New in dallas/Fort Worth Texas

[Crash1976]

Not new to all-tracs or Toyotas for that matter. I have been building a '74 1st Gen celica for some time now. I owned an '88 all-trac back around '01. i have missed my all-trac ever since. I don't miss it's problematic nature though being it was a real high miler. The 2nd gear was tricky to hit and it always had a cooling issue but was a blast to drive! I do miss it. I'm hanging around here to see if one pops up for sale with low miles and beautiful condition, a real collectors piece. Thannks for a great forum!

[UtahSleeper]

Welcome aboard. Hope your search bears some good fruit. Any picks to share of the Celi

[Crash1976]

Ask and ye shall receive!

I had gotten the 1st Gen Celica bug back around '99-'00 or so and got a '77 liftback. Then I saw the coupe and traded my Liftbck for a '77 coupe. I still wasn't happy since I had seen the 74 and earlier Celicas with thier shorter front ends and sick thin chrome bumpers and I knew my 77 would never be what I truly wanted. A buddy handed me a 4th or 5th generation copy of the TORC newsletter it had been copied so many times you could barely read it. In there was an ad for this Celica wich I purchased for $600 as you see it here:





It cost me as much to transport it out here to Texas as what ithe car cost. So I had $1200 in it finally getting it here. It ran and drove and originally had an 18RC with the 3spd auto. I drove it for a few months and then swapped the Auto for a 5spd Manual...what a difference! Drove it for a few more months with the 5spd and then the tear down restoration process started.

We started the restoration by fully disassembling the sheetmetal. it's nice to have friends to help with the work, my friend jeff here helping with the tear down and another friend who does the bodywork. Here are some pics of the completed bodywork in primer and the stripped down engine bay. We pretty much threw the old 18RC in the trash when we removed it.







Here are the updated Engine Bay Pics. Fresh paint on the steering box and idler arm. It was amazing how cruddy and nasty the steering box was. The top of it is actually supposed to be silver!



I hit the fittings with a wire wheel on a dremel. Also ran black expandable mesh looming over the lines to clean up the appearance.



The car originally had an 18RC single cam engine 2ltr, I sourced an 18RG twin cam 2ltr with dual Solex/Mikuni 40mm Side Draft carbs.
Here is the 18RG finally installed! Been a long time since this car actually had a motor in it.




The Hood on! It's been almost 8years since the hood was bolted down on this car.


I have been out tinkering on this thing every night for the last month. Here are some pics of progress so far.





I sanded, primed, sanded, primed,sanded some more and repainted the bumper filler panels, a nice result if I do say so myself.






An over view of the driver side engine bay. Kind of a mess with all the wire tracking I had to do.


So that's where I am right now with it. Started installing the new carpet. still need to pull and clean the tank. Then hook up fuel and install the MSD box. Then it should go vroom.

[bloodMoney]

Looks great man! Keep up the hard work and welcome!

[alltracst185]

Looks amazing thus far! Great job bro

[darthripley]

Welcome! always good to see other members in the D/FW area.

your name & car are familar to me from JNC but i don't think my husband & i have met you in person as of yet.
hopefully we'll see you & the celica this spring/summer at one of the meets

great work on the celica btw

[d1alltrac]

nice celica. where in dfw are you? I live in N.FTW but I'm staying near tms for a while. I'd love to see it in person one day.

[Crash1976]

I'm in arlington, but work in east Fort worth by the N.E. Mall sort of.
Yeah darthripley you have seen me on JNC. I have chimed in a few times on the north texas vintage meet thread a few times. I know Jon(datsunfreak) Tim, and have been friends with Jeff(kingtoy) for 15 years, he is the one that got me in to Toyotas in the first place, in fact his white AW11 he drives used to be mine. If you look at one of the teardown pics above, that guy kneeling down by the toolbox is Jeff(kingtoy) back in the pre-blue-hair days.. lol I have been to a couple of the sunday night meets at purple cow but must have missed some of you guys. I will be at the next meet wherever that will be considering the Purple Cow is closed down now.

Come to think of it I have an old snapshot of me and my old alltrac here. i'll have jeff scan it and post it up in a bit.

I want another alltrac so I'm poking around looking for when a nice one pops up...clean low mile cherry cream puff... I'll be waiting a while I know but in a matter like this patience is a virtue.

[Crash1976]

here's the only picure i have of my old alltrac

[darthripley]

you're right about patience being a virtue in finding "the" alltrac that you want.
it took my husband & i a little over 2 years before we found our alltrac & drove him home from Cali.

i'd like to say we'll be at the next JNC meet but we prolly won't come out until our 87 MR2 is drivable/nearly complete.
we've talked a lot with Jeff - he's a really nice guy & we came out in our ratty 89 MR2 swapped S/C, but he had his Cressy out there so we haven't seen the 85 MR2 yet.

we brought our alltrac to the JNC meet at the purple cow last summer - here's a pic below, I know you'll recognize Jeff's Cressy to the right:



d1alltrac you'll have to come out to one of the JNC meet sometime .. perhaps it could be a mini alltrac meet as well? (pleeeeeeeeeze!!!)

[Crash1976]

He'll be so glad when somebody buts his cressy! I just made a deal with him to buy his 79 rolla so i can trade it for parts to Joel at Toysport. Before I had the white mr2 jeff drives I had a gold one that we did a s/c swap in.... Never did figure out how to wire it up right to the ignition..... So I had a push button start before they were cool! But the I always was a trendsetter.

[Gearbox]

very nice cars. nice to see another celica enthusiast in the dfw area. good luck on your search.

[LegacyofDan]

Wow man, very nice. I personally have to admit i have a soft spot for the more classic of the Celica breeds...makes me want to hit up ebay/craigslist and see what i can find lol.
Again very nice work!

[Hotrodhendrix]

Any luck on your search? It seems like the DFW member count is finally increasing!

~James