abeans st185 - Kill 1 Save Another

[abeans]

Hello all, i've jumped into a Toyota. I originate from Ford/Mazda land.... Particularly had a soft spot for oddball cars and the alltrac was one of them. A local one came up for sale, i had to see it. I literally have never seen a st185 in person before looking at this car.



I bought it. It had rust like I've never seen before... Apologies to the previous owners , but this could not be saved. at 239k miles.. as much as i wanted too, this was a pig with lipstick. The underside was completely rotted There was fiberglass holding the floor pans together, on the fuel lines which leaked.. And the rust.



I thought maybe it was just isolated to the rear subframe, but when i went to swap it...



Yes, that is the bolt still attached to the subframe, and the frame.

[abeans]

So yes, it turned into a parts car. Me and my buddy plasma cut the front end off so we wouldn't have to drop the engine trans assembly. I saved EVERYTHING from it. *worth saving







So after working on this car, let me begin my rant. WHAT IN SATANS HELL IS THIS DASHBOARD MOUNTING?! It has to be the most difficult dashboard in any car of this age. It took me a couple days to remove. (wiring behind it isn't much better. )






After that nonsense was out. I was going to pull the pump out and realized some nice Japanese engineer made a service hole for the fuel level but not the fuel pump.



Gee, thanks. I ended up leaving it with the tank as it was a crusty pile of trash.

[abeans]

So i send it to the Toyota heavens. RIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b_uZ2qzybI





Now to the (hopefully) good part. Picked up another car from the Forums. It's mostly rust free. But molested... Alot of questions about this one i hope some can answer.



It has low miles 70k~ It has some T3/T4 turbo kit with a vband downpipe. AEM ECU. Completely hacked hacked apart wiring harness. Interior is gutted... HVAC is in the boot. Doesn't run. Clutch pedal is stuck up, i believe the clutch or throw out bearing must have had a mechanical failure, thats where i'll dig in first

I'm hoping this thread can document the "build" of the car, and hopefully get some help along the way. I'll post more photos as it moves along.

[underscore]

That rust is on a whole other level. I'm amazed something could be that rotten underneath but still look good up top.

[abeans]

oh hey there is people active on the boards!

It’s honestly worse than pictures do justice, took a bunch. a lot of the underside was patched with expanding foam. It was so soft undeside i was scared to be under it with 4 jack stands. Best guess it may have been parked over tall grass at some point of its life.

I’ll show more of the maroon color car. (Not sure the oem color name)

[93celicaconv]

Good luck with the restoration. Hopefully there was a lot of salvageable stuff from your rusted-out parts car that can reverse some of the mods your new one has. We in this forum can help. I've gone through one restoration in 100% stock form already, and there are a lot more in this forum that have done many more than I have who have a lot of knowledge and are fairly active in this forum to help you out.

[CMS-GT4]

Good luck on the restoration. Was the parts car stored in the ocean?

[abeans]

Ha! No, either just Ohio or Michigan someplace.

[abeans]

I guess i'll start with my first question.

What am i doing wrong trying to seperate the gearbox from the engine? This is as far as i can get it. I don't need to remove the tcase from the trans before pulling the two apart? (this is the parts setup btw, im struggling out of the car.)

I found all the bolts holding the two together, and the transfer case brackets on the back side.

[93celicaconv]

See below.

[mx6er2587]

Transfer case don't need to be removed but it will interfere on the on the block if you try to pull it straight out. needs a bit of a twist as it goes.

[abeans]

Ah! Thanks.. so i need to clock it. That makes sense.

It doesn't seem like i got 2-3" maybe 1" tops. Think thats still it? Holy smokes is that trans heavy.

[93celicaconv]

The key is to clear the rib on the block on the exhaust side of the engine from the transfer case - if you can get it far enough out and with the "clocking" move clear that rib, you'll be fine. You should be able to see that rib with the amount of separation you got, based upon the pic you previously shared.

[underscore]

Since it's out of the car you probably got this, but make sure all the bolts are out for the filler plate things that goes between the engine and trans and fills in the gaps. I missed on on my GTS and it caused a lot of head scratching.

[silverarrow]

Man, I figure you were going to save all the windows too.