Ownership Verified: Restoration. How hard can it be? (1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD)

This is the most fascinating project on FG right now. I'm serious.
 
BlaRo said:
This is the most fascinating project on FG right now. I'm serious.
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It's awesome seeing how much gets done with so little to work with. :)
 
I'm enjoying seeing this progress. It's very much in the Wheeler Dealers style of bringing it back from the brink.

gaasc said:
This is how a normal radio bezel looks



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I just can't help it, it's crying out for it...

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So, a year has passed and the little Tercel has gone to looking like this

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to looking like this


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Progress has been slow and parts have been difficult to get but we're getting there.
 
So.

Today we decided to actually do something to the car for a change and change the headlight bezel and the base it was intalled in (as in, it now has a base instead of the forces exerted on it cancelling each other), polish the chrome on the other, install the side indicators and install the Chromed Tercel 4WD badge instead of the base model's plastic lump (Once again thanks to Mr. BCS for kindly getting it for me)

It's amazing what some pieces of orange glass and some chrome will do to the front of a car (Testing the Galaxy Mini camera)







It ended pretty good and only left the two big jobs to be done (engine overhaul and paintjob) Sadly you can't win all and after leaving le dad with the car for a few hours this happened





How the hell do you even do that!! We'll asses the damage tomorrow and remove that indicator so that the friends of the free stuff don't "Procure" it <_<
 
Poor Tercel nose. :(

BlaRo said:
This is the most fascinating project on FG right now. I'm serious.
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Rong is right. This is cool. I love seeing an old car get some love again.
 
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Looks more like a wall made of dirt and stones, judging by the direction the plants on top of it grow.
 
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ChuckMoritz said:
Looks more like a wall made of dirt and stones, judging by the direction the plants on top of it grow.
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That was pretty much it. that was mended and now the car looks alright.

Looks.

We were driving along last Saturday when suddenly the CV joints just decided to have a conflict of interests with the rest of the car leaving us with a bricked car in the middle of rush hour Tegucigalpa traffic. Well, perhaps not bricked but it only moved forwards and backwards. This, like pretty much all repairs on this car uncovered bigger issues, chief among which is a transmission rebuild, and since the engine is down anyway we'll do a small rebuild there aswell.

Here is the gearbox in all its V-shaped glory









And here's how the engine looks right now.







This should prevent the oil burning, we're not sure but we think it still had its original seals fitted in Dec.1983, hardened with a nice thick coating of oil that stopped more oil from getting into the cylinders

 
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You're going to want to replace all those external seals (like the crank main seals and the output shaft seals and the like) with ones actually from Toyota. Toyota found out that the original ones turn hard (as you mentioned) but then start cutting grooves in the shafts as they get old. Something odd about the composition. If you put an aftermarket seal in there, the new seal rides in the groove the old one cut and leaks again after not terribly much longer - it's specced to the original seal that was in there. Toyota released updated seals in the 90s that move the lip forward/out a bit and allows the lip to ride on a 'fresh' surface instead of in the smaller diameter groove so it can actually, uh, seal. None of the aftermarket seal kit makers seem to have twigged to this for 70s and 80s Toyotas.

Also, remember to grease the lip of the seal prior to installation. Lots of people still forget that one.
 
Points duly noted. Actually the seals you see in the pic were bought from the Toyota dealership a mile away from my place (and the only one in the country.) I'm going to hope thay are actually up to the new spec and don't show the problems you mentioned.

Progress has been quite good, while we're still doing some work the gearbox has already been checked and the engine should be ready tomorrow.
 
has it been two and a half years? Oh bother...

Well, the thing is, we haven't done much, the front window tint finally decided to separate itself so it got some 3M UV thing. Also a new battery which insta bumped the cost of driving it well over $1/mile. It'll be due for a suspension job job and a timing belt check soon. We're still holding on the paintjob.

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It's still rolling, that's all that matters. :)
 
Nice car. My friend had similar kind of vehicle a couple of years ago.

 
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