Hi guys, I started to do some bodywork restoration on my celica starting March of 2008 and completed it by September of last year.

I bought my celica in 2001, this is my first car, so took some time to really finish her up. I'm not into the show and shine kind of car restoration, so it's very much like race car for the road motivated rebuild, the car rebuild brief is as follows:

1. Tuned engine (I want a race engine) but at least fast road engine should do, with cams, bigger carbs, bigger valves, high compression piston, head ported and polished, tubular extractors, throw out the air cond compressor, electric fan. Making it a very responsive engine.

2. Suspensions and braking system to suit canyon carving, additional fitting of rear anti roll bar, and track days, I love to drive through the back roads to my parents house, highway is a big no no for me.

3. Bodywork to be rust free, and to have some period correct bodykit and also the wheels to be something old skool looking. Replacement of all the window, door rubbers and weatherseals, from the back of the trunk all the way to the end of the hood.

4. Refreshed wiring and electrical systems, brighter lights, period correct switches, and restoring the original gauges and meters, replacement of tail lights and indicator light.

5. Interior to be race car simulated as possible, racing harness, full bucket racing seats, throw out the rear passenger seat, no radio, no air cond, no power window, no floor insulation tars, no carpet, refurbishing the cracked dash top, of course having a roll cage is my ultimate aim, but in Malaysia the Road Transport Authority makes having a roll cage in a road car a pain in the S, so not at the moment.

6. Refurbishing all the chrome parts, garnish, grille, and badges. Still looking for some badges.

7. All the underbody rubbers and bushes to be replaced with polyurethane ones.

So that was roughly what i had in mind when I started my celica project and soon i'll post the pics how this brief became a reality. So keep and eye on my thread.

Here is a picture of my car back when I bought it in 2001



Regards
Raj

I like that. Good stuff man.

hey Raj..finally you made up here...can't wait for more pics...

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Hope you gonna enjoy the following the thread Glides, and nice to see my old buddy here, I couldn't have completed some part of my rebuild without bullitt's help, he is the guy to look for when you need those hard to find parts

Regards
Raj

After driving daily since 2001 and about 2 years of inactive duty when I went to Australia, the car really became as everybody say old piece of junk. So in the March of 2008 I had enough fund to start my Celica's project and sent her to my trusted Mechanic Mr.Mie (we just call him Abg. Mie he's a all toyota freak) to pull her out in bits and mount the bare body on a trolley or chassis dolly of some sort. This would make life more easier for the bodyshop guys to undertake their duties.



My previous engine was a 2TC with twin 40phh mikuni, it ran nice but then slowly valve seat started leaking and overall the engine needs a rebuild.



Just look at following pictures to get an idea how was the Celica's condition once we started to pull out all the parts and bits




After beating out all the floor tar insulation a lot of rust and odd patch job started to reveal itself




The petrol tank was previously rust repaired so the tank wasn't too bad, but the spare tire well, and the small labyrinth on the left of the trunk used too collect a lot of water when it rains, and thus rusted badly



The previous owner had fixed a sunroof so the poor patch job done previously after the sunroof was removed started to peel and break the body fillers.



The camber arm (is that the correct name?) started to rot away from the badly rusted front crossmember



The chassis section right in front of the engine crossmember mounting were badly rusted and gave away.




And more floor and chassis rust, lots of, lots of holes on the floor pan.

I'll update a little more later, trying to write this thread while my lunch break in my office, so I have limited amount of time.

Regards
Raj

Alright, after pulling out all the bit's and pieces from the car, it's time to build the body dolly, and my mechanic did a good job of it.




One bracket was welded on the front tow points



And another one on the rear part of the chassis






Finally chassis dolly done.

Regards
raj

Alright coming to the engine, as my rebuild brief in the first thread says "Tuned engine (I want a race engine) but at least fast road engine should do, with cams, bigger carbs, bigger valves, high compression piston, head ported and polished, tubular extractors, throw out the air cond compressor, electric fan. Making it a very responsive engine."

So these are some of the go fast bits I had collected for my humble old 2T:


Mikuni 44PHH on Mikuni intake manifold for 2T


BRD Racing 296 degree Camshaft


BRD Racing large stainless steel valves 45mm Intake & 38.5mm (or was it 38mm, I can't remember) Exhaust


BRD Racing double valve spring


BRD Racing hardened pushrod


Hardened performance lifters


ARP rod bolts and I also have the flywheel bolts but not pictured here.

I wanted to keep the engine upgrade as very much an oldskool type of modification, I could have demised the pain going through to purchase all the performance parts for the 2T from America and just plonk in an EFI engine like 4age. But being my first car that I bought when I was 21 and driving around with the 2T for almost 8 years without failing, I fell in love with the 2T, it's a bombproof engine, it never broke down on me when I was travelling long distance and in remote areas. I decided the engine deserve better treatment than just throwing it out. And just love the burbling and high rev wailing of the twin sidedraft carbs.

But the plan didn't go as I wanted for the engine side, because look what I found in the next post, coming soon.....

Regards
Raj

So I suppose to rebuild my 2TC with all the bits and more from the previous post, until I found this piece of kit for sale, got the engine from the other end of Malaysia, Sabah which is part of borneo island. The engine is in a very sorry state, but I wanted the engine because it has some tasty bits in them:

Weber 45 DCOE
310 degree intake and exhaust from KENT Cams (custom grind)
TRD double valve spring
TRD large intake and exhaust valves
Stage 2 port and polished head
TOM'S exhaust header
88.5mm oversize TOMOE high compression piston
TRD flywheel
TRD high volume oil pump
Fully balanced bottom end
Modified distributor (but not too sure what was exactly done)



Yep looks like the engine was taken out of a deep water well



I got rid away with the engine fan, I'm using electric fan now.



WEBBBEEEERRRRRRRR!!!! They sound beautiful at 8500rpm, once they were serviced, cleaned and with some sweet lovin and care.




The TOM"S extractor

A little history about this engine, it was built in 1978 as a production category race engine, and then used for fast road application. it was pulled out in 1985 and stored in a workshop in Sabah until I purchased it in april of 2008.

So I think the engine fitted my aim as I wished. It's time to clean and service the engine.

Regards
Raj

Ordered the dual dcoe universal linkage kit, and tried fitting it to the 2T-G manifold, had to rethread the bolt holes on the manifold previously used to hold the balance tube, to accept the thread size of the pivot ball joint given with the kit.









The reason I got rid away with the top mount WEBER cable pull linkage kit is because first of all, I had all the original carburetor linkage from my accelerator pedal, having the cable will look to snaking around the engine bay and making it look cluttered, and this type of push rod linkage gives more optimal individual carburetor adjustment and balance, and finally of course a very JDM look.

Regards
Raj

Alright so the rust repair officially started. Starting with the sill.





Obviously these sills left and right trap lots of water when it's raining, and they prone to rust very fast.









Regards
Raj

The old paint are scrapped off, and in the process of bringing the body to bare metal shell.




The previous owner had fixed sunroof on this car and decided to remove at some point and that bad patch job really stood out like a sore thumb.



The trunk lid didn't look too bad except for the rust at the corner and edge of the trunk lid


The repaired inner sill panel




Regards
Raj

crispy

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Yep baked to perfection, keep an eye here, there is more yummy crispy and crunchy treat fro you my friend.

Regards
Raj

First of all sorry for the shaky picture quality, because I avoid using flash wherever I can and my camera doesn't have much of anti vibration feature. Alright the floor pan on the driver side and driver side passenger have been replaced, and a little bit more work on the inner sill panel.




The edge of the floor strengthening frame have also been replaced




Regards
Raj

A bit more work have been undertaken, mainly on the rear part of the car.

The spare tire compartment have been welded


The trunk frame was also repaired



There was a small ding on the bottom of the rear quarter panel, but have been straightened.


The rear window frame and the drip rail also cut, replaced and welded



And there was some uneven panel warp on the rear wheel arch which was welded with a rod and pulled out, to straighten it.


That is so far, will update soon

Regards
Raj

With the driver side floor pan rust repair done, the passenger side floor pan was completed next







Regards
Raj

Once the floor pan repair was done, the next part of the rust repair was centered at the front windscreen area, the frames at the side to be specific, the drip rail next to the wiper panel, and the hood bondo and body fillers were scrapped to asses the rust damage.




Similar to the rear windscreen frame, the front windscreen frame was cut out and replaced with fresh metal welded onto the place of the rusted one. This area is the most crucial area if it rusts the water will leak in while raining.






The next one was the drip rail next to the wiper panel. I think a lot of celicas in general have this problem. Towards the edge of this drip rail at both sides there are pipes to direct the water which enters through the drip rail. But if your celica was parked under a tree or outdoor generally, then these pipes are likely to be clogged with leaves and small twigs, thus not channeling the water to the ground and the stagnant water causes rust to occur.



Upon scrapping out the bondo and body fillers from the hood, it looks like the car might have meet in accident previously, I'm gauging it from the layer of thick bondo/body filler especially on the front part of the hood.

If our cars could only talk, it'll be interesting to hear where they've been and what they've been through.

Regards
Raj

Beautiful, beautiful vehicle, force it.
You'll be with a nice car.

Regards,

Thank You very much Paulo, hope you going to like seeing what's coming up more with paint job and those stuff

Regards
Raj

So the next part of the body work was to attack the rust in the engine bay and front crossmember.



Engine bay didn't have major rust issue except that the battery tray side was rusted till there was a hole in the body. so that was cut and repaired. Maybe the battery water acidity did the job well




The front headlight panel had some rust welding done. But the major repair was more centered to the front crossmember. The crossmember rotted to the core, so it could'nt be saved with welding repair, so a new crossmember was fabricated. I'll post that pic on the later threads. But here for the moment the damage on the crossmember.






The crossmember was in really bad shape.

Regards
Raj