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[1978celica-blog]

Celica project Part 4: welding in new metal and bodywork

The bits of rusty metal that were cut out needed to be replaced. So some simple patches later.. The engine bay also had plenty of holes that were no longer needed. Once all the metal work was taken care of and knocked down with a flapdisc body filler was used to smooth it all out. Some primer shows how far along everything is and what needs more work After a little more finessing I sprayed on the color I had been agonizing over to choose; Subaru Java Black Pearl. At this point the paint was looking great, and a little rain cloud showed up and drizzled for a minute or two. That was all it took to blow some drops onto the fairly fresh clearcoat as it cured. What a disaster. The next day was windy as cold, and wetsanding the freshly ruined paint wasn't too fun. This time I stuffed the car into the garage just incase a passing rain cloud wanted to screw anything up and finished off painting the engine bay.

[1978celica-blog]

1978 Celica, Part 3. The engine bay shaving starts.

Working out of a 1 car garage was going to be an interesting aspect to this build. My NSX had been backed into recently and it was time to drop it at the body shop for a week or so, and that meant a free garage to work in for the mean time! Time to get rid of a bunch of junk that’s in the engine bay that we don’t want in there. Tree gunk Brake lines.. all that stuff needs to go Before the project went any further there was a ton of mud and crap to get rid of just to see what we had to work with. Out comes the power washer and we get to spraying. Now there’s a pretty good look at what needs to be done. The subframe from the beater car had a cool little engine damper on it, and I wanted it on the new build so off comes the subframe But the control arm mount was bent.. no matter, a hammer got those back in place. There’s a good look now at some rust that needs to be dealt with. Nothing to do with rust except to start cutting holes in the car. Perhaps now I should look into welding those holes up..

[1978celica-blog]

Celica project, the 2nd car shows up and engines get removed

Labor day 2016 was a short day at work, and with the daylight that was left it was decided that the project should officially commence. A Harbor Freight coupon got a good deal on an engine hoist, and after dinner it was assembled and work started Supposedly this engine had a bad head gasket. This was going to be a mad resto-mod and an engine bay tuck and shave was in order, so whether the engine was good or bad didn't much matter, it would get a rebuild later. For now it is simply in the way. Such a simple car meant the engine/trans combo came out in just a couple hours! Just in time, about a day later the 2nd Celica got delivered. This one had a welded rear end most likely for madd skids. Made it a little more difficult to push around the property. This thing was track day ready. Came complete with a dusty old fuel cell. The word was that this engine ran.. so I put in a battery and tried firing it up. Well, the starter didn't want to crank, so that idea was shot. No matter. On to pulling the engine out. And since this one couldn't squeeze the engine/trans combo out because of the core support design.. I just dropped the trans out normally. This was a nice W55 Toyota 5 speed. Here's hoping it isn't ruined from abuse! Other bits getting stripped out as well so we can push this heap off to the side for a while. And the beater gets shoved to the side of the garage where it won't be in the way. My neighbor's 1978 Hilux makes a cameo.

[1978celica-blog]

1978 Celica project, the beginning

In August 2016 I was browsing Craigslist looking for a project... for someone else. I had missed out on purchasing a 2006 Porsche Boxster that had front end damage from a deer because the owner decided they didn't want to sell it anymore, and I was sort of bummed out. However, instead of finding something for someone else, I found an ad for a pair of 2nd gen Celicas for $1000. They were rough, but I decided it was worth a look, if nothing else for something to do. It was about a 2 hour drive to where they were, so we hopped into the daily and headed that way through some country roads The plan was that if neither of the cars had a solid body and were rusty that it would be a big skip. Pulling up to the house we found a garage door open with a pair of old Toyotas sitting inside, Corollas if I remember right. He was a big Toyota enthusiast. The Celicas were in the back yard sitting under some trees. They were filthy, one had come from a barn even. As it turns out, though, one of the bodies had minimal rust. It was actually impressively clean for a 1978 Toyota economy car. The rundown was that the clean body car supposedly had a bad headgasket and the rouger car ran before it was parked by the previous owner and had some parts stripped off of it. Between the two there should be enough to build one good car, probably. We chatted a bit, and he offered both cars delivered to my house for the asking price. I thought about it for the night, and the next day we got the deal started and I waited with anticipation for the delivery. A couple days later the 1978 with the clean body rolled up on a tow dolly. A friend was over, and my neighbor who was also a Toyota enthusiast all helped shove the car into the driveway and we started checking it out. It was an automatic.. but the other car was a 5 speed. Inspecting what was rough and what wasn't.. door panels weren't great It would be crazy to expect an old neglected car to have no rust.. but nothing looked scary. This was rust.. instead of rot. Overall it's a solid car The cleaning was going to need to be thorough. Next up.. it's time to start tearing it all apart.