar. There are 3 vehicle graphics places within half a KM from my work, so I'm going to see if I can find any cutoffs/scraps for cheap or free.

**EDIT** Scored some free matte gunmetal vinyl from my neighbour that came off one of my customer's vehicles he had wrapped last week.

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Also, anyone have an idea of how to remove the rotary switch for the dimmer and the cigarette lighter assembly? I was looking at it yesterday and couldn't figure it out. The rotary switch looks like it's got a nut on the top that you need like a 2-toothed wrench to bite in to change, similar to a grinder, but I don't want to break anything. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

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So long ugly fake wood....

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Also drilled out and mounted my switch on the piece on the left to the steering wheel.

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A quick wrap job and she's done.

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Hopefully going to be getting a chance either tonight or tomorrow night to remove the cigarette lighter and dimmer switch and give the rest of the dash a good cleaning and prep for paint. We're supposed to be getting a break in the weather in the next few days. It went up to about +10C yesterday, but today its -2C with freezing rain and snow...but supposed to be going up to +15 on Saturday, so that'll give me a good opportunity to paint it without stinking up the entire house.

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**WARNING** NSFW Post below....

Who want's to see a dirty bitch in the shower getting clean?.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Decided to clean the lower dashboard last night. It was utterly disgusting....

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Most people have a utility sink in their garage or laundry room, I have a utility shower. The previous owner of my house turned our laundry room into a full bathroom for some reason, so no utility sink anymore. 

Gave the dash a good rinse off first, then scrubbed it down with some dish soap.

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Scrubbed it down a couple times to clean it fully and gave it a good hosing down. I also cleaned some of the other dash components like the top air vents, front air vents and piece that goes across the front of the dash on the passenger side.

While I was waiting for the dash to dry, I pulled out the gauge cluster and gave it a good cleaning inside and out.

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I need to put some plastic polish on the outside cover before it goes back in to clear up some swirls and scratches. I also pulled out the green bulb covers for the main lights as I'm going to change the lighting to white LED's. 

Once the dash dried, I gave it a couple coats of trim paint. I've used this same paint on a couple of builds before and it's awesome. It's designed for exterior trim, so it's UV resistant, durable, builds up nicely, but retains the texture of the component being painted.

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I peaked in on it this morning before heading to work and it looks awesome now that its dry. I'm going to throw a couple more coats onto it tonight and re-install everything tomorrow after work.

 

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Only minor updates from this weekend. Finished painting all of the other parts required for the lower dash (glovebox, ash try, steering column cover, hood release)

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And decided to throw the flocked upper section onto the lower section and throw in the control inserts and holy shit does it look good.

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So excited to throw it back in the car eventually.

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Got some more work done yesterday. Wanted to clean up the garage a bit and get stuff off the floor, so I decided to reinstall the rear seats for the first time since I dyed the seats black. They actually look pretty good in there. Just need to change the seatbelts out to black ones.

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There's not too much room back there, and the subwoofer takes up the foot well behind the driver. But gets covered up nicely with the floor mat for stealth out in public.

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And after spending 2 hours looking for the damn chuck for my rotary tool for the cut-off discs, I finally got around to cutting the rusted metal out of the dash board.

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New patch is tacked in. Going to finish it up tonight, then do a nice penetrating weld through for the lip where the cowl panel connects to the dash pad.

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Only set the car on fire for about 10 seconds. I guess a spark or a drip of hot metal dripped down onto the old insulation between the firewall and the rubber seal. I noticed it right away and got it put out asap, but man did it create a stink.

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Not much work done over the weekend. The weather finally changed here, so we went from sub-zero temperatures last week to +15C over the weekend. It was too nice out to not be outside.

 

Anyways, finished stitch welding the patch.

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Ground it down, but looks like some of my welds didn't over lap properly.

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^^ You can see the ridge on the lower section. Decided to run another bead along to ensure it sealed properly. Also when I was grinding down the welds, I managed to accidently grind into the little nub that retains the clip for the windscreen trim, so I had to patch that back up.

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More grinding...

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And it's done. Also found a handy trick to make sure I didn't set the sound deadening on fire again. I took one of my shop rags, soaked it in water and left it under the area I was welding so if any drips landed below, it would land on the rag and get quenched right away. Worked really well actually. 

 

Was going to work on the rest of the rust further along, but again, too nice outside to stay inside all weekend. I'm going to head back into the garage tonight and try and tackle it so I can start painting the dash and rivet the VIN plate back in place. Also decided I'm going to unbolt the defrost vents along the top of the dash and paint them with proper trim paint so they aren't the dull grey finish they are right now. And I'm going to clean up my stereo wiring now that I have room to do so.

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More patch work. Decided to tackle the metal on the passenger side of the windshield last night.

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Still needs a bit of grinding to smooth it out fully, but my disc ran out of material last night.

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Also decided to dry fit my passenger seat too. Looks like I'm going to need to fab some brackets up, or do what I did with the Recaro and use the modified factory sliders. 

 

Hoping to finish up the grinding and paint the front section of the dash tonight so I can put the lower dash section back in over the weekend.

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Finished grinding down the passenger side patch the other night. Amazing how much better a new grinding wheel does than the old beat to shit one I had on the grinder did.

Also started to paint the dash. I remembered I had a couple of 3M paint film masking sheet kits sitting in my garage that I bought probably 2 or 3 years ago from a surplus store for $2 each, so I pulled them out of the depths of stuff I haven't touched since moving into my house and masked up the windshield area.

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I laid down about 4 coats of high-fill sealer primer on the dash first.

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And topped it off with a couple coats of Duplicolor Trim paint. The paint is super UV resistant and is designed for painting exterior trim on vehicles, but I thought because of the plastic vents for the defrost and the fact that it's going to be in the sun a lot, the paint would be perfect for this area.

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Should be dry by the time I get home tonight, so I may be able throw the lower dash back in and finish cleaning up the wiring under the dash, depending on how well the kid gets off to bed tonight.

 

Also picked up some new seatbelts today too, well, my co-worker is. A guy from one of the forms I'm on is parting out his 98 Subaru STI and is selling me the seatbelts for $20 for all 5 belts, so I'm going to see if I can get the front belts to fit in to replace my ones that don't ratchet or lock, and might see about modifying the rear belts to become a 3 point instead of just the lap belts.

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Seat belts fell through, the guy ended up selling them out from under me. Now gotta see if I can source a different source/different option.

 

On another note, I managed to get the dash mostly back together. I got about 10 of the 900 screws that hold the lower dash into place back in, just need to sort out the rest, but I couldn't resist seeing what its going to look like when it's 100% done.

Old Dash:

interior.jpg

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Now....

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I'm so happy about how it turned out. After fitting the cluster surround, I realize I need to paint that the same colour to match the rest of the lower dash. Think I may modify the location where the original stereo was, But man, what a change. The car feels more modern already. 

Now just need to tackle the rest of the car.

 

I was thinking for the rust on my 1/4 pannels, I'm not sure what the best way to patch them is using my replacement pieces. What option do you think would be best for cutting the patches out?

Option 1?

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Option 2:

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Or Option 3 would be cutting just under the crease below the rear window all the way to the back and down and just replace the entire rear 1/4.

 

Thoughts?

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

FINALLY finished the dash project on the weekend. My buddy polished up the gauge cluster lens for me, slapped some LED bulbs into it, the climate control, and the map light above the cigarette lighter. 

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I need to see if I can put an LED into the tach to match. I love how the heater controls came out.

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Before I finished painting the cluster surround.

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Finally 100% done and fully bolted back together.

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I'm very happy with how it worked out.

 

I also found another problem that I'm going to have to find a solution for. When I got everything back in, I was playing around with the climate control and I couldn't get the air to blow anywhere but the two center vents. I traced the cable back to the heater matrix and found this....

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I guess the arm broke off at some point, so the cable just moves back and forth. I'm gonna see if I can rig something up to work because I REALLY don't want to pull the dash out again to fix something so stupid. Or I may just live with it.

 

I also tested out the sound system with the subwoofer. It sounds pretty decent for how little money I invested into it.

 

Next step, start the body work!

 

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Okay, I lied. Next stop isn't going to be body work. It's going to be fitting my new passenger seat.34457598_10156346459102356_6009068480177897472_n.jpg.6a04574fffb84bf59b2002ca92a1804d.jpg

I picked up this kind of scuzzy OEM Evo 4 Recaro SR seat for $180 yesterday. It was pretty dirty when I got it.

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I decided to try this new cleaner we have at work from this German brand called Sonax. They made an Alcanatara and Upholstery cleaner that is supposed to be magical on these seats. Figured I'd give it a try.

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Gloves, cleaner, nail brush and some microfibers is all you need.

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Dampen down the seat with a wet cloth, then spray out the foam onto the seat.

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Brush the foam in and let it sit for about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, you wipe it down with a wet cloth to pull the dirt out.

Here's a 50/50 of half the seat cleaned, half not.

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The results?

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This stuff works amazing! I'm going to go over the seat again tonight with a slightly stiffer nylon brush to see if I can get the fibers from the Alcantara to stand up a bit more and have more of that suede look and feel.

 

The best part about this is that I basically just have to do a mirror image of the brackets I made for the drivers side seat bracket, so I should hopefully have the brackets all fabbed up this weekend and the seat in.

 

Not a bad upgrade for less than $200.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Decided to start tackling the front suspension as I'm having some wheel identity issues. More on that in a bit...

Anyways, I decided to start ripping the front suspension apart to start cleaning up components and refreshing them.

Started off with the brakes:

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Mint. This car is really weird. I keep finding some stuff that is super neglected, like these rotors, but every bolt came off with ease and the hub had brand new Koyo wheel bearings packed into them. But to go back with the weird side of things, packed in with super old dirty grease. Very odd. Good thing I'm changing everything out.

 

Onto the struts. So if you read back a few posts, I purchased some AE86 struts with new KYB inserts, TEIN lowering springs and Project Silver camber plates. Went to throw them in last night, grabbed the strut that said "Left" on the camber plate, went to install it on the drivers side (left side), 2 of 3 holes line up. Grab the one that says "right", slides in place perfectly.

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I guess the guy marking these things at the factory is a bit lysdexic.

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Strut in. 

 

This is where I ran into a big/ good problem to have. 

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Anyone see a problem here?

 

Before buying the AE86 struts, I did a bunch of looking around online on local forums, this forum, Rollaclub, etc. and I found multiple threads saying that AE72 and AE86 brakes are interchangeable. They are not. 

Good thing I just bought every component required to re-furb the factory brake system (pads, rotors, caliper rebuild kit, pistons, pins, clips, hardware, brake lines, etc). Positive side of things, I can probably sell them through my local Old School Toyota car club.

The positive thing is in my hoarding/buying for this car, I just so happen to have...

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2 sets of AE86 backing plates, 2 sets of strut casings, hubs, new bearings and a set of calipers. Now all I need is some pads and rotors and I can slap these guys back together. I ordered the parts today, so I should be seeing them in a couple weeks time.

 

For the rest of the suspension, I have brand new polyurethane bushings for everything, new drop links for the anti-roll bar, ball joints, track rod ends, and I found a set of AE86 power steering arms in my parts bins. Hello more steering angle.

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As for my wheel dilemma, I finally got a chance to test fit my 15" Super Star Racing Nore Fins the other day and I'm a bit disappointed in the fitment. They are pretty weak and would need at least a 15mm spacer to sit flush. So my current wheel selection is the 15" Super Star's, a pair of 14" Enkei 92's, a pair of 14" Riken Mesh and a set of OEM 14" Supra wheels.

I'm thinking I may post the Super Stars, the Enkei's and Riken's for sale, run the Supra's for now (I know, I know, very common/played out wheel), and take the money from the other sets and put it towards a set of Work Equip 40's or Work Miester CR01's. I work for a direct dealer of Work wheels, so I can get them for a pretty decent price, and I'm in no rush for them at this point either.  Either that or keep an eye out for some nicer fitting wheels locally. I've seen a lot of SSR's, Volks, and a couple sets of Watanabe's pop up for sale recently at decent prices, so may jump on a set of them. Either way, I think I'm going to purge the wheel collection over the summer and see if I can get something with a better fitment. 

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Small update.

Sold some used parts from my last cat over the weekend, which meant that I could order my new parts for the wagon. Ordered AE86 rotors, pads, retaining clips, new dust caps, wheel seals, AE72 clutch master (starting to sweat on the push rod inside the car a tiny bit) and slave cylinder (took a look at the factory one while I was under the car the other day and it's weeping a bit), a big tub of wheel bearing grease, and a few cans of brake clean to get the parts ready to be cleaned up.

I also cross referenced the front wheel bearings from the AE72 and the AE86 and they do cross over, so I'm going to reuse the newer Koyo bearings I found in my AE72 hubs in the AE86 hubs and just give them a good cleaning and repack them with grease.

And, I managed to track down a set of T3 RCA's this morning that should be here early next week. 

 

My wife and kiddo are flying across the country in a little over a week and they won't be back until the end of August, which means I get 3 weeks alone at home, which means I also get 3 weeks of time to work on the car uninterrupted before I go to meet them. My hope is to get the suspension completely finished before I leave for my vacation. Just hope we get the sand blasting cabinet fixed soon so I don't have to do all of the rust cleaning by hand. 

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Got some spare time on the weekend to clean up some components. Cleaned up the hubs and backing plates, sand blasted the steering arms, strut rod boxes, found out I had a set of essentially new Prothane polyurethane strut rod bushings in my boxes of stuff in the garage, and managed to get 2/3rds of the passenger side suspension ripped out.

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Roll center adjusters should be showing up in the post any day now and should be finished stripping out the suspension the passenger side by this weekend. Then time to throw everything back together.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Been slowly plugging away on the Corolla in the last week or so. Slow progress because I keep hitting road blocks. It took me 2 days to get the inner tie-rod off the steering rack due to it being too tight and limited room to work/for a wrench.

Anyways, I managed to get everything off the front suspension. Started stripping down the rest of the suspension components too for paint.

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Also stock piled a bunch of new parts too. Got my hands on a set of used T3 RCA's for cheap.

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I also ordered in new strut rod bushings, sway bar bushings and steering rack bushings too to replace all the old rubber ones. I ordered Energy Suspension strut rod bushings from work, and the day they came in, I found these in my parts bins.

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Left are lightly used prothane that were in my parts bin, right is the new Energy Suspension ones I ordered. I think I'm going to run the Prothane ones because they fit in the washers/cups of the strut rod better than the energy ones. I'll keep the Energy ones just in case.

Also ordered in some cheapo swaybar mount bushings from work ($6), and again, found a nice surprise in my parts bin.

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more lightly used polyurethane bushings. I really need to spend more time going through the bins with a fine tooth comb and figure out if there's anything else worth while in there.

The steering rack bushings were not in any of the bins that I could find, so I ordered a set of new Prothane ones that should be arriving today. 

I also ordered "OEM" extended wheel studs. They are 3mm longer than the stock AE86 studs from a ST185 Celica. They'll get pressed in next week and I'll hopefully have the front suspension all wrapped up by the time I go on vacation.

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Rack bushings came in yesterday.

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I'm happy it came with both bushings. Most of the pictures I found looking at the part number only showed the D bushing for the drivers side.

 

Since my drivers side of the car is currently being blocked in by my daily driver (that's window regulator broke the other day), I decided to try replacing the passenger side. It was fairly easy to get out, 14mm wrench and 14mm socket to get the bracket off and the old beat rubber bushing came off without issue.

 

Old VS New

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The original 35 year old rubber one has seen better days for sure.

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The new prothane bushing has to be installed with the steering rack disassembled, but since I didn't want to pull the entire rack/disassemble it, I did what they did with the OEM bushing and cut a slit in it and put it on with a nice healthy coating of grease.

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Took me about 45 minutes total due to the limited space I had available and having to walk all the way around both vehicles in the garage if I needed to grab a different tool/gloves. I also sustained a strained shoulder over the weekend from catching a pop up tent we had at our booth at a local car show that got caught by wind. Picked the entire thing up and it nearly flew away, but I managed to grab it at the last second. 20kg tent in the wind and me grabbing it as it took off = not the best feeling in the world.

 

Should have the daily out of the garage by tomorrow morning, which means I can get working on putting stuff back together.

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