I'M SORRY, GRANDMA: 1986 Cressida moneypit (I mean, project...)

[DER E30]

It sucks how school robs you of all your time... My truck is in the same boat right now.. How much more school left for you?

Keep at it, small steps add up to big progress!

[saturnstance]

That all sucks.

You're located near philly?

[kibur]

The last update on this thread was in November 2015, which definitely reflects how the progress has come along on this car. To call it disappointing would be an understatement, in all honesty.

To make a long story short, practically no progress has been made on this car since then. I have installed the front coilovers, which were fabbed up, but otherwise... almost no luck with making moves.


Not to mention, the wiring for this car hasn't went as planned. Currently awaiting either a friend to get back to me on some plugs I can splice in, or I have to go through, disconnect everything, and send it back to the fella who made the harness so he can rectify things.

edit: I decided to edit this post because yes, I was frustrated with the lack of progress over the past 5 months, but I am working to rectify it and do anything possible to keep this project moving. school wears me the fuck out, but I can't give up on this project no matter what. sometimes I get too discouraged, and then I remember this is my first motor swap and more importantly that car things never go quite as planned.

[kibur]

No picture updates, but
- Got my Nardi in, found out that eBay hub adapters are fucking garbage. A buddy is hooking it up with an NRG one that should get the job done the right way.
- Front BC's are off and being tig'd up by my buddy Patrick. Might as well do it once, and do it right.
- In the process of getting a digital dash to swap in! For those familiar with this chassis, the digital dash as opposed to the analog one is a cool little upgrade in my book. It looks so much better, and it really has an incredible 1980's look and feel to it.

EDIT: Sike, here's some weldporn for ya via #patfab

[kibur]

I love the progress, and the heartfelt story haha. looking forward to roller vids

hopefully soon!!! I'm looking forward to making them after all this work.

do a fucking burnout

[bdkawey]

do a fucking burnout

[ExpelI]

I love the progress, and the heartfelt story haha. looking forward to roller vids

[kibur]

This past weekend was excellent.


This past Friday, my friend Pat came out from York, PA to come hang out with my buddy Nick and I. we had made plans to get some work in on Saturday, so on Friday night we hung out, got some delicious Mexican food and drank some beer. It was a great time, and it started the weekend off on the right note.

My buddy Miller, who lives about 2+ hours south of me, had also planned to come up and lend a helping hand on Saturday. Pat left Philly on Saturday morning in order to head back to York and get his car, while I took a train up to my friend's house where my car is. Miller met us up there and immediately we got to cracking.



We started to tackle some of the chassis rust right away. We worked until daylight had passed, removing the front swaybar crossmember and grinding away at the rust that had gathered. We coated everything down with some rust preventative paint, and at this point all I can do is hope for the best.

After this we began to set up the engine hoist and bring the 1jz forward to drop into the motor. I was super excited. I got a little pissed when I realized my old motor mount bolts were junk, but luckily Home Depot was still open, so a trip there was made and hardware that would get the job done was installed. Now that the mounts were in, the motor was ready to drop on down.

Or so I thought. We moved the motor (with transmission) over to the engine bay. The engine hoist which my buddy Alex had purchased from Craigslist a few weeks back had begun pissing hydraulic fluid darn near everywhere. Of course, when he went to buy the hoist, the thing wasn't leaking, probably meaning that there was some deception on that seller's end. But at this point, that was neither here nor there, and my motor was dangling in mid air with a jack that wouldn't pump any higher.

We let the motor down and remove the transmission in order to take some pressure off the hoist and make the install easier. Pat puts a mixture of brake fluid and I don't even remember into the hoist and voila, there's some pressure in it again. We crank her up, set her down, and next thing we know, success.



Couldn't help but take a silly photo with the motor and a beer in hand. I don't think my buddy Nick is too amused

After this, we packed up our stuff, hung out for a few more minutes and then got ready to hit the road. We made a late night Taco Bell run, and then ended up crashing at Nick's house. More hangs were had that night, and then I went back with Miller to my university, where his sister also attends school. We parted ways, and I came back up to spend another day working on my car. Unfortunately, a car that Alex and my buddy Chris were working on ended up running into snag after snag, and I spent most of my day helping them. Luckily, we gathered some energy and got the transmission in at the end of the night, burning the last of the midnight oil left over from the weekend, and literally wrapping the job up a hair after midnight.

I couldn't be more grateful for the friends I have and how much they've helped me with building this car. Whether it's lending helping hands, picking me up from the train station, or just stopping by to bring some good vibes, no words can show my appreciation and gratitude, especially for those who traveled far distances to come out and help me with my project.

[kibur]

E-brake shoes and front wheel bearings came in the mail. Unfortunately, we were unsure of the hardware to look for regarding the e-brake. The e-brake will be taken care of as soon as it is all gathered. It was a lot of fun digging through every possible set of e-brake hardware at Pep Boys to no avail


My buddy Ken spitting that hot fiya in order to heat up and bend a coolant hose. The hose needed to be bent in order to run o2 sensor on the Future Fab downpipe for the stock turbo.



We needed the car to become a roller again in order to drop the motor in. We reassembled the brakes and installed the new sway bar endlinks, as well as the rear BC coilovers. BC's are in and sitting great. For the first time ever, I've needed to put wood blocks down in order to get a car off the jack, and the BC's aren't even cranked down all the way. I'll deal with dialing a ride height in at a later point, but for now there are bigger things to be taken care of.


Moved the car around in a little bit of a unconvential way. If you have this kind of machinery at hand, you may as well use it, right!?


Another shot of how the rear is looking. Very pleased with these ARE's.

After dragging the car out of the garage, we power washed down 29 years worth of grease and grime from the engine bay. At this time, we found out some items in the engine bay could use some rust repair. Before I left to head back to school, we got the items ready to come on out. My buddy Alex, who has been helping me every step of the way with this build, is going to have the items sandblasted while I'm at school. I also plan to take care of some minor frame rail rust as well. Also, my grandfather had noted that the car had been hit in the front at one point and resprayed, something that taking apart the front end certainly reflects. It seems as if a lot of the rust has spread from the point of impact, as well as from where the battery tray used to trap water and battery acid. The rust currently is just surface, but I do not want it to spread any worse; the main reason I've been building this chassis in particular is due to the sentimental value that this shell holds.

Hopefully, this last little bit of chassis prep can occur so the motor can be dropped in this upcoming weekend. It's been rather tantalizing seeing a fully assembled 1jz-gte and harness sitting there, just waiting to be dropped into this chassis!

[kibur]

motivations is more important than funds! Because funds are useless if you aint got the hearth to work on it. Theres always something free or very cheap to do on your car! You have a nice project in your hand

thank you!!!

hai kevin

Hi Daniel!!!

So this past weekend I went home to do some more work. Used rubber coating on the rear subframe in order to hopefully keep the springs on the BC's free from being messed up too much by rust, and also to prevent more rust from spreading on the subframe. I was pulling apart the e-brakes with my buddy Alex and we found out that the shoes and hardware were absolutely toast, but the pads were decent. However, the shoes are special order and the hardware was nowhere to be found. Kind of frustrating dealing with an older and unique chassis where parts are not readily available, or even available at all.

This upcoming weekend, I'm hoping to put the e-brake together and have the car rolling by Friday night. I hope to accomplish this in order to turn the car around and clean up the bay in order to get the motor in. If these e-brake parts are unavailable to be located, I guess I'm kinda fucked for getting anything done.

Progress keeps getting delayed, I keep needing more parts, and money keeps running low. Yet, as I sit in the library at my school typing this up, this car is the only thing on my mind. I would give just about anything to drive this car for a bit before the northeast does it's thing and covers everything in frozen white shit for like 5 months in a row.

[HWY HNTR]

hai kevin

[Meeve]

motivations is more important than funds! Because funds are useless if you aint got the hearth to work on it. Theres always something free or very cheap to do on your car! You have a nice project in your hand

[kibur]

Not necessarily an update, but my buddy sent me a picture of the valve seals. They were never ever touched. Pretty shitty how someone took my money and ran.


This weekend I'm hoping to prepare the bay and fix up some rust, as well as prepare the motor to be dropped in. Hopefully, some friends should be coming up to help me weld in the front coilovers and drop this motor in. Funds are lower than ever, morale is higher than ever. Funny how that works. Couldn't be happier and more rejuvenated to get back at this project as of late.

[kibur]

I kind of got a little less done on this than expected this weekend. I decided to see some close friends who are moving this weekend, a decision I don't regret at all. the rear differential is in, and the rear suspension is close to being all the way in as well. I got new sway bar end links all around, the rears had to be cut to drop the suspension down (too old and rusty). Instead of dropping the motor in this weekend, the rest of the gaskets, the waterpump (upgraded to a 2jz unit), spark plugs and a few other small things were taken care of to ensure that once the motor is in, there won't be too many worries.

Maybe I will get some more stuff done on this car in the near future, but for now I'm unfortunately just about all out of money and time to spend on this car. School is completely tiring, and it's hard to find the time to get stuff done. I'd love to have this ready to go before the snow hits the ground, but who knows anymore.

[kibur]

What size are those ARE's?

16x8.5 +13 wrapped in 205/45/16 yokohama s-drives

1JZVVT-I welcome to the dark side....

Good work so far man!

thank you CJ! I hope you can see it soon.