'77 Celica Liftback in need of a little work.
The seller was nice enough to drop it off today, thus saving me the cost of renting a trailer. I somehow got the impression that he was happy to see it go to a good home. Anyway, here it is in its slightly tattered glory:
It's got a lot of surface rust in some places, but in general it looks to be fairly solid:
The PO got it without a carb and with some other bits in the engine missing (like the smog pump), but fitted a Weber and it's running. The Weber is s bit of a 'parts' carb though, the choke has gone AWOL and it's not really jetted right anyway (running so rich you can smell it). But at least it's running and the engine doesn't make any funny noises as far as I can tell over the din of the non-existing exhaust.
The interior hasn't fared that well, it's got a lot of sun damage (cracked dash, ripped door cards, ripped A-pillar covers), two driver's seats (that was a bit of a double take until I figured out why the lock for the seat belt was on the wrong side of the passenger seat) and it's been a long time since the headliner has had any fabric stuck to it. At least the base is there.
The current plan is:
- Check over the body more carefully to see how much welding it needs. At the moment it looks like it needs a small patch on one of the rear wheelarches but I have to crawl underneath it properly.
- Find out why it's dragging the rear bumper like it is - I hope it's a lowering job gone wrong as the front wheels are too wide so lowering the front is pretty much impossible. I hope it's not the shocks and springs saying hello through the rear wheel wells
- Check why there is a distinct lack of coolant in the radiator and overflow tank. I am guessing it's got a leak somewhere but if it does, I haven't seen a trace of it yet.
Once I'm happy that it is solid or know that I need to buy a welder, the plan is to get it running properly and get an exhaust fabricated. After that
- Go through the suspension and check what needs replacing. I'm pretty sure that the list will include most bushes, the shocks and the springs
- Get the interior up to the stage where it's 'livable'. I've got a line on a set of 2nd gen MR2 seats that supposedly fit. And aren't brown
- Get the exterior cosmetics addressed, probably (depending on how deep in the hole I am at that point) with a conversion to the smiley bumpers (actually more likely a fibreglass replica of them).
- Stick some 15" wheels on that actually fit
- Take it autocrossing
- Get a roll bar fitted w/ harness bar
- Take it HPDEing
And yes, that's what happens if I go shopping for a Miata...
.
.
And you have to keep the stripes, although I agree on going to the happy bumper.
