The teenage budget 1973 Celica ST

[hackrtanman]

tons of potential here. i love these all done up with bumper mounted oil coolers. just something about it. i had an AE86 but sadly i sold it before PCSing to my current duty station. shoulda kept it. keep on keepin on and dont give up like i did man. cant wait to see it finished!

Thanks! Sorry about the '86, I love those. Thought about getting one before the Celica, actually. And yes, this car will not disappear into the depths of unfinished cars; It will be done!

[hackrtanman]

Hey, the hose to carb is most likely the carb heat to prevent carb ice or a heat operated choke.


I'll ask The guys at the snowboard factory if they'd sell parts off that Celica. I used to work there a few years back and I still know a few guys there. Chances are I could trade beer for parts.

By the way, did some research on Mervin and found some pictures of the Celica. I assume this is the most recent one, someone jacked the front bumper and valence. Oh well, there might be some other parts I could use, If I can get through to them.

[hackrtanman]

Nothing too exciting, just drained tank completely after I found out it was empty, fixed headlights hopefully for sure, and found somemore electrical problems. Woo. Someone put a 4A fuse in a 20A Cig lighter and 20A's in 15A's. No Bueno.

Gonna do some rust repair, and HOPEFULLY after I do the brakes in the next few weeks, as it is alive now, I can slap some bitchen 150 dolla wheels on. Weeoo. Coilovers too. Maybe. Just Maybe. Okay Hopefully.

[hackrtanman]

Yeah, no kidding!

Alright, today was the first day I actually could do anything, the past week it was completely foggy, every single day, and there was also some rain. Everywhere else besides Vashon, in the Puget Sound Area, got lucky. Ran up to the lumber yard, got some miscellaneous bolts and nuts, then set off. Also some tubing.

Redid the rubber MB cylinder hoses wit new ones, and I also remade my throttle linkage. Don't have any pictures right now, but I used 1/4 inch think steel I think, maybe 1/8 inch.

Decided our relationship wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, so I decided to strip her naked and spice things up!

I'll let the pictures do the explaining, but all that went down was fender removal, headlight removal, all the front fascia, sanding, priming, yada yada.

























Also, our Sienna just decided to turn on the check engine light. Boo.

[hackrtanman]

Well this past week has been downright Sh**. But, whats better than ordering all of your brake parts!

The past few days I have stayed away from my computer and hid away in my garage. Painted my passenger side headlight bucket and parts of the drivers, but I think it might be shot, its really bent. That whole side it really bent. I also took the undercoating off of the metal thingies that attach to the fender and chassis, going to POR-15 them soon, along with a few more spots. Also cleaned up my work area.

As for other news, my drivers side door won't open. I don't know if it's the lock or if the internal mechanism, but I'm just going to pull the door card anyways.

Finally, I think I'm going to try and fit some BMW E28 seats into the drivers and passenger side. I took the rails off, and from what I say as far as measurements online, they aren't too far off. That's it for now.

Yeah sorry, no pictures this time

[hackrtanman]

Still no low

Okay, it's been a while since I have posted on here, and I am lagging wayyyy too far behind. Therefore, this is going to be a large update. WITH PICTURES

OKAY. So I left off at working on the brake hoses and front end work. Since then, I have stripped the undercoating from the drivers side wheel well and am going to work on the passenger side soon, Took the calipers and disks off to be ground down and rebuilt, redid some electrical, adjusted the carburetor to optimal settings, and painted the headlight buckets and surrounds. There has been more but I cannot remember all since.

Wheel wells and Mud protectors:
Heat gun and knife, all came off easily. Maybe tomorrow before the storm comes I will shoot it with primer to get it ready for the undercoating, maybe not. It looks a whole lot better than I was worried about, it was mainly just surface rust but a few spots of nasty crust. :bawling:



Brakes:
Christmas has come early! A week ago or so I ordered my parts from rock auto, they came in speedy time. I am still waiting for the drivers side caliper to be rebuilt, the passenger I am keeping because nothing is wrong with it and I may need a spare sometime anyways.




Also, yesterday I went up to Snohomish to pick apart a '76 Celica at wrecking yard (All About Auto Wrecking, there is an add on Craigslist). Not much was left, but most of it I didn't need anyways. I did happen to get CLEAN and RUST FREE outer window/door seals, the upper seals which were in good condition, and the passenger side lower door seal; All of which I was desperately needing. Mine looked like somebody torched them. I also snagged the buckets thinking that if they didn't fit, I could sell them again, but they work fine.


Top is old, bottom is new. Big difference.


I am having a hard time opening my drivers side door, I'm pretty sure that the rod connecting the handle to the lock is broken because I can see far enough in there to where it doesn't look like it is moving at all. Getting the door card off is a bit hard, as the door is closed shut. I am going to need to take it off anyways to oil everything up in there anyways, everything is sliding pretty rough.

That's it for now, In three weeks I am having two weeks off from school (Finally) Which means I should get quite a bit of work done, including brakes. I really hope to have it driving by late January, all I really need now is seats and the brakes done. As for seats, I may try and retrofit some E28 buckets in that are in a 5 series at a gas station sitting. There are the same spacing as far as length, but about 1 or 2 inch's wider than the mounts.

12/5/13
As with everywhere else, it is pretty much below freezing all day. Not quite average for Seattle. Not really much I can do in freezing weather, as most involves primer and paint. I am waiting for the drivers caliper to be rebuilt and returned and the rotors to be ground down. Soon.

[Rinku-Bitch]

Damn dude, this reminds me of my build, not enough people commenting!
Awesome progress though, keep it up man, and good luck with the rust.

[hackrtanman]

Damn dude, this reminds me of my build, not enough people commenting!
Awesome progress though, keep it up man, and good luck with the rust.

Hey thanks, I just spent a good 15 minutes looking at your Toyota build, then saw you sold and was all like "He don't have no build whats he talkin' 'bout"

Then I found your Bimmer. Damn. You better be happy I spent half an hour or so of what I should have been spending on my goddamn english essay. But, the whole time I was smiling, totally worth it.

And anyways, thanks! Right now I don't expect many people to comment, I kinda bit off more than I could chew, especially with it being junior year and having absolutely no time to do anything. Once I get the breaks done, I expect lowering will be next.

[hackrtanman]

So just as a side note, I probably won't be updating here nearly as often, don't want to bore you guys with nothing fun yet. I have been setting my goals too high and haven't really reached anything, so I hope to have it running and driving with no more electrical work needed by my birthday, Feb. 21st.

I finally decided I wanted to get off my rear end and do something as the weather was decent. First thing I did: finished the headlight buckets, both pairs. Gonna put them together tonight.

So after I sprayed them I decided to finally get my drivers side door card off and figure out why it's not opening. Because I couldn't open the door, this involved much patience and time. Then, after I got it off, I found out the door is just misaligned. Oh well, needed to clean them anyways. I also found out some asshat cut the speaker holes using metal cutters. Not okay.
Drivers side:



Now is where today got weird. I decided to take the passenger door panel off also, thought I might as well. After I got it off and started inspecting the tracks, I noticed something:
See anything?


What about now?


That's right... 3 TV remotes hidden in the door... Why, I have absolutely no idea.


So then I proceeded to check the drivers side, maybe I'd be lucky and find a bag with all of the badging for the car... Nope... Instead a CB radio antenna


Finally, I bought a better front valence because mine was trashed, along with a grill support.


That's pretty much it. In one week I hope to have my rebuilt caliper finally back, which means that I can finally start on my brakes again.

[dirtmcgirt]

nice find on those remotes

[Dano]

dam looks like a handful.
I like where this is going though

[yat325]

this a good start...keep it going man....

[Rinku-Bitch]

Hey thanks, I just spent a good 15 minutes looking at your Toyota build, then saw you sold and was all like "He don't have no build whats he talkin' 'bout"

Then I found your Bimmer. Damn. You better be happy I spent half an hour or so of what I should have been spending on my goddamn english essay. But, the whole time I was smiling, totally worth it.

And anyways, thanks! Right now I don't expect many people to comment, I kinda bit off more than I could chew, especially with it being junior year and having absolutely no time to do anything. Once I get the breaks done, I expect lowering will be next.

Ahahahaha, yeahhh. Thanks a lot though, I see my truck on a Buy sell trade group all the time, its on 22s now....

[99sil-teg]

Haha, the joys of what you find when owning an old car lol

[hackrtanman]

Well not much has really happened in the past two months. My first semester is now over so I don't have as much stress, and once again I have a week of school off.

Since the last update, this has happened. Yuck:







So now I'm gonna have to decide on either getting another set of floor pans or just patching up with some bent, strengthened steel. It's really just under the drivers and passenger seats that the problem is, the hole under the drivers feet should be easy. But, on the bright side, I probably shed a good 200 pounds of sound deadener

Electrical is still an issue, I have yet to find a flasher that actually WORKS. I got one but it wouldn't flasher, even when I directly wired it to the battery, nothing happened.

Seats are still up in the air right now, they will be a problem once I get past the welding.

I have all of the parts for the brakes also, I'm just too dang lazy to do anything with them. Also our weather sucks (No snow thought) and I don't feel like being outside.

Anyways, to wrap it up I have pretty much decided on a paint that I want. I am torn between something like a very boring mustard/tan color, something like this:


Or something like that but with more green and something like a very drab green. I want something boring. But, if I don't do either of those I'll rock the FJ Cruiser electric blue.