MS51HT's MS55 Crown Sedan

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

Here lies the history/story of my MS55 Crown project.

(And here lies the discussion thread)

The whole saga started back in 2018 - forever on the lookout for Crown parts I stumbled across a 55 at a wrecking yard North of Perth.

The price wasn't too appealing at the time - but it was complete, seemingly rust-free and had quite a few parts that my dad wanted for his MS55 (namely, rear AMI seatbelts) - so the decision was made to buy it.

Unfortunately - by the time we got around to picking it up, Mr Wreckerman decided that he would place (drop) a Prius HV battery onto the bonnet and break the old school wind visor whatsit on the driver's door. Cool.

No key available, so Mr Wreckerman picked it up with his forklift and proceeded to carry it out of the yard. After almost tipping it off the fork whilst navigating through the yard (which closely resembled the surface of the moon) it was safely on the trailer.

As I didn't have space for it, I dumped it at my brother's place for 18 months.

After completely forgetting about its existence for 17 months, my hand was forced to move the old girl home before my brother vacated his rental.

Ripped the driver's door lock out, had a key cut and tried to get it going. After putting a battery in, a dose of fuel down the carb it fired right up. un-fucking-believable.

The water pump was shagged, so sourced and installed a new one.

Moved it out the front to give it a birthday (and get a better look at it)

All the gauges worked!

Fuck you Mr Wreckerman.

OEM sunvisor plastic anyone?

Gave the young bloke a brush and a hose and let him loose at it. Managed to wash off some of the chalky white paint.

One side clean, one side not.

Purchased a temporary movement permit from the Department of Transport, threw 10L of petrol in the tank and started to drive it home (which was all of 20km away)

Stopped halfway at the folks place to give everything a check over.

No overheating, no stalling, no smoke - brakes worked, electricals worked - transmission shifted well. I couldn't believe it.

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

Successfully drove the old girl home.

Most memorable moment during the drive was when I noticed a rattling noise developing - sounded like a top end rattle that was getting progressively worse.

I maintained speed - and the noise got louder and louder .......... until I got overtaken by a Mazda 3.

With the engine rattle sorted and the trip uneventful, the car was put on the hoist for a look around.

Beauty of the hoist - double the amount of available parking.

Anyway. A further look over found the glovebox to be locked. Unlocked with the newly cut key and treasure found.

At this stage, this car was never going to be parted out - not on my watch.

The interior was in suprisingly good condition - no rips or tears in the front seats.

Rear seat was pretty good too - except for the doorway rats had chewed into the side of the seat base.

The box of tissues had obviously fallen off the rear parcel shelf at some stage.

Got given a whole bunch of Wheel's magazines - the collection goes all the way back to the 60's. Found this nice little article about the MS55's.

Pulled the bonnet trim off and had at it with a selection of hammers to remove the kinks and dents - managed to get it looking respectable.

Put a bit of effort into then pulling some of the dents out of the bonnet.

Managed to get most of the shape back into the bonnet, really need the bonnet off and on a stand to get better access to the other parts.

The whole idea with the car was to give it a tidy up, replace the door seals and then work on getting it registered.

This was definitely not going to be a restoration.

Never ever was this car going to get a resto.

Never.

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

Fuck.

Double fuck.

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

Cool things (IMO) found during the non-restoration.

Door card build date.

What appears to be a fired (and then collected after it failed to impact anything) Mk.VI .303 British projectile (Mk.VII dummy round for comparison)

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

Front end stripped, engine removed.

Stamps and shit on the back of the cylinder head suggest that the engine was rebuilt at some stage. The way it runs would confirm that it wasn't done too long ago.

Moved the old girl off to the other side of the shed and started working on the firewall. Just about every 50 series Crown I have seen has had a rusted out plenum near where the wiper motor bolts up.

This one was no different.

Looking closely at the panel, there was a thicker 'reinforcement' inner panel spot welded in behind the outer skin.

Strip disc on the grinder to find the spot welds which I then drilled out.

Inner panel was remanufactured from less rusty steel.

And the same again with the outer skin.

Inner panel in situ.

Outer skin fitted.

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

Welding the panels into the plenum went.. well yeah.

In a brain fart moment, I decided to try and TIG the outer skin after priming the back side (and inner panel) with some weld through primer.

The TIG did not like that. Not at all.

Anyway, the MIG was wheeled out and the panel hot glued in.

I was obviously stoked with the results - because the only image I have is this shitty photo taken just before throwing primer at it.

The old boy was at a loose end, so helped rip back the remaining paint on the firewall and door jambs.

At the same time the doors, bonnet and boot were all sanded back and primed.

Happy enough with it all being one colour.

Spent more time sanding, touching up primer and so on until I was happy to throw some colour at it.

Pretty fucking happy with that considering it's the first time I've painted with something other than a rattle can!

Mmmmmmmm..... Shiny....ish.

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

Somewhere in between painting the firewall / door jambs of the vehicle I decided that I needed to build myself a vapor blaster.

A cheap secondhand sand blast booth was secured and quickly converted(quickly translates to 'I spent heaps of fucking time but lost track of it because I was hyperfocused') into a vapor (wet) blaster.

First patient through the blaster was a fuel filter bowl from another vehicle.

Shit yeah.

Found a carby that came off a parts car (like, an actual parts car - one that I didn't try to restore) which was pretty knarly. Blasted that too.

Knowing it worked pretty well, I blasted the build plate so I could chuck it back on the firewall.

No 'shortly after blasting' photo available. So a photo showing it riveted onto the firewall / plenum - complete with reproduction paint code / color sticker.

(before / after comparison shot because I think it's fucking cool)

And then (because I jump from one thing to the next, not thinking about how the correct order should be applied) decided to wirewheel and paint the front section of the chassis.

Not clean, then clean.

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

Additional side quest / not correctly time lined events that occurred during / before / after the events chronicled above.

Back story into how I developed an insatiable taste for collecting old Toyota Crowns.

I've spent pretty much the last twenty years working for Toyota. It wasn't until around 2015 that I realized that Toyota built something called a Crown.

I spent my childhood with one foot in the Holden camp, and the other in the Ford camp due to my father's taste in motor vehicles.

Anyway. It was 2015ish and a post shows up on Facebook beer swapping / bartering page - 'Old Toyota Sedan - 2 cartons of export'.

Looking at the pictures made me tell the guy that it was SOLD nearly straight away.

How cool is a Toyota Crown I thought?

Twin headlights (usually reserved for the up-spec holdens I was into at the time!) and steel bumpers!!

Long story short - car was stripped to a bare shell with practically nothing of value left on it, and it was located at a scrap yard.

I had been dreams + a small brain, so picked it up and dreamt about restoring it.

The best part about that car?

Meeting some of the coolest old car dudes in Perth (one of which was directly involved with the car I had purchased - back when it was still running).

Anyway, one of these rusty car aficionados managed to get a lead on more rusty shit - about 2.5 hours East of Perth.

So we went and collected a MS55 (for me) and MS46 ute (for him) and dumped them on my Father in Law's property (which was 30 minutes from where we picked them up)

The sedan had been sitting on its roof for many many years - which resulted in rust in areas where you wouldn't normally see it - and ZERO rust in the other places (like the sill panels / floor, bottom of the doors, etc)

The sedan was a S1 with 4speed floor shift, so I collected the transmission (plus clutch / flywheel) along with every other (possibly) usable bit.

The plan was to manual swap the MS55 to make it more fun to drive - so figured I would have a look inside the transmission before I went any further.

Nope.

Nope, nope - nope.

Oh well.

Fortunately, Super Cool Car Friend knew a guy who had another one.

So, manual transmission the second was sourced (with added W40 boxes to go with it)

Additional side quest - Super Cool Car Friend had purchased a MS55. This MS55 was rusty in weird spots, and not worth spending the money to save - so he committed it to parts for his ute project.

Seeing as he was building a ute, the rear half of the sedan was surplus to his requirements. A deal was done, and I took it home.

Taillights, trims, surrounds and panels all in good condition. Much better than what was on my car.

In terms of steel, I only needed the LH and RH corners - the rest of it was flat packed for the scrap bin.

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

As the years go by I've come to discover that the hobby I'm best at - is collecting hobbies.

I hate subletting work - and for all the times that I have in the past, I've been disappointed in some fashion.

So I decided that I NEEDED to learn how to zinc plate parts.

Seeing as I had already built a vapor blaster, cleaning things up sufficiently for plating seemed to make the internal sell easier to justify.

So a basic 'Jane Kits' 10L plating kit was purchased and I started plating parts.

Not bad for a first crack I reckon.

New Hyper-Focus identified.

In the midst of zinc plating shenanigans, I felt it necessary to give the engine a Dulux overhaul.

Took the valve cover and sump of for inspection - yep, still full of engine internals.

Obviously, the engine hardware needed to be removed and replated before it could go back into the frame.....

After that was done, the engine was dropped back into the frame with the L4# 4 speed bolted up behind it.

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

Somewhere after / during the time of engine refitment, the front-end components (control arms, spring, stub axles, ETC.) were sandblasted (not by me...... first time I've not been disappointed by sublet work)

Before the springs went out, a quick clean up revealed paint marks. Didn't actually notice this until after they were removed, so fuck knows which side they go in.

After they were blasted, I repainted the springs and added the paint marks.

Control arms painted up and installed (with re-plated bolts)

New other things and stuff bolted onto old repainted things and stuff.

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

Replated the oil filler cap because shiny things are cool.

Found someone selling NOS ignition lead sets. Bought more than I really should have for reasons unbeknown to myself.

They look just..... right.

In other (unsurprising) news - I had made the decision to convert the front to run disc brakes (as I came across a set earlier on in my collecting) so set about making the calipers and shit look.... less shit.

Sumitomo twin pistons of fury - managed to get the pistons out without much of a struggle.

After much blasting / cleaning / replating.

Didn't get a perfect finish because of the following reasons (reasons which are now obvious to me)

- Insufficient amperage of power supply.

- Insufficient wire size from parts to said power supply.

At the end of the day, they turned out OK after replacing 2x pistons and fitted a genuine seal kit.

New wheel bearings / hub seal after a solid cleanup got the front discs looking pretty.

And then I made up a new brake hard line, as I never actually got that part with the calipers / stub axles / discs (fortunately I had a MS51 with OE brakes on it I could use as a pattern)

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

Hub and everything back on.

Wheel back on. Pretty.

Back on her wheels for the first time in a long time - and out into the sun.

Shortly after this, I decided that manual swapping this car just wasn't worth the effort.

The Borg Warner 35 that came out of the car was resealed, car loaded back onto the hoist and manual transmission swapped out for the BW35.

At some stage I had a call from another super cool car guy who said he had some S2 panels / parts that I could have - so went and got those.

Both front guards, the Radiator support along with some late model MS55 stub axles with the PBR type disc brakes (no calipers though)

Threw those bits on the front of the car to start lining up the hanging panels (which I really should have done before painting the door jambs.....)

MS51HT · December 28, 2022

Saw someone advertise some dragways.... bought them because I have poor impulse control.

They're cool as fuck though.

MS51HT · December 30, 2022

After looking at the last photo, I realized that I had completely forgotten about how I repaired the bottom half of the passenger side front door.

The original door had some shitty rust in the bottom - and seeing as I had recently bought back a door from a car that spent most of its life upside down on a farm in the WA Wheatbelt, I set about sorting that out.

Firstly - the OE door.