When life hands you lemon, you make lemonade.
but what happens when life hands you a '96 5 speed celica ST, aka Freelica???
so, this thing just kinda almost literally fell into my hands. Thursday night my uncle hits me up on facepage and was like, "hey, i got this sitting in my yard, you interested?"
I'm like "swching! yea!" (but i didn't say the swching part)
so details are it was my cousin's car, they were driving heard a big noise? in the general engine bay/engine area and then it died. got it towed to my uncle's and it sat for 3 years. possibly spun bearings but we'll see once i dig into it some more.
Friday comes around, I'm like ok cool another celica would be nice to have to work on but I'm still kinda broke so i'll let it simmer for now. then my cousin was like, "eh yo, if nobody's interested, I'm junking it today!"
so I hit her up and was all like, "ey ho, i'm interested yo, how much ya want for it?"
she was like "free fiddy!" and I'm like free fiddy?, she's like yeah free dollars and fiddy. you just gotta tow it out and it's yours.
so she left the title with my uncle but forgot the key so that will be mailed to me.
so for the price of towing, i got me a freelica.
onto pick chars.
the pix my uncle sent me:
of course, first thing i do when it got dropped off was line up my green celi with it for a photoshoot. lol
then proceeded to clean the crap out of it.
BEFORE:
seats are trashed. had various smells of old pets and smoke.
seems to have taken a slight hit here. tail light's cracked and pushed in a bit...
came with a half torn apart system? lol
doors are typical of a midwest car. but seems to be the only bad rust i see on the body so far.
rear quarters looks surprisingly ok. this is the worst of it.
AFTER
gave it a quick wash to see what's left of the paint. hood's been spray canned and they didn't bother to mask anything so i had to spend some time scraping black overspray from the headlights and windshield....
she looks good from 30 maybe 20 ft.
dash cleaned up REALLY well. aside from the torn leather steering wheel (i have my stock one and a 3post to replace) and shifter, everything looks in relatively good shape.
I believe I should have an extra door panel to replace this if needed. there's dimples everywhere.
seats, I'll most likely trash. aside from having various stains and rips. the ever present smell of cigarettes just doesn't cut it for me and I still have my tan seats from my green one when I did the 7th gen interior swap.
overall, it only takes a bit of loving to make it able to sit next to my green one. they're both pretty happy I'd say
Let's hope you don't want the 7a in there for long if it does run.
hahaha yeah, I hear ya. one slow 7a is enough. I wouldn't be able to deal with 2.
not sure what my plans are for it yet. If I can fix it up cheap, might be a winter beater or sell it for $$$$. if not, it can be a parts car to supply my green one with a manual swap. and best solution would be to get the v6 from Chris and swap it into this for a fun sleeper, and still be able to do the manual swap on my green one.
I got you boo....
what v6? what!!!! which!!!!
Manual swap the green one with parts from the black one, then 1MZ/E153 swap the black one and turn it into a corner carver/track toy.
Congrats on the FREE Celica!! Those are the best!
Nice, hey cannot complain if it's free right?
Since we already have both 3S types, a 1MZ, and a K20 up in the north... I'd say 3MZ or 2GR! Either car will be cool (BETTER YET, DO BOTH OF THEM).
Wow that dash does look really nice! That's a pretty well-optioned car too
You know, I happen to have an E153 too....
Jus' sayin'.
My ST had the moonroof, power locks, power windows, cruise, and factory 14" alloys. I can't remember if mine had a leather wheel or not.
so... you're saying alls I gotta do it drop my celi off at your garage then?
why did none of this go in any of your 6gcs? lol
lmao!
I always had 96+ cars. No swaps due to emissions testing....
And no. I'm not doing any swaps in the near future. I'm just telling you that I have most of what you need.
peerpressurepeerpressurepeerpressurepeerpressurepeerpressure
peerpressurepeerpressurepeerpressurepeerpressurepeerpressure
ah yeah forgot you have emissions.... bleh. lol
you might have to hold on to them for a bit longer for me cuz while you says peerpressurepeerpressure, my own voice is saying youbrokeyoubrokeyoubroke.
hahah. my bank account is still in recovery mode since buying the house and trying to fill it with stuff, as well as planning and paying for a wedding, just need a few months to get out of the red first. if this car wasn't free, i wouldn't have even gotten it. if anything i was thinking it had at least a few hundred dollars in parts i could make quick and...... now it's another project car. LOL!
Arrange payment installations, he clears up space now and you get stuff now and he gets money slowly but surely. It's a win win win.
so, I got the key today. thought i'd entertain myself and try starting it to see whats wrong. used a jumpstarter. connected to the battery, turn the key...... VROOM....???? what? I thought they said the engine gave out? a puff of smoke under the car and I can tell the flex pipe is busted so I try to put it in gear to move the car. 1st gear nothing, 2nd gear, nothing, 3rd, 4th, 5th, reverse... nothing... so i guess it wasn't spun bearings. looks like somebody toasted the clutch.
so it looks like i'll be do a clutch job instead or engine swap. I know most of you are booing me right now because you wanted an engine swap. but if this works out, I can have this black one as a daily driver and then focus on swapping my green one.
Check for snapped shifter cables too!
I'm good on the speaker grills. they were just taken off for some reason?
yeah, talked with Daniel and we said it could be clutch, axles, or cables.
but I think cables might be ok because I can feel it go into each gear. just gotta wait for better weather to take a look. it's been 50s and rain this past week and this weekend looks just as bad too. rained all day today.
It's amazing how some cars will start after years of not running & others... good luck.
yeah same thing with my RA24 when I bought it. the guy was like I don't know what's wrong with it, can't get it to start. we pushed it onto a dolly and towed it home. I started working on it, poured some starter fluid down the carb and it started just like a toyota should. lol
the muffler bearing need lube.
I did check the headlight and blinker for fluids and refilled those but didn't think to check the muffler bearings! you're a genius!!
update:
so this past weekend we rolled it from the middle of the yard to underneath the carport and while we were rolling I did hear a clunking/scraping noise as we rolled it but didn't have time so I just left it at that.
Today, I went ahead and started it in gear and in the video you can hear a noise as it starts but then it goes away. With it in 1st and my foot on the clutch, it sounds normal but as soon as i let my foot off the clutch, you hear the clunking noise. so anytime the clutch isn't in now, it will clunk.
here's a video for a better explanation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUcIf59irS0
Holy bad knock! I’m pretty sure that’s the throwout bearing. Time to drop the trans.
i kne it was a bearing of some sort....
You should take a black light to the interior and see what comes up....
While you're replacing that throw-out bearing, drop in an LS4 while you're at it. Might as well since the transmission is coming off.
LS4, now there's an idea.
no thanks on the black light... i'd rather live in ignorance.
drop an LS4 off at my driveway and I will do it.
I'm going to start marketing UV black light interior light kits, "See things like you've never seen before!"
but....... just to be safe, I'm gonna do this and put it all there for a bit, while I contemplate my life choices....
and is that imaginary LS4 the v-tec compatible version? those are much nicer than the regular ones.
I think that the tan interior kinda seems to look a little better BUT it's hard to keep clean thus black carpet is better.
I like the 25th Anniversary seats and the confetti Recaro seats the most, oh and the JDM seats that had that interesting clawed stripe pattern thing going on.
I do agree that the tan carpet looks a bit better, maybe because its brighter and when clean looks nicer. but I don't like the tan seats, they just look too bland for a celica. a nice set of recaros would be awesome but that would blow the budget for ANYTHING hahaha. perhaps I'll do some funky racing seats from fleabay.
Anything is V-Tak compatible if you try hard enough.
Vtec just kicked in yo!
That, especially cheapo eBay special racing seats. Corbeau is as cheap as I'd go for racing seats, preferably Recaro or Bride. Might look into doing some 7th gen seats.
that car needs mr2 seat swap
not as comfortable, but very sleek
so it's getting colder and the freelica is just sitting in a carport so I have no motivation to change the clutch at this time unless it can be in the 70s again. It's gonna have to sit for a while.
but I decided to do some projects that could be done indoors. Took the seats apart and swapped my old seats from my green one to these rails. but not before cleaning them up. Didn't realize they were this dirty.
ammonia is great for taking stains out and i luckily had some on hand.
mixed it in with some detergent and sprayed away.
not bad.
comparison of the two, one clean and one not.
before
after
now my butt will be happy sitting in them again.
looks much better compared to these anyways.
Looks like someone had the taco bell & then drove home.
current state of freelica. stripped and waiting.
seats were taken per previous post, carpet is out and will be cleaned and dyed black. headliner also taken out to clean, deodorize and possibly reupholster.
when pulling the carpet... it felt soaked under the drivers seat and rear. not sure if it was soda or oil or something but its not good. caused the soundproofing to unstick from the floor and pop right off. gonna have to give the floor a good clean. after moving all the fabric out though, the celi smells alot better. lol
That's how I got into this mess.....
fix the car, sell to chris, and voila
=profit?
Chris, looking for a father/son project? lol
lmao!
Nope. That'll either be the ST185 Racecar, or I'll need to steal one of your 1st gens for a UZ swap.
I could be persuaded to give up the 1st gen coupe. ...
but until I get a garage put up, I have no room for it. it's stuck at my parent's house and i'm sure they're sick of lookin at it. lol
bhahahaa don't tell me that, I'm already out of room in my new garage.
get a lift. room for one more....
Free is good. Good luck fixing her up. I've been tempted to buy another celica too lol
u should do it! they're all getting pretty cheap now. and you have the space for it now too.
I have 4 celicas now, but i had 3 before I bought my house hahaha so now at least I have room for all of them. lol
What a great find! I got a 1994 from behind my neighbor's house for $300 back in 2008. it had a bad clutch and a couple other problems. it wasn't too hard to drop the transmission and change the clutch.
I drove the car until 2014 when a pizza delivery driver rear-ended me and totaled it. I used the insurance money to buy another one with a 3SGTE but I'd always wanted to fix the old one. Now I'm parting it out and junking it (see post on for sale area).
Do you want a black carpet in good shape, stored inside for the last 3 years? I'll sell it to you cheap.
I've got a bunch of other parts and plastics, wires, etc. if you need anything.
thanks! and that sucks about you celi but glad u got another one.
I've always wanted black carpet and somehow ended up with 4 celicas that ALL have tan interior... it's so weird.
since this carpet is really junky, I'm gonna try something first. I'm gonna clean it as best as i can and then try dyeing it to see how it turns out. if I like it, I'll do all my other celicas. hahaha but if not, i might hit u up for it.
Man good updates so far! I'd be so scared to pull my interior apart like that but since it's so dirty guess it's gotta be done.
That's funny you mention about wanting black interior as that's what Colin actually did when he had the Celica (interior was originally tan too).
I'd say it is much cleaner and doesn't get as "dirty," but there's an appeal to tan interior too though lol.
lol, nah, it isn't too bad once you've done it enough. I probably stripped this in an hour or so given that it was raining and cold and i took my time.basically just seats, door sill panels, center console, visors, mirror, carpet, and headliner.
tan interiors make it look a bit brighter and looks a bit nicer but is hard to keep clean and my carpets are 20+ years old so it's not one shade of tan anymore. I'm gonna try my hand at dyeing it vs spraying it. I haven't heard too much good things about spraying carpet as it tends to stiffen up the fibers. we'll see how the dye goes when i do it.
a track car does not need carpet
^this.
dammit. i thought I would finally have a daily driver... lol
a track car can be used daily..
Yup. Just ask Racecarp.
so a few weeks ago, I decided to throw my extra set of JDM tails onto the freelica.
the stock one on the pass. side was hit and cracked and I didn't want more moisture and snow getting into it as it's sitting outside.
started taking it off and as soon as I took off the bolts, it literally fell apart in my hands. was held on by sheer willpower only.
https://flic.kr/p/CC6vqM
https://flic.kr/p/ZViEHZ
https://flic.kr/p/ZVit34
after installing the JDM tails, I noticed how misaligned everything is on that side. will have to get the good ol sledge hammer out in the summer and mold it back into shape but the de-ambered JDM tails look really good on a black celi.
https://flic.kr/p/22gCJnx
https://flic.kr/p/21boPMQ
https://flic.kr/p/ZVir6Z
https://flic.kr/p/21bpmub
https://flic.kr/p/21bpAc1
https://flic.kr/p/21bpUuy
Truthfully a torch is my favorite tool, but an array of sledgehammers comes in a close second.
I still prefer that ratchet of yours that I bent...
LOL, is that from another one of those Chris Hulk Smash incidents?
"Just need a bigger hammer" is more than a saying, it's a way of life.
this is my favorite tool,
it literally attaches to every other tool i have, and can be used like a hammer, and prop tool.
you should try it...
hahah! yes! the wonder tool! so simple, yet so versatile.
But it didn’t break!
This is true.
well it's warmer out and the snow's melted off of Freelica. After installing JDM taiils, I scored some riser blocks for the cheap so I threw them on just for fun. It looks good on a black celi. not bad at all.
yeap! looks allot better.
I guess I could push it there. lol
next midwest meet should be at my house.
I got a grill, plenty of parking, and lots of backroads with twisties. even got a bag of charcoal I can put in front of someone's celi.
Deal!
Official Southwest Charcoal Bag Twisty Road Celica Push Tranny Swap of the Midwest is on. Now we just have to set a date.
Martian time or GMT?
got underneath freelica to check out what I gotta work with...
then I took the carpet and powerwashed the heck out of it. looks a bit better but just needed it clean enough so I can apply dye to it later on.
ok, don't know why those first few photos are upside down... they aren't upside down in my phone or on flickr.
but both axles boots are ripped. exhaust is broken at the cat. lots of rust but it's workable. once I start the beams swap on my other celi, I should be able to take most the 7a parts from there and throw it on freelica. I don't think the axles fit since it's from an auto, I thought I remember reading that one side fit?? but the intake, header, and exhaust will be nice to throw on.
Booooo rust! As far as axles go, based on RockAuto they have axles left and right for auto or manual. Probably has to do with how it couples on the transmission side. I guess it wouldn't hurt to compare them side by side and see if you could use the auto ones though.
Ya progress!
kinda... lol
had some time this weekend. took out the starter, removed header and cat as it was rust to bits anyways. started removing everything connected to the trans. got a good way into it and went to take off the clutch slave and got my first snapped bolt on this car. Wasn't too mad though, I was honestly expecting more broken bolts but also not done yet so there may be more in store. Went to go start on the axles and that's when I ran into some trouble so I sprayed it with some wd-40 and left it at that as a storm was coming through and winds were picking up.
I hate snapped bolts...been fighting a t-stat stud that won't budge...
I'm thinking about dumping a gallon of penetrating oil on the engine and letting it soak. lol
most of the bolts haven't been too bad though. only a select few but of course the worse looking ones seem to be the engine mount bolts...
Huge pictures are huge. Rust sucks too. At least you can move some stuff to get to the slave cylinder to drill it out. If all else fails, torches are fun!
Well I just want you guys to get the full experience. You feel like your RIGHT there with me.
yeah slave cylinder is moved off to the side and it's in a pretty decent spot so I hope I can get a drill in there at a good angle.
Hopefully you have better skills and luck than me. I've tried screw extractors and left-hand bits after it sat in Liquid Wrench and it got hit with a torch and got jack****nowhere.
well, living in the midwest here, this skill is almost a requirement so I'm sad to say, I'm used to it... but I have been beat before and probably will be again. lol
Tack weld a nut to the top and spin it out.
yeah, there's enough of it sticking out that it might work.
dont tack it, weld it. Make sure it gets real hot. but not so hot to melt aluminum. They come out easy.... I tacked the nut, and kept breaking. once i welded it, it came out easy
that rust is a lot o work. need to get a wrecked car to replace all those parts
well, it's a good thing I have this parts car.
so did you tack your nut?
haven't touched it yet. rain yesterday, and rain later when I get home today too.
this past weekend, the weather turned out pretty good so I got to be outside and fight some more rust.
strut bolts were tight but mangaged to get it off with ye ol' cheater bar and my manly biceps.
brake compenents are very VERY rusty, so I plan to junk them and grab the brakes off my "parts" car to swap over.
then I had a go at the axles...
passenger side came out easy enough. a few hits with the hammer and pry bar and it popped right out. feelin' good...
and then...
F*ck.....
so I got creative and found a special tool to make the job easy.
easiest way to take out an axle thus far.
just wrap the ratchet strap around the tulip and bring it around the strut. tighten the ratchet strap and let it do the work for you. a couple ratchets in and I heard a pop! then just used my hammer and pry bar to pull it the rest of the way out. whoo!
then Wisconsin with it's lovely bi-polar weather decided it wanted to bring in the storm right after that so I couldn't get at the mounts, the last part to finally removing the trans and seeing what is actually wrong with it.
Creative w/ taking the axle out. But DAMN is the rust bad looking on the car. I didn't think it would be that bad.
dam thats a lot of rust in the undercarriage, how is the body
yeah, it looks pretty nasty doesn't it?
the body's ok, in a sense that having a permanent scar on your face is ok because at least you still have a face... driver's side floor pan is the worse where the drain hole is. That's the only rust that ate through. but it was free and if I can get it to a drivable state, it'll be a great beater that I can park anywhere and not care if I come out to a door ding or not. and later on down the road, maybe a track car or drift car that can have it's body beaten to sh*t and keep on going.
bleh.... ugh...
Well... it doesn't look that bad.
that's the problem.... nothing's broken really. everything looks "normal" ?
What was the issue again?
Maybe see if you can try turning the trans either by using the input shaft or sticking the axle(s) back in & see if stuff moves that way. Try also moving the gear selector. I dunno.
I'll mess with it and see. If not, I'm either gonna end up doing 2 engine swaps at the same time or PARTOUT!!!!!!! lol
part out.
You're a part out.
Feels like it 90% of the time.
lol, could it be seized? i would soak the transmission in a few gallons of pb blaster
yeah, trans might be shot. Tried turning the input shaft and it turned almost all the way around but then was met with some resistance.
makes sense as everything else looked fine. but not willing to throw anymore money into this thing. Unless I can find a super cheap trans, it'll sit like this.
wondering if anyone has ever convert a manual to auto since I will have all the parts available. LOL If not, I could yank out the 7a and do a part out or find a cheap swap. maybe throw the 20r in my 1st gen into it.
dont see why not, you can go auto. I have a auto tranny from 2gr
put in a power glide or a dog box. lol
Imma do it. but if I do, Imma have to go 1uz.
send the car to me, ill make it into a toaster oven..... lol...
you need a wrecked donor dude, lots of parts, cheap cost and recycle for ice cream money
If Toyota gearboxes are like Nissan gearboxes then there are bolts in the casing that hold detente springs and balls for the gear selector rods, bolts one could mistakenly remove instead of the drain plug if they don't know what they're doing. If that were the case would explain why it won't go into gear and the clunking when you let the clutch out. Should be able to open the case and see if a rod is out of place at least, though who knows on finding replacement detente springs and balls. That or just the selector itself could be messed up in general.
well Freelica's got a trans finally...
Only it's still connected to another blue celi so we'll have to work that out somehow. Thanks to Jake & Sam for dropping it off and also taking something else off my hands at the same time.
Dude that blue one actually seems pretty clean overall.... You should give it to me for free so I can start another Freelica thread.
It's pretty rusty too. midwest cars... lol It got repainted and the blue looks awesome but the body isn't. But it's a blown 7a with a good trans and that's what I need. I might swap the hood and fenders to Freelica since it seems like Freelica's hood flew up as one point in it's life and has damaged the hood and fenders.
Car killer thread for sure
Is the castle nut available?
lol. I'm going to revive Freelica. have some faith..... .. ..
I'm only taking the trans and a few body panels so everything else should be up for grabs.
swapped hoods a while back because the black hood was junk so it might as well go on the junk car.
then pulled the blue celi into position to get ready to drop the trans. stripped the interior and bumper, lights etc.
would be nice if I could do this in the garage but the green BEANS is currently taking up the entire garage so that's a no go.
car port will have to do for now. it's just a trans swap anyways.
BEANS or Freelica, one and/or both of these will run!!!!
You can doooo itttt!
So if you get a rusty Celica, is it called a Rustica? Sounds like something you can order at Olive Garden. Thanks you ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here all week...
Been a while since I've updated this.
I'm slowly breaking the blue car for parts. Some/most will be up for grabs. Others will be put on Freelica.
bumper, fender, door mirrors, lights, turn signals etc taken off.
Interior is stripped nearly. Need a couple more bolts to take out the dash.
rear lights and spoiler too. might as well take the trunk. lol
draining fluids to take out the trans.
So we get to today. Today I decided to work on the blue car and get the trans out of the way. Everything went smoothly. All bolts came out and were easy to loosen. Kept the driver's side axle in because I'm probably going to use it. about an hour or less into it and the trans, clutch, and flywheel are off. yay! now to just bolt it onto Freelica and I'll have ONE running celi.
You can say I was feeling pretty good but then once again mother nature intervene with a big F U. Brought in the rain so I quickly cleaned up and went inside only to watch the wind pick up, and the torrential downpour turn into a full on hailstorm. a hailstorm in august!? come on, the one day I work on cars and this happens. I think the car gods are not happy with me.
Send me the double din radio panel and the fog light connector with pigtails, plz. kthx.
You should've put your chainmail and a snorkel on, and kept working. It would have been fine.
Yea... Despite your comments in the TOTD thread, I don't want you struck by lighting, so you made the right choice.
See but if you get struck by lightning and live there's no better time to buy a lottery ticket.
Chee accept the help.
Will work for food and can sleep anywhere.
I welcome the help. It's just me, I don't have any free weekends. Summer is way busy and I've had photo shoots and weddings every weekend so far. The little times after work is all I have to get **** done. If we can find a free weekend, you guys are more than welcome to stop by, if not then you'll be working on my car all by yourself which is fine by me. Lemme know, I'll leave you the keys and everything
Well think on the bright side, at least you're busy from gaining income to pay for hobbies you never have time for!
I know the feeling.
Also, I help you fix the car I don't fix the car for you. Think of it as a bit of a hand hold and training wheels so next time you can get yourself out of your own mess lol.
Sounds good to me as well, we come, we fix, we eat, we fix.
send me the gauge cluster pigtails please. kthx.
I'll even show up to stand around and be pretty as well as micromanage.
Breakfast egg rolls, lunch egg rolls, dinner egg rolls, egg roll egg rolls.
At this point, my car will be back up before yours is.... Get to work!
so i guess that instead of "garage rescue" is "barn rescue" for you. So lets do this fam. Lets choose a date. Cheela is on you to make it (time)happen.
yeah, yours probably will be back up before mine Chris.
once wedding season blows over I'll have more time to get **** done.
I got an engagement shoot after work today that's 2 hours away and then a wedding all day this weekend as well. Should be a small break between weddings after that one so hopefully next week or so I'll find some garage/barn time. *fingers crossed*
^ LOL
Looks like September is pretty open if you all wanna stop by? I'm up for it. I could grill up some butt and cook some egg rolls.
Sweet. I'll start packing my crane, engine stand, and rotisserie
Chris should bring his lift
What's this? Fall meet at Cheela's house?
Liftbacks are the best, shame they all pretty much disappeared now.
UPDATE
We've got motion!! Spent the last two days putting everything together.
Flywheel, clutch, and pressure plate went on without a stumble. Lining up the trans proved difficult as always but I eventually got it on and bolted everything back up. Decided to do some upgrading from all my spare parts while I was putting it back together. With semi-new clutch and trans, I also grabbed my K&N intake from my old 7afe as well as the ebay header. Reused the axle from Jake's car or was it mine? I don't remember. I got axles sitting everywhere now. Also installed TRD springs & KYB struts to the front since it was apart. Will get to the back later as it wasn't being worked on and I ran out of time today. Since the brakes were rusted to ****, I decided to grab the brakes from my green car and put them on Freelica since it will be upgrading to GT brakes when the BEAMS is finished.
Clutch - check
Trans - check
Intake - check
Header - check
Springs/struts- check
Brakes - check
put the axle nuts and wheels back on. tighten everything and dropped her back on all fours. Tossed in the battery and DONE! Freelica runs, drives, and goes bwwaaahhhhhhhhhh all over. lol sounds so funny with it being cut right after the downpipe. Then I gave her a nice long bath because she deserved one. Parked her with gramps and took some pics.
PICS:
👍👍
1 down, 1 to go!
Can get the parts car running, but not the car you want to run. Go figure. I mean... woo!
Yea, it was the easier of the two and the wife wants the blue car out of the yard soon so I had to get it done. Now I can strip the rest of the blue car for parts and junk it.
Run that 7A HARD man lol. Is that the adjustable distributor on it? 15 deg timing and 93 octane ftw!
Feel the(lack of) power!
You bet I am. Sounds pretty awwwwwwful with no exhaust. lol
https://flic.kr/p/2h3X8WP
This past sunday I had a little time so I thought I'd give Freelica a quick polish to see what I could do with the paint. Surprisingly it shined up pretty decent. Still looks like crap with the rust and spray paint overspray but it was nice to see it looking somewhat pretty again compared to the dismal state it was in before. breathing new life into it for sure. A clean set of doors and a bit of work with a PDR kit and it won't look so bad.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Pretty good reflection. Didn't think it would be possible.
This would be a fun car to practice body work with. You could respray the car relatively affordably. LOTS of sanding, but it could be worth it.
^exactly my thoughts. I need to respray my green one bad but I have little to no experience with painting and don't want to mess it up on my baby. So I could use Freelica as an experimental car. I'm all for putting in the hard work and doing it myself.
Grand Am I flipped. The clear on the rear bumper cover and spoiler was peeling terribly.
haha. Nice! I do in fact have that harbor freight gun. Just never used it yet. Seeing as the budget for this is as cheap as can get then I might as well try it out. The Grand Am didn't turn out too bad.
Best thing to do is buy a car in need of bodywork and keep at it until you're good, and you already have the car so it's a perfect opportunity. Plus it won't be a total loss on materials, since you got the car for free and making it look nice will increase what you'll be able to get for it once it's done. Really it's a win win win.
The Porter Cable https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002654I46 is pretty decent, a little lacking in some areas but for the price it's WAY better than what I see you're using.
only thing with paint is having the right, big-ass compressor to provide the necessary air for the gun, then having the right tips for the guns to get the proper atomization for the paint, and the necessary inline filters & pressure regulators. After that, it's just proper prep work and mixing the right ratios for everything.
I grew up using rotary polishers (I have the old model Dewalt). They aren't very forgiving, but you can get sh*& done with them. They cut like no tomorrow, which can be dangerous in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to tame it.
yeah, it's definitely time to upgrade my arsenal. I've been using alot of cheapo tools and saying when I break them I will upgrade. Some have broken right away and thus I've upgraded to better. Some I don't use nearly enough to consider upgrading and others haven't broken yet after years of use. Still with the crap paint I have on all my cars it would be a good investment to get that one.
Always start with the lightest compound on the gentlest pad and lower end of the speed range and work up from there to get the desired results, when you're new to stuff. Also don't be afraid to cheat with fillers lol! My car is 50% polished and 90% fillers haha! I've got a motley assortment of stuff I use, none of it very fancy but I've got a system that works. I'm always up for trying new stuff, I'm ready to have a go at my Mazda with a sample of "the last cut" all in one diminishing compound. Cuts and polishes in one step with one pad which is pretty awesome!
Fillers?
did some more small things to get this thing ready for the road.
Swapped over NGK spark plugs and wires, as well as the distributor cap and rotor.
Cleaned up the valve cover and intake manifold as much as I could.
Threw my 2 post spoiler on without the riser blocks because they were reps that were a bit wobbly when put together. I'm gonna have to get some better hardware to keep them from killing people when I'm racing up to 55mph with that 7AFE power.
swapped over to HIDs as well because f*ck traffic (they're all trucks with super bright HIDs anyways)
And finally this quick little 15 min steering wheel swap turned out to be more work than I had wanted. lol
Parked in front the garage and took the battery off, swapped steering wheel blah blah easy stuff. put it back togehter, went to start the car and NOTHING.
It was at that moment that Freelica's original starter decided to take a crap after 23 years. I KNEW I should've just threw one of my spares on when I was putting the transmission back together. lol so I had to add a starter replacement to my steering wheel swap. but all good, she runs again.
question for you all.
so my clock and cd player don't turn off when I shut the car off. To keep it from sapping the battery, I've just been unplugged the battery everytime I park. Any idea what's going on with it? There's a lot of weird things I found when cleaning and putting Freelica back together. Passenger side turn signal and sidemarker has burnt out bulbs. Passenger side door light was also just unplugged randomly. wires running to the "system" in the back didn't look that well done. cigarette light is also sitting by the shifter. I've fixed all those things except for the radio/clock staying on. I'm probably gonna take the deck out and see if the wiring was done legit or shoddy... judging from everything else, it may the latter. Does the deck affect the clock though? what would keep it on after you take the keys out?
I vaguely remember the clock being on the radio fuse, and the radio is probably wired up to constant power instead of switched power. That shouldn’t keep the clock on all the time though, only the radio.
Could be the door switch? I seem to recall mine would keep the radio and clock going after turning the car off until you opened the door.
I meant like if the switch was stuck or shorted, as then the door would never "be open". I dunno, maybe that or something in the ignition switch not turning off accessory?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cll87/48689617648/in/album-72157686835933790/
Registered and on the road. Now to fix the clock and exhaust. Might go the simple method and just get some joint connectors to hold the piping in and call it good. Then ready to drive and/or sell.
Is the clock to measure the 1/4 mile times?
Yes. Yes it is.
Since you and I both live in Wisconsin, maybe one day you can help me work on my Celica. I'm a noob by the way
Is that how you get access to CheeLa's famous butt everyone talks about?
BUMP.
so I ripped the deck out and the clock works again. Problem solved..except for the gaping hole where it used to be.
(just doing small updates because big updates tend to crash the forum)
Lol but seriously though a lift makes a pretty huge difference when it comes to ease of access and work.
Plus the winter is cold, no excuse though if your garage was heated.
Freelica's all put back together. Probably a good clean n vacuum and then be ready to sell. So anyone want a Freelica?
Damn! She's a keeper now.
What are you looking to get for it (General price.... I know my price is free.99)?
And how is the body outside of the rusty doors?
Chris is gearing up to get a learner car for the kids already.
Nah... I've got too much else going on right now.
But I ALWAYS have to ask, because it's an illness.
haha. I'm sure Freelica wouldn't mind if Theo took it for a spin.
and yeah I hear ya Chris, fixing this one up to sell just so I can have room to buy another. lol
Because wagon is also life!
I do miss my wagon, that was a blast to drive.
The... Coalrola
just sold today. good bye Freelica.
#NoLongerFree
#Freelica4ever
#meh
I'll probably start a new thread since the next one probably won't be free so it can't be Freelica any more.
Was it sold to a member or a future member?
Future member hopefully. I did get them to join the FB page and tell them about the 6 or so peeps on here so hopefully they'll head on over one of these days.
NEW THREAD NAME:
HOW TO BETRAY A CAR IN 13 PAGES......
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