BlownCoronas Blown Crown

[BlownCorona]

Currently enjoying a beer in kapiti, half way home with my new small project/daily. 

1988 Toyota Crown TC24 Supercharger. 

 

 

[BlownCorona]

So ive promised myself that i wont really touch this untill the Corona is certified, which its about 3 hours of work away from being ready to. 

but it needed a radio so i fit one i had laying around today and a small sub/amp. bought a brand new amp kit and with wires only just reached from the battery to the boot, its so fucking long. 

someone in their infinite wisdom fitted a really tiny blower pulley and it makes something like 17psi of boost, and a shit ton of heat and zero power once warm. it included the stock clutched pulley so ill probably refit that.

 

plans include

manual converting it asap. i have a gearbox here to suit and will be on the hunt for other suitable parts

fixing the small defects on the body and giving it a paint job. 

rebuilding the shitty exhaust it has. 

sourcing some replacement interior plastics and a few lights that are cracked. 

fit an LSD that my brother hopefully has kicking around and sort out the final drive ratio, as the speedo is over 15% out and 100kmh cruise is 3100RPM! i drove from auckland with the little bell dinging, thank god for loud music. 

source some wheels. i may have a plan for some one of custom wheels.

update the stereo components

daily it and enjoy my life! i plan on keeping this one.

 

Paint ideas currently are BMW Sepang Bronze, but this is not settled on, feel free to chuck any ideas my way. 

 

 

 

Discus how i probably shouldn't have sold a perfectly good Audi s4 to fund this project  

 

[BlownCorona]

a post mostly for @HighLUX

but i went around the car and took pics of anything broken i could see. obviously some are more damaged than others and some could be glued back together pretty easily. 

im mostly interested in a functioning aircon / radio button panel as mine is broken and i cant turn the fan off! and the radio surround panel. both parts i can get pretty cheaply from japan. 

im also interested in electric window switches plus their plastic surround. some of mine are broken and some switches dont work, could probably be fixed with a tickle up on the contacts though. 

its missing the bonnet trim, but im undecided what to do here. i dont really like how it bulges up with the trim in place. i may look at making something more smooth. same goes for the 2x missing lower door trims, im probably going to delete them all for a smoother look. 

the trim behind the door pull on the LR door is broken, but id be interested in a full set as they break so easy.

Front Left corner light is cracked, might get pulled up on a wof, same goes with the Rear Left tail light, but i specifically want this style tail light as i love the way it looks compared to a normal style with the indicators up top. 

what ever the missing trim is on the "superwoofers" would be nice to get too. 

 

 

Also on the hunt for manual conversion parts. i already have a W55 and a G-W bellhousing. depending on what ratios suit better the option to trade for my brothers W57 is there. 

brother has a 1g flywheel for me. 

will probably just get the driveshaft modified rather than try and find a used front half. 

looks like i can get a brand new clutch pedal from amayama fairly cheap. just need to see someone about how to read the Toyota parts cataloger and what "sub assembly" actually includes. 

i might be able to do the same with the handbrake lever too, but the real tricky part is going to be a manual center console.

 

[BlownCorona]

a care package from japan arrived. 

the no working on this quickly went out the window when i saw my new wheels yesterday. scored some 16x7.5 et4 Epsilon Ragunas out of japan, for not the cheapest in the world, but probably half their value in NZ. was also a set of 5. haven't decided if the 5th will get a tire mounted and act as a spare or if i mount it to the wall and hang my airline off it. 

also bought a cruise control spec HKB boss kit. i expected this to just include a wire pigtail for cruise buttons, but it actually has buttons built in. super clean. the lables are wrong, but it looks like i can just swap the buttons around. 

finally an uncracked stereo surround. i still need a bunch more plastics, but this parcel was getting worryingly big, as it was it got seperated into two parcels. which also meant it slipped in customs under the tax threshold. score. 

 

 

i also swapped back to the stock clutched supercharger pulley, very small performance drop, clearly the party pulley on there was only making heat and not power. plus fuel economy has improved, and thats more important on this car being my daily and much more of a cruiser than a performance car. 

cant wait for this to be panel and painted. 

[BlownCorona]

the car now also has the correct size tires on it, meaning the speedo is now accurate, and the warning bell doesnt drive me insane at 100kmh. 

the car is about 20mm higher off the ground, but looks lower due to much less guard gap, previously i probably could have fit my head in the rear arch. 

[BlownCorona]

 

Complete ball joint failure. Don't rely on wofs meaning your shit is all good folks! 

That said, this can't have been good at its last wof. 

They don't make cars this tough anymore, the weight of the car is on the fender and no bending at all. 

New wheels all good too, hopefully the tire is alright. 

Will change both lower ball joints and check all other components. 

Could have been worse at speed, pretty happy with how calm I remained with minimal control over direction. 

 

[BlownCorona]

cars back on all four wheels now. found lower ball joints locally no problem, but was concerned about the stress the upper may have seen, when it was all that was holding a wheel dragging at 90* along the road. so have got some of those inbound from Australia for piece of mind.

i did take it slowly around the block and had a bit of a frightening light bulb moment, i had initially been planning on getting the car a wheel alignment because it didn't return to center all that well when turning. but with the new lower ball joints is now spins right back to center quick as can be. guess we know what the real problem was now, never did feel any play when i looked quickly when swapping wheels. 

oh well live and learn. 

 

[BlownCorona]

Just won an auction in Japan for a clutch pedal assembly and manual spec brake pedal. Stoked 

[BlownCorona]

Had a company track day today, took the crown for a couple of laps, 100% just for a Photo Op. 

holy shit its terrible on track! cant corner at speed to save itself, might need a wheel alignment, but im pretty sure its just the chinese tires and nearly 2 ton weight!

 

it did pull a (GPS indicated) touch under 170 km/h down the main straight which i thought was pretty epic for a 2ton brick with a soggy automatic. that little supercharged 1g can really pull! if it didnt over heat the brakes after two laps and wore a better set of tires, there would be more in it, but its unlikely to ever see track work again. especially once the mopar miata is running. 

 

 

[BlownCorona]

Took this on my works mid winter xmas do car rally. 

got this pretty awesome photo! makes the car look way better than it is, but gets me super excited for painting it!

 

 

[BlownCorona]

Another parcel arrived from japan this morning with more or less everything i need to tidy the car up. 

new tail light in the hard to find configuration and tint. super stoked on this one, it looks brand new and ill have to polish up my "good" one to match now. my old RH light had a big crack in it and water had gotten inside and made it cloudy and corroded, would have seriously let the car down post paint. 

corner light, again, looks almost new. existing one was cracked and suffered the same as above. has black trim where as my current one (and grill) has chrome. ill either paint the whole set black, or maybe spray chrome for the rim. either will look good. 

rear mud flaps. im missing the RH one and it was cheaper to buy a pair. the rear looks quite incomplete without them 

RH rear window regulator, current one is fucked and this will keep my daughter happy in the summer months!

heater control panel, featuring working off button! a luxury my car has sorely been missing. 

and finally, perhaps the best score for nearly no money, a clutch pedal and manual spec brake pedal. 

naturally there are some other things around the interior of the car that are cracked, but i think this is the extent ill go to for importing parts. its a daily and the things remaining that are damaged can be glued or ignored, possibly found local if i get lucky, but they dont impact on the whole experience!

 

cant wait for paint and manual, itll be like a totally different car. 

 

[BlownCorona]

Fitted up the nearly brand new tail light, and had a few hours on polished the existing good one, 

800/1500/2000 grit sand paper and then some cream polish, came up pretty close but there's still some in it I think. Will pick up some actual plastic polish. But if it gets no better than this I'm still stoked. Miles better from where it started. 

The tail lights are one of my favourite parts of the car so it's great to have them sorted and looking mint 

 

[BlownCorona]

They started off looking like this! 

[BlownCorona]

With the engine blowing on the corona bringing the plan to certify that and daily it while i build the crown to a grinding halt. i came to terms with the fact that i was probably going to have to buy a fourth car to daily while i build the crown asap because i was worried there may be rust hiding that would deteriorate the longer i waited.

so with a new cheap cheap boring daily acquired. this weekend i set to stripping the crown down, initially for rust and body work, and then for paint!

 

Big pile of parts removed and stashed untill the mythical day of reassembly?

 

Surprisingly i found very minimal rust. found some where i didnt think there was any (under the rear windscreen) and found next to none where i thought was quite bad (around the tops of the screens) ive yet to remove the front and rear glass so this could change but it looks solid. some minor rust at the base of a couple of doors. but only on the inner skins and the lip that the boot seat presses on is quite bad. 

none of this will really be my problem anyway, ill just have to pay the money. 

 

If your the cunt who bogged over the rust under the rear window. im going to punch you in the dick. some people just shouldn't be allowed out of their cage.

 

[BlownCorona]

Flywheel and heavy duty clutch acquired. 

Have the flywheel a quick sand blast and will machine the surface before fitment. 

Have ordered, 

 

Input bearing

Flywheel bolts

Pressure plate bolts

Pressure plate dowels 

Rear main seal 

 

Still needed, 

Slave cylinder 

Maybe a master / I have one from an old corona which is maybe the same. 

The hosing that goes between it. 

[BlownCorona]

How it should have always been. 

The pedal set fits great. I'll need to cut the hole in the firewall for the master cylinder but that's the extent of it it. 

 

Seeing three pedals makes me very excited for the future of this car. 

[BlownCorona]

Loaded up ready to go get all the previous owners horrific excuses for repairs, actually repaired. 

[BlownCorona]

Got the crown back from the panel man today looking good! The rear gaurds are especially awesome and look so much better than the haggard flared fenders the previous owners did. 

Now I have to face the mammoth task of actually sanding this yacht down.. 

 

[BlownCorona]

[BlownCorona]

Took Friday off to get a 4 day weekend and make a serious push on the crown. Some rain and some socialising took a chuck out of my time but still managed to get the shell, hood, boot and gaurds in fill primer. 

Found a few spots of rust on the bottom of the rear doors so will drop them round to the panel beater to have that sorted, then the doors will get the same treatment. 

 

For now, here's way too many photos of a car in primer, but given its never been this straight or single colour in my ownership, I'm getting excited. 

 

 

Blocking back will take a while, but the end is in sight! Then I can start on the manual conversion which I've been slowly gathering parts for and aside from a driveshaft (will get mine modded to suit hopefull) I've got all the bits there. 

Including a hand brake centre console which is sitting in Japan still and I really need to pay for the shipping to get it here for when I need it...