Alaska Celica ST revival, Stuck on what I should do to bring my 6th gen back from the dead Options

[Livewire]

So not sure what happened to my first post, but it lacked pictures anyways...

How’s it going, new here, and I inherited a 96 Celica ST hatch from my parents. Basically there was a pop as my dad was driving it up a nearby hill, and it started spewing white smoke out the tail pipe. It then sat in their yard for what I can recall is about 13 years. That’s 13 years of Alaskan winters without moving. Needless to say this car is pretty rough. But, my parents were pretty easy to convince to get rid of the car for the low low cost of a tow dolly ��. Back in October I did a compression test and if I remember right there was two cylinders with 0 compression... now I’m considering doing a full rebuild or a swap, don’t know if I’m super keen on keeping the 7A when there’s so much more fun to be had with this car but stuck on if I should swap it, and if I do what I should swap with, or just rebuild and call it a day. I’m a delivery driver so gas mileage is somewhat of a concern here . What do you guys think? Mind the mess but whatever I decide to do I’m happy to have a new car to join a forum that’s not for another ford








This post has been edited by Livewire: Jul 16, 2020 - 12:20 AM

[Livewire]

Alrighty boys its project time!
Spent the last 2 days pulling out the seats and giving it a deep vacuum, as well as dusting out all the cobwebs and draining the liquid out of the bottom of the hatch. I really thought they were capped off, but I was mistaken. Oh well. I messed around with the ignition system and replaced the spark plug wires and actually got her to start and idle, really rough but it's there. I did see the white smoke that my dad described and the oil level on the dipstick is HIGH. Going to drain all the fluids tomorrow and see if I can find evidence of coolant/oil exchange as cylinders 1&2 had really low compression with the gauge hooked up. 3&4 look fine so I'll be pulling the engine and installing a rebuild kit I just ordered off YOTAShop. While I was at it I ordered a Gates timing belt, water pump, and a basic AutoZone lifetime warranty clutch kit just to get these out of the way. Going to save the exterior wash until I can drive it down to the self serve wash, but I'll post some pictures of the cleaned out interior later.