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This is my first car so naturally there is some hardcore attachment, but especially so because my dad bought it for me as he loved Celicas back in their heyday. I had to retire it due to problems piling up, and boy is it good I did. It was only a few months ago I got my dad’s 96 Rav4 signed over to me and I was able to enjoy not having to half-fix it every few days. Somehow, it was running better than it should have been.I just got around to giving it a real go over the other day and was amazed the thing was even starting. I initially stopped driving it mainly because the front right strut and rack had both blown, and I’d already crashed the car once because of the rack ( a problem to be fixed after everything else is solid and I have the money, though I already have the fender and door I need, just not the ability to fix the post).
I was really just keeping it clean since it was sitting and I went in to clean the throttle and saw the rubber hose had completely detached but for a tiny shred of rubber at multiple point son the flex party. After that I figured I needed to go in closer, so I pulled everything I could off the throttle, took the battery out to inspect a few wires, and then decided to look at how bad my plugs were out of sheer curiosity. Oil literally exploded out of the spark well it was so pressurized. The first, second, and 4th spark plug were flooded in increasing seriousness, but the 3rd was miraculously dry. (Apparently the rubber grip in a spark plug socket grips the spark plug better than the socket itself. So much oil accumulated so quickly that by the third plug the rubber detached and I didn’t noticed it until I had undone the 4th and it wouldn’t pull out. My bet would have been on it not pulling out because it was just too oily, not that the rubber came undone!) I’m still far from an expert but my assumption is the seal failure went unnoticed, or rather the excess was burned off, until it sat, wherein the oil had time to leak out. That put a dent into any “minor” repair ideas I had. I’m rebuilding or replacing that whole engine, but we’ll see which when I get to that point.
So right now I’m in the process of marking everything and disassembling it piece by piece. I do at least have a solid alternator and AC unit for sure, so I pretty much know the limits of what is wrong at this point. My problems are pretty much in the rack, suspension, and engine, with the first two being relative easy fixes thanks to the engine removal.
Debating whether or not to bother with replacing my drum brakes or retrofitting discs onto them. I haven’t read too much on that so I’ll probably base my decision on the opinions of those more experienced.
When the day comes all of this is done, I’ll be saving my dollars for a trip to a good body shop for an exterior makeover. No idea when that may will be what with my job situation at the moment, but for every step I take I’d like to document it seeing as its my first work on a car to this extent. I’ll post some HD photos of the initial tear down and all future repair steps for the sake of history and maybe even helping someoone in the future with any quirks I come across.
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As soon as the sun comes up I’ll be back at it and get some more suitable pics. Everything so far was just for reference purposes. I do have this one pic I took on my iPhone though, not near as high quality but shows why I immediately knew anything short of a rebuild wasn’t worth the effort. Didn’t have time to grab the good cam because the oil was almost exploding out.
I have some more coming, just having some trouble because my dad’s cam uses a proprietary storage format and I gotta move it across multiple devices. Also, that particular picture is about 1/100 of as bad as what I saw when I got to #4… Bad stuff.
VERY LATE UPDATE!
Ugh! So I ended up going through a longer unemployment in addition to other barriers, but that is all done with and I am back at my passion, which is getting this car back together. It should be noted a lot of my desire comes from the fact I spent too much money getting it repaired at the shop and still owe about 2k on that… Yeah. That experience is what brought me to Eric in the first place. I went through an unemployment lapse shortly after I had to get my clutch replaced for the second time in a year (different people, trust me. The guy that did it first is dead to me for that and other reasons). Anyhow, my secondary vehicle has its own problems at the moment and despite being 5 years younger and babied for years by my dad, I’ve found that the Celica is ultimately the easier fix at the moment. Gotta love a 4AFE, as beyond the current problem that baby is solid at like 190k miles. On to the problems at hand…
In my previous post I showed the seal leakage in the valve cover. The first 3 spark plug wells were so flooded within a month of sitting that they overflowed and flooded the otherwise still solid fourth. The kit for that is on the way and should be installed within a few days barring any trouble getting the cover off. I’ll be going back through old Eric videos to look for tips on the best way to handle that project for sure.
I also mentioned the intake hose problem, but between my non descriptiveness and seemingly drunk, typo laden sentence, I don’t think I painted a clear picture. Here’s a picture to give you a thousand words.
Bad bombing. I had been wondering about the DRASTIC DROP in performance before… That’s a No Shit Sherlock moment if there ever was one. I’m still investigating the best place to acquire that part. The guy at AutoZone suggested NAPA may have it but there isn’t one close by, so any better suggestions are welcome.
Now we get to some of the older problems. I crashed my car in early 2010 and the right side door and fender have needed work for a long while now.
Yeah… I bought the door and fender in like May 2011, but I lost my job shortly after, so the measly 400 I almost had collected to get it fixed suddenly became survival money. I’m hoping to make that my Christmas gift to myself. If the crash had been SLIGHTLY less bad the post wouldn’t have been knocked in and I’d have done it myself by now.
On to an even dumber mistake, when I was first getting started I removed the plastic panels under the car to get to something I don’t even remember. I was so overwhelmed I didn’t think to screw the damn bolts back in as I removed them and just threw them in a box which has since been so jumbled up I’m gonna have just a SWELL time. If I knew where to find a diagram of the sizes of bolts that area of the car uses, I’d just buy a new set and do it that way.
As far as things beyond that go, I have a few bigger quality of life issues. My rack leaks but not excessively like it did before I got it fixed the first time. Back then I had a reasonable mechanic and the money to pay up front, but now I have neither and am gonna have to get at that myself eventually. naturally, since it isn’t that bad ATM, that bitch of a job is at the bottom of my list. It should be noted however the crash was caused by a completely useless rack, as it was leaking so fast that I refilled every night before my then delivery job and it never lasted another day. One night I got held over WAY too late and hit a bad corner in the rain, and hydroplaned my tiny ass Celica into a silverado. Naturally, the fact that absolutely NOTHING beyond the door, fender and post was damaged is a miracle. The door didn’t even push in enough to fuck up the window beyond being unable to roll it down past a certain point, which I found out accidentally thanks to my smoker friend. Secretly, I was quite proud that my Celica drove home after that incident and the pimped out Silverado needed a tow truck to move.
The final thing right now is the struts, which is lower on the list as I need to drive it to get other stuff fixed first, but I definitely can’t use it regular until I fix that. I had the fronts replaced by a shop and after the right side hydraulic popped out the second time, I knew I could no longer rely on shops for shit I should be doing myself, but more importantly that they would never address the real issue, which was clearly that the entire strut needed to be replaced, possibly including the coils as I believe they no longer support the car enough, and the completely nonexistent bumpers are a testament to that (if not the consistency of the hydraulic being dislodged as well).
More will come later, but these are my big issues. I may start inspecting under the valve cover tomorrow (if I can get it off) and as soon as I get it off the first time I’ll share some pictures of how it is looking. I’ll definitely have that bitch off within a week from now and fitted with a new seal and grommet set.
Anyway, them’s the updates for now. If you have experience with 5th Gen Celicas, particularly ST’s, feel free to offer your suggestions. I’m considering one day trying to get more power out of it by taking a lesson from the 4aGZE, so I would love some opinions on the power benefit vs fuel efficiency loss.
VERY LATE UPDATE!
Ugh! So I ended up going through a longer unemployment in addition to other barriers, but that is all done with and I am back at my passion, which is getting this car back together. It should be noted a lot of my desire comes from the fact I spent too much money getting it repaired at the shop and still owe about 2k on that… Yeah. That experience is what brought me to Eric in the first place. I went through an unemployment lapse shortly after I had to get my clutch replaced for the second time in a year (different people, trust me. The guy that did it first is dead to me for that and other reasons). Anyhow, my secondary vehicle has its own problems at the moment and despite being 5 years younger and babied for years by my dad, I’ve found that the Celica is ultimately the easier fix at the moment. Gotta love a 4AFE, as beyond the current problem that baby is solid at like 190k miles. On to the problems at hand…
In my previous post I showed the seal leakage in the valve cover. The first 3 spark plug wells were so flooded within a month of sitting that they overflowed and flooded the otherwise still solid fourth. The kit for that is on the way and should be installed within a few days barring any trouble getting the cover off. I’ll be going back through old Eric videos to look for tips on the best way to handle that project for sure.
I also mentioned the intake hose problem, but between my non descriptiveness and seemingly drunk, typo laden sentence, I don’t think I painted a clear picture. Here’s a picture to give you a thousand words.
Bad bombing. I had been wondering about the DRASTIC DROP in performance before… That’s a No Shit Sherlock moment if there ever was one. I’m still investigating the best place to acquire that part. The guy at AutoZone suggested NAPA may have it but there isn’t one close by, so any better suggestions are welcome.
Now we get to some of the older problems. I crashed my car in early 2010 and the right side door and fender have needed work for a long while now.
Yeah… I bought the door and fender in like May 2011, but I lost my job shortly after, so the measly 400 I almost had collected to get it fixed suddenly became survival money. I’m hoping to make that my Christmas gift to myself. If the crash had been SLIGHTLY less bad the post wouldn’t have been knocked in and I’d have done it myself by now.
On to an even dumber mistake, when I was first getting started I removed the plastic panels under the car to get to something I don’t even remember. I was so overwhelmed I didn’t think to screw the damn bolts back in as I removed them and just threw them in a box which has since been so jumbled up I’m gonna have just a SWELL time. If I knew where to find a diagram of the sizes of bolts that area of the car uses, I’d just buy a new set and do it that way.
As far as things beyond that go, I have a few bigger quality of life issues. My rack leaks but not excessively like it did before I got it fixed the first time. Back then I had a reasonable mechanic and the money to pay up front, but now I have neither and am gonna have to get at that myself eventually. naturally, since it isn’t that bad ATM, that bitch of a job is at the bottom of my list. It should be noted however the crash was caused by a completely useless rack, as it was leaking so fast that I refilled every night before my then delivery job and it never lasted another day. One night I got held over WAY too late and hit a bad corner in the rain, and hydroplaned my tiny ass Celica into a silverado. Naturally, the fact that absolutely NOTHING beyond the door, fender and post was damaged is a miracle. The door didn’t even push in enough to fuck up the window beyond being unable to roll it down past a certain point, which I found out accidentally thanks to my smoker friend. Secretly, I was quite proud that my Celica drove home after that incident and the pimped out Silverado needed a tow truck to move.
The final thing right now is the struts, which is lower on the list as I need to drive it to get other stuff fixed first, but I definitely can’t use it regular until I fix that. I had the fronts replaced by a shop and after the right side hydraulic popped out the second time, I knew I could no longer rely on shops for shit I should be doing myself, but more importantly that they would never address the real issue, which was clearly that the entire strut needed to be replaced, possibly including the coils as I believe they no longer support the car enough, and the completely nonexistent bumpers are a testament to that (if not the consistency of the hydraulic being dislodged as well).
More will come later, but these are my big issues. I may start inspecting under the valve cover tomorrow (if I can get it off) and as soon as I get it off the first time I’ll share some pictures of how it is looking. I’ll definitely have that bitch off within a week from now and fitted with a new seal and grommet set.
Anyway, them’s the updates for now. If you have experience with 5th Gen Celicas, particularly ST’s, feel free to offer your suggestions. I’m considering one day trying to get more power out of it by taking a lesson from the 4aGZE, so I would love some opinions on the power benefit vs fuel efficiency loss.
So, quick update, as I think pictures will say a lot more but I haven’t been able to take them yet. I was successful in removing the valve cover after a few hours, but it was very difficult thanks to one valve seal in particular being rock solid. It took me longer to remove it from the cover than it did to remove the cover from the engine.
When I eventually got all the new valve seals in despite their resistance, I moved on to the seal for the cover itself. No big story there, easy as it gets.
Then came time to replace the grommets around where the nuts go down. These were horrible, as the old rubber seals were completely toasted to the point they were barely there. The new ones initially looked wrong but I boiled it down to the fact they actually had a seal and were therefore much thicker.
I gave them a light coat of sealant and dropped the cover. This is where the inevitable happened. It had been tough so far, but successful. After going back and forth a few times and tigtening down a still very loose nut, the bolt popped down to the bottom of the thread. Additionally, I found that the second bolt had removed itself entirely, but not broken. I was able to extract the nut off that and reset it so that I had two solid bolts still, but the third was completely stripped and as of yet has not been removed. GAH. I was seconds from putting everything else back together when that happened, and it took me an hour of anger to get back out there and do it all anyway for a simplistic test.
Fortunately, everything seems about right minus the hole shooting oil. The alternator belt has developed a problem during sitting, but that’s my fault as I intended to check that before hand. I’ll deal with it soon enough, likely when I head out to my local dealer to get the replacement parts I’ll need for the valve cover. Fortunately, I needed to do that anyway to replace the intake hose, so at the very least it won’t be an added trip. I was not intending to tighten the nuts fully on the valve cover so I had not invested in a new torque wrench yet, but having experienced what I detailed I’m never going to touch valve nuts again without one, so at the very least I can be SURE it was their failure and not mine, which in this case is merely an assumption. Given that the second nut came out the way it did, I’m pretty sure they had been under some stress for a while and intend to replace all 3 bolts.
So that’s where I stand. Once I get the parts from Toyota most of the obvious stuff in the engine will be done. I’ll need to see if a little love can get the alternator belt to stop yelling at me, but if not that will need replacement as well. From there, my next big step will likely not involve me at all, as I need to correct the door/fender before I feel comfortable driving it again. Right now I’m just getting it capable of getting to the shop. After that, I’ll probably finally get around to fixing the audio equipment for my own personal benefit while using the car, and it may even be put back into service while I deal with issues my RAV4 has. After all that, the big 3 that remain are new suspension, new rack (possibly just seals, as it was replaced in early 2010) and one I initially forgot… Exhaust. The entire exhaust is buggered all the way to the engine so… Fun.
So, quick update, as I think pictures will say a lot more but I haven’t been able to take them yet. I was successful in removing the valve cover after a few hours, but it was very difficult thanks to one valve seal in particular being rock solid. It took me longer to remove it from the cover than it did to remove the cover from the engine.
When I eventually got all the new valve seals in despite their resistance, I moved on to the seal for the cover itself. No big story there, easy as it gets.
Then came time to replace the grommets around where the nuts go down. These were horrible, as the old rubber seals were completely toasted to the point they were barely there. The new ones initially looked wrong but I boiled it down to the fact they actually had a seal and were therefore much thicker.
I gave them a light coat of sealant and dropped the cover. This is where the inevitable happened. It had been tough so far, but successful. After going back and forth a few times and tigtening down a still very loose nut, the bolt popped down to the bottom of the thread. Additionally, I found that the second bolt had removed itself entirely, but not broken. I was able to extract the nut off that and reset it so that I had two solid bolts still, but the third was completely stripped and as of yet has not been removed. GAH. I was seconds from putting everything else back together when that happened, and it took me an hour of anger to get back out there and do it all anyway for a simplistic test.
Fortunately, everything seems about right minus the hole shooting oil. The alternator belt has developed a problem during sitting, but that’s my fault as I intended to check that before hand. I’ll deal with it soon enough, likely when I head out to my local dealer to get the replacement parts I’ll need for the valve cover. Fortunately, I needed to do that anyway to replace the intake hose, so at the very least it won’t be an added trip. I was not intending to tighten the nuts fully on the valve cover so I had not invested in a new torque wrench yet, but having experienced what I detailed I’m never going to touch valve nuts again without one, so at the very least I can be SURE it was their failure and not mine, which in this case is merely an assumption. Given that the second nut came out the way it did, I’m pretty sure they had been under some stress for a while and intend to replace all 3 bolts.
So that’s where I stand. Once I get the parts from Toyota most of the obvious stuff in the engine will be done. I’ll need to see if a little love can get the alternator belt to stop yelling at me, but if not that will need replacement as well. From there, my next big step will likely not involve me at all, as I need to correct the door/fender before I feel comfortable driving it again. Right now I’m just getting it capable of getting to the shop. After that, I’ll probably finally get around to fixing the audio equipment for my own personal benefit while using the car, and it may even be put back into service while I deal with issues my RAV4 has. After all that, the big 3 that remain are new suspension, new rack (possibly just seals, as it was replaced in early 2010) and one I initially forgot… Exhaust. The entire exhaust is buggered all the way to the engine so… Fun.
And so it finally starts to really come together. Recently grew so fed up with my rav4 I decided to finally push myself to get this done, and things have gone better than I expected. Firstly, I replaced the nut and bolt for the valve cover that I snapped, allowing me to actually move the vehicle and get to work. The rightside strut is bad, which incidentally (if not directly related) is the side of the car with the door/fender damage, so we went ahead and removed the fender and door. Here’s a before and after to show how bad it was.
Tomorrow the strut work begins and when all is done on this particular run of work, we should be running pretty. Already fixed a few minor issues that had popped up and ended up being easy fixes. I’ll post more pics as soon as the work provides the opportunity.
And so it finally starts to really come together. Recently grew so fed up with my rav4 I decided to finally push myself to get this done, and things have gone better than I expected. Firstly, I replaced the nut and bolt for the valve cover that I snapped, allowing me to actually move the vehicle and get to work. The rightside strut is bad, which incidentally (if not directly related) is the side of the car with the door/fender damage, so we went ahead and removed the fender and door. Here’s a before and after to show how bad it was.
Tomorrow the strut work begins and when all is done on this particular run of work, we should be running pretty. Already fixed a few minor issues that had popped up and ended up being easy fixes. I’ll post more pics as soon as the work provides the opportunity.
awesome mate!
What kind of celica is it ? is it one of those AWD’s ? 🙂
The body work, is there anything beyond the exterior ? just replace fenders n door and that’s done, or did the crash mess up brackets and everything ? 🙂As for your car in general if you want performance for daily, the best is either higher compression pistons with rods, as it actually increase fuel efficiency .
Or going a very small turbocharger, the Garret 2560R is a very neat little one that can be ran at very low pressure.
But before you even think about it, all bushings, brakes etc etc. just refurb it all and keep it up.When I read around these forums I understand how Lucky I am financially, Amazed that you keep going 🙂
awesome mate!
What kind of celica is it ? is it one of those AWD’s ? 🙂
The body work, is there anything beyond the exterior ? just replace fenders n door and that’s done, or did the crash mess up brackets and everything ? 🙂As for your car in general if you want performance for daily, the best is either higher compression pistons with rods, as it actually increase fuel efficiency .
Or going a very small turbocharger, the Garret 2560R is a very neat little one that can be ran at very low pressure.
But before you even think about it, all bushings, brakes etc etc. just refurb it all and keep it up.When I read around these forums I understand how Lucky I am financially, Amazed that you keep going 🙂
Hey, first of all, thanks man, and sorry for the delays. A few outstanding problems have taken my attention.
It’s sadly as far from an AWD as you can get, haha. It’s a 4AFE/ST, but I keep it going largely because it’s my first car and my dad bought it for me with money he himself got from his dad, so it has a lot of sentimental value. That put me in a bit of debt in the past, but fortunately Eric helped get me back out. Since my dad died my effort to get it back to how I found it has been more than doubled. 4AFEs tend to be invincicble, so at only 193k miles it has a lot of life left without even doing much, but I certainly intend to anyway. Being a 4AFE I value for efficiency with a little bit of punch on the side, your suggestions are definitely going to the top of my post-rebuild to-do list. I actually already had a small turbocharger in mind as a result of reading up on the 4A-GZE, so having a specific one to look for when the time comes will help a lot.
The crash definitely messed up the post a bit, as the new door still can’t sit quite right. I hope to fix that eventually but for now it shuts pretty much mesh and I have a side view mirror/fullt working window again, so sitting in the driver’s seat feels like everything is perfect at least, and I don’t have that annoying rattle coming from the door anymore. When I have the money to get the body fully detailed, I’ll probably have my local guy pull the post out then, as there are a few other details on the body to fix. Got a bit of hood rust and some rough spots to smooth out so I’ll probably just have him do the prep work there and get it ready for a good paint job.
Here’s a pic of the door and fender after assembly.
You can definitely see the slight gap caused by the post, but the door shuts and that fender is on there tigher than the one on the other side, so I think we did pretty good considering I slid it into a silverado. My car was the only one driving away from that wreck afterall :P. Ah, classic Toyotas. My true love.
Right now my biggest issue is the intake tube I posted a picture of above. That thing costs 102 from Toyota, so unlike the door I had laying around since better financial times, getting that is a little trickier. The rips definitely got worse since I posted that photo due to having to take the airbox back off to reroute the cabling for the battery as I had goofed it up and made a very tight accessory cable fit impossible. I’m guessing that in addition to the dangers of taking in unfiltered air, that air bypassing the sensor in the airbox is causing some of the problems I’m having on acceleration. I need to do more research into OBD1 and my car in particular to know whether that’s an accurate guess, but I’m gonna try and find one at pull-a-part tomorrow regardless just to get rid of the danger and annoying hiss associated with an intake tube that’s basically held together by pressure alone at this point. If I’m lucky I might even find a throttle cable as I suspect it might be warped as well
Once I get that done, I definitely need to work on the rear drum brakes. Those are pretty much blown. The rotors and pads up front are all new, but I need to flush and replace pretty much every fluid minus oil and collant, so the brake fluid is definitely on that list, along with a power steering fluid cap which is currently being subtituted with a walmart bag and a rubber band. Must have left the fucker off and it fell through thanks to my lack of bottom panels, which are another needed reinstall.
Fortunately, a few other issues were dumb mistakes as well, I apparently drained the oil and didn’t bother to tighten the drain by more than hand at the time, so when I put it back in it naturally leaked out slowly. In addition, someone that I can’t imagine was me but could only have been decided to undo the nuts on the exhaust manifold about halfway and so naturally the thing was hissing like mad. No clue how that happened or why it would have, but it seemed to make a tight fit when back on. Exhaust could use a rebuild down the road, but it seems ok for now. Once I got that drain tightened, no oil leaks, and that makes me a happy man. The guy who did my tranny a couple years back went ahead and replaced my rear main seal, so it’s rock solid in that respect for the moment.
That’s about all I can think of at the moment. Once I get my next parts I’ll try and make a before and after video of the performance. I’m hoping to throw in some iridium spark plugs as I was VERY happy with what they did for my RAV4’s fuel economy, and the ones I have are cheap as hell and went through hell when the valve cover was leaking, so that should make a difference as well. All in all, I’m finally feeling happy with the progress again. If I can get this sucker tagged and my new job started, it should be looking beautiful within a year if I have my way.
Edit: OH, totally forgot to mention. The strut had come out of the thread, and we managed to get it back it. No clue why it came out twice, but so far so good and if it does it again we’ll use some thread locker and keep it in there as best we can until I can replace the whole assemblies.
Hey, first of all, thanks man, and sorry for the delays. A few outstanding problems have taken my attention.
It’s sadly as far from an AWD as you can get, haha. It’s a 4AFE/ST, but I keep it going largely because it’s my first car and my dad bought it for me with money he himself got from his dad, so it has a lot of sentimental value. That put me in a bit of debt in the past, but fortunately Eric helped get me back out. Since my dad died my effort to get it back to how I found it has been more than doubled. 4AFEs tend to be invincicble, so at only 193k miles it has a lot of life left without even doing much, but I certainly intend to anyway. Being a 4AFE I value for efficiency with a little bit of punch on the side, your suggestions are definitely going to the top of my post-rebuild to-do list. I actually already had a small turbocharger in mind as a result of reading up on the 4A-GZE, so having a specific one to look for when the time comes will help a lot.
The crash definitely messed up the post a bit, as the new door still can’t sit quite right. I hope to fix that eventually but for now it shuts pretty much mesh and I have a side view mirror/fullt working window again, so sitting in the driver’s seat feels like everything is perfect at least, and I don’t have that annoying rattle coming from the door anymore. When I have the money to get the body fully detailed, I’ll probably have my local guy pull the post out then, as there are a few other details on the body to fix. Got a bit of hood rust and some rough spots to smooth out so I’ll probably just have him do the prep work there and get it ready for a good paint job.
Here’s a pic of the door and fender after assembly.
You can definitely see the slight gap caused by the post, but the door shuts and that fender is on there tigher than the one on the other side, so I think we did pretty good considering I slid it into a silverado. My car was the only one driving away from that wreck afterall :P. Ah, classic Toyotas. My true love.
Right now my biggest issue is the intake tube I posted a picture of above. That thing costs 102 from Toyota, so unlike the door I had laying around since better financial times, getting that is a little trickier. The rips definitely got worse since I posted that photo due to having to take the airbox back off to reroute the cabling for the battery as I had goofed it up and made a very tight accessory cable fit impossible. I’m guessing that in addition to the dangers of taking in unfiltered air, that air bypassing the sensor in the airbox is causing some of the problems I’m having on acceleration. I need to do more research into OBD1 and my car in particular to know whether that’s an accurate guess, but I’m gonna try and find one at pull-a-part tomorrow regardless just to get rid of the danger and annoying hiss associated with an intake tube that’s basically held together by pressure alone at this point. If I’m lucky I might even find a throttle cable as I suspect it might be warped as well
Once I get that done, I definitely need to work on the rear drum brakes. Those are pretty much blown. The rotors and pads up front are all new, but I need to flush and replace pretty much every fluid minus oil and collant, so the brake fluid is definitely on that list, along with a power steering fluid cap which is currently being subtituted with a walmart bag and a rubber band. Must have left the fucker off and it fell through thanks to my lack of bottom panels, which are another needed reinstall.
Fortunately, a few other issues were dumb mistakes as well, I apparently drained the oil and didn’t bother to tighten the drain by more than hand at the time, so when I put it back in it naturally leaked out slowly. In addition, someone that I can’t imagine was me but could only have been decided to undo the nuts on the exhaust manifold about halfway and so naturally the thing was hissing like mad. No clue how that happened or why it would have, but it seemed to make a tight fit when back on. Exhaust could use a rebuild down the road, but it seems ok for now. Once I got that drain tightened, no oil leaks, and that makes me a happy man. The guy who did my tranny a couple years back went ahead and replaced my rear main seal, so it’s rock solid in that respect for the moment.
That’s about all I can think of at the moment. Once I get my next parts I’ll try and make a before and after video of the performance. I’m hoping to throw in some iridium spark plugs as I was VERY happy with what they did for my RAV4’s fuel economy, and the ones I have are cheap as hell and went through hell when the valve cover was leaking, so that should make a difference as well. All in all, I’m finally feeling happy with the progress again. If I can get this sucker tagged and my new job started, it should be looking beautiful within a year if I have my way.
Edit: OH, totally forgot to mention. The strut had come out of the thread, and we managed to get it back it. No clue why it came out twice, but so far so good and if it does it again we’ll use some thread locker and keep it in there as best we can until I can replace the whole assemblies.
Well, I did my best to seal the intake tube up and adjusted some REALLY bad gaps in the spark plugs. It seems to run a lot more efficiently but it is still a bit unpredictable on the low end. That part was definitely not a factor when I parked the car originally, so I’m going back over everything I reassembled to make sure it’s all clean and properly torqued, starting with checking the spark plug wires.
After that I need to figure out my erratic temperature gauge. There shouldn’t be any air as I spent a good deal of time letting it air out of the cap so hopefully it’s related to a bad reassembly. The thermostat is pretty new so I’d be surprised if it was bad as opposed to me just not torquing the hose down well.
Once this is evened out the fun stuff starts. I’m looking at good money coming in again so I see a visit to my body guy in the near future. I still need a whole new trunk assembly as the one I have is a temp from pull apart I didn’t mind attaching to the murderously messed up hinges. I may let them deal with that as well simply because I suspect the problem may be related to a previous owners botched body repair after having worked on said hinges multiple times and yet they still slowly tear the skin off the trunk.
After that, fun fun fun. More on that soon and I’ll post some full shots once I finally clean the interior up just for a frame of reference once I’ve done all I intend.
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