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Ke70 Auto To Manual Transmission Swap


Western Revheads

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Name: Mitchell

 

Car: 1982 Toyota Corolla KE70

 

Motor & Driveline: stock 4k-c auto, soon to be manual 4 speed

 

Suspension & Brakes: stock

 

Wheels & Tyres: stock

 

Interior: Vinyl Back seats, Front Cotton ripped so got sheep skin covers on them now has bucket seat for driver and AE86 ADM passenger seat

 

Body: got a lot of rust in the boot, and doors, swapped the front doors to AE71 doors , I think they look way better. it has only one of the original doors left

 

Other:

I got the car because it was cheep and they are easy to fix. also my Mum, Dad and Grandma, had one each all at the same time back in the 80's, so I grew up hearing about the cars. My Mum and Grandma, both had KE70 sedans

and they were the light blue colour ones. They both got them the same day from the same dealership and the number plates were different by one number so my mum got the door rubber guards so they could tell them apart.

My dad had the AE71 Wagon, and he told me just the other day, (these are his words not mine) "The 5 speed wagons flew, I was once going on a camping trip with your Mum, going up to Queensland, and I was going down a mountain,

and there was not a single soul on the road, so I just floored it. I got pulled over doing 170 kph, and the cop said I'm not gonna give you a ticket cause no one is gonna believe me that a toyota can go that fast. I got off with a warning." XD

I'm upgrading the transmission to the t-40 4 speed manual, the auto still works, but slow, the engine it self is overrated, the car is also in half good nick, lots of rust but nothing that can't be cut out or rust converter put on it.

The car was owned buy a nun and a co-worker of the nun, only driven on weekends to church, got it off an old lady. comes from South Australia, Adelaide, now in Victoria Melbourne.

needs a paint, the parts are all good, no dents, only rust holes, and their not visible, needs a good fix, I have a YouTube channel that I'm showing the build of it. starting to look good.

 

 

https://www.youtube....prnt8QAB67Fzycw

 

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Edited by Western Revheads
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Hi mate, I've upgraded a KE70 Auto to a 4A-C Manual. Very good upgrade in my opinion. If you have the money I highly recommend sourcing the parts and just upgrading it to an A model engine. I was fortunate enough to get a 200,000 4A-c for $60. I did this about 3 and half years ago, there is a very useful walk through in the FAQ section I think, it' somewhere on this website. I had to very slightly adjust the shifter hole for my upgrade and obviously drill the master cylinder hole (which I did poorly lol). I have stuffed up that hole twice, the first car was fairly neat but I found out later that it was too tight and damaged the cylinder and fluid leaked everywhere, the second time was fine but the hole was noticeable, so take your time and drill it nicely with the hole saw, but other than that it was a piece of cake.

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Sorry everyone I got told it was a K-40 gearbox not T-40, I keep forgetting that.

I've done a lot of stuff since the original post, I sanded the boot and painted it with waterproof rust proof paint, also putting rust converter on a lot of exposed rust points.

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I've also picked up a repair manual book

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I got a few parts for the transmission swap the manual transmission for one, I need to reseal the top gasket, and I gave it a clean before I did that.

before cleaning

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after

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also I got new rear seats, as the original cotton ones were ripped and it was cheaper to get new ones than get them re-upholstered. plus they are Blue vinyl, so I have installed them.

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also cleaned up the badges as they had obliviously never been cleaned as the had grass and mold growing on them.

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got a new gear shifter knob from autobarn, it was a SAAS rip off brand, it had multiple gearbox design stickers to put on it.

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and I just today (melbourne cup day) installed new mirrors on the passenger door, still need to swap the drivers door to the AE71 door, but I have a mirror for that too.

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all in all its starting to look good, I just need to cut out all the rust from the boot seal trim, and replace the metal, going to do that with aluminium, and then I can get a RWC for it and get it registered in Victoria.

As it is a South Australian car it was registered there when I got the car I got it unregistered. So rust remove and replace, and the RWC and Register then Transmission swap begins.post-24552-0-74784300-1477998844_thumb.jpg

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ahh of course I forgot ke70's were a cable clutch weren't they, disregard my comments about drilling the hole in the firewall :P, looks like its coming along nicely, the reverse light wiring is super easy to find, it's on the firewall near the id plate, one of those 6 plug connectors, I can't remember which ones of the top of my head but I think they are on the right or left end.

Edited by ms85er
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I swapped the drivers door today (right side for america XD) and put the new mirrors on both the doors now, it looks great, just need to paint them then they will look amazing.

also I took off the scuttle board a few days back and painted it white, because it had a lot of surface rust on it. so I sanded it back with a wire brush attachment for my electric drill, back to bare metal.

Then I painted it and baked it in the car, cause Australia and car means hot AF, so it cooked up nice.

Looks good too.

Got my mate Michael to help me with the door today, big tip if replacing door get a friend to hold door then you do the bolting of the hinges.

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Edited by Western Revheads
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  • 2 months later...

Ok so its been awhile and I've not done anything on the manual but I will be in the next month or so, need to get the cars RWC so I can legally change the transmission without having the car tested and stuff like that.

So I've done a few other things since last time, I've installed a new steering wheel, Nardi personal, I've replaced another door hahahahaha, only one of the original doors left now and I've installed a Tacho dash in replacement if the analog quartz clock, also put in a new racing seat for the driver as I think a cool racing seat look is awesome in this car. All of this stuff can me found on the YouTube channel if not in a video by itself then in a larger video.

here are some photos

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Edited by Western Revheads
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  • 2 weeks later...

I got an AE86 passenger chair the other day for a massive $20, so cheap and in great condition too, anyway I swapped the OG seat which was torn, but still comfy btw, which tbh I would still use if it wasn't ripped and didn't smell like ass and human slim. But I swapped the seats, and it looks amazing, the seat itself is wider and sits a little lower, not as comfy, but its clean and looks good next to the bucket seat.

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I'm proud of it, so interior is done no more need to fix that, its all done. BTW I love the bucket seat, its way way way more comfy than the OG seat it maybe on static rails but its far enough back for me and all the people I know who will drive it.

 

also if anyone is wondering if the KE70 stock seat rails fit the ae86 chair they don't without washers and drilling the rail fixing holes larger, bending the mounts on the seat to the left on the RHS and drilling holes in the rails for the seat to mount into. This was trial and error, but the AE86 chair is about half the weight of the KE70's chairs.

Edited by Western Revheads
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  • 1 month later...

Hey everyone, big update, I'm doing a lot of stuff to the corolla atm, last month February 2017, I did some C pillar rust repair, as its my first time doing any major rust repair please don't judge me, I didn't cut out any metal that I could save with rust converter, because if I did cut it out I would have had a worse hole than I started with. I did some videos on it on my YouTube Channel, I'll link it at the bottom of the post. I didn't have to much knowledge going into it besides grind out thin weak metal and use rust converter to save the strong metal and paint the metal to seal it to stop it from rusting more, I forgot to paint it before I bogged it though so I hope it doesn't rust again.

 

The rust that was there looked like it had been bogged up before by the previous owners friend or something cause it was shit as.

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I started by grinding the thing have and putting rust converter on it and let it dry before removing it with a rag dampened with metho.

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(thumbnail from my youtube video haha)

 

then I covered it with body filler/bog, and sanded it smooth

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then once I got it smooth I taped off the windows and area and using primmer white, I built up a few layers (4 coats) waiting for it to dry each time, then diamond topcoat, (2 coats), then clear coat, car looks shinny now in that area only hahahaha.

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from start to finish it took me 2 days, to get it done, I started late each day because of work.

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If you want to watch how I COMPLETELY FAILED at it, I split it into 2 videos so people could just skip if they wanted to the end

part 1

part 2 Edited by Western Revheads
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another update, same day as the last one above, I've started to attack the rear rust in the boot around the tail lights and the boot seal trim and the other areas of rust.

I got my good mate Michael to help me out, I've known him since primary school so long ass time. anyway I started on the work by removing the tail lights and the rear bumper bar, easy thing to remove the bumper bar, it is held on by 4 bolts but mine were seized and I had to remove it the more difficult way of 8 bolts cause I didn't have an impact gun (I do now), then the lights decided to have rust on the bolts that held them in so it took me 30 minutes to get them out.

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then when Michael got there we started by using the wire brush drill attachments on the one electric drill I had, ( we have to but my Dad had taken the other one with him on a job that day) we got thinks back to bare metal, and no zinc or not rust coating was on the metal at all, or it was thin layer that we didn't see, as per usual Toyota Australia has done it again with shit metal prep on anti-rust coating back in the 1980s.

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after grinding a lot of stuff back we then put rust converter on the metal, most of the rust was around small spot weld areas as you can see. I forgot to wipe the rust converter with a coating of metho spirits before I packed up for the night and I got a small coat of surface rust on the chemical reactioned areas, but because the rust converter was still on the metal, all I had to do is lightly grind it back with the wire brush attachment, took me 2 minutes and it was nice and shinny again.

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after a lot of rust and rust converter, I realised that I had work for the next week and I needed to seal the car from any further rust so knowing where on the body needs work and that all of the rust that is left is not going to rust any further, I gave the car a can of white primmer.

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its not a big seal but it was only meant to seal it from the weather for a week.

 

The rust that was there is now rust converted and all I have left to do is put metal in the areas that need it and do the body filler. so its soooooooo close to being done, I just need to get some thin metal sheeting to weld and braze into place. I also got some new wheels for the car as well the stock steal wheels are so much rusted that they are really only good for a spare wheel in the case of an emergency, or drift burners, but the ones I got where cheap and they look great on the car.

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they are aluminium wheels so they are light but they need a bit of a clean some new tyres and a really good polish.

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Looking good mate, thank god kes have some fairly linear metal around the lights and tis not as hard to repair and smooth them out. You might want to redo the roof pillar rust with a welded in plate as I could see some rot in the structure underneath, and there may be a distinct lack of strength should you roll over.

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