FlannelFairlady
New member
Awhile back I helped a friend out with his very rough 1990 Celica All-Trac that had definitely seen a hard life. The car looks like someone was getting ready to paint it but had no idea what they were doing, and been in an accident on top of that. My friend got it back in 2013 and since then has replaced and rebuilt the engine, and replaced the turbo. He also installed a poorly fitting 3" cat back exhaust and a Mishimoto radiator. My friend decided to sell the car as he didn't have time to work on it, naturally I jumped at the opportunity as I have wanted an All-Trac for a long time now and the price was waaaaay too good to pass up. ($1500) It had sat in storage for about 6 months, but it fired right up and ran like a dream. I drove it back to my place with little drama other than a water leak. I am mainly a Datsun person so this a new experience for me, but my Datsun project is a 78 280z with a turbo 1UZ running megasquirt and should make around 550whp.
Since I have gotten the car home I have gone through it a bit and found out what I need to do with the car before I can use it as my daily for the winter which is the immediate goal and the plan is to do some extensive work next summer on the car. So far I have mostly mended the core support which had been pushed in and up in an accident. For that I pretty much just pulled it back out with a come along hooked up to my GF's Datsun 620 pickup, it still needs to be tweaked but I am not too worried since the plan is to replace the lower core support next summer. A lot of the little bits on the car are missing or not correct so the plan is to replace what I can. Unfortunately someone drilled holes in the hood for hood pins and the hood is kinked from an accident so I will need to track down a replacement at some point. I also want to put some actual paint on it since it I am not fond of the mismatched primer look. Also the initial plan is to remove the stock antiquated ecu setup and go to megasquirt like most of my cars as of late. I will likely spray paint the car for the winter so I don't have to drive a mismatched car, since my Z is presently occupying the shop.
That steering wheel really really bugs me so that will likely be one of the first things to go.
This is after I pulled out the core support a bit still pretty tweaked.
And this is where I ended up with it, the passenger side is still a bit too high but the north south crossmember fits like it supposed to so good enough for now.
Since I have gotten the car home I have gone through it a bit and found out what I need to do with the car before I can use it as my daily for the winter which is the immediate goal and the plan is to do some extensive work next summer on the car. So far I have mostly mended the core support which had been pushed in and up in an accident. For that I pretty much just pulled it back out with a come along hooked up to my GF's Datsun 620 pickup, it still needs to be tweaked but I am not too worried since the plan is to replace the lower core support next summer. A lot of the little bits on the car are missing or not correct so the plan is to replace what I can. Unfortunately someone drilled holes in the hood for hood pins and the hood is kinked from an accident so I will need to track down a replacement at some point. I also want to put some actual paint on it since it I am not fond of the mismatched primer look. Also the initial plan is to remove the stock antiquated ecu setup and go to megasquirt like most of my cars as of late. I will likely spray paint the car for the winter so I don't have to drive a mismatched car, since my Z is presently occupying the shop.
That steering wheel really really bugs me so that will likely be one of the first things to go.
This is after I pulled out the core support a bit still pretty tweaked.
And this is where I ended up with it, the passenger side is still a bit too high but the north south crossmember fits like it supposed to so good enough for now.