'83 Starlet-Avoid the Noid! content

In reply to banzaitoyota:

That blows. I would ask if it was rusty metal, but you already said 914. Everyone I talk to says if it is not pretty crusty, flaking is imminent. I have used a product called E.R.F. (ends rust forever) from JC Whitney that produced excellent results on rusty floorboards, and they still looked good when I got rid of the car 5 years later. You seem to be the one dissenting voice here. I really do appreciate your feedback. Any other damning praise from the hive on the topic of POR-15?? Edit. Sorry...repeating myself. senile, I guess.

The Thread Is Not Dead!

I took some time to think about the Starlet, and work on some other stuff. The truck now has a clean bill of health, I finally finished welding my bottle tree project: and, as long as I had the .035 in the welder, I made these from scrap, and the Dodge's old wheels. This may or may not be my Great Grandfather's anvil:

To appease my loyal readers, how about some Starlet content in this thing? 4 small holes, and some metal ground very thin? How about one big hole, and a patch from my sister's Altima hood.Luckily, before smacking a deer, it had signed its organ donor card. This picture is more like the car is rotated weird than the photo. The rotisserie really does make darn near every job easier.That hole now looks a bit more like this: Still not body work grade welding, but acceptable for its location and function. Another couple of years, and I should be a pro. 10, 15 Max.

Then the other side: I skipped the after shot because it is still in progress (I came in to let the welds cool and post), and, frankly, looks rough before the loving touch of the grinder.

With that, I have set a goal. I want to have this on all four wheels by spring. Let's say March 21st, just so I have a clear date. This is very doable, but will require the distribution of many cubic dollars. I plan to have the rearend narrowed, LSD, coilovers on all 4 corners, new bearings, and, of course, the underside will be painted before all that happens. Next episode, I plan to deal with the cowl area.

Yeah, yeah, two posts in a day. Forgive me...I am excited to be back at it. So, there's the cowl off. Honestly, not as bad as I thought, but even from here, obvious why it had to come off.

Here's the real problem, and, I'd say, a contributor to the rotten driver's floor. That's looking from the A-pillar forward.

Swiss cheese. Another shot of the same, but one way or another, I'm going to have to save it. Something tells me these are no longer available. Stay tuned, this is getting exciting...

Nice to see you back at it! I'm on a waiting for funds break myself right now so I can get joy by seeing you make a little progress!

Here was today's target. That rusty cowl. First, I bent some metal in a 90-this time, Geo Metro door skin and clamped some 1/4 plate on top, as that matched the gutter I was trying to remake, and ground down to surface level. Then another 90. Here's that bit partially welded in. Then the next patch panel, starting to take shape, which will meet up with more of that gutter bit. That's as far as I got tonight. More to come.

In reply to Lomaxmotorsports:

Hey, man, I had a response typed up last night, but lost my whole update, and had to start over again. I like the noise you are making about that blacktop. I loved the near absurdity of the Fiat, but 200+ hp sounds like a winner.

Here's what I spent 2 hours doing tonight: I admit to being inordinately proud of myself.

Looking good!

Today, I cut some of these to do this with What I'm doing is filling the holes I drilled through the inner cowl to get the panel in the last post off. I'll spare detailed pictures of the cowl coming back together. An after pic will arrive once I get there. More to come...

How do you eat an elephant?...By chopping it into tiny bits. Not too visible, but those 19 holes in the dash are filled, ready for plug welding.

Starting to fill license light holes, and other unsightly hatch holes: And here's my current masterpiece. Hey, its a milestone for me, and as has been stated, I have no aversion to Bondo.

banzaitoyota wrote: I HIGHLY recommend watching the David Gardener videos, he is amazing with nothing but a torch and hammers/dollies. You WILL learn alot!

I finally took a quick look at this guy's work recently. Very informative. Amazon doesn't have his videos, and I haven't been able to find them on sale yet, but I wholeheartedly agree with the statement above.

First off, The rear washer and wiper holes are now filled, as are the holes for the huge factory license plate lights. Again, I am progressing. The wiper hole warped just a bit, but one of the light holes is straight as an arrow.

The secondary target was the rust-through that made me have to pull the rear window, ruining a perfectly good seal. Our old pal the Altima hood gave up some pieces I thought were about right, , and with a little bending, beating, and grinding, I got here: You guessed it. I came in to let the welds cool, and now, back at it.

Still chugging away. Here's that window bit from the post directly above . Needs a skim coat of body filler, and some paint on the backside.

I also started on the part that has been on my mind all this time. THE COWL The hole is cut, I have Evap-o-rust soaking under paper towels and saran wrap, and I have started on the patch panel. I used 22 ga. metal in hopes of an easy weld, and cut the upper brace off so I could get to everything. I'll either weld it back in, or make a new one....Stay tuned.

Reconstruction... this could take a while...

I got the brace at the cowl welded back in, and primed. Also, a couple of fender mounts refused to let go of the old, broken bolts, so I welded nuts to washers, and cut out the old section(bottom left), and welded in new. Progress is progress. I also got the rest of the hatch stripped. Good thing, too, as I found another section in the window channel that needs attention. Its about 1/2" total, but would surely come back to haunt me someday.

Oooo, shiny

In reply to wheelsmithy:

Wow...the progress looks good! It has to be gratifying to take care of all the rusty bits!

Keep up the good work; I am excited to see how this continues to progress.

Quite the labour of love this one. Look forward to the updates.

Thanks, guys. Encouragement from the hive is most welcome. Frankly, I didn't check this car out well enough pre purchase, and since I sold off another project (Swift GTi) that I was just wrapping up the rust repair on, to justify this project, this might be me just being stubborn. Every little thing I find, I kick myself a little for the "how bad can it be?" that was going through my mind when I found it. All that said, they aren't making any more Starlets, and this one's mine. I might as well (try to learn to) do it right.

Some wise guy might say something about how you shoulda bought a west coast or southern car because it would save you 5 million man-hours of rust repair. How it would be worth the expense of the fly-and-drive or whatever. I'm here in the middle of LA, the hotbed of Japanese car culture, and I don't see these cars anymore. If I see two of them in a year, it's a good year. And I used to own one so I'm always on the lookout for them on the road. That's something my wife will never understand but I digress.

So if you're beating yourself up at all for not being thorough or if you're thinking you shoulda done more research or looked at more cars, then don't waste the energy. They just aren't around anymore like even five years ago.

People treated these cars as semi-disposable transportation. As a whole, they were poorly maintained and bodged body repairs were the norm. Frankly, I'm thinking you got off pretty easily. In all of automotive history, no one has ever bought a car and made a perfectly accurate survey of everything that's wrong with it. No matter how "professional," everyone finds a surprise or three.

Amazing work!

Again, thanks one and all for the encouragement. That sort of thing is one of many reasons why I love this whole GRM community.

Responding to Mr LA, this IS a southern car. Purchased new in Nashville TN, and bought a scant 30 miles away, here in Murfreesboro, TN. The wreck damage just didn't get repaired so well. For instance, maybe they should have painted the welds. I am far from beating myself up over my choices. If anything, this project is as near to self actualization as I have come in years. I'm not sure if everyone else can see how much I have improved over the span of 6 months, but I surely do. And, yes, I am getting off really easy. Lots of repairs, but the bones are still good.

I was just responding to the post you made above mine. It sounded like you were a little down about choosing this car or the work that needs to be done. I was just trying to buck you up a little. There's no way around it with these cars. Personally, I think most of them were bought originally by people who could barely afford to buy them, much less spend the money to own them.

I saw one on eBay about five years ago. It had 47K original miles and was perfect. It sold for the princely sum of just over five grand. The most perfect unrestored example in the world. A concept scarcer than hen's teeth. Five grand. There will never be another one like it. In that vein, you made a good choice. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Also, if they salt the roads in your part of TN, it ain't south enough!

I worked at a Toyota dealer for over 10 years in California and an independent shop for 5 years before that and have never seen one. They are a very rare bird in my option. I like where your going with this. Best of luck.

I owned one a few years back. It was from Georgia and very solid. The car never failed to turn heads here in the Pittsburgh area where every other one had returned to earth. You should have seen the crowd around it when I'd take it the the Toyota dealership for parts. It literally emptied the entire service and sales departments. I had to sell it when I was getting divorced and a guy from Mississauga did a fly and drive to get it. I've always wondered what happened to it....

I bought my 1981 dented-but-no-rust Starlet with 136K miles on it at an impound auction for 200 bucks. Drove it for four years. Aside from regular maintenance, the only problem I had was a cylinder head that leaked fluids out the back. Bought a head set for 30 bucks, pulled the head, had a machinist friend mill the head for flatness and replace the valve seals while he was in there. Then I reinstalled it and set the valve clearances all in one easy day. It was dead simple to work on. Installed Repco MetalMaster brake pads on it but the car was so light, they needed a couple of stops to warm up.

Drove it 75-80 mph everywhere I went and got 40 miles per gallon doing so. I got velocitized after a while but friends would be a little fearful driving that fast shoulder-to-shoulder in such a small car. With a 2.93 rear end, it was the ultimate momentum car. That also meant it would reach its top speed (93 indicated mph) in any of the top three gears. Good to know when you're driving north on I-5 while bucking a headwind. The air conditioning even worked but you could feel the horsepower loss when the compressor kicked in. I drove it up some pretty nasty fire roads and would get looks from everyone with the gazillion-dollar off-road trucks. You could even autocross it in H-Stock without looking completely stupid. They were great little rear-wheel-drive cars even in their 53-hp stock form.

In reply to Jerry From LA:

My tone may have sounded sort of mopey. That happens around the going to, and returning from work in the dark time of year. I don't know how those 3rd shift dudes do it. Bolstering appreciated. And, yeah, they do salt around here.

I am home with some intestinal distress-antibiotics are involved. So, I'm not sure everyone is super interested in my ramblings, but I'll tell the story. With Pictures!

In Feb '06, I bought a really rusty 60 model Bugeye Sprite to accept the 4AGE I had from an abandoned MR2 project, and had to start by building a tube frame, studying suspension design for a couple of years, and getting stalled badly in about 2010.It is still not as complete as it looks in the pictures. In 2010, I helped launch a new business (boss' money, my labor), bought a house, and checkbook built an awesome shop (I was working 80 hrs a week, 7 days per). Once that calmed down, I wanted a "quick" project. I loved the engine from my former DD Swift GTi, but wanted RWD. So I commenced the search for a Starlet, and simply couldn't find one. Eventually, I gave up, thinking FWD wasn't so bad, and went about fixing the Swift properly (welding in new door jamb, rust proofing, and even ordered a LSD). Once I was just about ready to rebuild the engine, the Starlet came into my life, and I rearranged all those plans. I sold the Suzuki body to a guy who planned to turbocharge it, and really appreciated all the suspension work I had done, and figured I'd just pop the Starlet back together. After much rumination, I decided the G13B from the Swift would match the flyweight Bugeye better, and the 4AGE would make the perfect resto-mod engine for the Starlet (all the bolt on stuff to make that happen sweetened the pot). So, now, my quick little project has blown up into a full restoration, and I'm now a couple of years from returning to my primary project.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm regretful, but the hint of poor decision making does come through every now and then.

It helps that I'm in good company.