LocostUSA.com

Where to begin.....

Well, I figured I would at least start to chronicle the progress here. Like many things in life, I had lofty plans to start up a web page to detail the build. But soon realized that I was having too much fun in the garage to end it early so I could go in the house to type code and paste pictures. Who knows? Maybe one day I'll get to that.

The donor is a 1983 Celica with a 22RE and a live axle. It took me a little less than a month to strip the donor down to the bare shell. The only things I'm not using from the donor are the front struts. I'll most likely be going with Chevette or Hyundai Stellar spindles. I need to find a free weekend to go junkyard hopping to find those. The instrument cluster is fairly ugly too so I may scrap that as well and go with aftermarket gauges.

The motor had quite an accumulation of grunge on the front of it so it was the first thing I tackled. I pulled it all apart, replaced all the bearings, rings and seals. I also painted the block, the pulleys and the valve cover and oil pan. I'll paint the tranny as well, just not right now. I know the motor will be going through a couple dozen test fits so I wanted it to be nice and clean so I wasn't getting grease and dirt all over everything. I'm going with a book frame and the motor may be a little tall for that but I might lower it some, I will be building my own intake, and I'm not totally opposed to a hood scoop.

I had my build table finished in November - five months before I bought the donor and two months before I bought even one stick of tubing. A good part of the late winter and spring was spent accumulating the few remaining tools I would need: engine hoist & stand, chop saw and a drill press. Things no garage should be without.

I just finished securing the tubes for the bottom rail to the table last night. Tube C seemed to be too short and I honestly couldn't figure out why. But hey, these plans are modified fifty times over - I'm quite sure there will be other changes down the road. But now that the tubes are down, I will spend the next few nights practice welding on my scrap pile before I even try tacking down the frame.

I just found this one.

oh man, talk about deja vu! any tips for the engine work? I've never done block work and am a little hesitent to crack open the block...

keep it up!

I have been taking dozens of digital pics for reference when putting it back together. Both with the engine in the car and out. Pictures from every conceivable angle. I've also got myself a Paynes manual. At the bare minimum, you will need the Paynes manual. I may go get a factory manual yet. I looked a little bit online when I first got the car but didn't have much luck. I've taken quite a few engines apart but this is my first Toyota one. I gotta say - for being built in 1983, it's pretty damn complex.

Tearing it down was fairly tedious. I would pull something off, clean it, bag (or box) it with the bolts, label it and put it away. Move on to something else. I would also again take pictures at various times.

If you haven't done it before, engine rebuilding isn't something you want to stop in the middle and take a vacation from. Putting things back together is going to test your memory and the longer between disassembly and reassembly the tougher it will be. But the Paynes manual will help. Pick up an engine seal kit before you start. If you plan to replace bearings and rings (I always do) it's best to have the old ones in your hand before you buy the new ones. You can never know if your engine was rebuilt in the past and had the crank ground down or the cylinders bored out. I have yet to find a parts dealer that had internal parts for this particular engine on the shelf. If they have to bring them in, returning the wrong ones could be a hassle.

There's also tools you will need: Valve spring compressor, piston ring compressor, micrometer or digital calipers, torque wrench, etc.

On my engine for example, I could tell that the oil pan had been removed in the past. The gasket surface was pretty badly scratched up. And the #3 piston and bearing was different from the others. I measured everything and it was all standard size. I could only guess that maybe a valve spring broke and it dropped a valve ruining that piston. I don't know.

But a manual and being organized are your biggest assets. Attention to detail doesn't hurt either. Cleanliness is everything too. If you can follow simple steps, it really isn't that bad. The Paynes manual pretty much outlays all the steps you would need to take to get it apart and get it back together again.

ah, that picture looks a little more familiar...

I plan on getting the alldata stuff from my father once its time for engine work. Hopefully redo the seals, headgasket, maybe a valve regrind and TRD cam. Whats your thoughts on upgrading this bulletproof engine?

The TRD cam is a good start. From what I've read, you don't need to touch the bottom end at all. It's all done above the head gasket. This is the first Toyota I've owned so I found some websites that helped.

www.celica-gts.com

www.celicas.org

Each of those pages have plenty of links to people who have been playing with these motors for years and years.

Ahhhh... Compound angle day....

It really wasn't as bad as I had envisioned it. I got to this point in the build and decided to take my time with it. I went with building a jig out of an old wooden locker door and some 2x4. Started with the easy stuff - tubes LD and LC. Got those cut first and cleaned up the ends. I marked out where I needed them to be on my board then clamped them in place.

Then I went and cut the sharper angles on LA and LB. I originally cut these tubes a couple of mm longer because I knew I would be cleaning them up on my bench grinder eventually plus it's a little bit of insurance in case I managed to screw something up. Going off the McSorley drawings the angle was 63 degrees. Once I had those angles cut, I placed the tubes in their respective places in the jig to see what kind of material I had to take off for the second cut.

I just scored a line on the tube straight up from where the tube meets the wood with my T-square. Then I took it to my little Princess Auto chop saw and scratched my head. I went back to the jig and sized it up again. I went back to my chop saw... back to the jig...

You get the picture. I had to prop up the end of the tube with and lock it in to the saw. I was totally eyeballing it off my scribed lines and trying to line it up with the blade. Finally, after probably a half dozen trips to my jig I was confident enough to slice it. And to my amazement, the first cut was absolutely bang on.

I thought this was easy! I reset the saw for the bottom end. I had to reverse my angles that the saw was set to and how much I lifted it. Again, a couple of test fits later, I pulled the trigger and cut it. It wasn't as perfect as the first one but I cut my tubes a little long, remember? A quick trip to the bench grinder cleaned it all up nicely.

I did the same thing with LB then decided to call it a night without tack welding. I've already had one complaint from the neighbor across the alley about working past midnight. Honestly, I thought I had turned the compressor off before 10:00.

Oh yeah - one more thing. The wife is taking the kids to a birthday party Saturday morning so it looks like my first FREE Saturday morning of the year. I'm going to spend it spindle shopping at the junkyards. Weather is going to perfect for yanking parts.

I sure hope I find a Hyundai Stellar. Second choice would be Chevette....

If you end up with the Chuvette spindles, and your rear axle is 4x114.3, also snag front hubs from a Datsun 210. you will need a dust seal from a Datsun B210 (but buy that new).

The studs will likely be different as well, but LordCo/Napa/etc. can likely hook you up with a stud that fits the Datsun hub and the Toyota thread pitch.

G

I haven't measured yet but I was under the impression my rear was 4x100mm. That should match a 76 - 80 'vette. This is just from going off the group data on the home page here.

Chevette is 4x100mm. Datsun is 4x114.3mm - your Celica rear end should also be 4x114.3mm so Chevette spindles + B210 hubs = a bolt pattern match for your rear end. I have a set of Fiero spindles and they are quite close to the Steller ones I have. Apparently they were modified a bit (came with my frame and body panels).

The 4x4 Tercel has a live axle with 4x100mm. The Stellar is 4x4.25" btw.

No. Chevette spindles + Datsun 210 hubs + B210 seal.

Chevette spindles = Fiero spindles (up to 88 or something)

Later Chevettes have bigger brake calipers.

G

I am weak and worthless....

I did go junkyard shopping Saturday am. I got skunked on the spindles though. To be fair, I had planned on going to two yards on my side of town. But one had changed their hours and is no longer open on Saturday. Go figure... The other yard was open but didn't have anything. So I started looking around for a radiator and fan. I found one but changed my mind once I got a closer look at it. Then it started to get really hot and I was discouraged so I used the money to take the wife and mini-muggles to see the new Harry Potter flick later that night. My oldest (he's six) is nuts about anything Potter.

But I did get some quality time in the garage welding up my top rails in the afternoon. I'm following the book directions exactly and I'm up to tubes K3 and K4. Still a long way to go. My neighbor came by and commented on what a nice looking boat I was building.

The guy thinks he's a comedian or something since he knows full well what I'm doing. I banned him from my beer fridge for a whole week for that crack.

sounds like you are well on your way to building a fine locost. SOMEHOW, I just noticed you are using a 22RE. What a great motor! My buddy has one of those in his toyota pickup and for a lack of better words its pretty much bulletproof. If I'm not mistaken, Toyota released a few turbo 22RE's, which would make an uberfun weekend driver. Please keep us updated on the status of build, Im seriously thinking of picking up a 22RE for my upcoming build. Cheers!

I found myself an 85 Chevette and I'll hopefully be grabbing the spindles tonight. I will also be getting the brakes and rotors too. Will that all still be okay with the Datsun hub? Providing I can find one, that is...