Raisins 1982 Toyota Corona Mkii GX61

[Tender Raisin]

So I have been scanning Oldschool for a few years but I don’t pipe up much. But since breaking my collarbone a week ago whilst skiing I have found time to finally put together a build thread to hopefully catalogue the cars journey.

Model Info

Japan import 1982 Toyota Corona Mark II Grande GX61 (pre-facelift sedan).

1G-EU, 2-litre, 6-cylinder, automatic with over drive.

 

Background

For the majority of its life it was owned by a Lady in her 70s-90s. She used the car as her daily as I believe and was apparently always garaged. She even wore leather driving gloves, which I still have one of, and resides in the glove box. The other was sadly lost before my ownership. She then passed the car onto her granddaughter’s boyfriend. The car then went through a couple of hands in under a year before finally reaching mine.

I brought the Car in September 2015, 2 years ago

Why Buy That Piece of 80s Rust?

As a kid I always drew pictures of cars and the dream cars were the A80 & A70 Supras. However this then changed at the age of 16 to the Celica XX/GA61, (8 years later this is still the dream car sadly).

 So I move to Dunedin to study and a certain car catches my eye on my first day down there. A Cream Toyota Cressida Waggon scraping down the main street, ring a bell? I was lost for words, it was fucking amazing. But a guy just down the street didn’t think so yelling out something like “Buy a new car you .....”.  After a few weeks I worked out the owner was in my course, and that’s when I meet Zeb.

Zeb then opened my eyes up to all the 80s Toyota goodness and Oldschool.co.nz (however I didn’t follow oldschool till many years later). Then I got the Toyota bug. So what’s the first thing to do when you finish studying and have a job…..buy a 80s Toyota that’s what.

Also the pictures of the cars potential with some low and some simple SSR mk1s that the previous owner had put up on the sale post pushed me along. Note that the following pictures are from the previous owner. I purchased the car entirely stock.

I will update this thread over the next few days hopefully upto where it is now.

[Tender Raisin]

 

[Tender Raisin]

The Good The Bad & The Ugly

From inspecting the car all the electrics worked, even the fender mirrors. The interior was mint minus a crack in the dash and the centre vent. Also a small hole in the drivers seat. I wasn’t a fan of the 1g-eu and it was leaking oil from every orifice, fixed to the auto box = a gradual 0-100.

The exterior was fairly straight but the paint was showing its age. Stone chips and a few imperfections were apparent but none of this worried me.

It was advertised as having no rust apart from some surface rust under the bonnet and 2 spots near the boot. I knew it would have more and boy I was right, yet I didn’t know how extreme till later down the track. A wheel well half filled with water was a bit of a giveaway and prodded around the boot for some clues. A few areas around the boot seal became apparent, but me being me haggled the price slightly instead of walking away.  

On The way home I also worked out the suspension all round was rooted as the previous owner had removed the springs for the images in the above post above.

 

First Things First

• Replaced the windscreen
• Replaced rocker cover and manifold gaskets
• Add a sump bung washer to stop oil leaking

And straight through WOF it flew. I was certain it would get failed on suspension, but some how it got through… so I carried on sailing the roads of Canterbury with some wicked body roll.

 

[Tender Raisin]

Tidy Up

I am a bit of a perfectionist sadly so I went straight to work tidying little odds and ends.

• Visors were replaced with some from pickapart as the standard ones were tatty.
• A dash-mat was made to hide the cracks in the dash.
• Floor mats were added

I sent the car to a friend’s work to suss the rust in the boot. The rear window would need to be removed to get a bit more, but that’s a future problem. The only pieces I know of left are behind the rear wheels and rear window. I also had the rear bumper painted as it was an eye sore. 

The next job on the list was to replace the cam belt & water pump but I was beaten to it.

Stop Right There!

Its first journey south to the big smoke of Timaru proved to be an expensive one.  Everything was going fine and stopped off home on the way back in Mayfield so I could get laughed at by my father for buying an 80s Toyota. I noticed a faint chugging sound, like the sound of a steam train when it leaves the station.

Hoping it was nothing I left home swiftly and headed for Christchurch. 30ks into my journey I approached some road works and slowed to 50km/h. As I put my foot down to get back up to speed nothing happened, the car stalled and I slowly limped onto the side of the road.

Thinking it had overheated as the gauge was being funny I let it rest for 20 minutes and tried to start it. It turned over but no luck. Thinking the worst such as snapped cambelt I left it alone. So Swann insurance came to the rescue and moved to car to Ashburton. Since I knew it was going to be a while for the tow truck I was just lying on my bonnet in the sun I had around 10 people stop to see if I was alright on a back road which I thought was quite impressive.

Verdict cambelt slipped off. It was old and disintegrating. Luckily The 1g-eu is a non-interference engine so no damage done.

 

[Tender Raisin]

Toyota Fest 2016

I was getting fond of the stock look. Deep Down I wanted it to be Low and on some Wide 14s. But I couldn’t force myself to commit just yet.

I planned to drive it to Cromwell for Toyota Fest in March 2016. A week out when I was cleaning it I realised my WOF had just run out. Took it in and bingo failed on rear struts. Managed to get these two days before leaving and got the WOF the next day.

This would be it first "big drive" since the cambelt incident, so was hoping everything would run smothly. It loved to drink the fuel however and it didn’t like going over the Lindis Pass. Think it slowed down to 40km/h at one point. Had to let all the angry people in their big SUVs past once I reached the top.

 

Anyway Toyota Fest was a success even got to throw it round 2 laps of Highlands to show its killer body roll.

Goal is to get it ready For Toyota Fest March 2018 at Cromwell again.

[Tender Raisin]

Time To Upgrade

So It failed its next WOF on the front shocks ad ball joints, which I knew was coming. So it was time to start spending some cash money, and finally get the thing low. I will keep all the old parts so if for some odd reason i want it stock height again it can be returned simply.

dspec_tt131 from here posted he was parting out his GX61. So I jumped on his modified S13 BC gold struts, to cut out the hassle of building my own. They also came with some RCA's. These have since also been crack tested and are ready for cert.

I also managed to get a brand new pair of MX73 BC gold rear struts and springs.

 

dspec_tt131 GX61

 

I have also pulled apart the front suspension and tidied it up. Replacing ball joints, tie rods, sway-bar links, and bushes. The wheel arches also got hit with some CRC Proseal.

 

Two months till Toyota Fest….. It’s going to be close.

[Tender Raisin]

Opening The Can of Worms

So I was cleaning inside the rear wheel arch to throw on some CRC Proseal as well when i found a rubbery texture inside the guard. Had a look and found this.

 

So yeah nah not a fan of that. The rear arch has been replaced and there were still bits of welding wire hanging off the tacks. One 6cm long. 

Im not keen on replacing at this stage due to lack of funds and i have parts all over the show. It still has a decent amount of strength and cleaned up alright. It will go down on the list of future jobs when it gets bad again.

So trying to keep the rust at bay again, i have rust killed it currently and the top coat was going to be CRC Proseal.

What else does old school recommend? tell me below if there is more i can do to protect it for as long as possible.

 

[Tender Raisin]

Failed Deadline

So I/IT failed the deadline of toyotafest. It was always going to be a tight one, but it definitely got me motivated to get it done. Suspected Blown Head Gasket a month out stopped it from getting there. I just want to bin the 1g-eu, so il keep an eye out for either 1g-ge / 1g-gte / 2jz-ge

 Anyway...

After checking the other wheel arch, no damage was found. Further investigation shows that the lower control arms are actually different colours. So my guess is that it was once in some kind of accident.

I managed to pick up a cheap Altezza LSD. So the goodies swapped into the F-series Diff.

The rear sub frame was dropped and sent off to have the outside lower control arm mount modified to run an eccentric bolt. Hopefully to remove some camber for certification. Unfortunately they brought down the bolt hole more than I showed. I wanted the ability to wind some camber back into it after certification but it can always be changed in the future.

New front brake rotors, pistons and bearings were all added. Had some issues with the caliper cage not lining up with the rotor. Checked the new rotors, thinking there was a problem, but they matched. The brakes came with the coil overs so I’m not sure how they once worked. Had the cages machined to fit and its together now.

Also Tidied up the rear break pistons and got new brake hoses all round.

Unfortunately with the addition of the RCA’s the lower control arm hits the brake shield. Will need to bend the shield to make it work.

 

[Tender Raisin]

Wheels!

So I have been collecting some wheels.

Set of 14” SSR MK 1’s 8j A-Disk

Pair 14” SSR MK 2’s 7j

Set of 14” Work Equip 03s 3-6.5j 1-7j

 chees- was selling his Mk1’s so I grabbed them and had the lips and faces tidied up, and they also got a good polish. These will be the wheels that will go on the car. I’m thinking I may require some 7.5s on the front but I won’t know till the car is on the ground to see how it sits. I also have new hardware for them.

The guards will need to be rolled to fit the wider wheels. If you have any tips on how to not damage the wheel arch chrome let me know in the discussion thread Thanks.

The MK 2’s popped up at a nice price and are like new, so I picked them up. Hopefully another pair will Pop up sometime to make a set.

The Works were only purchased as wheels that will be used for wof and cert duties as the Mk1's wont cut it.

[Tender Raisin]

Further than the driveway.

So the time had come to buy a house. The only problem - The GX was still not on the ground. I threw it back together in November of 2018 and got it somewhat derivable. Thankfully we brought our house less than 1 kilometer away which made for an easy trip.

New garage has alot more space which makes working on the cars soooooooo much easier.

 

Also notice the 2jz-ge in the bottom left. Thats the future for the GX at this stage, once the 1g gives up. I Also have itbs to suit so thats the future plans.

Anyway my current position meant that i wont get around to installing it for another year as i prep everything and grab all the parts i need. But I was starting to get angry at myself for having 2 cars in my garage doing nothing. Out comes the liquid copper head gasket additive (look away now if those words hurt you). The 1g will be coming out so why not just experiment to see if it fixes it. And what do you know it worked.

So an event i wanted to attend was getting near and i persuaded myself to try make it there. Out with the BC suspension and in with the stock struts. Throw it through a wof. fails on missing bumpstops (forgot to put them back in), and an indicator bulb, and lose front brake hoses. Easy enough to do then I had myself a warrant of fitness.

Cutting it fine the day before the event i re-installed all the BC suspension. And put the mk 1s on.

Im abit gutted the front suspension is almost at its max low, but for now im just happy its moved further than the driveway.

 

[Tender Raisin]

Shit its good driving this thing again.

The picture above shows how much lower that middle muffler sits compared to the rails. You can spot it poking underneath. This will need to be priority one if i want to go any lower.

Also the 3 speed auto hates hills... more than i remember