Alright, since the last update to this thread was back in 2010 with no pictures....
Hold on to your belts, because here we go!
A lot has happened in 2.5 years: I finished college and got a job in my field, got engaged at the dragon meet last year, I got a pretty big promotion at work, we're looking to buy a house this year, and of course the st165 has received quite a few upgrades.
After coming to the decision that the motor that came with the car would need a full rebuild, we decided that we would pull the motor from our st185 'Ellie' (that was rusting out and needs a ton of work) and swap it into the st165 'Patty'. Last January (2012), I was gearing up to have the car on the road in time for the 2012 dragon, so there were quite a few parts and many weekend trips to MI (where the car is stored) to get all of the work done.
Basic brake refresh
Engine refresh
miscellaneous stuffs
Amongst other things, she also got Megan coilovers, upgraded to st185 calipers for a larger rotor with Hawk HPS pads and ATE Super Blue brake fluid, new Toyota rear spherical bearings, stage 1 Exedy clutch kit, and Enkei RP03 17x8 et35 wheels with Star Spec 215/40/17 tires.
I feel like I am forgetting a few things, so hopefully I'll remember more later. With all the work at hand, I should have expected things to go wrong, but I didn't expect things to go wrong as soon as I got my wheels shipped.
I bought lightly used wheels from a guy on NASIOC, and they had absolutely no curb rash or damage on them. However, since he packaged them poorly, and didn't insure them with FedEx when he shipped them, three of the four wheels had major rash on the lips because the boxes looked like this:
After a short dispute with the seller, he ended up reimbursing me for part of the price, and I took the wheels to be refinished. Since I had to refinish at least three of the wheels, I took the opportunity to change the color, too (silver to gunmetal).
Here are some pics from the motor swap:
After pulling the motor from the st185, we swapped over a few parts and installed the new clutch.
Engine ready to go in.
Mounts bolted in, time to start connecting everything.
The moment of truth - her first drive after the transplant (dirty as hell!!).
At this point, it was Saturday at midnight the weekend before the dragon. We were supposed to leave Monday morning to head to Cappy's in ATL, and neither of us was feeling comfortable with taking the car on a 2,500 mile round trip drive without a proper shake down period. So after all of the pushing to finish her in time, we had to make a hard decision to not take her down to the dragon with us. Of course, this meant we would be taking the silver 6th gen, but that car had a bad vibration in the rear driver suspension that would not be good on the dragon. One of the rear control arms on the drivers side had a blown bushing, and we had replacements for the entire rear suspension, but not enough time to tackle the job (requires dropping the rear subframe). It took about 2-3 hours, a lot of hammering and cussing due to the stubborn rust holding the bolts on the control arm in place, but we finally got the 6th gen road ready and drove home on Sunday afternoon to pack and leave Monday morning to go to ATL....
After coming home from the dragon, we were a bit burnt out working on Patty, so she sat there for a little while. When we travelled to MI, we started taking her to some of the local meets to get some mileage on the swap before driving long distances. One of the issues that surfaced was code 52 for knock sensor fault. At first we thought the knock sensor was bad, or that something had happened to the wiring during the swap, and the ecu was reading no knock sensor signal at all. After driving the car in limp mode for a few weekends, the check engine light turned off on its own one night, and the car started hitting boost properly.
The second issue that surfaced was a sticky front driver brake caliper, not to the point that it is affecting the way the car drives, but definitely causing the brakes to heat up too much from almost constant friction. We took the caliper apart, and were able to manually move the piston just fine, but when it was reinstalled, it was still sticky. The original plan for this season was to upgrade to the st205 front calipers that we have sitting in our parts horde, but given time restrictions again, I just ordered a remanufactured st185 caliper, and we will troubleshoot with the new caliper once we get the car back.
The third issue was a pin-hole size tear in the rear driver axle boot. RTV was a quick fix, with plans to rebuild or replace the axles later.
By the end of the summer, we put the car away for the season. I forgot to mention that we also bought a new car in February 2012 (2011 Mitsunishi Lancer Ralliart Sportback), so between the new car and the 6th gen, we had more than enough on our hands. At the same time, we started getting more involved in our local car scene and it motivated me to really get the car on the road this year.
Over winter, I have slowly been accumulating more parts. My goal for the car is to get everything running stock with absolutely no leaks or issues. Eventually, I think we will rebuild the spare motor, upgrade to 3rd gen electronics, st205 calipers or some other big brake kit, and a few other goodies. Since I am not making any big upgrades to the car this year, we decided the tackle the rust and body issues.
We chose to buy the car from gpmarzan because the body was in nearly perfect condition with very small rust issues, despite the fact that the car spent its entire life in the northern states. However, since we've had the car for three years and it has sat for the majority of this time, some existing rust conditions under the car began to worsen. There are four places on the underbody where patch panels will need to be welded into the floor pans, but the spots are small, and are luckily not near the frame rails. Patrick was also rear-ended, so the license plate bezel is cracked, and the unibody is not perfectly straight back there.
About six weeks ago, we bit the bullet and drove to MI to bring the car to our body guy here for an estimate. The drive from MI to the shop wasn't particularly fun, given the fact that I'm driving on Star Specs during the middle of a Chicago winter, but we picked the best weekend possible to make the trip. That 200+ mile trip was the longest drive without any breaks since the swap, and there were absolutely no issues. Woot!
After having all of my options laid out for me at the body shop, I chose the most expensive option. A big part of the decision was that the guy who is restoring the car is the same guy who restored the '78 280Z that was on the cover of the January 2013 issue of Import Tuner. He is going to weld replacement metal into the underbody for all of the rust spots, remove all of the body kit, headlights/taillights, etc, correct the rear unibody issue, block the car and paint it. It is a relatively large project for the small shop, but we are hoping to have the car back by the end of this week, and we're uber excited.
Here are some pics of her when we dropped her off at the shop.
Sunroof rust - I have a replacement fiberglass panel.
Underbody rust that will be repaired.
In the meantime, here are some more parts that I have collected.
Momo corse steering wheel and NRG quick release hub (Christmas 2012)
Replacement st185 caliper and parking brake kit
Rear JDM vented corners for my tail lights
TEQ (Toyota katakana) badges cut by a member on 6gc
We have also bought a replacement for the cracked rear license bezel, a new front grill with the TURBO4WD badge, some replacement interior pieces, crash bolts to adjust the camber all the way around the car, and front JDM corners (Thanks 88st165!). I also still have all of my Eclipse audio (front and rear 6.5" components, 4 channel amplifier for interior speakers, mono amplifier for 12" subwoofer in a sealed box) to install. I need to remove the triple gauge A pillar pod and all the associated wiring, as well as the Patrick's old alarm. I plan on doing a custom install of my gauges down the road (not in the A pillar), and I want to install a better alarm (never too safe in Chicago!). For right now though, I want to get the wiring back to factory, and clean up the wiring in the engine bay as well (with big 3 upgrade).
So, I have a lot to do, and even if I get my car back from paint by Friday, that only leaves me about three weeks to get the rest of my list done before the dragon.
Here's a video we took after we finished up the motor swap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7CoXHMFLAg
More goodies...
New(used) grill
Replacement for the cracked bezel for the rear license plate holder
Crash bolts to adjust camber
And my laptop repping ctech and dragon decals photobombed the pic, lol.
It's a 40 minute drive to the body shop, and we've been stressed that it won't be done in time. We stopped by 2 weeks ago, and we started seeing progress!
Starting to get dismantled..
Found some additional rust
Getting work done..
Indecent exposure, down to the bare metal!
JDM corners:
More progress pics.
Started work on the hood..
The drivers side getting blocked..
The rest of the body kit is off, and the car down to the metal on the passenger side..
Found some more rust in front of the rear passenger wheel..
Repairing some fender dents..
Ordered some replace decals for the hatch lid. The new ones will be silver instead of the originals in white below..
The great news about the car is that in removing the paint and taking it down to the metal, the shop is not finding any previous body work or additional layers of paint - the car is in great condition compared to most cars that end up in his shop. Huge props to you Pat for keeping this thing CLEAN.
Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics and bad lighting, but lots of progress has been made! All of our friends that have worked with this body shop before have said that he is always really busy, and your car may sit there for a while before he gets to it. But they also have said that he never misses a deadline, and he works really fast for the quality of work that is done.
When we originally set the deadline as 4/1 with the shop, we didn't realize that 3/31 was Easter. We didn't want the guys working on the holiday weekend, so we agreed on this Friday as the final pick up date. When we stopped by on Saturday, they were still blocking and sanding the car, but the body kit had already gotten painted. We also had some last minute running around to pick up a replacement for this broken rear license plate lens:
Looks like this:
But should look like this:
It was one of the broken pieces from the Pat's accident. The unibody got straightened out last week, and I replaced the license plate bezel that goes between the tail lights, but the lens was becoming a pain to find. I realized that I could do a reverse parts search on toyodiy to see if the lens came on any other car, and low and behold, Toyota used it on '80's Camrys, Corollas, Tercels, Celicas, Cressidas, and Supras. The Supras at every junkyard were picked over (as expected), but no one thought to raid a Cressida. WoOt!
Here are some pics of the repaired rust spots. Passenger rear quarter in front of the wheel:
Driver fender behind the wheel:
Some more pics of the car in the blocking/sanding phase:
Goodbye sunroof rust, hello fiberglass replacement:
And lastly, some pics of the painted body kit panels. Sorry for the crappy cell pics. I need to bring a real camera with me when we pick her up.
The car should've gone into the paint booth on Saturday afternoon. They are saving the rust repair on the floor pans for last. Probably tonight, Stacy and I will be stopping at the shop to drop off the replacement tail lights (my passenger tail was cracked and thanks Toymaster!) and Celica trim that goes above the front grill. I need to finish up on polishing them so they are ready to go on the car and get a coat or two of clear as well. We still need to pick up the JDM front corners from Eugene (88st165). Lastly, I got some replacement decals for the hatch lid.
SO. EXCITED.
Stay Tuned!