It's Happening! twotone's Build & Restoration Thread

[Tym]

And a few pictures from the junkyard raid:

Whaaat! You guys have actual Celicas in your junk yards?! In Australia I have never even seen anything below a 4th gen at a wreckers... The one in the photo is in better condition than most of the ones on our streets too, ahah.

Would love to buy the convertible side skirts and trim...

Good luck with the build!

[twotone_ra64]

Whaaat! You guys have actual Celicas in your junk yards?! In Australia I have never even seen anything below a 4th gen at a wreckers... The one in the photo is in better condition than most of the ones on our streets too, ahah.

Would love to buy the convertible side skirts and trim...

Good luck with the build!

Yes! There were actually quite an alarming number of Celicas in the yard, ranging from 1981 to 1997... even a 2003 Toyota MR2 Spyder! And the one at the yard was surprisingly clean... even a little scary, I just wonder how it ended up there.

Thank you! As far as getting more parts, my time is now very limited since I start work on Monday. It's going to be a bit tougher to gather up parts at this point

[twotone_ra64]

Alright, another quick junkyard run today. During my first run, I was able to pick up an original tape deck which was really clean! It was hiding in the trunk of the car. But, when I started taking apart my interior to install it, I noticed quite a hack job of the previous aftermarket stereo install... I found that I had too many wires and not enough harnesses to join them up... one of the three harnesses was chopped off and missing! I managed to pick up the whole harness just to have some extras plus the one connector I needed.

The hack job after removing the aftermarket radio harness, the wires off the original plug were just chopped off:



The stereo (a little dusty, but I cleaned that up ):



But, alas! I just chopped the whole harness out of the parts car and it is now mine! The small white plug circled at right was the missing plug I needed:



Soon the tape deck will find its home in my dash. More to come!

[danf]

Awesome! It is getting harder to find the original radios that still work. Usually the backlighting is burned out in them and they don't make the bulbs anymore. I really hate it when people spend a couple hundred for a new headunit but are too cheap to buy the $10 harness adapter.

If you ever want to sell that radio I call dibs. 

[twotone_ra64]

Awesome! It is getting harder to find the original radios that still work. Usually the backlighting is burned out in them and they don't make the bulbs anymore. I really hate it when people spend a couple hundred for a new headunit but are too cheap to buy the $10 harness adapter.

If you ever want to sell that radio I call dibs. 

Yup! You know, I was originally planning to put my Miata's old Pioneer stereo deck in the Celica, I had the DIN kit (already provided) and the harness adapter ready too ($8 off Amazon!) - but then this puppy just happened to pop up.

Alrighty, you have dibs if I ever do decide to sell it!

[twotone_ra64]

Alright, so I finally fixed the hack job of a radio install and re-soldered up the original harness. Got it pretty decent looking:



One quick thing I had to change were these two pins with the brown and blue/yellow wires, they were flip flopped based on the '85 harness's pin positioning. '85 harness at left, mine at right:



Very excited, I threw in the original radio. Alas! We have power!





This is where the story starts going south. The radio powered on and functioned, but I had no audio from any AM/FM radio station. I tried switching those two pins back to how they were before I flipped them, and still nothing. I tried grabbing a cassette to try and play, but the radio just ate up the tapes. No wonder this wasn't installed in the car; it didn't freakin' work! Frustrated, I threw together the aftermarket radio harness adapter and tried plugging in the Pioneer stereo I had originally intended on using. No power, nothing. At this point I was tired of failures, so I put it aside to debug on another day. Probably just need to check wiring colors and see how things match up.

[danf]

Hmm, sounds like that radio doesn't work, maybe capacitors blew out or something. I wonder if some capacitors or something blew up. Although I don't know about the eating tapes part. That's probably something else... sounds like the radio is screwed. I might still be interested in it though, I might be able to fix my existing radio with parts from that one.

The wiring diagram for the '85 radio is in the ESM. I think it even says which wire colours to which pins.

[twotone_ra64]

Hmm, sounds like that radio doesn't work, maybe capacitors blew out or something. I wonder if some capacitors or something blew up. Although I don't know about the eating tapes part. That's probably something else... sounds like the radio is screwed. I might still be interested in it though, I might be able to fix my existing radio with parts from that one.

The wiring diagram for the '85 radio is in the ESM. I think it even says which wire colours to which pins.

Alright! Yeah let me know if you'd like the radio too, it's currently looking like I won't need it right now.

I just took a look at the ESM, that certainly helps things. I'll take another look at it later in the week, I think there was something changed in the previous hack job to make it work, and I undid that. I'm sure it's a matter of just reordering a pin or two.

[Dr.Jun.Manabe]

You can always swing by and I can see if I can re-furbish the radio, love repairing old electronics lol.

[silverliftback]

Others here know better than I what head unit came stock in the GT vs the GT-S.  I had nothing but a bunch of cut-off wires to connect a new stereo to in my GTS in the spring, which all made sense...after I'd blown a couple fuses.  Between the amplifier, the 4 inch "sub-woofer" and the power antenna, there were more wires than a modern harness is built for.

You've got a factory manual so attaching this pic is a bit redundant but others may be curious as I was.  Letters are color codes, B = black, BR = brown, G = green, GR = gray, L = light blue, LG = light green, O = orange, P = pink, R = red, V = violet, W = white, Y = yellow.

[83GTCoupe]

I have that same factory head unit. I installed it in the supercharged car. Everything worked, but it needs to be dismantled and cleaned up, or possibly repaired, as the EQ is VERY touchy on the slider knobs, and the radio either gets quieter, or there's a cracking/popping when you adjust them. I think the volume knob also has that issue, IIRC. Probably an easy fix, but yet another project I don't have time to delve into right now. Someday... Currently, I have aftermarket stereos in the other 2 cars, and if it aint broke, don't fix it! The car I just bought has a brand new head unit, so I'll replace all the blown speakers, and leave it in there until I can work on the factory radio and EQ. That'll buy me the time I need.
Side note: The antenna actually works on the new Celica. My '82 didn't but the PO also replaced the windshield with the internal antenna, so no big deal there. The supercharged car antenna worked when I got it, but only for a few months, and finding a good replacement from junkyards, proved futile, As did replacing the mast with a factory Toyota replacement, so I broke down and went aftermarket, eventually.

[85GTS]

Awesome! It is getting harder to find the original radios that still work. Usually the backlighting is burned out in them and they don't make the bulbs anymore. I really hate it when people spend a couple hundred for a new headunit but are too cheap to buy the $10 harness adapter.

If you ever want to sell that radio I call dibs. 

Sorry for the OT, but Hey Dan! I have the factory headunit out of an 85 camry if you are interested... not sure how the same they are but that one looks pretty close to what I have from my recollection.

[twotone_ra64]

You can always swing by and I can see if I can re-furbish the radio, love repairing old electronics lol.

Hahah I think I'll let it go to danf, I need to try to make some money back on all these parts I bought.

Others here know better than I what head unit came stock in the GT vs the GT-S.  I had nothing but a bunch of cut-off wires to connect a new stereo to in my GTS in the spring, which all made sense...after I'd blown a couple fuses.  Between the amplifier, the 4 inch "sub-woofer" and the power antenna, there were more wires than a modern harness is built for.

You've got a factory manual so attaching this pic is a bit redundant but others may be curious as I was.  Letters are color codes, B = black, BR = brown, G = green, GR = gray, L = light blue, LG = light green, O = orange, P = pink, R = red, V = violet, W = white, Y = yellow.

Ah, thanks man. So in the end it just doesn't use all the wires? That's kind of what I figured. I'm going to take a look at it later today with the diagram and the wire colors. I hope I didn't solder anything up incorrectly... there were some duplicate wires but it looks like they just connect to the same node.

I have that same factory head unit. I installed it in the supercharged car. Everything worked, but it needs to be dismantled and cleaned up, or possibly repaired, as the EQ is VERY touchy on the slider knobs, and the radio either gets quieter, or there's a cracking/popping when you adjust them. I think the volume knob also has that issue, IIRC. Probably an easy fix, but yet another project I don't have time to delve into right now. Someday... Currently, I have aftermarket stereos in the other 2 cars, and if it aint broke, don't fix it! The car I just bought has a brand new head unit, so I'll replace all the blown speakers, and leave it in there until I can work on the factory radio and EQ. That'll buy me the time I need.
Side note: The antenna actually works on the new Celica. My '82 didn't but the PO also replaced the windshield with the internal antenna, so no big deal there. The supercharged car antenna worked when I got it, but only for a few months, and finding a good replacement from junkyards, proved futile, As did replacing the mast with a factory Toyota replacement, so I broke down and went aftermarket, eventually.

Ohhh got it. Yeah, I don't want to fix what ain't broke but the aftermarket head unit that was installed in the car was pretty ancient. Didn't even have an aux jack! So at this point I think I'll just stick with my updated head unit. It even has Bluetooth.

That's nice that your antenna is good, mine is completely bent up. I was told the motor should still work but the mast just needs replacement. I'll have to pull the motor out to see if it actually does turn before deciding on replacing the whole assembly or just the mast. Most likely will go with an aftermarket Metra unit.

[twotone_ra64]

Okay... last night I took a closer look at the wiring diagram, the connections and wiring colors. I checked it thrice, it's completely correct. Why the radio doesn't want to work is beyond me. I think we have gremlins, fellas. I did check over the previous hack job to see if there were any discrepancies or anything that was done differently to make it work. Here's what I found:



Really, the only real difference was that the installer crimped both L-Y (blue-yellow) wires into the yellow wire on the stereo connector end. This is the connection for constant 12V power; both blue-yellow wires connect back up again in the harness, so there was no real reason for doing this.

A couple pictures of my harness connections. Harness adapter at right. I left out the smaller 5-pin harness in these pics because the connections were spot on. I don't think there's anything wrong with the larger 9-pin harness connections...





Frustrated, I decided to just bolt the radio in for now and swap out my crusty blue dashboard for near-brand-new black one I got from the pick-n-pull car. Having done a dash swap in my Miata before, the process was fairly easy.

We've gone from this:



To this:



And finally to this!



I admit the radio bezel didn't actually fit over the radio I bolted in... the faceplate was a tad too wide. I'm sure there's an endpiece I can easily remove. But everything is looking sooo much cleaner now. Unfortunately it really brings out how disgusting the seats and carpet are. Girlfriend does not approve lol. You might also notice I didn't install some of the smaller dash vents... holy crap, those things are fragile. I broke off two corners of one of them while trying to remove the ducting piece that I prematurely connected before actually putting it in the dash. I carefully superglued them back together and that fix has so far held up...

Oh yeah, if you guys have any more input as to what it could possibly be (fuses are good, radio worked before I removed it from my Toyota Matrix...), that would be so awesome.

More to come!

[danf]

Well, the only thing I can think of is checking to make sure the ground and power wires in the harness actually do what they're supposed to. Is the ground wire actually grounded? Do you have constant +12V and switched +12V? These are from different fuses, the horn fuse and the radio fuse.