MX32 Cressida in Alberta

stefman454 · **Posted:** Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:05 pm

Thanks for the warning, but the setup is just new coil springs and shocks in the back. Only the fronts are actually coilovers.

stefman454 · **Posted:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 9:45 pm

This just arrived for me in the mail today. a few other items still to come

stefman454 · **Posted:** Sun Mar 11, 2012 11:23 pm

Ok, so the weather here has been crazy lately, but after a pretty big dump of snow 10 or so days ago it is suddenly warm enough to start doing some mucking around. Still can't do much, about a foot of snow left to melt before I can get the car off the blocks and roll her out for the spring. But, I had an itch to scratch so I tackled some little jobs today. In preparation for new wheels I painted the rear drums today, just black, nothing fancy. I also noticed that the rubber stone guard in the rear wells has dried out completely and if flaking off in large chunks. I picked up a couple cans of spray to re-do the lining, but I can't do that until it gets warmer. The weather forecast is for 7-10 degrees all week (44-50 for Fahrenheit) so I might have to pull it into the garage and turn on the furnace if I get impatient.

Other than that I saw that my splash guard was starting to get pretty rusty and the paint was flaking off pretty badly. I know it's not a hugely major part, but you only get one, so I figured I should clean it up.

Sanding the rough stuff on the inside wasn't too bad, I just wanted to get the flaky stuff off to prep it for chassis paint. The side that faces the road, however, have me way more than I bargained for to get it ready for paint. I turned it over and my sandpaper kept getting gummed up by oily crud that had been splashed up off the road. The whole thing was covered in sticky grime. So, I hit it with Easy-Off heavy duty oven degreaser. This stuff is pretty corrosive, I wouldn't recommend anyone use it without gloves and then only on non-cosmetic metal like this stuff. It even took off a lot of the damaged paint for me! It also turned the grime a nice brown which made it super visible.

After a few times over with that (and about an hour later) and straightening the fins which had been damaged, it came out looking like this:

And then paint. I used a chassis paint rated to 200F since it's so close to the engine.

Not a huge job, no one will even see it, but those things are a pain in the rear if they start to get rusted out so I'm glad to know it'll be fine for a long time.

On a side note I also tracked these original dealership brochures down on eBay, pretty cool to flip through and read how these cars were advertised. For example, the Cressida Wagon is promoted up by a 60 somethings couple who talk about how spacious the back is for their antique collecting hobby.

And with that an itch has been scratched. I haven't been able to do anything but keep the snow off the car since October.

stefman454 · **Posted:** Tue Mar 27, 2012 3:08 pm

Ok, now on to wheel choice. I have been fighting with this choice for a couple of months now and I have gone from something like a Rota RB, to something more like the Rota Shakotan, and now I've got it narrowed down to something with fewer spokes. I'm looking right now at either a set of Work Equip 01's which are super nice and very expensive, or the Enkei Apache II in black since I think having some black in the wheel looks great on brown cars. The other bonus is that the Enkei costs less than half than the Work wheel. Any opinions? I have never actually bought a set of aftermarket wheels before, I'm pretty new to this whole process.

schassisowner · **Posted:** Tue Mar 27, 2012 5:41 pm

just look for something second hand.... wheels are really only worth what people are willing to pay. personally the shaoktans are really nice for knock offs; it probably is better to lower the car first to see how wide a wheel you can fit.

stefman454 · **Posted:** Sat May 12, 2012 10:11 pm

Hello everyone, been a while since I updated this. Not too much to report right now unfortunately. I pulled some hubs out of an 83 celica at the local scrap yard along with the caliper brackets and dust shields to use on a new set of T3's which I was all set to order until my money had to go elsewhere in maintenance. I bought new calipers pads and rotors though so we're getting closer.

In terms of maintenance I had a pretty bad transmission output shaft leak and a badly leaking transmission pan gasket and really dirty fluid. New fluid and both gaskets changed. I also had to get the coolant flushed since it was super old. Oil change, cap and rotor, new plug wires, new air filter and today I washed it and ATTEMPTED to change the plugs in the 4M, but ran into some issues. Anyone have any idea how to get at the plug in cylinder 1 behind the air pump?? I can't even get my socket past the mounting bolt for the air pump. Do I have to take that nut off?

And how she sits after her first wash and wax of the year. More work to come, including those coilovers, hopefully by the end of the summer. Until then I'm loving driving it like it is. Still wondering whether to get the body work done this winter. There isn't much rust, but I don't want it to get away on me. I was quoted about $3500 to get the body show quality. All the small-ish dings it has add up.

Credit to Buzzbomber for the idea on the custom plate

schassisowner · **Posted:** Sun May 13, 2012 10:55 am

if you arent driving it in salt why do the body work? it looks clean as hell

i dailied mine all winter, now we didnt get any snow but i picked up a dd i will just patch what is bad and it wont see bad weather

schassisowner · **Posted:** Sun May 13, 2012 10:57 am

also did u try using a few extensions? i always use extensions on plugs and i never have an issue. the 4me has the PS in the way of number one cylinder but i still managed fine.

btw if you ever wanna mess around with efi or anything i am parting out my 4me

stefman454 · **Posted:** Sun May 13, 2012 3:09 pm

The car is covered in dings and small dents which don't show up in the photos, likely from things constantly being bumped into with things in the previous owner's garage. There is also a fair amount of rust on the front passenger fender along the bottom which you can sort of see in that shot. Each of the wheel wells also has rust on each lower edge of the trim. All in all it's doing really well for the year, but it certainly isn't as clean as I would eventually like it to be. You can see it more with a full sized picture, but that just makes message boards hell to navigate.

As for the extensions I tried using knuckles and everything, but the problem is that the socket itself can't actually make the angle to get down there, even without the post attached I can get it down there.

stefman454 · **Posted:** Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:13 pm

Well, it's been a while since an update on this car. The plan has become more of a spring-time project since I'm parking this car for the winter in a matter of about 4-6 weeks, the snow will be here soon. However, I have able to take care of one problem with the interior which was bugging me. The previous owner had carved the hell out of the console to fit a CD player in the old coin tray spot and it looked awful. Not only that it had been re-installed incorrectly and wasn't fitting right and was missing some screws. There was also damage from something melting the plastic. The console/armrest was also squeaking and rattling because someone had leaned on it too hard and blown out the side of that console piece.

I was at the local scrap yard when I came across something I never thought I'd see again (and haven't seen in three years): an MX32 Cressida. Not only that, it had the same colour interior. I still can't believe my luck.

So I was able to go from this:

To this:

You'll notice a NOS 8-track player which I also installed, which SHOULD be functional once I get a grounding wire to connect the original radio to the 8-track. The original radio also still works, but I need an antenna for it. So, I have a quiet, clean, matching interior with a touch of retro flair. I couldn't be happier. The colour is slightly off from the dash, which bothered me a little bit at first until I realized the original glove box door is off too. Now they just balance out? Works for me. The CD player is now in the glove box, with the wires run through the hole which was originally for the glove box light, which I simply removed since it was burnt out anyway.

I'm going back to the yard tomorrow to hopefully get ALL the lenses off that car since all the corners and tails were in perfect condition.

BeanBone · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2012 9:23 am

Wow, what a lucky find at the yard! New bits look great.

MX32 Cressida in Alberta

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