MS51HT's MS51 Crown Hardtop

[MS51HT]

Discussion: 

 

As some of you may have noticed - I like Toyota Crowns.

Like, REALLY like them.

Seems like the devil in my head is telling me that I need to own the whole collection.

So here is the history and build of my 1970 MS51 Crown Hardtop (Coupe).

I purchased this one in July 2018 from a guy who had received it as an inheritance from his late Grandfather.

The photos were not great - but they showed that the old girl needed some love.

When I called the guy up to chat about it, he alluded to the fact that there had been a heap of interest from the Eastern States - but no one had made a serious offer.

I told him that I would take it, and that I would arrange to send him a deposit to hold the vehicle until I could get an opportunity to collect it (the vehicle was located 5 hours North....)

He called me back shortly after - seems he got the guilts about the real condition of the vehicle, so offered to send me some more detailed photos of the rust issues the vehicle had.

The follow up discussion resulted in me still wanting to purchase the vehicle, but at a discounted price - happy days.

So me and a mate set off early for an adventure north to collect it.

It had been given a restoration at some stage of it's life - with the interior being retrimmed in barf worthy material.

[MS51HT]

Fortunately, I had recently built a decent sized shed in my backyard - so the 51 went straight in.

I set about giving it a quick tidy up and look over to establish just how bad it was.

First thing to go were the wheels - chucked an ad on gumtree and had some fella take them off my hands for what I thought was a reasonable price.

Nighttime insta shot just because.

 

[MS51HT]

Standard shed move things / backyard renovation took much of my limited time.

First thing I wanted to do was get the brakes working - so I ripped into the brake master to see what was wrong.

After pulling it apart, cleaning it and putting it back together it all worked mint. Nice.

Next thing was to get some better wheels onto it. Had some old XY GT Option 52 alloy center / steel outer wheels floating around on a MS112 I had which I tried to bolt on - until I realized that old mate who put the spoke type rims on previously had changed the wheel studs to imperial threads that suited the wheel nuts he had. Bastard.

New wheel nuts purchased, wheels fitted and paint work polished.

Turns out you can actually polish a turd...

[MS51HT]

The interior color was giving me the shits - big time.

So I thought the best (IE: Cheapest) option was just to spray it black with some duplicolor carpet & vinyl paint.

Pulled the interior out of it and got stuck in after testing a small section of carpet.

Seemed to make the poo brown carpet considerably less poo brown, so decided to carry on with the rest of it.

Whilst it went down nicely on the vinyl parts, the carpet / material soaked the paint up in ways I hadn't considered.

The Wife offered to chase down some cans for me while I was at work - came home to find that she was getting stuck in!

Turned out nice.

 

[MS51HT]

After many many coats, I left it to dry for a day or so before slapping it back in.

Much better.

[MS51HT]

Fast forward to nearly 12 months after getting MS51 #1.......

After understanding just how hard it was to find parts for a MS51, I jumped at the opportunity to purchase a second MS51 when it was offered to me.

The beauty of this one is that it's been stripped back to bare metal for all except the hanging panels - which means I can see exactly where the sins are.

It also came with a whole bunch of parts.

Including this....

 

[MS51HT]

Having the very best Father in Law in the world afforded me some off-site storage whilst I got distracted with other projects.

And here it sat for nearly two years.

[MS51HT]

In between parking the MS51 away, I parted out a couple of MS112's;

Helped the old boy rebuild his MS55;

And carried on with normal work / home renovation / kid raising stuff.

Mid 2022, I decided that I would bring the coupe home to give it some attention.

[MS51HT]

After getting it home I decided to start toying with the thought of installing the MS112 running gear (including brake booster / master) which seemed like the best way of fixing the seized calipers / leaking master cylinder.

This blew out to removing the steering column to give it a collapsible column conversion for the future engine conversion / upgrade.

Seeing as I had a car with a collapsible column (column shift automatic) and the MS51 column was floor shift, I set about dismantling both columns to work out where the similarities started and ended.

The collapsible column has a rubber o-ring and flange to secure the column tube to the firewall plate - whereas the non-collapsible column is fully welded.

Additionally, the firewall plates were quite different between column shift and floor shift.

This resulted in some drilling, grinding and cutting to allow me to transpose holes and fittings required for the column shift parts to fit the non-collapsible column.

An extra part the column shift setup had was a collar at the base that needed transplanting.

[MS51HT]

With the necessary holes and fixtures swapped between firewall plates, both pieces were tidied up ready for paint.

Vapor blasted the aluminium support bracket that holds the column shift parts together.

It was about at this time that I became aware that the annual Toyota Enthusiast Car Club of WA car show was approaching. With the show being one week away, I made the decision that I would get the coupe looking respectable enough to take it along without feeling embarrassed for my (perceived) lack of progress.

[MS51HT]

Determined to get the coupe ready for the upcoming car show, I pulled out the stops and proceeded to bite off more than I could chew.

First job was to strip the suspension and driveline out to make way for the MS112 gear.

Work on the car was only possible after normal duties were addressed - so between the hours of 7pm and 1-2am each night after work, things happened.

Also decided that whilst I liked the wheels I had for it, the tires fitted were far too big. Called in a favor and got some more appropriate tires fitted.

Much betterer!!!

Gave the front springs a tough up with the 5" grinder and improved the ride height.

Plenty of work went into getting the MS112 gear under the car - and due to obvious time constraints, photographing each stage wasn't in the forefront of my mind.

 

[MS51HT]

One of the things that shat me off whenever I looked at the car was the rust in the RH rear 1/4.

The lack of drain hole / Toyota's propensity to fill gaps with KG's of seam sealer so moisture can't get out seems to cause the RH sides to fall apart, while the LH side is as good as can be expected.

None of this was helped by the fact that old mate's idea of a restoration was to skim the entire car in a 1" thick coating of bog and sculpt it back to what it should look like.

Photo below taken before I had taken delivery of it - once I tapped some of the bog out of the panel the damage appeared more obvious.

Probably didn't help that I removed the shitty mudflap that was seemingly holding everything together.

So the grinder came out, and the outer skin sectioned off.

Fuggin gross. The inner panel was toast, so that was all cut out until good steel was found.

Using my best bending / cutting / folding skills that a mechanic can possess - I set about making a patch up.

I should probably mention that I started this rust removal at 10:00am on Saturday. The car show was the next day (Sunday, just to be crystal clear)

Welded it in - but no more progress photos from this point.

Snapped off a chip of paint and headed down to the local AutoPro to get some paint matched up for this, and the multiple other touch ups the car needed.

Close enough.

At some stage during the night, I figured it would be a good idea to give the wheels a color change too - the silver just didn't have enough.... oomph.

Fortunately, I have the most understanding Wife in the world - who (at 11:00pm on a Saturday night) helped mask up the tires so I could throw some paint around.

To add an extra layer of difficulty, I decided to remove the whole front of the car to repaint the grills and headlight surrounds. Once that had dried sufficiently, the Wife got the chrome pen out and re 'chromed' the surrounds.

From here I worked on the car non-stop until 5:45am Sunday morning (the morning of the car show)

That was to give the paint some time to dry on the car before I attempted to load it onto the trailer and drag it down to the show.

[MS51HT]

After pulling an almost-all-nighter, sneaking in a 45 minute sleep and then waking up to reassemble the grille and headlight surrounds I wheeled the coupe onto a car trailer.

Would it start by simply turning the key? No. Something went fucky with the wiring after installing the steering column. No matter, IKEA disposable spanner was employed to jump the starter solenoid.

Would it then start after getting to the venue? Also no. After putting a different pedal box into the car (one that suited the collapsible column) the brake switch was now always 'ON', resulting in the brake lights flattening the shitty battery I'd lobbed into the engine bay.

So after pulling the 2nd battery out of the cruiser and jump starting the coupe, I managed to find a spot in between the Toyota 86 fanboi club and other random new cars.

Didn't give a shit though - I'd made it.

Never even had a moment to wash it - gave it a quick wipe down and walked away to check out the other talent that turned up on the day.

Was totally fucking stoked how it came out - the gold wheels against the red paint and the plasti-dipped roof made me very happy.

Somehow even managed to win the committee's choice award for the day. Even more totally stoked!!!!

Waited for nearly everyone to leave before getting the jumper lead and battery out of the boot and jumping the solenoid with the IKEA 'key' before putting it back on the trailer, taking it back to its storage facility and then spending the rest of the afternoon sleeping on the couch.