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SlimManFat
Nov 12, 2010

RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST

mariooncrack posted:

Are there only five cars at that meet? And are the only color options red and panda?

Why would you want anything more?

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TheLarson
Oct 14, 2004

PREPARE FOR THE WOODSHED!
BOW BEFORE KING JIGGLES!
Holy poo poo. The California DMV rejected my custom license plate request of "TOFUTAX" on grounds of alleged gang affiliation. I'm considering appealing this on principle.

Seriously, they could have googled "tofu tax" and witnessed countless car enthusiasts bitching about the rising costs of 1983 to 1987 Toyota Corollas. Unreal. :japan:

Rhyno
Mar 22, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 10 years!
Should've gone for WEABOO like I said!

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



TheLarson posted:

Holy poo poo. The California DMV rejected my custom license plate request of "TOFUTAX" on grounds of alleged gang affiliation. I'm considering appealing this on principle.

Seriously, they could have googled "tofu tax" and witnessed countless car enthusiasts bitching about the rising costs of 1983 to 1987 Toyota Corollas. Unreal. :japan:

loving lol

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

It's because it wasn't the right plate choice. We have a man on the inside who's going to turn down every one until you pick the right one... ;)

mariooncrack
Dec 27, 2008

SlimManFat posted:

Why would you want anything more?

Colors? I like variety.

Cars? I like to think there's more people out there taking care of these cars out there.


TheLarson posted:

Holy poo poo. The California DMV rejected my custom license plate request of "TOFUTAX" on grounds of alleged gang affiliation. I'm considering appealing this on principle.

Seriously, they could have googled "tofu tax" and witnessed countless car enthusiasts bitching about the rising costs of 1983 to 1987 Toyota Corollas. Unreal. :japan:

Holy poo poo, that was my suggestion. I'm flattered that you chose that one out. I really do hope you appeal.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


How the hell does "TOFUTAX" have any sort of gang affiliation? :psyduck:

Boaz MacPhereson
Jul 11, 2006

Day 12045 Ht10hands 180lbs
No Name
No lumps No Bumps Full life Clean
Two good eyes No Busted Limbs
Piss OK Genitals intact
Multiple scars Heals fast
O NEGATIVE HI OCTANE
UNIVERSAL DONOR
Lone Road Warrior Rundown
on the Powder Lakes V8
No guzzoline No supplies
ISOLATE PSYCHOTIC
Keep muzzled...
Yakuza tofu cartels.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



KozmoNaut posted:

How the hell does "TOFUTAX" have any sort of gang affiliation? :psyduck:

Pimping or sovcit. To gently caress you tax.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Midjack posted:

Pimping or sovcit. To gently caress you tax.

That is one hell of a stretch.

Seat Safety Switch
May 27, 2008

MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.

Pillbug
DNTSPLL/NOSPILL it is!

Fender Anarchist
May 20, 2009

Fender Anarchist

I vote GOVTBAD

Seat Safety Switch
May 27, 2008

MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.

Pillbug
FUQDDMV

Applebees Appetizer
Jan 23, 2006

Welp looks like you're gonna have to use BUNTA :v:

TheLarson
Oct 14, 2004

PREPARE FOR THE WOODSHED!
BOW BEFORE KING JIGGLES!
I'm going to hang the rejection letter on the fridge and think about my sins.

In the meantime there's lots of car work left to do! Unfortunately the car has sat untouched this weekend. Been busy. :/

Pomp and Circumcized
Dec 23, 2006

If there's one thing I love more than GruntKilla420, it's the Queen! Also bacon.
Try THGLIFE or THUGLYF and see if they let you use it.

TheLarson
Oct 14, 2004

PREPARE FOR THE WOODSHED!
BOW BEFORE KING JIGGLES!
And now back to our regularly scheduled programming! :siren:

[excuses] life, work, etc. [/excuses]


Anyways, the car has had a bit more driveline shudder than I like since day one. Pulling into my garage and slow speed clutch maneuvers resulted in some none-too-pleasant shimmies. Enter new engine and transmission mounts.

Fresh from the ancestral home :japan:, reeking of cigarettes, and wrapped in cartoons. Just the way I like my car parts. Luckily these are still available brand new (NOS) but usually from another enthusiast and not Toyota. The keen eye'd among you will notice the Technocraft labels on the engine mounts. These are stiffer than the factory mounts which are known to be pretty squishy.




I was able to do the transmission mount myself given that it's easy to access. The one that came out didn't look bad, but I could compress and twist it by hand. The engine mounts I left to the professionals. I didn't feel comfortable getting in there, unbolting the engine, and raising it a few inches to clear.




Luckily there's a great Toyota specific shop 30 minutes south of me called Toy Auto Clinic. Judging from the array of 70's and 80's Toyotas in their lot, I felt like they were the right people for the job. I had a few jobs piling up that I really didn't want to do, so they did the following:
  • Engine mounts
  • Oil cooler sandwich plate seals
  • Stainless clutch line
  • Exhaust manifold and downpipe gaskets
  • Exhaust manifold studs

Killing the driveline wiggles and finally solving the exhaust leaks has done wonders for the drivability of the car. There is a slight increase in vibrations transferred through the new engine mounts, but it's very reasonable and even adds to the fun.



More to come, including this embarrassing picture... :aaa:

TheLarson fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Feb 26, 2016

TheLarson
Oct 14, 2004

PREPARE FOR THE WOODSHED!
BOW BEFORE KING JIGGLES!
Double post...

At some point soon I'd like to pick up a new carpet set for the car. Unfortunately I've been unable to find any direct matches to the carpet type and color that originally came in the car. As best I can tell it's a loop weave, which limits my options given that most aftermarket kits are cutpile. I'm not opposed to a bit of an update here but I'd like a closish color match. The problem is that nobody I've found has had success replacing '85 maroon GTS carpet which I think was a one-year combination.

I sent away for a couple of samples from Auto Custom Carpets (https://www.accmats.com) and Stock Interiors (http://www.stockinteriors.com). Here's what came back up against the factory carpet. Obviously the carpet websites' color representations look a lot different on a computer screen. :doh:



The least faded section I could find was under the floor mats. You can see how the original maroon/burgundy color has faded into what can only be described as a brownish grey. The original floor mats have faded to a moldy green. That's what 30 years in the California sun will do.

The current winning color is "875 Claret/Oxblood" from ACC (upper right in the above picture). It isn't a cheap kit ($300) but I'd rather only do this once. I'd also be ordering extra yardage to do the trunk and the backs of the rear seats. Lastly I need to find someone with original "sawtooth" floor mats to see if they're a better fit over the under carpet heating vents. The mats that came in the car may not be original (even though they are Toyota mats).

The sawtooth mats look like this (not my picture):

Pomp and Circumcized
Dec 23, 2006

If there's one thing I love more than GruntKilla420, it's the Queen! Also bacon.
Many of the images aren't loading :( Never mind! Awesome work :D

Pomp and Circumcized fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Feb 26, 2016

burning swine
May 26, 2004



Whattup thelarson, I totally forgot about this thread. The new paint looks awesome, you're definitely doing this car right. Much props

My own project has been laid up in the garage for ages and slowed to a crawl last summer because life. I recently started back up though:

Turbo finally mounted:


Dropped the oil pan to tap it for an oil return line and got a look at my crankshaft:

Also confirmed that I have (as I thought) the thick rods and oil squirters. Between those and the 7-rib block I think this sucka should be able to handle boost

If you ever end up dropping the oil pan be ready for the windage tray to be completely glued to the block. I bent the crap out of mine during removal and decided to buy an undamaged one on ebay, which I then had to clean up with oven cleaner spray:


In other news my girlfriend got me this cool metal sign which I hung above the garage door:

:3:

burning swine fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Feb 26, 2016

Seat Safety Switch
May 27, 2008

MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.

Pillbug
There's probably a more modern aftermarket windage tray for the 4AGE by now, isn't there? I seem to remember those blocks have a hell of a problem with distortion.

burning swine
May 26, 2004



Apparently the windage tray is different on the 7-rib blocks and doesn't suffer the oil starvation problems that the original did. I consulted club4ag briefly and decided there was no justification for spending a lot of money on an aftermarket one.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Toyota really doesn't like to change things, do they? That trans mount looks exactly like the one for a '91 Toyota Pickup.

Repaint/reassembly is amazing, I thought it looked great before. Can't believe how much of a difference it made.

TheLarson
Oct 14, 2004

PREPARE FOR THE WOODSHED!
BOW BEFORE KING JIGGLES!

kastein posted:

Toyota really doesn't like to change things, do they? That trans mount looks exactly like the one for a '91 Toyota Pickup.
Yeah they don't like to work too hard on making new parts, doubly so on the small stuff. Any Toyota from the 80's and early 90's is fair game for switches, levers, plugs, rubber stoppers, hinges, and the like.

TheLarson
Oct 14, 2004

PREPARE FOR THE WOODSHED!
BOW BEFORE KING JIGGLES!
Alright I have a confession to make. You know how the first thing you do when you buy a new old car is change all the fluids? Yeah I got lazy on the coolant since it wasn't leaking or overheating. The oil was the right color and I thought "I'll get around to it later". I topped up the coolant reserve and went on my way. Boy was that a bad assumption especially given how rough the rest of the car was when I bought it.

Eventually I decided to overhaul the cooling system after noticing a couple of things. The car never got up to proper temperature on the highway (1/4 up the gauge after 30 minutes at 70mph), the heat wasn't pumping very well, and the car had a rough time during cold start. That and the original clutch fan in the car had to go.

After gathering all the parts over a few month period, I finally cracked the system. This came out... :psyboom:


Needless to say the system got a proper flushing. I still have a few 5 gallon buckets full of half coolant to dispose of. Hopefully I got enough of the horror out to prevent the rest of the system from plugging itself with who knows what. New heater cores are impossible to find for this car at any reasonable price point. Luckily I rarely need the heat where I live, but I'd like a functional system for good measure. Out came the air compressor and a few blasts saw the core that was in the car go from 100% clogged to at least flowing air and water at a reasonable pace. I'm sure it's still partially clogged, but I'm in no mood to pull the dash in this car until I can find a clean maroon one to go back in.

So the rest of the cooling system got the following bits. Big thanks to Battlegarage RS for the deals.
  • Koyorad radiator - they just came out with a thinner variant that doesn't require any massaging to fit
  • Mishimoto fans & shroud - I'm not a fan of the of dubious Japanese sounding parts (straight from mainland Asia for sure), but this setup is a known good part
  • Samco radiator & heater hoses - overkill for a street car but they fit nice and last
  • New OEM temp sensors for ECM, gauge, cold start thermoswitch, and fan switch
  • New thermostat (stock temp)
  • DIY electric fan harness

On the topic of cleaning, even the overflow bottle was bad. Nothing a few bolts and all sorts of shaking couldn't fix.


New water neck with built in sensor port next to the factory ae86 water neck and the old thermostat.






All four new sensors, the water neck from an early 80's FWD Corolla, and some shiny new hoses.



DIY harness I spent a few hours measuring and assembling. I tried to solder, join, crimp, and heat shrink tube as much as possible. Ignore the two unused wires from the relay harnesses, they've since been properly tidied up. I followed a diagram that's made the rounds in the olde Toyota circles for a long time (except I fused the battery link with a 30A fuse). All 12ga wiring where possible to match what came on the fans.


Picture from Supra Mania. One of many variants out there. I ended up with two Hella SPDT relays and waterproof housings. I found a great place to bolt them right beneath the coil. I still need to tuck some of the wires, but it at least works!



Anyways, the system appears to be working as it should be. I burped the system, let the car warm up, and shot around with my infrared thermometer (which is super handy). The new thermostat works and the fan temp switch kicks on reliably. I let it cycle through a few times and the wiring hasn't let out the ghost yet.



I still need to road test this thing to make sure it's all dialed in. I might change the coolant after a few miles just to get as much of the remaining gunk out of the way.

Either way. Progress! :toot:

TheLarson fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Mar 6, 2016

SlimManFat
Nov 12, 2010

RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST RUST

TheLarson posted:

Yeah they don't like to work too hard on making new parts, doubly so on the small stuff. Any Toyota from the 80's and early 90's is fair game for switches, levers, plugs, rubber stoppers, hinges, and the like.

The switches/panel for the sunroof in my 91 Celica is exactly the same as the switches/panel on my 03 Corolla lol. CONSISTENCY!

Veeb0rg
Jul 24, 2001

THIS CONVERSATION IS NONPRODUCTIVE!

SlimManFat posted:

The switches/panel for the sunroof in my 91 Celica is exactly the same as the switches/panel on my 03 Corolla lol. CONSISTENCY!

Ain't broke, don't fix it.

TheLarson
Oct 14, 2004

PREPARE FOR THE WOODSHED!
BOW BEFORE KING JIGGLES!

SlimManFat posted:

The switches/panel for the sunroof in my 91 Celica is exactly the same as the switches/panel on my 03 Corolla lol. CONSISTENCY!
The dome light, inside mirror, window cranks, and rear seat belts in my car are from a '90-ish Camry. This is all well and good, but the maroon interior struggle is real. They quit that poo poo in short order.

Suburban Dad
Jan 10, 2007


Well what's attached to a leash that it made itself?
The punchline is the way that you've been fuckin' yourself




Veeb0rg posted:

Ain't broke, don't fix it.

People poo poo on GM about the parts bin stuff, but give kudos to Toyota for it. lol


How many flushes did you try? I tried a couple different radiator flushes with some chemicals on my junkyard engine (rusty water passages) and I could never get it all out after like 10 flushes. :(

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.

Larrymer posted:

People poo poo on GM about the parts bin stuff, but give kudos to Toyota for it. lol

Cracks me up every time. I love partsbinning, it's just good engineering all around and means we as gearheads have a larger pool of things to lego together.

My usual example: I can bolt an '09 Chevy Impala SS LS4 V8 engine directly to the transmission of a 4 or 6cyl auto or manual 1991 Toyota pickup using late 80s or mid to late 90s Jeep or Dodge parts.

That wouldn't be possible if OEMs weren't partsbinning bastards.

Boaz MacPhereson
Jul 11, 2006

Day 12045 Ht10hands 180lbs
No Name
No lumps No Bumps Full life Clean
Two good eyes No Busted Limbs
Piss OK Genitals intact
Multiple scars Heals fast
O NEGATIVE HI OCTANE
UNIVERSAL DONOR
Lone Road Warrior Rundown
on the Powder Lakes V8
No guzzoline No supplies
ISOLATE PSYCHOTIC
Keep muzzled...
Partsbin chat? Three words:

Saginaw steering boxes.

GM A,F,G, and X bodies, plus loving Grand Cherokees. I love car part Lego.

Suburban Dad
Jan 10, 2007


Well what's attached to a leash that it made itself?
The punchline is the way that you've been fuckin' yourself




kastein posted:

Cracks me up every time. I love partsbinning, it's just good engineering all around and means we as gearheads have a larger pool of things to lego together.

My usual example: I can bolt an '09 Chevy Impala SS LS4 V8 engine directly to the transmission of a 4 or 6cyl auto or manual 1991 Toyota pickup using late 80s or mid to late 90s Jeep or Dodge parts.

That wouldn't be possible if OEMs weren't partsbinning bastards.

Oh agreed completely. People always tout it as an "lol GM" thing but it's awesome to be able to bolt on a billion different shits to your totally different car.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.

Boaz MacPhereson posted:

Partsbin chat? Three words:

Saginaw steering boxes.

GM A,F,G, and X bodies, plus loving Grand Cherokees. I love car part Lego.

Actually drat near every SFA/SRA jeep until the mid 2000s, some even later. poo poo, it's so heavily that rebuilders can't even get the model/engine/year app data right on what their stuff will fit, every steering box listed for a 93 Roadmaster claims it fits a different set of vehicles, some including 2003 (and only 2003) TJs.

None of them can get it right whether it's 98 or 99 Durangos with the plow option that are special boxes, either. It's ridiculous. You basically have to measure the parts of the old box and the new box and compare turn ratios side by side before knowing whether your replacement box is actually what it was sold as, because they all look the same on the surface and they're legoed from here to infinity.

burning swine
May 26, 2004



TheLarson posted:


New heater cores are impossible to find for this car at any reasonable price point. Luckily I rarely need the heat where I live, but I'd like a functional system for good measure.

It's a real bitch, I feel your pain.



When I had to do this, I couldn't find the correct heater core at any price. I ended up putting in one from, I think, an MR2, which had the right overall dimensions but the inlet/outlet were not in quite the right spot. I had to widen the holes in the firewall to get it through then jbweld some sheet metal to cover the excess openings.

Nuevo
May 23, 2006

:eyepop::shittypop::eyepop::shittypop::eyepop::shittypop::eyepop::shittypop::eyepop::shittypop::eyepop::shittypop::eyepop::shittypop::eyepop::shittypop:
Fun Shoe
Cool to see continuing progress & more and more crap getting replaced with shiny new bits.

Just a heads-up though, you may want to rehost that wiring diagram from supramania, Chrome is flipping its poo poo about it and blocking access to this entire page unless you click through a warning.

Only registered members can see post attachments!

TheLarson
Oct 14, 2004

PREPARE FOR THE WOODSHED!
BOW BEFORE KING JIGGLES!

Boat posted:

Cool to see continuing progress & more and more crap getting replaced with shiny new bits.

Just a heads-up though, you may want to rehost that wiring diagram from supramania, Chrome is flipping its poo poo about it and blocking access to this entire page unless you click through a warning.


Done. I went ahead and re-hosted it on Imgur. Lots of little forums get owned all the time and abused to serve all sorts of badness. It looks like Supramania is running vBulletin 4.1.7 which is ~5 years old. Several known vulnerabilities.

TheLarson fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Mar 6, 2016

TheLarson
Oct 14, 2004

PREPARE FOR THE WOODSHED!
BOW BEFORE KING JIGGLES!

FopeDush posted:

It's a real bitch, I feel your pain.



When I had to do this, I couldn't find the correct heater core at any price. I ended up putting in one from, I think, an MR2, which had the right overall dimensions but the inlet/outlet were not in quite the right spot. I had to widen the holes in the firewall to get it through then jbweld some sheet metal to cover the excess openings.
Yeah it looks like it. I opted to leave mine in the dash and just blow it out the best I could with water and compressed air. I managed to mangle the heater core in my first ae86 because I didn't understand how fragile the outlets were.

TheLarson
Oct 14, 2004

PREPARE FOR THE WOODSHED!
BOW BEFORE KING JIGGLES!
Mini-update.

I think I've finally locked down all of the coolant drips that resulted from the replacement of 5 major coolant lines. A few heat cycles and hose clamp adjustments and the car *appears* to be coolant tight.

I also finally dug into the sticky heat and airmix cables. It turns out that both cables suffer from total paralysis that affects most of these cars. The rubber liner surrounding a stiff wire has started to break down, rendering the cable unable to slide smoothly. Unfortunately, between the previous owner and myself, someone man handled the heat slider enough to crack the plastic brackets that hold the cables in place. It isn't so broken that I can't save it, but I'll have to pull the whole thing out and epoxy everything until it's solid. Unfortunately there's no source for new HVAC cables that I can find. Toyota switched to a better designed cable in the 90's so I'll have to dig through some parts bins until I find something that I can adapt.

All that aside, I actually have heat now! After manually adjusting the heater valve and the airmix flapper the heater works really well. It just requires manual adjustments under the hood and in the passenger foot well to do the job of the broken heater cables. Cool.


I did manage to find a "zenki" OEM NOS JDM (loving kill me with the acronyms) front bumper lip. It's a popular thing in the ae86 world to adapt the early "zenki" front lips to the later "kouki" front bumpers. I like the odd shape of the lip so I found one. Thanks to the amazing USD -> Yen exchange rate, I managed to get this lip shipped to my place from Japan for *half* the price of domestic retail sellers. Thanks EP Importers!

Here's a picture of the same lip attached to the same bumper I have (not my picture). I'll need to fashion some simple brackets to get this lip mounted.



There's a rain or shine Japanese car meet in SF's Japantown tomorrow morning that I'm considering going to. I gassed up the car and got a chance to test the new wipers and Rain-X, given that it's been raining pretty hard all day. I can't put words to how happy I am that the car is now water tight. Also the fuel level sender I installed last year is still great and reads full on the gauge with a fresh tank. It's little fixes like this that I'd forgotten about that make me happy.


I neglected to take any pictures of the car while I was in the garage today. Here's my cat instead.

8ender
Sep 24, 2003

clown is watching you sleep

TheLarson posted:

The rubber liner surrounding a stiff wire has started to break down, rendering the cable unable to slide smoothly. Unfortunately, between the previous owner and myself, someone man handled the heat slider enough to crack the plastic brackets that hold the cables in place. It isn't so broken that I can't save it, but I'll have to pull the whole thing out and epoxy everything until it's solid. Unfortunately there's no source for new HVAC cables that I can find.

I've nursed some unobtanium vintage motorcycle cables back to life with something similar to this thing:
http://www.motorcycle-superstore.com/4838/i/motion-pro-cable-luber

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kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.

FopeDush posted:

It's a real bitch, I feel your pain.



When I had to do this, I couldn't find the correct heater core at any price. I ended up putting in one from, I think, an MR2, which had the right overall dimensions but the inlet/outlet were not in quite the right spot. I had to widen the holes in the firewall to get it through then jbweld some sheet metal to cover the excess openings.

If you guys still have a source for solid copper/brass heater cores of the right dimensions, but with the inlet and outlet in the wrong spot or clocked wrong, it's quite trivial to learn to sweat solder copper and you can probably either swivel the tubes while heating the joint (then flux/reflow just for good measure) or pull them out, carefully drill new holes, and sweat on new tubes made using plumbing supplies from your local home depot or something. I've been looking into doing this for my Justy since there are exactly zero aftermarket cores available and I know mine isn't gonna last forever - any chance you know the dimensions of MR2/AE86 ones offhand? It'd be rather amusing if it fits mine too.

If the only replacements available are aluminum... well gently caress, you're gonna have to either learn to braze aluminum with zinc based rods, or TIG. Neither is cheap or particularly easy.

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