silverra23

6th February update ohhh i hurt....but man my car is looking good. got a lot done today! i am not used to that much bending and contortioning!! Back seat went in with the seat belts As Pac from Toymods helpfully suggested the dash wouldn't go in without some elongation of the existing hole. Now its in and looks pretty good. Not perfect fit, but better than super cracked like before Then started putting the dash back together Put the console in along with my GT handbrake console..it needs some more work to fit And then the front seats..mm they look good So I have to put the door trims on the front doors, but I am holding out hoping my new lock set arrives from toyheadauto.. same for the steering column surrounds.. Still have to put the radiator overflow bottle in...new battery... see if it starts... put my new suspension in... fit new wheels and tyres...fit windscreens So a bit to do, but if the gods are smiling we might have a shot at Hanging Rock still. I think the panel beater might have bent the fark out of the exhaust too... its on a weird angle and missing almost all of its rubbers... anyways will deal with that as I have to. Stay tuned!

5th February 2010 update Well my window clip drama seems to be solved which is good. One less stress. Got the stud glued down on the dash top. It worked so well that when installing it, not only did the stuff pull out, but the foam it was glued to did as well. Pissed off still.. have glued it all in again and will have a think about how else I can get it in without stressing it. Maybe I need to elongate the hole and then put a big washer underneath. Dodgy..... I got some of the interior plastics painted and they look soooo much better Tomorrow I will put the C-pillar covers in, then the seats, and have another crack at the dash top. If it fails again I guess its back to the Dashboard Doctor.

Another 4th of February update.. this time about the dash top done by the Dashboard Doctor Grrr.... Top of the dash top looks good.. but they didn't fix one of the mounting studs, which unfortunately is the one right on the end in front of the driver... so it pulls out and the top of the dash lifts. Going to take it to work tomorrow and see if someone can glue it in with some resin or something.. pissed off. Also can't find where the panel beater put the window chrome clips so have to source some of them. Tonight I did get the chrome back on around the passenger side window and the rubber around the window opening and the pinch weld back on. It looks nice and neat with the new headlining. I also got the sunvisors in. Will have to buy a few little things tomorrow and then get into it over the weekend. Here is the dashtop before I tried putting it in the car

4th February 2010 update Car is back a day early.. can't complain about the service. Looks good though its hard to take a good photo! All the plastic trim that I thought was in good nick now looks shabby :P

Which brings us bang up to 29th January.. the car went to the auto trimmers yesterday with the help of a friend's partner and his tow truck. Spoke to Trimmer today. He loves the car. He reckons he will be done by next Friday. I am suffering withdrawals already! I took a couple of photos of her outside before the tow truck came to take her to the Trimmers. Looking really good I think :P Also ordered my tyres for my Konig Rewinds yesterday. 205/50/15 Toyo Proxes 4 for a damned good price of $140 each. The Bridgestones I was thinking of were closer to $200 each! Toyo all the way :)

More to that update... I also painted the brake booster charcoal I also fitted the window regulators back to the front of the car after putting new plastic slides on them from one of the thai guys on ebay Once the windows were back in I fitted the outer belt strips in on the doors and the outer chrome. Its starting to look like a car now! I am thinking I might possibly make the big Hanging Rock car show if I keep pressing on, though it might be missing the badges that will still be away getting rechromed. Unless I pay mega bucks for a fast turn around..... hmmmmm......

24th January update... Been busy today, lots of painting and polishing going on... Headlight surrounds were re-chromed, and then I masked them up and painted them charcoal, to emulate how they were standard. They came up great: Front bumper also came back from being re-chromed. The point isn't perfect on it as they had to do a lot of repair work there, but its pretty darned good, and rather shiny Painted the bumper in-fill panels an alloy silver and fitted them up. My paint job has left a little to be desired, but that might be something I get a professional to do again when I have some spare $$$ Gave the bonnet chrome strip a good seeing to with autosol and fitted it up Painted the front bumper brackets flat black Also gave the GT grille a spruce up with some charcoal paint and autosol'd the chrome. I couldn't get the chrome strips off without snapping all the bolts as they are seized solid, so just masked it up and then polished them And finally fitted the indicators back into the front bumper and slipped the bumper on to complete the front of the car. I reckon it looks great!

22nd January... Got the rest of my chrome back finally and its come up looking great. I just stuck the fuel filler ring back on. Mmm shiny. Yes yes I know I know I should have painted the filler neck and used some better screws!!

Another 21st January post...this time in the evening... I reckon wanting to post photos of progress is helping the motivation with this project, hope I am not boring you blokes to death! Anyways, apparently "yeah your bumpers are ready" on the phone translates to "oh we had some problems with your front bumper as it had been repaired badly previously, but its all good it will be ready maybe tomorrow... oh you had other things here too... umm... oh yeah they will be ready tomorrow too" when you go to pick everything up. At least the work that is done is good... even if the service kinda sucks ass. Here is my single shiny rear bumper Thanks to my housemate we fitted the bumper without scratching anything Then I finished painting and polishing the headlight parts and put it all back together, along with the parker lights Here is a slightly arty shot to finish off the night.

21st January update... that was last night's progress. i am going to collect my bumpers today!! i hope :P a recurring theme perhaps?? :)

18th December update.... Little more movement this evening Radiator support panel painted flat black Door handles fit. They work better now too which is a bonus! Note to players at home, its much easier to put the door handle back in with the window out. So do it while you are cleaning out your window runner tracks and replacing the rollers and plastic runners. I went to put the door locks back in and remembered I had ordered an all new lock set from toyheadauto, which hasn't arrived yet, so I am chasing that up as we speak. Also started cleaning up the headlight buckets and brackets and surrounds. Much tidying to be done there.

17th January update... Bit distracted this weekend but have got a few things done. Made a new parcel shelf out of 6mm MDF. Will get it covered when I get the head lining and carpet done this week. And I put in the rear passenger trims Also fitted the chrome trim on the exterior of the rear windows, and started sorting out the front window runners. Can't finish that until the little spacers arrive from the ebay dude in thailand. Re-chromed bumpers are due Monday. So I started to clean up the radiator support panel area. Much surface rust in there :P No photos of that, will put some up when its all nice and black!

14th January update Today's done list includes installing manual pedal box (bad photo!) Installing clutch master cylinder Installing indicators on the guards My chrome work was meant to be ready tomorrow.. whats the bet its not!! I also painted the brake booster but I must have done a poor job cleaning it as some of the paint wouldn't take. Will have to rub it back and have another crack. On the hunt for an *A70 Supra Master cylinder for the brakes as I figure I might as well upgrade it while I have it all apart, in anticipation of putting the corona rt132 brakes into it.

12th January update Here is my collection of bits from toyheadauto - the delivery was really speedy and everything was really well packaged. Rick runs a great service for us Celica people, and the US$ conversion helped nicely too! I fitted the window separator rubbers yesterday and they went straight in The door rubbers were easy to do to, though when the panel beater took the old ones off he seems to have misplaced the screws. Really should have done it myself so that wouldn't happen. Next week I am going to take it to get a new head lining put in it and while its there I think I will get them to fit the carpets too. About now my engine builder discovered a couple of cracked pistons. So I spent a fair bit of time talking to different people to determine which custom made ones I should get from the USA. Talk about confusing!!

3rd January Progress stalled by the festive season... but back into it now... by this stage I couldn't bare to put old crappy rubbers on the car so I ordered everything I could afford for the windows and doors from Rick at toyheadauto. He provides a great service! Anyways. Finally fitted up the plenum grille. Fitted new hoses to the washers as well while everything was apart. Also replaced the rollers inside one of my rear windows so that it would roll up and down properly. Prick of a job but now that I know what I am doing the other ones should go faster. Here is a pic of the window up. Needs a good clean!

27th December.. Tail lights all prettied up. Dummy fitted to the car so I can see how they look.

23rd December... I pulled the tail lights apart so that I could give them a good detailing before they went back on the car. I thought I might need to rechrome the tail light surrounds, but a quick hit of autosol suggests they will come up a treat. This pic shows the polished section in the foreground, and a yet to be done area in the background. The tail light lenses need a good clean too. Guys at work have told me to hit them with some red scotch brite and then clear coat them to bring them back to new again, but i found that a quick rub of autsol does the same job. I have also heard brasso does the same thing, so there seems to be mutiple ways of getting them looking good again. I have been trying to work out what colour to repaint the edges of the tail lights, along with the other bits of body trim that are chrome/black from factory. I tossed up between the satin black finish that is like the c-pillar trims, or had another idea of charcoal metallic. I sprayed the tail light centre section with a sample and I think it looks great by itself and against the silver of the car, so I am going to go with this colour. I will use it on the gt grille, plenum grille, headlight surrounds and the tail light surrounds.

20th December update Interior cleaned of all that dust My partner painted up some front end pieces for me. Will have to paint around the radiator and behind the headlights at some point soon Have to paint here too She painted this too - the fuel tank cover. I think we might need to make a new one And to make myself feel like I put something on the car, I fitted my brand new in Toyota wrapping C-pillar trims

Bumpers dropped off at Modern Plating in Oakleigh Melbourne. For the bumpers, two headlight surrounds and the fuel cap surround it will be nearly $800 to be rechromed.

15th December.. the Kombi was booted out into the driveway and the Celica was put inside Reassembly has started! I put my new Celica badges on the rear quarters. Whoo hooo!! Also fitted the brand new Toyota boot rubber, and the boot lock. How much dust and crap is there in this thing?! Took the dash top out as it needs repairs. Don't think the baking oven did it any favours either And when I first bought the car I was so impressed with how straight and clean the bumpers were. 5 years on I have decided they are straight, but they are plenty rusty on the back side, so I will get them rechromed. So here is the before shots

5th December I was straight down to the painters to have a look! It looks awesome. Still factory silver, but we added some zurillic pearl, so in the right light it sparkles.. just what I wanted. New paint makes sooo much else on the car look shabby! Lots of detailing to be done. Looking forward to getting it home :P

4th December..much to my surprise... another update Amazing what telling someone "I have the money sitting in the bank waiting for you to finish" can do for their motivation! My car is painted and ready to be collected. Very very exciting :P Going to go visit her tomorrow, and then need to work out where its going next! Seeing as how I thought I had a few weeks before the Celica returend I agreed to housing in the garage a Kombi crew cab ute my brother just bought down here... it wasn't 5 minutes after I collected the Kombi that the painter rang and said "its done". Typical!!!

Small update from 30th November 2009.... Car is now out of the body shop and into the paint shop... with some luck (and monetary motivation) I hope she will be out and back in my hands before Christmas. Engine is still off at my engine builder finally getting re-assembled.. though we decided to do some baffle work/gates in the sump and put a new crank in it since the other one has been butchered at some point. Its also due just before Christmas. And I am going to send my Solexes off to Rodger the Solex guru for a full service and rebuild. Also due before Christmas. Damn Christmas could be expensive!! Still have to get bumpers, grille and headlight surrounds rechromed... guess I should get that happening too!

14th November 2009 Here is progress on the inside... got my seats back from the trimmers yesterday and I am really happy with them. Replaced all the vinyl, and we used the replica Ford Falcon GT material for the inner patterned parts, as its a pretty good interpretation and easily obtained option on what was there originally. There are a couple of creases that show up in the flash photography that aren't there in real life. Most odd! Was wishing I had the car back so I could put these in!!

14th September 2009 Things have progressed significantly since I last visited the panel beater. Amazing what they find when the paint is peeled off. Lots of little spots that needed attention. All straight now though and ready to be primed!