Figured out the fluid issue. Some soft brake lines were massively clogged. Got those cleaned out and was able to bleed out the front brakes. Still not building any pressure in the brake system so I still need to figure that out.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

I put working on the brakes on hold while i move over to the electrical for a change of pace. A few electrical gremlins that i need to work out but overall things are starting to function. Headlights, brake lights, turn signals etc are working. need to replace the horns, evidently they are bad...go figure, didn't know they went bad.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

Ok, so I have been out tinkering on this thing every night for the last month. I have put finishing the brakes on hold while I sort out the electrical. The starter relay was giving me fits but thanks to mojocoggo, slowmo and 7t5-27 and I'm sure a couple others it is now functioning. I sanded, primed, sanded, primed,sanded some more and repainted the bumper filler panels.

Kind of a mess with all the wire tracking I had to do. It's pretty ghetto-fied right now with the jumper clips and randome wire running around to test things. Now the starter relay is working off the key I can set off fixing the tail light/dash llight circuit, then I can button the electrical back up and make it pretty again.

Had to bust open the harness to trace wires. The starter relay problem I was having was due to the fact there was no start wire coming off the ignition into the bay. once I got under the dash I saw the start wire with a new wire spliced into it. once I found this, I was home free.

wire running over the cowl and into the cockpit to the spliced ignition wire. I put more of the mesh looming on the brake reservoir hoses to jazz them up a bit.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

4K isn't bad for a paint job, remember you get what you pay for. If you want cheap go to maaco or earl sheib.

I figure I can get a good paint job for alot less.

I had always noticed that the driver's seat had a slight lean toward the driver door. I thought it was just a bent seat frame. Once I pulled the seat and carpet when laying the new battery cable I saw the real problem. The rear seat perch coming off the frame rail was cracked! Crap.... I happened to mention it to one of my sunday school students sunday morning and he told me how he had a Mig setup and had been welding since he was 10, he's 17 now. so he brought over his rig and went to work. Nice job and best of all ...FREE!

Here's my man Hunter stitching up the crack


Welded up
I hit the weld with some black paint to seal it up. The metal around the bracket got real thin and even on the lowest setting the welder still wanted to burn through but he was able to carefully fix it. Still looks good and is probably stronger than when the car was built. I jumped on the perch a few times and it didn't budge.


also, I hooked up and installed the starter motor. I hit the key and for the first time in almost 8 years the engine turned over! Still havn't hooked up fuel and spark so I wasn't looking for it to fire but at least the engine turns and the start system is functioning properly. exciting!

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

while at work i printed out a wiring diagram i found here on the net and traced the tail light/dash light circuit with a hilighter. that was very revealing. once i knew what i was looking for the problem was pretty obvious. i tracked down a splice in the circuit that was very old and corroded and beginning to burn. once i cut that out and connected it with a jumper wire everything lit up just like it was supposed to. so now my electrical issues are solved at the moment. i'm sure things will pop back up once i move on to the ignition.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

Sweet dude

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Jeff "Kingtoy" Brown
King of Toyotas
Sophisticated Toys - Toyota club

81 TE75 Corolla SR5 Sport Coupe modified
Custom 93 Toyota minitruck

yes, it is sweet.

I still need to locate the two wires for the reverse light switch but otherwise things seem to be worked out. I guess now it's on to the brakes and throttle linkage.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

Just about finished glueing up the edges of the headliner. still have a couple of small repairs to do to finish it up. so I moved on to the carpet.

Started working on installing the new molded carpet kit. Have the driver seat re-installed over the new carpet. trimmed the driver side of the carpet a bit and it's strating to lay down nicely. hope to have that finished up by the end of the weekend. New carpet sure freshens up the interior.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

Here are a couple new pics:

Fuel is now hooked up. Found a couple barbs at the JY that did the trick!


Headers showed up with collectorfroom Toysport. The flange on the headers is the same as my stock 18RC flange so it bolts straight up to the factory exhaust. May not use the collector right away. Great green paint. Mounting flange is drilled for 8mm studs, so I'll need to drill those out before mounting.


Exhaust side of my head.


Refinished the grill and trim.



Refinished the C-pillar vents.



Engine bay as it currently sits, intalled new plug wires, not much but they are nice and fresh.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

I'm excited that this car is finally so close to being on the road.

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Jeff "Kingtoy" Brown
King of Toyotas
Sophisticated Toys - Toyota club

81 TE75 Corolla SR5 Sport Coupe modified
Custom 93 Toyota minitruck

not nearly as close as I'd like it to be...still feels miles away to me.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

Managed to fit the Headers up. Flange was drilled for 8mm studs, had to open those up to accomodate the 10mm studs my 253 head has. No metric drill bits around the shop so a 7/16 did the trick albeit a little oversized.


Even after opening up the stud holes it still didn't want to slide on. the heater hose provision on the back of the head is right next to/behine the 4 port....really tight. made a little niche in the flange to fix that prob.


What?! You don't like my green paint? I think it sets off the blue quite nicely...

Don't worry most of the paint is on my hands now.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

Went to my Local ACE Hardware and picked up some 1/2-20 steel allen head plugs and a 1/2-20 Tap and threaded the EGR ports below ports 2,3 and 4. when I got the engine the ports were just plugged by jamming an M12 bolt in them but those wouldn't clear the header flange, plus they looked a little ghetto. I wanted the ports plugged more professionally and wanted them to be easily removed or reinstalled if ever the need arose. The result was a nice plug that sits flush and is removeable with a 1/4" alen key.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

I definitely try to pay attention to the little things... I must have at least some level of determination as this project is pushing the 9 year mark.

I went out to the garage for an hour or so to finish the carpet on the driver's side so i could reinstall the gas pedal. Now that the gas pedal is back in I can finish the throttle linkage. sorry for the poor quality phone pic, and the little bit of debris on the carpet.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

Spent the weekend working on interior pieces. The kick panels and Seat bracket covers were pretty dingy and faded. a little black vinyl spray freshened them up nicely.

Before


After


Seat bracket covers. Top one is after, bottom is before


On a side note, I worked on the heater box assembly some over the weekend. It's all there and in good working order except that the heater valve was seized up. I was able to get it freed up with a little penetrating oil. Long story short, the valve moved but only closes off about 80%. So we need a new valve. Havn't called the dealer but looks like an OE valve is not in the cards. I did however notice the heater valve out of a 70-73 240Z looks the same. The braket assembly is different but There are 4 dog-ear tabs thad bend over to secure the valve to the assmbly bracket, same on the Celica. I'm thinking the Z valve can be removed from the Z bracket and fitted to the Celica bracket without too much hassle. Looks like the inlet tube might need to be shortened somewhat too...no biggie.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

Headers are painted and bolted up now. Just need an exhaust flange gasket to bolt up the rest of the exhaust. I think I'm getting close to a first start after 8 years of engine out down time! worked on installing the MSD ignition. Just need to verify it's hooked up right before I hit the key. Need to verify wich of the two wires coming off the distributor are pos and neg....plus wich wire off the Celica harness is the tach wire and if it is to go to the MSD tach output now or to the neg side of the coil? Also there is a mystery Yellow wire with a black stripe, don't know where that goes or what it does....looks like it once went to the coil or the old Toyota ignitor/ignition amplifier.

Here is the MSD mostly installed


Engine bay

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

this thing is beautiful. one of my favorite toyotas.

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Thanks!

Now that the MSD is installed it was time for the moment of truth and so I attempted a first start last night.....No dice!

The MSD is working properly as disconnecting the MSD from the distributor and jumping the MSD trigger wires produces a nice blue spark coming out of the coil. what I don't know is:

Is the distributor magnetic pickup triggering the MSD properly? If so, then that will lead me to believe it's a cap/rotor issue. New cap and rotor are on the way. In the mean time I would like to test the magnetic pickup in the distributor. I suppose i could remove the coil wire from the cap and see if I get spark to a ground while cranking, that would mean there's spark going into the cap and none coming out....bingo, cap/rotor is your prob. if no spark when cranking at the coil then magnetic trigger is the issue. at least this is what I'm thinking.

There is conjecture about weather or not you still need to use an ignitor box with the MSD, we shall see. I beleive you do not.

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.

Got it started today! No ignitor. Cap and rotor were rubbish.

I rumaged around a bit in the garage until I found an old ignitor wich led me to break out the green bible and check it's wiring as well as check the specs on the distributor since this book covers 20R Electronic distributors...essentially the same as the distributor on the 18RG.

When I read that the Magnetic pickup should generate above 4.5v at 1500 RPMs and MSD says the 6A box only needs 0.3v to trigger, I realized an ignitor was a redundancy or really a moot point with this particular ignition system. You CAN run an ignitor system, but you will trigger the MSD with the white points trigger wire off the ignitors original neg coil lead, the MSD provides the pos and neg coil leads with the boosted and multiplied juice.

Someone on another site stated earlier they are using the same setup but had problems until they adjusted the airgap. Airgap should be between 0.008"- 0.016", the closer to the .008" the better. Wider than .016" could definitely cause a signifigant enough voltage drop at low RPMs to prevent satisfactory operation.

Also a faulty or shorted magnetic sensor can yeild equally disheartening results... Resistance should be between 130 and 190 Ohms anything outside of that and you have a bad mag sensor.

So, now that all that is put to bed I need to figure out how to get the video off my camera and on my computer to post up for you guys. I explain the whole setup and best of all you get to hear it rumble!

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Roads?....Where we're going, we don't need Roads.