My Te51 Build/intro Lots Of Pics

[Vishis19D]

Hey guys I'm new here but not to the world of old toyota cars and trucks.My name is Nick and I'm a disabled and retired US Army Scout. I'm married and have a 2 year old son who shares my passion for cars and motorcycles. Ive owned several 4th gen celicas a few mr2s a 89 Camry with a 3sgte swap and a 1979 Celica Supra thats loaded and in amazing shape and a 2010 Corolla S that my wife drives. My daily driver is a 1988 Celica GT4 with 72,XXX mile, its my baby and will most likely be with me till the day i die. I'm in the process of building a 1979 Corolla SR5 Liftback (TE51) that i call Gary lol. The car is in pretty good shape, i am the 3rd owner. The 1st owner was a little old lady who bought it brand new and then she sold it to a high school kid who was going to put it in a demo derby but she made him promise he wouldnt do that so he ended up turning it into a highschool autoshop project and polished the head and repainted the car...badly. Not bad for a highschool kid. The car was originally that nice blue but was repainted a dark navy blue metallic with baby blue flames and racing stripes, a real looker :P after all the body work is done I'm going to pull the motor and replace every gasket and throw a new timing chain and polish up all the aluminium like the valve cover and front engine covers. It seems like i heard that a 1st gen MR2s front struts will fit, is that true? I'd like to upgrade all of the brakes and suspension. The cars lowered 1.5 in. all around but i would like to get her handling and braking better.

I'm having a hard time trying to find the weather stripping for drivers and passenger windows and I'm trying to locate a new dash pad if anyone knows where i can find these things any help would be appreciated. Heres a few pics of my GT4 and my TE51.

here is a link to the album:

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Auvaik/library/1979%20Corolla%20SR5%20Rebuild

Edited November 3, 2013 by Vishis19D

[Mechanical Sympathy]

I really like the factory alloys you have there. Are they 14 inch rims?

 

They're relatively common here in a 13 inch diameter on KE55 and 70 Corollas (though centre caps aren't common) but 14 inch rims seem harder to find. I think they might've been fitted to Coronas here.

 

I've had a 13 inch set on a KE35 and they came up excellent when I got them professionally polished and repainted the centres.

 

A set of 14's would be nice.

 

Good luck with the paintwork and the project.

 

[Vishis19D]

Thanks you, i love how they appear to be stock but they also look really awesome. I'm going to pull mine off here pretty soon when i get ready to paint it. I plan on polishing and repainting them. The only down side is i wish they had a bigger offset because when i put my flares in they will look a bit goofy, i might have to get some wheel adapters to push them out a bit.

[Mechanical Sympathy]

I agree it's a shame they're only skinny rims. They'd look great with a negative offset, though prohibitively expensive to get widened.

 

However for the amount of effort required to polish them myself and the level of bling they gave, the $40 per wheel I paid to have them polished to a mirror finish was a good investment I reckon.

 

VHT polyurethane wheel paint in aluminium colour is what I used to paint the triangles and the centres. I love that stuff - use it on everything. Though we can't get it in Australia at the moment. Actually all year. The government had an issue with the formulation but the local distributor assures me it'll be back on the shelves in November.

 

Any more update/repair pics?

[Vishis19D]

Ive got the whole front end stripped to bare metal. found quite a few little dents all over but no biggie to fix. There was a spot of rust on the bottom of the drivers fender that the previous owner filled with bondo (Bog). So ive got to cut it out and replace it with a new piece of sheet metal.I also have found a set of seats out of a 2010 Corolla XRS that are black leather with blue stitching and for $50 for the pair i couldnt pass them up. I have to go pick them up from the wreckers on friday once they get them out of the car. I'm sure i'll have to fab up a set of rails for them but thats no big deal. Also i ordered myself a nice set of extractors and a full engine gasket kit, a cometic head gasket and a new timing kit. The head on the 2TC has already been ported and the intake and exhaust tunnels have been polished to a mirror finish. Other than that the engine is totally stock and runs like a champ. I'm still trying to hunt down some weather stripping for the driver and passenger windows because they leak like crazy and i get soaked when going through the car wash lol :doublebird:

Here are the smoked taillights and polished housings

If you guys want you can check out my shops facebook and follow the build, it gets updated almost everyday with new pictures of whats being accomplished.

https://www.facebook.com/ViciousPerformance

[Vishis19D]

oh yeah i almost forgot, the supra wheels on my little rolla are a 14 with a 60 series tire. I'm going to buy a set of decent yokohamas for it after all is said and done. I also have a 79 Celica Supra rear end that has both the same wheels on it, if you need the center caps i have a few extra. Anyone know if the celica supra rear end will fit under this little beast?

[Vishis19D]

moved my pics, heres a link to the whole album

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Auvaik/library/1979%20Corolla%20SR5%20Rebuild