Old Cecil Restoration : 96 GT gen4 3s-gte swap, My Celica (Old Cecil) has sat around long enough Options

[OldCecil]

I should have started this thread when the project began, but I'll catch everyone who is interested up in a flash. I decided to compile my experience into this forum to keep track of progress and have a place to go to collect my thoughts and stay organized. I'm no pro, but consider myself to be mechanically inclined. I hope this write up can potentially help people with their projects, maybe answer some questions about this particular swap, and be somewhat entertaining and not too boring of a read. I'm sure there is no shortage of more experienced mechanics and garage wrenchers on this site, so any suggestions are, of course, welcome.

Four years ago I bought this car because its rust free, the underneath looks great and the mileage isn't too hateful at 160k ish. That, and these cars are becoming more and more difficult to find in a GT manual trans format. I initially had zero intention of swapping it or doing any sort of restoration work. I just wanted a clean and reliable daily driver that was somewhat fun to drive... This car was just that.

IMG_20160330_091244 by zac savage, on Flickr

I drove this car for a few months until it developed a bad vibration at idle... and was hit in a parking lot on St. Patricks Day 2016... big bummer. After this, The car sat around for years until one day I decided I wanted something fun to drive again. I decided I was going to breath some new life into good Old Cecil.

IMG_20180219_174458 by zac savage, on Flickr

First step was to pressure wash the thick layer of grime that had developed on crusty old Cecil.

IMG_20191021_115827 by zac savage, on Flickr

The next step obviously was the easy part, tearing **** apart. Remove the beat up body panels, pull the engine and trans, get covered in goop and grime, turn some wrenches, and drink some beers.

IMG_20200405_162357 by zac savage, on Flickr

OK, now the old 5sfe and s54 are out and I'm waiting on something to replace it with... I ordered a "low mileage" JDM gen4 3sgte caldina motor and it'll be here soon. Ordered from Dallas JDM Imports in case anybody is curious. They were reasonably priced at $1350 shipped. I put "low mileage" in quotations because everybody says that, but who the hell knows really how many miles are on these things. (after I got the motor and opened it up, it sure didn't seem super low mileage). Anyways, I took the down time to clean things up and coat brackets and what not with POR15 or powdercoat.


IMG_20191021_123104 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20191024_222252 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20191024_222304 by zac savage, on Flickr

Will continue this post soon. I've got to figure out how to upload photos from google drive or something... The cool stuff is coming I promise!

This post has been edited by OldCecil: Jul 15, 2020 - 3:27 PM

[OldCecil]

We're getting to the good stuff soon, but here's another update on what I've done so far...

I decided to put at least a little bit of love in to the interior of this car. It came with tan leather, but the seats were really rough and I'm not a big fan of the tan anyways. I want all black. Almost unbelievably, I found a mint black cloth interior at a junk yard and pulled it on half price day... that'll never happen again, most things are trashed at the junk yards around here. Anyways, i managed to get the front and rear seats out, and the 98 convertible parts car I've got had some really nice black leather door panels and steering wheel. After I cleaned the grime off the door panels and painted the speaker mesh, they came out pretty slick. The last piece to the puzzle is the headliner... tan headliner wasn't going to fly, so I decided to try my hand at upholstering. I ordered some foam-backed black and gray camo fabric and went to down. It was actually pretty easy to do. The headliner may be a little weird for some people... but it works for me and beats the crap out of tan with an all black interior.

I also ordered all new Rockford fosgate speakers for the car, a nice benefit to the new door panels is that I can upgrade to the premium sound option.

IMG_20200524_132012 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200524_135000 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200524_141043 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200524_145247 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200524_165228 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200524_165837 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200524_173552 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200524_165442 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200524_173639 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200528_195606 by zac savage, on Flickr

The next step before beginning the long, arduous process of reassembly was to mate the motor and trans. I put on a new rear main seal and got some arp flywheel bolts and a lightweight flywheel and an exedy clutch. went ahead and put the wiring harness on and a few other little odds and ends... and bingo, next post should get me to the powerplant install!

IMG_20200621_115443 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200621_122309 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200621_124544 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200621_211311 by zac savage, on Flickr

This is the point where it really started getting exciting for me... can finally start putting things together instead of taking things apart, cleaning, painting, prepping etc. All the hours of part restoration and **** can finally begin to pay off.