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Matt's back! With a new Celica...

Discussion in 'Your 4th Gen beauty' started by MattC, Oct 16, 2016.

  1. vic dat

    vic dat Well-Known Member

    Good try Matt
    It always sucks to get so far into a project that there's really no turning back. At least you had a back- up.
    My back-up is a new one 'cause the ones they sell at the big box stores here in SoCal are just really crappy rebuilds with a lifetime warranty.
    I just discovered that O'Reilleys even offered an 80 amp version.
    It's an easy 45 min job on the g motor...

    Vic
     
  2. MattC

    MattC Well-Known Member Donated!

    Small update. I can't believe its been three months since I did any work to this thing, where does the time go??

    Anyway, so after much googling I couldn't find a local on-line supplier for the alternator bearing I need. I took the old one down to a local bearing supply shop, and after measuring it and poking at the keyboard on his computer for a bit he says to me "sorry mate, I think you're s**t out of luck. What's it from?"

    "Denso alternator"

    "Theres your problem" he says, "No-one rebuilds alternators any more"

    o_Oo_O:(

    So I've relented and ordered one from the US, paid more for shipping than the bearing itself cost :rolleyes:. The joys of living on the other side of the planet. I'm still in front compared to buying a brand new Denso alt though, silver linings and all that...

    I've also just ordered a bunch of suspension parts to fix the woeful wheel alignment and the 4wd ride height, and will be replacing pretty much the entire front and rear ends on the the car when they arrive in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.
     
  3. vic dat

    vic dat Well-Known Member

    image.jpg If there's any chance of scoring a 70 amper I think you'll be pleased w/ the performance.... My old 50 struggled with
     
  4. MattC

    MattC Well-Known Member Donated!

    Not sure what the amperage on the one that I've got is. Didn't seem to have any trouble turning the motor over though, it just got noisy.
     
  5. MattC

    MattC Well-Known Member Donated!

    New toys that have arrived in the mail over the last week or so:

    Poly bushes and new ball joints for the front end

    [​IMG]

    Complete T3 rear end

    [​IMG]

    BC Racing coilovers

    [​IMG]

    Rebuilding the front lower control arms this weekend and will try to get this lot installed next weekend.
     
  6. MattC

    MattC Well-Known Member Donated!

    Todays project - prep and paint LCA's. Yeah yeah, I was going to do it last weekend, don't judge me :D. A whole lot of degreasing, sanding, and two coats of POR-15 and heres how they came out. Not the worlds best finish (I brushed the POR on and I didn't need or want to sand them right back to bare metal first), but good enough for my purposes.

    [​IMG]
     
  7. MattC

    MattC Well-Known Member Donated!

    Got started on the LCA rebuild tonight and pressed the new front bushings in. I followed the Superpro instructional video below and used a bench vice. The dude in the video makes it look super easy and does the job in about a minute, I found it was more like half an hour of swearing while trying to line the bushings up with the control arm and hold it all in place while winding the vice in followed by more swearing and searching for bushings on the floor after they slipped and sprang out of the vice :mad::mad:. Anyway, got them together in the end. Also greased my new lower ball joints, but thats boring :D

     
  8. MattC

    MattC Well-Known Member Donated!

    I intended to install my coilovers today, didn't get a single bolt undone before packing it in for the day though o_O I jacked the car up, took the wheels off, stuck my head under the front guard..... and promptly remembered that the brake lines go through a tab welded to the strut. Which means I have to disconnect the brake lines and drain the fluid before I can take the struts out. And then refill the system and bleed the brakes later. And I don't have enough brake fluid handy for that.

    So after briefly contemplating (a) putting the wheels back on, driving to the shop to buy brake fluid, coming back and starting again, or (b) just cutting the damn tabs off every strut (which might only have temporarily solved my problem since I'd still need to get the brake lines installed on the coilovers), I ended up going with (c) and saying f**k it I'll wait until I've got a whole weekend free and try again. (I've got to work tomorrow)
     
  9. vic dat

    vic dat Well-Known Member

    image.jpg My fronts are shot... I'm not relishing the thought of tearin apart my suspension but thirty years is a pretty good run. There's no free play but I think that various fluid leaks have taken their toll on one particular bush ...
     
  10. MattC

    MattC Well-Known Member Donated!

    Its not too hard, as long as you have 17mm and 19mm sockets, a bench vice and some spare time, anyone with opposable thumbs can do it

    To get the old front bushes out of the arm i just cut one end off with a box cutter and then punched them through and out the other end. Interestingly, both were broken in half when they came out.
     
  11. vic dat

    vic dat Well-Known Member

    Yeah.. you make things seem easy haha
     
  12. MattC

    MattC Well-Known Member Donated!

    hahahaha I usually forget to include the bits of the story about stuffing it up at least twice before the job is finally finished :confused::D
     
  13. thesherv

    thesherv Well-Known Member Donated!

    F****ing it up is all part of it.Loving the new parts...cant believe I didnt go down the coilover route years ago with my 162 but really happy with my BC's. Only need 6kg on the front and 4kg on the rears,or the ride is pretty mad.Fast road use its spot on.By the way,i need to polybush at the very least the front end of the 162,are the part numbers in your pic all generic?Polybushed my Whiteline rear ARB (another job I would recommend to anyone 162-wise) but the front end does need doing.
     
  14. MattC

    MattC Well-Known Member Donated!

  15. MattC

    MattC Well-Known Member Donated!

    Been a while between updates. I finally got started on installing my rebuilt LCA's, coilovers and T3 rear end kit this weekend. Some things I learned:

    *Lower control arms are a right prick to get on and off due to a captive bolt protruding from the crossmember being the way. You might think Toyota would have notched the LCA for clearance. You would be wrong.

    *Superpro don't provide instruction on/in the package nor on their website to tell you which way to orient the offset rear LCA bushing pictured in an earlier post. So i guessed. I installed them, thought about it, second-guessed myself, removed them and reversed them. Then thought about it some more and realised I had been right the first time. So I had to uninstall and reinstall again. In case anyone else is wondering, the hole is offset to the outside of the car.

    *I now own a tap and die kit as a result of removing and reinstalling the LCA's so many times. Don't ask.

    *The "universal" 25mm poly sway bar bushings that Summit Racing sell don't fit right. I've put the old rubber bushings back in for now, if i want to use the poly ones I've either got to shave some material off their base, or modify the mounting bracket. I'll think about that another day.

    *The bracket on the coilover that the brake line attaches to requires modification to accept the braided lines that I'm running. Would probably be fine for stock lines, but the Goodridge items that I have are a slightly different shape.

    *I knew the rear coilovers would require some modification to fit, I was only anticipating slotting the lower bolt hole but it looks like I'll have to redrill it, its miles out. And there is a small amount of material from the lower corners of the mounting brakets to remove so they don't foul on the hub.

    So after two days of working it, the thing is still up on stands with the front end only halfway back together and the rear end still out of it completely. Lucky the train station is walking distance from my house.

    I'll post some progress pics when I'm not on mobile.
     
  16. vic dat

    vic dat Well-Known Member

    image.jpg I'm pretty sure it took a bit more than just a 17 and 19 mm open-end wrench to fix your ride... image.jpg
     
  17. MattC

    MattC Well-Known Member Donated!

    Woohoo! Car is back on the road! Only took a month longer than expected. Which isn't actually bad by my standards. Anyway, progress pics:

    Step 1 - make a mess:
    [​IMG]

    Cross-threaded one the LCA mountings. Attempts to re-cut the thread with a tap failed, so had to heli-coil it. Which meant I had to drop the sway bar to get at the mounts. Which meant I had to drop the front of the exhaust to get the swaybar out. FML.
    [​IMG]

    Fronts in. Aside from the drama with the LCA mounting the front end went together pretty easy. Artsy filter because why not.
    [​IMG]

    Rears in. Luckily I'm not interested in running rear speakers anyway. I'm a bit miffed with BC Racing over the ambiguity in their description of upper mounts though, their website says the BR series coilovers get adjustable camber "where applicable". I bought the RH series, which the website says "For most of those vehicles equipped with McPherson Struts, the front & rear pillowball upper mounts are automatically upgraded to Camber adjustable upper mounts". So I was expecting camber adjustable top mounts, but they're not. Luckily I can dial camber in with the rest of the rear end, but still...
    [​IMG]

    Nice bum :D T3 rear end in situ. This went in pretty easy.
    [​IMG]

    And finally, a before and after shot.
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  18. vic dat

    vic dat Well-Known Member

    Nice work Matt
    Nothing's ever easy on these 30 year olds...
    Let's see an after pic showing the whole car and it's hellaflush stance.
     
  19. MattC

    MattC Well-Known Member Donated!

    Thanks Vic, I'll take some more pics next time i can get it out for a decent thrash. Yesterday i just took it around the block to make sure nothing fell off. Its got to go for a wheel alignment and a new set of tyres later this week before we can go much further than that.
     
  20. vic dat

    vic dat Well-Known Member

    We call 'em tires
     

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