The Garden Find

Laying Down On The Job

Most of my time spent working on the car was spent working underneath the car. It was not very enjoyable! I'd been chiseling away the underseal in rusty areas and fighting the rust back with my wire brush drill bit. Suffice to say you need some really decent eyewear to do this, even if you can work off to one side there is debris falling everywhere. Once I'd cleaned a patch up nice and good I'd splodge a load of chassis black on the area. I was not worried about being too neat, I'd get the whole thing cleaned eventually.

Inspection of the brake and fuel lines was pretty dismal. Uhh they probably looked better than my headliner though.


Mmm I don't think I trust those lines for some reason..



Part of the project involved cleaning everything up and sealing it all again with some chassis black. I certainly didn't want this opportunity to go to waste. Once again I cleaned everything with wire brush and drill. Talk about arm ache after a hour or so of this! I longed to blast it with walnut fragments or something. (Amazing what different blast media can do. Infact walnut shell can be used to clean intake ports and such)


The sunroof tray is looking better!


My headliner has seen better days. Maybe this natural stain pattern will be in style at some point?


The underside is not card anymore. Just mushy brown.
What am I to do with it? Well I wanted to keep the car stock. I quite like the interior. Despite all my searching I could not find anything by any other company which was a similar colour. I did find one example in the states, but no international shipping. The UK seems quite poor for this kind of stuff. I can't even find generic navy blue foot mats. So I decided to bung it in the washing machine. Of course I didn't want to clog the machine with flaky old card. So I spent a good number of hours picking the card off the foam. I soaked it in the bath and all sorts.

Hey that came out pretty well! Not perfect but a whole lot better. Well there might be some hope for it yet.

 

Aha thanks. At this point in the restoration I was really really REALLY hoping that it would be fun to drive! It seemed endless too. Safe to say I'm enjoying it now. Still got a few things to iron out but Nothing major. Very much looking forward to my holiday in it. We need some good roads to bond on! aha.

 

Brand New Second Hand

Work was going pretty good. I'd started the process of resealing the underside as I cleaned it up. Nothing quite like painting noxious paint onto the underside of a car in the height of summer ooohhweee. I also had problems with being dripped on. Aside from not being good for you at all, the paint does not taste nice either.

I had at long last located a white Celica which was being broken too. Albeit a bit far away. A 300+ mile all round journey. The things I do for love. I was not going to pick the car up, Would have liked to but the chap wanted to break it and part it out. However I was able to get a good few goodies from it to really make mine a nice catch. A new left wing, If you'll look way up to the top of the post, you'll see my left wing is buckled on the lower portion. A new valance in really nice condition, not scuffed and no broken fins. My current one was more cable tie than original plastic. And I also picked up a few plastics and an A pillar trim. Oh and a Backrest for the driver seat. I should be (I should be able to get someone else) to repair the tear in my side with this fabric.

Sand blasting continued, this time I was able to give the brake calipers a good blast. They all look much better now! As you're all more than well aware painting your calipers red also improves performance by up to 752%

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get used to the car being low down. I'm so used to it at this height now!




A few small holes in the gusset on the right. Fibreglass will go there.


All good on this side though.





















Don't worry I'll clean that loose sand out of the slide!


My brand new second hand calipers.


And after a lick of paint.



My headliner after another wash and a re-carding.... Nah I'm pulling your leg. I picked this one up with the rest of my bits. Very happy indeed! Not a mark on it!


The other bits and pieces.


Shame the bolster is gone, but the lumbar support is good. I'll see what I can do to frankenstein my current seat.

 

Under the Knife

Fortunately for me, my father is a fabricator. So I had someone to do my welding! It was time to start work on the sills.

I had plans of keeping the red Celica and basically having it as a fun / track car. Nothing special, just something to muck about with. However I didn't have the space to keep it, let alone the money and decided that it would be best put to use in making sure my white Celica got back on it's feet properly. Time to seal some sills!

Actually this didn't go to plan. The sills on the Red Celica were rotten in the same places too. They are also profiled differently at the front and rear ends compared with the middle. So you cannot just use any section for a match. Turns out though that the front and back of the sills are profiled in a very similar manner. So we used the left front for the right rear and right front for the left rear. Clever. So yes the following work is my fathers doing, not my own, I'm lack these skills at the moment and would prefer to learn on something less precious!






Hello rust, my good old friend.


Waiting for the new section to be joined.


The new piece shapes up well. This is the front left sill going onto the rear right sill on the white car.




Looking good!


The arch has... well dissolved here.


A course of sand blasting gets the area looking good. The brown stuff still in the seam is soft and rubbery, I'm guessing a form of seal over the seams.






The whole area after the welding and a sand blast.


Actually by this time of the year my factory had closed down. Sold to another company who would use the space as storage. So no more industrial sand blasting for me anymore. I did have one solution however. And thanks to my dad again.





He repurposed this old butane bottle. Now it can be filled with sand and used in exactly the same way as other blasters. It's powered of a fairly decent compressor. Not as powerful as the one at work had, but it still works. Not having an air dryer or incredible pressure to just force out blockages though I find that I'm fettling with this one quite often, its good for small jobs though. Like a sunroof.











The sunroof looks like it's going to be really good fun.

 

Fibreglass, a Tale of Passionate Hate and Love.

The underside of the car was coming along quite nicely. With the rust brushed away as best I could and the chassis black paint sealing everything up to ensure long protection. Most of the paint had washed off me at this point too and I'd cheered up. I would not have to spend so much time under the car! Although working on the top bought it's own problems. Mainly the sunroof panel and the leading edge of the roof. Both had some pretty big issues to overcome. The sunroof panel was in a pretty sorry state and it was the same story with the red car; Despite the sunroof mechanism being pretty much new, the panel itself was probably worse than the white Celica.

I guess I have no choice but to attempt to repair it.

And the leading edge of the roof. four large apertures. Courtesy of some moss which had settled. Again my weapon of choice is sand blasting, but this time it is a little different, i'll have to replace where the metal was, not just clean it, this would be a new challenge.

I'd also set about getting some new brake lines sorted. The originals looked about ready to just burst open. I am planning on taking the car to the French Alps, functioning brakes would certainly make my trip a more pleasant one to say the least. I had a look at the lines from the red one, but they were not great either. In the end I got a completely custom lines made up, front and back. And for just £125! awesome!


Two of the holes visible and some prep work, masking off the glass so that it won't get wounded by sand. And also starting to cover the sunroof.









Four great big old holes. Thankfully they are isolated on the wall of the roof and have not reached the aperture the windscreen sits on. Not good for the aperture, but It could be worse. And obviously one on the major reasons as to why the headliner and sunroof motor had gotten into such a poor state.


The curve is intact which is nice.


On the inside I blanked off all the holes / entry points so that I'd not fill the cabin with sand.
Sand blasting is extremely messy without an inclosure. You need proper breathing apparatus and have to make sure everything around you that could get damaged by sand ingress is covered up.
Unfortunately I blew a pin hole through one of the pieces of tape and did fill the car with sand. I'd spend the next two days cleaning up.


Results are worth it though. Time to get that painted and then fill the gap somehow.







I chose to use a very fine texture fibreglass mat. The loose stuff was impossible to fit in neatly and did not look like it would provide a watertight seal. Filler would be no good, nothing for it to adhere to.
Getting the fibreglass in was tricky, it wants to stay straight, not a U shape. It had to fit into the drainage very well, or it would not seal and would obstruct any possible trims or water flow.



The sunroof is looking a bit nicer and the fibreglass repair is looking good


A bit of aluminium mesh on this side for support. I can drill a small hole into it where the locating pin of the sunroof trim goes after it's dry.


I hate filler.


But it is starting to work...


Sanding sanding sanding sanding sanding Sanding sanding sanding sanding sanding


Last but not least. The new brake lines:





I went for red of course, as its scientifically proven that this particular colour makes brake systems work 752% better-er-ist than others.

 

Its a super repair material for non structural areas. And yeah the lines are steel braided. A bit tricky to route but its working well.

 

Reassembly

Things are coming along quite well. I've pretty much run out of things to take off the car now. So I guess that means it is about time to start putting things back on. The brakes and the running gear are first candidates. Essentially everything on the underside so that I can lower the car back down again. This would take me a little longer than I'd anticipate. For example putting the rear hubs back together was difficult. Firstly I'd forgotten what the disc shrouds looked like and upon observation of my box of bits containing the drum brakes.. as the tree said to the lumberjack "I'm stumped". I once I had remembered what the shrouds for the rear discs looked like, and realised I'd been looking at them for a few hours already. I also discovered that they can fit on either the left or right hubs.

Heh yeah it took a few attempts but I eventually found some brain power and fitted it all together.




Can you spot what is wrong with this picture? ... Yeah I've forgotten the dust cover. Ugh. I did get them on in the end.


I've got new discs on the way, but I wanted to straighten out the shroud. The new brake lines just coming through too.


Oh yes, before I put the front hubs on, here is an image of the new line.


I sand blasted and painted the little hydraulic junction. The two rear lines now are banjo joints. A long and short banjo, with the long one having a curve. A really neat way to keep them parallel out of the junction.


I could not fit the plastic cover which goes here. These two fuel lines are from the Red Celica, and although originally the same shape, the removal and fitting on here has meant that they are not perfect. Oh well.


The new red lines will follow the channel. I have some good clips to hold them in, but due to their size i've had to file out the plastic in the clips. They are held in place nicely none the less.




And here they are. They will both more or less follow the path of the original lines, with a couple of alterations to prevent excessive bending.


I've gotten the sunroof slide back in, it's working very well. Some minor differences between pre facelift and facelift models. for instance the rear drip tray. But they both function the same.


I've also turned my attention back to the engine. I've been collecting various bits and pieces for it, water pump, gaskets, oil pressure sender and such. But it's getting treated to a soda blast.
Soda is a much less aggressive blasting media than sand. It is suitable for removing paint, rust but not metal. It is also highly effective at cleaning and leaves a smooth finish. So "Death valley" would get a good blast and make it much safer for me to remove those spark plugs. It would also do a nice job at cleaning the head up a little.


Pitted but clean, damn rats.


This bit came out especially nicely.






The block would also get treated to my special Signal red paint. Now before you call me up on those tatty edges, I'm not finished at this point!

I'm also starting to think about doing something with the interior, it's getting hard to keep it clean and safe in the workshop.

 

We Can Rebuild it, We Have The Technology.

It was now getting difficult to keep all the interior bits clean and safe. I just did not have the space for it. Where else better to put them than back into the car then? So that's exactly what I did. I really enjoyed putting everything back in, sure felt like solid progress. I installed everything without cleaning and decided that I'd endeavour to give it the once over as soon as it was back in safe.




My new headliner certainly shows the grime on the sun visors.


I have a lot of dust work to do.


Loads of cleaning to be done!


I hope that in the future I can get the driver seat repaired.




Still no wheels yet. Still waiting for discs to arrive too.





The next day I had at it with the cleaners!











The clock still works, which is more than can be said for my Golf. I could do with finding a nicer countersunk screw for the centre panel too.


I also spent some time on the outside too and got the sill repair to match up with the right colour black


New silencer is on.


I did not intentionally get a straight through. But hey never mind. This means than from manifold to tip the whole thing is a straight through system. No cat or any obstructions. On the down side it is a little noisey. Although at this point I'd have no idea as to what it would sound like, or if it would even run properly.

 

Thanks, glad you're enjoying it! My new job is in a large camera shop.

So many lenses and cameras and lights! This is the equivalent of being in a gen4 showroom with all new parts of every description... aha.

 

Hehe I've got most of what I need already, but hey cannot hurt to have more can it?! I sure could do with a few more lights... I've got a few shots in mind that I want to do on holiday, one I'll keep under wraps until I can attempt it (not sure if possible)

I do want to get a collection of photos of each mountain pass summit however. Each summit is usually adorned with a sign similar to this:


Usually it's the cyclists who take their photo in front of these (rightly so, can you imagine cycling to this altitude!?!?) But I'm planning on plonking the Celica in front of them (including this one) and getting a photo.

And of course I hope that after I return, I can attend some meets and such. Would certainly be nice to take some photos of your shiney car steve!