Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Nihil Jul 21, 2012 - 7:30 AM

Hi,
this is my Toyota Celica ST, year 1997 (first i believed it's a 1998, but later realized it's a 1997...), with an 1.8 l 7A-FE engine. I bought it about 2 months ago (Edit: summer of 2012). It's current "mileage" is reading 177.000 km (approx. 110.000 miles). Entire car is completely stock, no mods were made by previous owners (supposed to be more than four owners).
Perhaps I'd rather own a GT with a 3S-GE engine, but I needed a car and no GTs were available at the time. And since I am on a student budget, ST might be more suitable for me.

Plans for the future (which I change every time I open my topic ):

Interior - very well preserved for it's age and all the owners:
- LED conversion
- Refurbishing/repainting most of the interior (plastic dash parts, plastic door panel parts, arm rest, headliner and carpet)
- Steering wheel replacement (7gen)
- Leather seats
- Shift knob, hand brake handle, pedals and such petty nonsense
- Leather shift and handbrake boots

Electronics are basic - AC, central door lock, cheap Kenwood stereo with stock speakers. So the plan is:
- Car alarm with remote lock - not keen on this alarm, I'll probably try and make my own
- Good sound system (currently got Pioneer head unit with stock speakers)
- LCD touchscreen with CarPC

As for the exterior, the car has no spoiler and no extra bodyparts. Also, very poor paint - cracked, bumped, scratched, peeled...
- bodywork repair and complete repaint (I love the idea of pearl white, perhaps dark grey might be nice too)
- either a GT4 spoiler with risers, or a DCW duckbill
- some nice wheels

Performance and handling:
- CAI
- better exhaust
- coilovers

This is all for now, here are some pics

EDIT: moved the pictures into the second post, so you don't have to scroll all the time.

Posted by: rave2n Jul 21, 2012 - 8:24 AM

Nice base to start off of. Eager to see the results!

Posted by: Nihil Jul 21, 2012 - 10:48 AM

EDIT: moved pictures from the first post.






















Second post:

Ok, to gently start this thread, here is what I made today.

I bought a 10mm foam and a sheet of white artificial leather. Although I planned on doing the door panels today, the weather was a bit cloudy and only a matter of hours until the rain storm. So I decided to refurbish the arm rest first.


Artificial leather:


And the finish:


Could be done better, perhaps by stitching, but I don't know yet how to stich + my mum's machine is broken, so... better luck next time.
Here are some things that I intend to refurbish with the same colour artificial leather:
- door pannel (that middle round piece that concludes to the door handle)
- shift boot
- sunshades
- parking brake boot

And just a sneak peak - I bought a 7gen steering wheel yesterday, quite nicely preserved. Just need to go and pick up the airbag next week.

Posted by: SwissFerdi Jul 21, 2012 - 3:27 PM

+1 for a silver Celica. Welcome to the site, and best of luck with your car. Looking nice already, you're lucky to have the de-spoilered hatch...as well as the more potent 7A-FE, for the year, than what the US got.

Posted by: wazzuu Jul 25, 2012 - 9:19 AM

7gen steering wheel is a pure win in a 6gc... looking forward seeing it installed

Posted by: Nihil Jul 27, 2012 - 12:43 PM

Ok, today was a nice day to do some paintwork on the interior and I got a day off at work. So I decided to start with the door pannels, grabed some spray paint and plastic primer and I gave it a go.

First I took aparat the door pannels, then I sanded the parts to be painted with P1000 sand paper and then used a spray cleaner/degreaser to remove the dirt and other filth. Next I sprayed two coats of plastic primer and when it dried, I sprayed a few coats of white, until it looked shiny enough. I used a can of plastic primer and two cans of white spray paint.

I probably should sand it a bit more, maybe with even finer sand paper, but I have a feeling the paint will peel off and I don't know what went wrong. But considering it is a day's work and costs almost nothing (under $20/15€ for the paint) I'll give it another go if that happens.

Here are some pics of if:
Preparation


Sanding


First coat of plastic primer


A few coats of white paint



And the finish




I'm surprised how good it looks, but when the rest of interior is going to be painted, it'll be just awesome... Just hope it sticks.

As for the artificial leather refurbishment of that round center piece of door panels... I thought it is separated from the rest of the panel, but it is just one piece. Anybody got some ideas how can this be refurbished? Ok, it's simple to cut it out and refurbish it, but I have no idea how to put it back together... Need some ideas.

Posted by: Box Jul 27, 2012 - 1:06 PM

Welcome to the site! What's wrong with the door vinyl? From the pics it looks good.

Also on the center console piece. Did you use the old material as a template?

Posted by: Nihil Jul 27, 2012 - 4:25 PM

Nothing is actually wrong with the door vinyl, I just think it would look better in white leather...

As for the center console piece (arm rest), I just cut a sheet of artificial leather, large enough to cover it over from each side, then I trimmed the edges once it was glued to it.

Posted by: Box Jul 27, 2012 - 4:37 PM

Really the only option for the door panel to make it look right would be to replace all the vinyl. Since it's not like most cars that just used inserts. You could try to cover that one area though by overlaying new material and tucking it in. Provided you removed the old material from the arm cover, could look at it to determine how you'd need to cut and fold the new material. As much as I work on my own cars, I have a hard time with customizing interior. Such a pain. Why I buy things I can just throw onto it, and not worry about getting cuts and folds right.

Posted by: kurt95gt Jul 27, 2012 - 4:57 PM

Vencent doggy makes door cards that are cut to the shape of the insert that just glue over the top of the old one
That's when how Toyota did it factory on some celicas

Posted by: Smaay Jul 27, 2012 - 5:13 PM

nice job man! the door panels look awesome!

Posted by: SwissFerdi Jul 27, 2012 - 10:56 PM

Sorry, I must provide correction here - I have handled, and tried to fit Vincent's door inserts. They are of excellent quality, but not cut to shape - around three centimeters must be trimmed all around. This is where it can get tricky if you're new to the process, as I was, and I ended up cutting a few millimeters too short in some areas.

Posted by: ricochet1490 Jul 27, 2012 - 11:32 PM

You are LUCKY to have door cards in that good of shape. most are TOAST.

My suggestion.... and I know you want white... but don't look a gift horse in the mouth and leave them as they are. If they were trash I'd say go for it, but those are so minty I wouldn't bother
just my $.02

Posted by: Box Jul 28, 2012 - 12:32 AM

Yeah, my door panels are pretty much trashed. I is jelly.

Posted by: Nihil Jul 28, 2012 - 2:46 AM

Ok, since you all say my door panels are in great shape, I'll leave it at that for now.

How about cleaning and preserving the vinyl? Anybody knows any good products to revitalise vinyl, perhaps to slightly paint it in black?
Lets say I'm thinking about painting the dashboard, but since it is wrapped in this leather-like vinyl, the surface is just to soft to be painted the normal way... Perhaps leather paint?

Just want make it blacker, to increase the black-white contrast.

Posted by: Box Jul 28, 2012 - 11:20 AM

Meguiar's Motor Cycle Leather Conditioner is excellent for bringing back the color to vinyl and leather surfaces.

Posted by: Nihil Aug 3, 2012 - 1:12 PM

Ok, yesterday I got a 7 gen airbag, so today I replaced my worn 6 gen wheel with leather 7 gen wheel.

Quite easy mod, started by removing the old airbag from the wheel, then I removed the wheel with a puller (can be forced by strength, but no need to if you got a puller).

Then I spent half an hour, studying and trying to get apart the steering spiral airbag connectors. As it didn't seem to come apart, I simply cut it and soldered the 7gen connector wires together. One other thing that gave me some problems is steering wheel adjustment. Needed to put everything together and back apart three times, after the test drive showed that steering wheel is mounted first a bit to the right, then to the left. Third time it was perfect and looks just amazing.

Here are the pics:
Old wheel



Airbags



Pulling off the steering wheel


Both wheels together


Steering spiral connectors


Soldered wires



And the finish




I love it!

Tomorrow I'll be spraying lower parts of the dashboard white

Posted by: Box Aug 3, 2012 - 1:48 PM

Looks awesome!

Posted by: Nihil Aug 4, 2012 - 11:56 AM

So today, as promised, I painted the lower plastic parts of the dashboard. White of course, same process as the door panels.

I like how it turned out, but I'll probably need to smooth it out and give it another coat of white in the near future.

Here is another ton of pics:
Stripped



Work in progress



And mounted back on












Here is what happened to the door handles, since I sprayed the rubber, need to fix this somehow.

Posted by: Nihil Aug 15, 2012 - 9:30 AM

So today I had a day off and I decided to sew a shift boot, since my mum's oldschool sewing machine just got back from repair shop and she lend it to me.

First I ****ed up just at the finish and had to start over... Good thing I got lots of this white faux leather, so I just cut a new one and as it turns out, I did a pretty good job for a first timer. Could be better thou, but I must say I expected worse

Here are a few pics:

Posted by: Nihil Aug 31, 2012 - 4:46 AM

Yesterday I polished exhaust manifold cover plate on my 7a-fe engine, I just messed up a bit using too harsh sandpaper for the first brush, as it left scratches all over the plate... But it kind of turned out ok, perhaps I'll polish it some more someday, to remove the scratches




Today I was planning on cleaning the entire engine bay with some degreaser spray, but the rain decided to mess up my plans, so I'll need to find something else to do the next few days...

What do you guys prefer - clean engine VS. painted engine?
I just can't decide what to go with, since I like both options...

Posted by: Edser Aug 31, 2012 - 10:45 AM

That shift gaiter looks awesome! Very professional. You really should look into redoing the armrest with red stitching too. That'd be really awesome!

Posted by: delusionz Sep 2, 2012 - 5:03 PM

manifold heat shield - paint it with high temp exhaust paint, its not worth shining it up since its steel, it will rust right away

Posted by: Nihil Sep 3, 2012 - 3:11 AM

Are you sure it's steel? Thought it was aluminum... and while polishing, it felt aluminum-ish

Speaking of painting steel/aluminum, can the powder coated paint withstand the temperatures? Since I'll have valve cover and air intake cover sandblasted, I can have it powder coated, but not sure how it takes the heat..

Posted by: delusionz Sep 3, 2012 - 6:19 AM

its worth a shot

Posted by: SwissFerdi Sep 3, 2012 - 9:52 AM

You can have it powdercoated I'm sure, but why not just spray paint it yourself? Engine enamel will hold up just fine.

Posted by: Box Sep 3, 2012 - 3:55 PM

Yup it's steel. Mine had rust on it.

Posted by: Nihil Sep 17, 2012 - 10:54 AM

Ok, today I replaced the hood latch that was pretty much just rust... And it gave me quite a problem, as I locked my hood with latch cable detached from the mechanism

Before:


Comparison:


After:

Posted by: Nihil Sep 30, 2012 - 5:27 AM

My cousin helped me with main service: timing belt, other belts, filters (oil, air), water pump and spark plugs are replaced. Now she runs like new
I also replaced courtesy lights, trunk light and cluster lights with bright white LEDs

Next I have to replace front brake discs and pads, because of annoying wobbling steering wheel, and prepare for winter (tires).
Anybody got some experience with Kumho winter tires? The price seems great and i've heard some positive things about Kumho.

Posted by: richee3 Sep 30, 2012 - 9:14 AM

I've had three sets of Kumhos and I will gladly give a shining, positive "**** no!" The first set was removed after 15k miles, no tread left. No aggressive driving, and the tires had a 40k warranty. The second set was on my IS 300, not the Celica. I rotated the tires one day and had an immediate, bad pull to the right. Checked the air pressure, it was fine. I couldn't figure out how I messed my alignment up by simply rotating the tires. The next day, it started bouncing while I was driving. When I checked it a few days after that, I had two knots in the tire and one of them was over an inch tall. These still still hadn't reached their expected life. The third set I just recently pulled off of the Celica. These actually did meet their warranty, but one tire was repeating my second set and was pulling for no reason. Kumhos, in my experience, aren't terrible tires as long as you don't expect long life out of them. Grip was always okay, never had any real issues there. They were never the quietest tires but weren't the loudest either. I would advise against them, based on what I've seen and heard about others' experiences.

Posted by: Nihil Sep 30, 2012 - 11:13 AM

Wow, good to know, no kumho for me then... How about Hankook, Falken or Toyo? Same price range, perhaps a bit higher...

Posted by: Tigawoods Sep 30, 2012 - 1:03 PM

ive been a dunlop/bridgestone/yokohama person

Hankook is a good brand as well

Posted by: Box Sep 30, 2012 - 1:34 PM

Bridgestone I can vouch for, along with Michelin. Tires I have now are Sumic, cheaper brand. Not sure if they make winter tires, but they were $60? or so each new and they've been good.

Posted by: Nihil Sep 30, 2012 - 2:16 PM

yeah, but Bridgestone, Michelin and Dunlop are up from 150€ ($190) apiece where Hankook/Falken/Toyo are about 100€ ($130)... 600€ for tires seems a bit too much to me, but 400€ is reasonable

Posted by: Box Sep 30, 2012 - 2:27 PM

Hankook, Falken, and Toyo I've heard good things about. Maybe should ask around locally and see what everyone uses. I for one live where Winter is non-existent.

Posted by: richee3 Sep 30, 2012 - 6:55 PM

I've always liked my Falken Ziex's. I get light to medium winters, and they didn't perform great in snow/ice, but they did better than the reviews I read led me to believe. Definitely not a great winter tire, but great all-seasons for sure.

Posted by: Nihil Dec 23, 2012 - 9:16 AM

Ok, latest update, but a month late since I'm lazy - winter tires Maxxis 205/50R16, great grip on dry or wet surface, a bit loose on snow, but so is any tire.
Wheels are some cheap Alessio I reused from VW Golf mkIV, that I had prior to celica. Cheap, but I like them. And as soon as the wheels come of in spring, I'm gonna repaint them in black. I was planning on doing it before this year's winter, but we got an early snow in November so I had put them on earlier.

Also replaced the battery last week, the old battery was a Toyota brand, but no date on it... I wonder if it could be the stock battery :S

Next thing I got are a few ring seals and gaskets to replace on the engine, since it is leaking oil somewhere around the belts.

Posted by: Nihil Apr 14, 2013 - 12:28 PM

After a long winter we finally got some sun so I can work outside. Here is what happened today:

The before/after picture
http://s1165.photobucket.com/user/acerne/media/Celica/PICT0014-2_zpsb742d0d0.jpg.html

And both fitted on the car
http://s1165.photobucket.com/user/acerne/media/Celica/PICT0017-4_zps527bbf0c.jpg.html

Such a difference, feels like the car is 3 years newer

Posted by: snagmor Apr 18, 2013 - 10:26 AM

Late to this thread but you have done some really nice work! progress looks great and I love how the interior looks! good job man

Posted by: Nihil Apr 18, 2013 - 4:47 PM

I've done a poor job with the interior painting, though not visible on pics here, and failed miserably with vinyl wrapping of some interior pieces (wasn't even worth taking a photo but that's what you get if you buy cheap vinyl).
Now I've been planing for winter to end to repaint that interior pieces, since I got no garage/workshop, so that is coming soon

Posted by: The_enD Apr 18, 2013 - 11:38 PM

New to the forum and slowly reading(read steal ideas ) everyone's thread. Nice looking Celi!

Posted by: Nihil May 9, 2013 - 3:32 PM

Funny thing happened the other day... I own this car a year now and only yesterday, when I had to use the information about the date of the first registration of the car, I noticed the year is 1997 and not 1998 as I was lead to believe when I bought it

The man I bought it from was a bit of a lying cunt I guess, never even crossed my mind to double check the vehicle production year
But nonetheless, the car runs great and I love it, don't care what year it is.

I guess I'll have to change this thread name among the other things

Posted by: CrossCudi Jul 2, 2013 - 6:08 PM

your creativity and knowledge keeps making this celica more n more awesome,. GOOD JOB !

Posted by: Nihil Aug 9, 2013 - 5:25 AM

Here's what I've been doing lately:





I stripped the paint clean these wheels, it turned out they were badly corroded, so I brushed/sanded them and cleaned it off and later painted the wheels (2K filler, primer, 2K dark grey paint, fluorescent green splatters and clear-coat). I had a lot of work with these wheels, first I thought "2-3 weeks of work and the wheels are done", well... 4 months and more than 100€ later, here they are, completely restored

At first I planed on using them, but I got some cheap 17" wheels later and my winter wheels are 16" with new tires, I have no use for these 15" wheels, so I'm going to sell them.

The pictures don't do them justice though, the fluorescent green is very reflective, so here is a night shot with flash:


Next project:
fixing the poorly painted interior, coming soon

Posted by: Box Aug 9, 2013 - 2:54 PM

It reminds me of an unpleasantly tasting jawbreaker, I like it.

Posted by: Nihil Sep 7, 2013 - 12:06 PM

Okay, as promised, here is repainted interior:

A bit sloppy paintwork, didn't yet learn how to set the paint gun properly, but practice makes perfect. Notice the smooth finish? Had quite some work with that









Next I've got a white faux leather cloth for the headliner + I have some ideas that will enrich this white interior plastic

QUESTION: does anybody know where to get some brackets for my 1DIN stereo head unit? I've got no brackets and my head unit is just sitting in the hole all by itself...

Posted by: Nihil Sep 10, 2013 - 10:36 AM

Experimented with the rising sun graphics on my interior, not sure if I'm happy with the result, any comment?

The red paint did not stick good to it, so I'll just rub it off if I get bored with it...

Posted by: kurt95gt Sep 10, 2013 - 8:06 PM

Love those speaker covers!

Posted by: Nihil Oct 27, 2013 - 5:51 AM

New update on the interior:

I refurbished the headliner with white pleather.




I wanted that soft feel of pleather, so I put 5 mm foam in between.
Took me more time and money as I first thought it will, as I had some problems with finding the good spray glue in our stores. It's not as easy as it seems in all those DIY videos and forum posts, or maybe I just had some misfortunes with glue and material.... It's a bit wrinkly at the edges, but for now I'm happy with result, maybe I'll try and smooth out those wrinkles in future.

Posted by: Nial Oct 27, 2013 - 6:40 AM

Loving the interior, fantastic work, got my mind working to do something similar on my project but maybe in a silver or gunmetal grey.

Posted by: BonzaiCelica Oct 27, 2013 - 7:59 PM

great stuff except that one cover around the left corner air condition vent looks weird?? its the only one that white while all the others are black...

Posted by: Nihil Oct 28, 2013 - 4:16 AM

Not sure which cover you mean

I had an idea to paint some graphics on center console and that left air vent, so it brightens up the color scheme, but then I got scared that I will **** it up, so I decided to just leave it like this for now And I removed that "rising sun" from the rearview mirror, too aggressive color...

Posted by: Nihil Apr 8, 2014 - 11:29 AM

I repainted my summer wheels in some black-green color combination + put them on brand new set of Toyo Proxes T1-R tires. I think it turned out better than I expected, I'm not quite good with paint gun, but I'm getting there.

The downside now is that I am disappointed with my ride height everytime I see the car. Hopefully I'll be able to spare some cash for the coilovers in the near future.

In the sun:
http://s1165.photobucket.com/user/acerne/media/DSC_0075_zps4d4ffbf5.jpg.html

In the shade:
http://s1165.photobucket.com/user/acerne/media/DSC_0082_zps2a626c6d.jpg.html

Bonus - nobody can ever say that my car is not roomy enough (eight tires inside the car):
http://s1165.photobucket.com/user/acerne/media/DSC_0073_zps2d289602.jpg.html

Posted by: The_enD Apr 8, 2014 - 11:56 AM

What tires are those (yellow/orange lines)?

nvm , I figured it out.

Posted by: Nihil May 26, 2014 - 2:25 AM

Did something different instead of shifter boot and I like the way it feels. Now I need to get some ball-shaped shifter knob, thinking about a shortshifter as well.

Posted by: The_enD May 26, 2014 - 2:59 AM

Nice work, you should use some sandpaper on the rod, while you are waiting on the SS.
I love the feel of my shifter.

Posted by: Nihil May 26, 2014 - 10:27 AM

Yes, I intend to sand/polish it, but did not have the time at the moment. Probably when I get some decent knob, thinking about MOMO knobs.

Posted by: PrimeLuxeZ May 26, 2014 - 9:31 PM

I love everything you have done to the car, and I like the shifter cover, you should make a write up on that.