I've been on the lookout for a car to fix up with my kids for a while now. I found a few, but nothing that really stuck out. I found a '69 Camaro, a couple of Evos, lots of WRXs (Subaru's are extremely popular in Alaska) 240s, 280s, a 300zx… You know the usual list. The Camaro was waaay too far gone for me and the others are too common. I didn't know what I was looking for but it had to be special; I didn't want to run into myself at every street corner and I wanted it to be something not a lot of people knew about (That's probably the #1 thing I love about this car). It had to make me feel something too. I had some criteria. It had to be at least rear-wheel drive but all-wheel was better, and I preferred four doors. It had to be black. No wiggle room there.
I was keeping my eyes open for anything that stuck out for months when I remembered a story that my buddy told me in high school about a Celica GT4: It got smoked by what ended up being a turbo'd sleeper Astro mini-van :doh: ... but it was still a fast car, he said. So I checked around and found this. One of very few so I wouldn't pull up between two others at the stop light. Leather, sunroof, cruise control, manual. A great support following and a great pedigree. Perfect. It needed love. Badly. But I thought, "This is perfect. I can teach my kids everything from brakes to bodywork and save this car from certain death." The previous owners really did not treat it well at all.
This will be a slow-but-sure project to bring this car to what it should be. I'm learning as I go about the all-trac, so I want to take lots of pictures with part numbers and help people who may be looking for the same stuff. I appreciate constructive criticism, so if you see I've missed something or think I should try something different feel free to chime in. Please remember: This is as much my kids' project as it is mine, so keep it constructive. Thanks.
If there’s one thing I regret already it’s not taking a picture of it the minute I picked it up, just to show you how bad it was from the beginning. The first thing I did was wash it. And get new wheels.
Yikes! I had to drive around with these for a week. :nono: It looked like James Bond in a Tuxedo T-Shirt. Just... awful.
Much Better!
If you get these make sure you get small diameter lug nuts. I got the black ones:
http://www.gorilla-auto.com/small-diame ... ts-page-02
The upgrades I've done so far have been to modernize it.
TWM Short Shifter http://www.twmperformance.com/shortshif ... ifters.htm
Everything that comes in the box
Old vs New
Installed. I usually don't go for the CF, but this looks really good. I plan to get a new boot. More important things first.
We've done a lot to the car, but we'll post it later.
I was keeping my eyes open for anything that stuck out for months when I remembered a story that my buddy told me in high school about a Celica GT4: It got smoked by what ended up being a turbo'd sleeper Astro mini-van :doh: ... but it was still a fast car, he said. So I checked around and found this. One of very few so I wouldn't pull up between two others at the stop light. Leather, sunroof, cruise control, manual. A great support following and a great pedigree. Perfect. It needed love. Badly. But I thought, "This is perfect. I can teach my kids everything from brakes to bodywork and save this car from certain death." The previous owners really did not treat it well at all.
This will be a slow-but-sure project to bring this car to what it should be. I'm learning as I go about the all-trac, so I want to take lots of pictures with part numbers and help people who may be looking for the same stuff. I appreciate constructive criticism, so if you see I've missed something or think I should try something different feel free to chime in. Please remember: This is as much my kids' project as it is mine, so keep it constructive. Thanks.
If there’s one thing I regret already it’s not taking a picture of it the minute I picked it up, just to show you how bad it was from the beginning. The first thing I did was wash it. And get new wheels.
Yikes! I had to drive around with these for a week. :nono: It looked like James Bond in a Tuxedo T-Shirt. Just... awful.
Much Better!
If you get these make sure you get small diameter lug nuts. I got the black ones:
http://www.gorilla-auto.com/small-diame ... ts-page-02
The upgrades I've done so far have been to modernize it.
TWM Short Shifter http://www.twmperformance.com/shortshif ... ifters.htm
Everything that comes in the box
Old vs New
Installed. I usually don't go for the CF, but this looks really good. I plan to get a new boot. More important things first.
We've done a lot to the car, but we'll post it later.