ssswitch
ssswitch Dork
11/18/17 3:44 p.m.

What does $500 and a trailer get you these days? This 1982 Supra, abandoned in a storage yard by the previous owner after pulling the engine and trans out of it and filling the interior with spare parts. That's right, we handed over ten Kings for this.

It has L-type seats but is clearly a P-type car. I think the wheels are Rikens.

So far, the federales are of the opinion that we should be able to register and insure it, since in my home province "abandoned in a storage yard" is one of the few ways to register a car that does require a paper trail or proof of VIN. Otherwise, all you need to register a car is the VIN scrawled on a napkin.

The car was stripped in a hurry, with a handful of wires hacked away from the harness. Heater hoses are looped, and the fresh air intake box seems to be packed with mouse nests. The interior has an exceptionally strong tang of mouse pee.

There are only two noticeable chunks of rust so far: a dime-sized chunk above the rear passenger-side quarter panel window and a bit of rub on the rear passenger-side quarter "vent."

I located one of the previous owners' project threads on the local club forum, which terminate about mid-2009 as he slowly goes mad from the car having bankrupted him and moves to another province. I suspect that the actual previous owner did not care nearly as much about it. I'd be in touch with him, but the forum has been abandoned since at least mid-2015 and the webmaster is hard to reach in order to approve my account.

We picked up a $300 (that's sixty Lauriers) W58 5-speed manual with an M bellhousing that supposedly came out of a 90 Supra. The original driveshaft for the car was tucked in the hatch, along with two P-type seats that are probably the original.

We've already gotten an offer to trade the Rikens (complete with split-open Zellers snow tires) for a 5MGE, ECU and harness, which I think we're going to take. The local pick-n-pull also has a 7MGE Cressida lying around, which if the ground actually freezes so it's not a slushy mud bog, I might go visit.

This will be a pretty slow project, since we have at least two other cars in line before it. I think the plan is to build an ice racer.

Vigo
Vigo UltimaDork
11/18/17 6:56 p.m.

I'm fairly certain that it's actually harder to source and get a deal on cool looking period wheels than a supra engine. 

 

Other than that, neat project!

edizzle89
edizzle89 Dork
11/20/17 1:29 p.m.

love me a clean Mk2 supra!

759NRNG
759NRNG Dork
11/21/17 5:59 p.m.

The title of this thread made me wince ....er made me want to peek under the window shade......but seeing this mess.......DAMN the torpedoes!!!!............don't know much about ice racing (here in Houston Tx.) ,but is this like  drifting only WAY colder and slipperier??????   

ssswitch
ssswitch Dork
11/21/17 9:58 p.m.

In reply to 759NRNG :

There's two kinds of ice racing locally - wheel to wheel (formerly restricted to caged and prepped Chevettes only, but I think they're moving to a new spec car now that the Chevette/Acadian is now a non-existent car) and autocross on a frozen lake, which is split into classes based on drivetrain (FWD/AWD/RWD) and then further into tire type (snow tire/street studded snow tire/very long studded snow tire).

Depending on how bad this thing is on ice, it will probably be built for RWD street stud. I have a contact who can put in the big beefy 90mm(?) rally studs, but they chew the tire up something furious.

There's a lot of sliding at least. The kids call it drifting, but Canadians call it December through March.

ssswitch
ssswitch Dork
4/10/18 11:42 p.m.

Good news! Earlier in this undying winter, we found a dude who was giving up on the Mk2 Supra dream. For not very much money, we managed to end up with a "rebuilt" (at least it's very, very clean) 5MGE, ECU, two doors with glass and power locks, even more tail lights, even more corner markers and a full set of original 14" wheels.

Now, all we really need is a clutch and flywheel and, like, several weekends to sort out the car and figure out what's missing. Unfortunately, I can't find a source for a new, non-racey flywheel, so it's off to the junkyard to hope that someone threw away a 4Runner that fits, and hopefully one that someone already removed the engine from so I don't have to do it.

We also found a digital dash in a shipping box addressed to the only previous owner I could track down. That's going in there, for sure. Who cares if the odometer is a little wrong on a car that's 36 years old? Not me.

It's either do that, or strap an Arduino onto it and turn it into the world's most indecipherable wall-clock for incurable car nerds.

Also, the seats are P-Types. They're leather.

GIRTHQUAKE
GIRTHQUAKE New Reader
4/11/18 8:36 a.m.

I'd be half-tempted to keep those seats and save them, but that's just me.

sethmeister4
sethmeister4 SuperDork
4/11/18 7:10 p.m.

Please please please keep the wheels.  They fit that car SO well!  Cool project, I've always loved Supras.  

Stampie
Stampie GRM+ Memberand UltraDork
4/11/18 8:28 p.m.

I approve of this thread.

Woody
Woody GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
4/11/18 9:17 p.m.

I love those cars and those wheels.

keegs
keegs
4/3/19 4:55 p.m.

Previous, previous, previous (...) owner here. The one who put the Rikens and the JDM rear quarter vents on it. Hi that's me.

I also approve of this thread.

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