Restoring my 1978 project!

[clutch1]

Hi guys! I'm new to the Celica game, but have been a big fan of Japanese imports for a long, long time. My daily is a 1999 Prizm (that I pretend is a Corolla, lol) and my summer fun car is a 1995 NSX with a 5 speed, and there's a 1978 Yamaha XS750 in the mix, too. You would think that would be enough, right? Wrong, I guess.

As the story goes I was searching Craigslist for a friend trying to find him some fun daily driver for the summer, and ran into a pair of Celicas for sale for $1000. One was a beater with a 22R and 5 speed, the other was is decent looking shape with a 20R and 3 speed auto. Curiosity got the better of me and I drove to check them out. Big mistake. I was hoping the decent one would actually be a rot box underneath and not be something I wanted to get into, but it didn't look too bad. A little rot on the wheel wells in the back and right at the back of the rockers. So we made a deal and the owner dropped them both off on my doorstep!

And so right around Sept 1st it all began.



I love this wheel!


Filth


And on Labor Day me and my upstairs neighbor (I live in a duplex) who also loves Toyotas drove to Harbor Freight and I used a 25% off coupon to score an engine hoist.


We didn't really expect to do it, but we just started hammering and in about 3 hours we had the hoist together and the engine/trans on the ground.


And a day later the beater showed up. It's an '81.





I'll probably use this fuel cell in my build. The '78 had a gas tank full of crap so instead of cleaning it or sourcing a new one, this will be the easiest way.


I tore into the dash of the '78 to get the air box out because I want the evaporator gone.


Single 4x6" speaker on the passenger side from the factory. As long as it's torn in this far I'm going to put a new pair in and prep everything for another pair in the rear deck, and cut the dash to fit a standard DIN radio, too.


Little bit more and the air box is ready to remove. It's 3 piece, so the fan and heater core portions can stay in the car unless I decide to pull and clean the dirt off.


Then I moved on to the front end / engine bay of the '78.
There's a bunch of crap here, it needs to go.


Heat and a window removal tool got the fenders off, which were glued on with factory gunk. Those fenders will need a ton of body work this winter. I also might shave the side lights, because I'm missing covers for both and can't seem to find them (of course I have a set off the facelift '81, though. Trades? lol)


Found a little rot under the fenders, an easy repair/ patch.


The next day I decided to tinker around and prepped the '81 for the engine to come out. Since the '81 doesn't have a removable front core support I decided to pull the engine and trans separate.
Then the next day I went and pulled the bellhousing bolts and out it came.



The '81 has this cool engine roll damper on it! I plan to swap subframes to keep it on the good one.


The next day it was time to drop the trans right quick.



Pulled both subframes to swap them, too


But the one I wanted was bent! No matter, I hammered the bracket straight again. Here it is before hammer therapy.

[clutch1]

Found a little more rot on the '78 as I kept taking stuff out of the engine bay getting ready for the shave and wire tuck.


All ready for a cleaning


All clean, thanks for a pressure washer. I was worried because there was some real grime up near the front from years of oil leakage.


Blasted the trunk, too. Much better.


22R waiting for a home, and the '81 in its new home on the side of the garage where it will be a parts bin for now.


So by the time that was all over it was dark and we went into the garage to play with the 20R engine a bit, see what we were working with.
With the valve cover off we found horrible smelling black nonsense.


And with the intake off I found this horrible bodge job on a water jacket, plus a ton of gunk in the water line itself.


Annnnnnnd with the head off we found another issue.


And the threads for one of the plugs was toast, too. Goodness.


So that all puts the nail in the coffin of the 20R. It can sit for now, the 22R is/was supposedly in running condition.. at least it had coolant in it, lol. That'll go on the stand in a couple of days once I get the right bolts to hold it and then over the winter it'll get a refresh, new carb, etc.

That brings us to today! I went around shopping and bought paint for the car, since I want to shave and paint it over the next 2 weeks since I have 9 days off starting Tuesday! I didn't have much time to work on it, but I did have time to take a blade to the car finally. The de(con)struction begins!



Ugly battery tray is gone


Started working on the air box, too. Pulled the evap out and then took it into the shower tonight to clean all the dirt off, ha.


SO, that's where I'm at to date. Since I'm in WI there's a long tough winter here for a car guy. But this winter I'm hoping the Celica helps me through a little easier. Last year it was month of sitting and waiting to drive summer toys again! I'm going to store the NSX and let the Celica occupy the garage and get a heater and just block panels and fix rust all winter long.
The car itself I'm aiming to do a nice resto-mod on it. It won't be perfect my any means, as I'm not pulling the front and rear glass, etc, but I get pretty OCD with most of my projects so I'm planning on going pretty far.

The basic to do list is something like..

-Shave and paint engine bay, fix rot associated with that area, too.
-Clean, wire wheel, and seal undercarriage with POR15, then undercoat.
-Repair and replace brakes all around, including brand new brake lines that are hidden and not running in the engine bay.
-Investigate 22R engine, and rebuild/refresh as necessary, including making it nice and pretty.
-Clean up and paint rear axle. Planning on running the axle from the auto trans, which appears to be about 3.75 gears. The one in the beater was a manual trans version and had about 3.33 gears, BUT some ding dong welded the diff. Hoping 3.75 won't be too bad on the highway, if I have to rebuild so be it.
-Lower the car, not sure what to do with springs yet.. but I'll keep looking. No cutting or heating allowed!
-Repair all the dents, dings, and rust on the body. There's not much rot, but plenty of poorly repaired dents, it's a bondo bucket from what I've found.
-Repair rot at the bottoms of both doors where the fold for the doorskin is.
-Relocate battery to trunk and upgrade sound system while interior is out.
-Mount fuel cell in the trunk
-Clean and bedliner trunk for practicality.
-Apply appropriate mods to make the car more "my style" which is along the lines of Shakotan, I'd say.

So speaking of modifications, here's the basic plan, since I'm not good at keeping secrets.

-Lowered, like 2.5" or so, something streetable without being obnoxious to drive
-Big black fender flares (this is great since the rear wheel arches have rot, chop chop!!)
-Some nice flat wide side skirts to flow from flare to flare
-A nice front lip to follow the same styling (below the bumper the "roll pan" is smashed to hell, so I'd like to just go with something custom)
-For shoes, a set a Yayoi reproductions in black w/ polished lip. I've wanted to use these rims on a build for a long time, this should be perfect.
-Subaru's Java Black Pearl for paint, with a satin black hood and trunk, and on the hood, a rising sun in Java Black Pearl. My daily has a big red rising sun on the hood in red flake (like a bass boat) and it looks sweet, so I'd like to do it on this build, too.
-Hopefully a stage 2 cam just because the 22R sounds awesome with a little lope.
-Exhaust that isn't too loud, but has a nice tone. I want this to sound like "Japanese classic muscle." I'd like to end it off with some upturns coming from the bumper, too.
-Racing seat for the driver's seat, since the factory one is in rough shape. Always wanted a Bride seat and this might be a perfect chance!

There's various parts I'm hoping to track down over winter, too. One tail light is cracked, both "side markers" by the headlights are missing covers, and the black plastic bumpers look like crap and one is damaged a bit. I'd LOVE the metals, but I have no idea how hard to find or expensive they are, so I may just repair the ones I have.

Hope you guys enjoyed so far! This is my "escape" right now, since usually I'm working on other people's cars. This is a project I get to do for me without a deadline and without anyone telling me how they want it. I'm loving how I just get to go turn wrenches on it and hang out with buddies in the process. It also means I can take more pics than usual since I'm not in a time crunch. Keep an eye out for updates every few days until it gets cold (which is when my job gets busy). Cheers!

[Dr.Jun.Manabe]

  best intro post I have read in a while! Welcome! Looks like you have your work cut out for ya, happy to see 2nd gens getting some love. You should helicoil the spark plug hole on that 20r head, get some o/s valves, deck the head, do a tiny bit of port work, and drop it onto the 22r block, that with a cam and a good flowing exhaust and you'll have a hot little motor! It's a great community here, albeit not super active, but everyone here is helpful and there is a wealth of info on the forum to feed your noggin to get plenty more ideas flowing.

[Dr.Jun.Manabe]

P.S. The 3.33 IMO is way to high geared for the 5 speed, the lower 3.75 will be right at home though.

[swan song]

I agree. My Celica has a ford 8.8 with 3.73 and it's not bad. But the w58 teams gearing might be a little different from whatever w trans is in that.

[Sigma Projects]

damn, nice collection. NSX is a dream car, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous.

[clutch1]

I've heard a lot of good stuff about the hybrid motors, 20R head on 22R block. Both of my engines are double roller timing, which sounds to be something important when trying to get that all set up. My big questions is what's the big difference between running a 22R and 20R head? I see the intake ports are different shapes, meaning different manifolds are available, but would I be seeing worthwhile gains getting that head fixed up, VS running my 22R head which is currently very clean and (barring further inspection) not in need of repair?

I was curious on the trans, too. That appears to be a W58, as swan song mentioned, but my neighbor wasn't 100% sure if it was the factory one. It's got some writing on it from a junkyard (looks like a date), and he said something seemed a little off about the housing on the top where the shifter bolts on. Do you guys see anything that flags it as not a normal Celica trans?

Here's the NSX at the bodyshop waiting for a new badge on the front, just got the front bumper cover replaced because some ding dong backed into me at a stoplight when he decided he didn't want the left turn lane. Low cars can be a chore sometimes. The naughty JDM Prizm is hiding in the back, too. Fondly knows as the Corollabortion. 240,000 miles and going strong.


Swan I also see you're getting into a 1UZ swap in your sig, eh? My neighbor wants that for his Hilux bad, I'm all ears (or eyes, or whatever) when that project starts. On a budget is right up his alley, too, lol! Can't wait.

[danf]

Dang, nice NSX. I'm jealous too. 

I've heard a lot of good stuff about the hybrid motors, 20R head on 22R block. Both of my engines are double roller timing, which sounds to be something important when trying to get that all set up. My big questions is what's the big difference between running a 22R and 20R head? I see the intake ports are different shapes, meaning different manifolds are available, but would I be seeing worthwhile gains getting that head fixed up, VS running my 22R head which is currently very clean and (barring further inspection) not in need of repair?

The 20R head flows quite a bit better than the 22R head. The ports are different and from what I recall the angles inside the ports are different. If it were me I'd be cleaning up the 20R head. It'll make some difference especially at higher RPM.

I was curious on the trans, too. That appears to be a W58, as swan song mentioned, but my neighbor wasn't 100% sure if it was the factory one. It's got some writing on it from a junkyard (looks like a date), and he said something seemed a little off about the housing on the top where the shifter bolts on. Do you guys see anything that flags it as not a normal Celica trans?

Mk2 Celicas (up to 1981) had the W50 trans from what I remember, it was 82-85 that used the W58.

[Dr.Jun.Manabe]

What you can do is go through each gear in the trans, mark the output shaft and spin the input shaft for each gear, see how many rotations it takes to make the output shaft do 1 whole rotation and that will tell you the ratio for that gear, the w-series transmission info can be found on wikipedia.

My guess is that it coming out the '81, it is a w55 as the '81 was the first year to come with a 22r and the all aluminum w55 5 speed from the factory.

First Gear: 3.566:1
Second Gear: 2.056:1
Third Gear: 1.384:1
Fourth Gear: 1.00:1
Fifth Gear: 0.85:1
Reverse: -4.091:1

[AkiRA65]

Damn. This is gunna be good. I feel it already.

[swan song]

A lot of the 1uz swaps here have been documented. I plan on doing more detail on the wiring portion of it. Since that seems to be seriously lacking on the other two build threads. (No disrespect to those guys, I'm super appreciative of the work and the fact they put up the info they did! I just feel the electrical needs more attention on this swap.)

[clutch1]

Haven't gotten a chance to check the gearing in the trans, but one of these days I'll report back on that.

Been running all over the last couple days getting things done.. found a winter beater Jeep Cherokee for a buddy so he doesn't have to daily his WRX anymore, that kind of thing. But tonight I got a couple hours into the engine bay. I finally got to bust out the welder.

A bird took a crap all over in her it looks like.





And then I decided I had to relocate where the speedo cable enters the car so that it's not right in the middle of the engine bay. Now it goes in down low just behind the gas pedal.




I'm going to go check my local engine machine shop and see what the quote would be for fixing the 22R head and see the cost, and whether or not it's time to buy some tools to do a valve job myself instead. Gosh I haven't done one since college.

[Sigma Projects]

I never realized how odd it seems to not have the badge on the NSX once you mentioned it.

Probably going to be the first 2nd gen turned into a show car.

[clutch1]

Ahh, I dunno about a show car. I'm not holding myself to that standard But they sure are few and far between. I saw a sweet shakotan one on JNC and I ran into this one when I was looking for parts / inspiration..

Mmmm, gorgeous. I love the grill on there, and at some point I want to try to make one this winter. I think it's a GT model grill, and seems to be awfully rare.

Also found something to do with the beater Celica, LOL.


More welding today. I cut some panels to fill the big holes and welded em up. I started using a hole saw.. but that failed quickly. Back to the trusty grinder.




Then for shaving the holes on the firewall I used 3M panel bond to fill the bolt holes and to stick on filler panels from the back side. I didn't want to weld because I figured I'd catch the carpet / insulation on fire and burn the whole project to the ground.


And to finish off the night I decided to cut the rust out in the front that need repair, too.
The tow hook mounting plate had been bent a bit and the area was beginning to rot



Then I took out this little feller


Which left me with this to cut filler plates for.. tomorrow, lol.

[Sigma Projects]

There's a few resto modded ones with drift setups or shakotan style. And Al has the crazy Ford Cobra motor swapped into his 2nd Gen LiftBack, but I haven't seen a 2nd gen getting the wire tuck and shaved engine bay look