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We learnt some interesting things about the Celica today while tearing into the front end.

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Not sure if this was mentioned previously but any time I would hit the brakes the car would duck and dive and generally behave very dangerously. I suspected that the shocks were screwed and I was not disappointed. These are obviously not original but they are very old. 

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I'm no suspensionologist but I'm pretty sure the fluid is meant to be inside the shock. Driver side was surprisingly not too bad but passenger side was swimming in escaped fluid. Yeah that won't be helping the driving experience at all. 

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I knew there was a brake problem but I did not count on finding this. 

I suppose that explains why the brakes didn't really work properly either. Can't say I've ever seen this before. I've not yet started investigation into why this happened or if there's a calliper issue or they were just fitted wrong or what. Either way they look super old. 

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My replacement discs and pads look to be correct so that's good and I also discovered the wheel bearings on driver front are screwed so have ordered another set. Passenger side felt like it had been replaced because that one is smooth.

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Not sure these will be low enough.. might need to delete a coil.

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More hackery on Barry the S600 today! At the advice of my auto elec friend I was able to get the fuel gauge working which showed a full tank, sweet! That's like $50 of value right there; it'll probably last 2 years. Kind of another waste of time though as that will be replaced anyway with the new gauge set once I work out what I want to do there. 

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What I did do was manage to "fix" a shifting problem. 2nd 4th and reverse were niggly because the shifter would hit the surround area of the tunnel. I started to do some choppy chop (don't judge too hard, grinder wouldn't fit and the dremel went for a walk) then I realised I could just unscrew this cover. Shift problem resolved!

I'm not opposed to replacing that panel with something else and just screwing it back on, as long as it doesn't hit stuff. At any rate I need to find a replacement for the boot around the base of the shifter. 

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In the box of spares I did find what I suspect is a short shifter so perhaps this car had this installed at one time and it didn't foul but then for whatever reason the original shifter was replaced but nothing else changed to accommodate. Might try to reinstall it and see if it's actually for this car or not.

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You can be sure this disaster is not going back in though. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Delinquency is tiring when you get older so for today's effort I just wanted something a bit less physically taxing to deal with so I'm doing more wiring/sketchy experiments on Barry the S600.

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I ordered some max China gauges for my dash panel mockups and decided to make use of one of them. The Speco oil pressure gauge that came in the car was a mechanical unit and the oil in the line basically wasn't moving/seemed solid. I couldn't trust the gauge when it was telling me 20psi at all times. 

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Of course the sensor was in a suboptimal place so I spent 20 minutes removing skin on my forearms getting it out. Much to my surprise the electrical sender actually threaded right in.

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With some more mad scientist wiring I did a test. Looks like winning to me. 

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A few posts earlier I mentioned my temporarily permanent plan for the wheels was to black them and put trim rings and some trim rings I ordered arrived during the week. With some massaging of these tabs I was able to push them on.

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Whether they stay on or not, yet to be determined. I'll order in some more paint soon to complete that look but the trim rings look great! Really makes those rubber air valves stand out though. 

So now I've got the OEM fuel gauge working, that tractor tacho and the oil pressure gauge. Now I just need to work out what kind of gauges I will go for and complete the mockup for final new dash panel. Thinking that for a winter project I'll remove the whole dash and make a new loom for all of the gauges, switches and lights because it's definitely a mess under there. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Most of the big dollar stuff that I want to do on the Celica has been taken care of for the time being so now we can start tinkering with the time intensive jobs.

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I spent a bit of time with getting this rear wing to fit up on the back and into shape as it's a bit warped. It's not stuck down properly yet but that's about the position it will be. It still warped but also the boot is shutting unevenly so I've ordered a new boot rubber seal as the current one looks quite old and crusty. Reason for doing this is the wing hits considerably more on the passenger side rear quarter than driver side so before I start irreversibly cutting more out of the wing to get it to sit flatter I thought I'd at least try to get the seal even. 

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Barry got some love this weekend as well. Where the oil pressure gauge was located was prime position for smashing it every time getting in and out of the car so I decided to move it to the left and also temporarily mocked up where water temperature gauge will live. Don't look too much into all this as remember we will be remaking the top gauge panel soon and gauges will live up there; this is just more a proof of concept for senders working. 

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I also investigated that short shifter I found in the box of spares and it does indeed look like it fits but the shifter bushing is long since gone out of business. Thankfully it looks like these can still be purchased and they aren't expensive. Not sure it will make shifting better though, probably not but we'll see. 

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I also found a mirror in the Barry box that came with the car and fitted it up. Yeah that's not going anywhere near the car ever again. 

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Seems like my seats are made of paper as well. 

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A few items arrived last week to get some more jobs ticked off on Barry's list. Actually neither of these things were even on the list I made but you know how it goes.. start doing something then you see something else you want to do then rinse and repeat. 

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First up was to get that water temperature gauge connected. After draining the fluid out I was able to just swap out the Barry metal pipe that was there for the usual radiator hose adapter and that fits up nice, no leaks. Problem is when wired up the gauge goes flying to the maximum temperature. It even does that when it's not grounded so I can only thing that maybe there's a short somewhere or the sender is broken or something. I think the only way I'll be able to test it is to take it out and put it in some hot water or something and see. 

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The reason I'm not scared of it actually being over 120 degrees is the second job of the day, which was actually the first. A friend of mine noted that I didn't have the fan relay actually powered so that was a simple job with some terrible wiring and crimping. I idled the car up and it turned on so we can presume that it isn't getting overly hot as the fan does turn off again. 

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I don't know what was going through the mind of Barry when this wiring setup was done. I tried to undo the bolt to re-route the wire but it seems fairly well rounded so seems like the solution will be to pull the hose but I don't want to do that just at the moment until I take off that sensor for the gauge which will happen sometime in the future. 

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Previously I mentioned that our shifter bushes were gone so these are the replacement items. Left is what came out, right is what is in the kit. This kit is for a whole bunch of Mazda RWD gearboxes so not all of the bushes were needed for mine but I replaced a couple of busted/missing ones and the difference was amazing. Of course there are some different bolts for the top plate, because why wouldn't there be?

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Was snooping around and found some wiring hanging down on the exhaust so that's cool. Tucked that up out of the way. 

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One of the other things that was bugging me was the rear bump stops. As you can see, they are not the same. The red ones I will replace them with are for a Hiace but the idea is the same, simply a stud through a hole. Problem is said hole on the car is smaller than said stud so it needs to be drilled out. Job for another day. 

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  • 3 months later...

It's Sunday! That (usually) means workshop day. 

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For the rear wing on the Celica because it's fibreglass and generally averagely put together I had the problem of the passenger side contacting on the rear guard. I thought maybe it was to do with the rubber boot seal so replaced that which did make a different, just not in the area I needed. 

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Ended up just trimming a bunch of stuff off the edge which was the last step really and that's probably going to be good enough. As you can see the fit is pretty terrible on the back but I decided to make the top fit best then deal with the back fit later. When it's a bit warmer I'll Sikaflex it on. 

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Not a huge amount happened today but in the interests of keeping momentum going there is a little update. I have taken the wheels off the Celica to get the new lips put on so while it was in the air I sprayed the rear wheel wells with underseal. It's not perfect but it's better than it was. Found out some of the rear guard pocket is made of fibreglass.. not really a surprise. It's probably not perfectly coated but it just has to be better than it was, that's all. 
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Next task is working out which wheels to put on the S600. Because it's 5x130 (yeah I know, wtf) stud pattern I'm getting some spacer adapters made up but they have to be 30mm because of the way that it's done so I'm wondering what kind of width I'll be able to get under there. I don't think we'll be able to do big dish however the rears have been widened by some Barry in the past so not sure how wide they even are. 
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