Silverra23's Silver 1976 Ra23 Celica

[silverra23]

Time has come to create a thread on my baby, affectionately known as "Project Celica". Figured I better show I still have a Toyota in the garage since I will be still floating around rollaclub!

 

I will try and distill the thread from toymods that I have been running on it since July 2007 into something that will make sense here. Hopefully its not too much of a mishmash!

 

I acquired this couple of owner silver ra23 from a fellow Toymodder back in October 2005 in Sydney Australia. After a good service I drove her home the 1000km to Melbourne - the alternator failed in the last 100km and we only just made it in to the drive way, but we did make it.

 

I bought her to restore (and relive my youth - when i was at uni i used to have a silver ra23 which was the love of my life!) - and do a little tarmac rally competition in perhaps - the body was very straight with almost zero rust. Interior is also immaculate for a car this old. Drivers seat is tearing apart on the squab and that is about it.

 

So the plan was something along the lines of:

 

Strip

Repaint in factory silver, with a bit more metallic thrown in the mix

Insert quality suspension - koni/kings/whiteline sway bars/whiteline strut brace and panhard rod/t3 top hats and RCA's

Corona brake upgrade

Roll cage

Good racing seats and harnesses

18rg and manual conversion

Konig rewinds in charcoal with the polished lip (just for something different hehe)

 

Ultimate goal was to have something that will be equally at home cruising and going for a blast in a hill climb or what ever...classic performance i like to think of it as.

 

Its took nearly two years to start the strip, but it did finally get started. My work in motorsport dominated my time and I never got many free weekends to play.

 

Photos from when I bought it:

 

 

 

Photos when she made it to Melbourne:

 

 

 

 

 

[silverra23]

Couple more...

 

 

[silverra23]

December 2007 I had got to here

 

 

 

 

 

That has to be bog in the boot right? Weird that I can't feel anything from the inside though.

 

[silverra23]

So there was a bit of rust.. this is under the rear window on the parcel shelf. Not that bad given some of the ones I have seen, but better I get to it now!

 

 

 

My plans at this stage were to have it completely stripped ready for a cage and paint and panel by end of January.... man I was dreaming!!

 

As that was getting completed, I had some colleagues who were keen to pull down the 18RG I bought and see just how "rebuilt" it really is. While we have it apart we will renew anything that looks less than ideal, and baffle the sump so that she doesn't starve for oil when I am having a go on the track.

 

Engine will also get a repaint from the current urine yellow it is to something more traditional.

[silverra23]

2008 I bought a KE35 Corolla club racer.. and that then took up all my time as I got that ready for racing, and did some racing. It also meant plans for the Celica changed a little. Now it was simply going to be a good clean classic resto. So standard interior, the suspension and brake mods, 18rg on carbs, konig rewinds and a gt grille.

 

At the end of 2008, not much had changed really from last photos. Still needed door handles removed, chrome removed, engine pulled out and then the car sent to the painters. I planned on doing it in the Christmas break between 2008/09.

 

Sound familiar?? :P

[silverra23]

June 2009 now!!!

 

Still nothing had happened as I played with cars other than this one.

 

Anyways... below is the true motivation for the project. This was my car when I was 19-21 (only 16 years ago!!). She was my pride and joy. Body was neat, though the paint had got a cheapie respray before i bought it and it all bubbled up on the first humid day of the summer. Had a magic interior and even had air-con (one of the big boxes in the passenger footwell). Always loved the grille with the chrome rectangles - I think it was an after market replacement from when it had a front end bingle.

 

Bought it as an auto, eventually converted it to manual. Spent months looking for the perfect wheels. Dreamed of putting an injected 18rg into it but as a uni student/pizza delivery driver could never afford it. Put a massive double din stereo/cd unit in it which sounded magic. Lovely leather steering wheel.

 

Spent hundreds and hundreds at Castle Hill Toyota buying NOS parts - new lenses, new manual console surround, brand new leather gear boot, brand new ashtray for between the seats and more that I can't remember now. The guy behind the counter was a bit of an enthusiast and helped a lot going through the microfiche. I suspect it's the same bloke there now helping out Toymodders today.

 

Then some bastard stole it. Never thought I would see it again but it popped up a week later in a few suburbs away dumped. It was found stripped of its interior and scrathed all over and I lost the love.

 

Surprisingly a few weeks later my brother discovered my stolen interior in another Celica not far from home. Got the coppers involved and eventually got the interior back minus the stereo and steering wheel. Fortunately I had taken the wheels off the week before as the tyres were bald and the coppers had suggested it was time for new ones.

 

I couldn't bear to restore her so my Dad bought it off me for bugger all and I bought a brand new Daihatsu Charade. That was fun in its own way. Dad got the Celica painted and fitted a whiteline sway bar and eventually sold it for about $5k - lot of money for one of these back in the early 90's.

 

I always wondered what happened to it.

 

Anyways the current "Project Celica" has its roots in this - the original silver RA23. It will be everything I wanted in my first one (perhaps with solexes rather than efi). One day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[silverra23]

End of July 2009, I finally got my finger out and got things happening!

 

Project Celica was rolled out of the shed! It was going to the panel beaters in the next day or three so I pushed her out to do the last few things I have been putting off. And joy of joys it was one of those evening where things all went right for a change.

 

The badges I was worried about breaking all slid off no problems. Pulled the mudflaps off and found nothing scary behind them. Made me really look forward to getting on with getting this all back together.

 

While it was away I got on to the engine builder friend and got him started on putting my 18RG back together, and send the carbs to Rodger the solex guru for a rebuild. Though I keep thinking that EFI would be a better choice long term.

 

Seats and dash had to be sent away for retrimming.

 

Bumpers were due to get reconditioned too, as I want them to be perfect when I put the car back together. They are great now, but there is some surface rust where the number plate was on the front one, so that is excuse enough I think.

 

Progress finally!!

[silverra23]

30th July 2009 - Off she goes!!

 

 

[silverra23]

6th August 2009 I went and visited the body shop to see progress

 

I really need to start carrying my camera with me instead of depending on crapola phone cam. Poor lighting didnt help.

 

Any way I dropped in to give the panel beater some starter money, and he has already got some of the paint stripped.

 

Bonnet was pretty good, with a little bit of bog (bondo) from a front ender - I thought this might be the case as there is some evidence of parts with toyota parts stickers on them around the front left. Nothing major, but enough to know it has had a small repair at some time.

 

 

 

Rear quarter looks really clean.

 

Bootlid is really clean too. I thought it had some bog in it, but nope!

 

 

This car is actually a good testament to getting rust prevention treatment - it still has the sticker for it on the back window, and in this case anyways, seems to have worked pretty damned well.

[silverra23]

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!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[silverra23]

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!!

 

 

 

[silverra23]

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!

[silverra23]

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!!!

[silverra23]

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[silverra23]

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