The Crazy Purchase



My son, Kyle, had been searching for a first generation Celica.  When he told me that he had found one near Seattle, I kinda dismissed it at first (we live in Chicago).  After looking at the pictures and talking to the seller, we decided to take a chance.  We flew to Seattle  on Saturday, purchased the car Sunday and took our time driving home through Thursday.  The car is extremely solid, but definitely needs interior work and a better paint job.  We only had to add about 1/2 quart of motor oil during the 2100 mile journey.


We visited the gift shop at the Space Needle before leaving Seattle.
We removed the spoiler after the trunk lid bashed my head.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fixed the turn signals

Image
When we purchased the car, it had no working turn signals.  We checked for a blown fuse, bad lamps etc and then drove home from Seattle without turn signals. I found a schematic online and used it to isolate the problem down to the flasher / turn signal relay, or a wiring problem after it in the circuit. The relay had a very questionable repair at some point, because the output connection was a very thin piece of steel or tin.  After opening it up, I found the repair was not soldered -- only glued! We will see how long my repair lasts...
Read more

New exhaust manifold gasket set

Image
I knew there were a few exhaust manifold mounting studs missing, most likely with stripped threads on the aluminum head.  I replaced all of the studs except one, and had to repair three holes with M10 x 1.25 heli-coils.  With the new gaskets and a good mount, the exhaust manifold was no longer leaking at the head.  Unfortunately, there was another leak at one of the air pipe flanges.  In order to replace that gasket (which was new) or to add another for more thickness, we would have to remove the manifold again. 4 out of 7 studs = leak I brought the manifold to a local auto parts store with a machine shop, for resurfacing The center stud was a little questionable, so we added a jam nut for now
Read more

Weber Carburetor install

Image
Today, Kyle and I installed the Weber Carburetor that we purchased from LC Engineering.  We also removed and plugged various obsolete vacuum ports and a few unused water temperature sensor ports. The linkage adapter that was supplied with the kit was too flimsy, in our opinion.  The weber carburetor linkage is about an inch farther away from the firewall, but the stock linkage was able to hinge enough to connect to it.  That hinging seemed to be causing a little binding, so we figured out a way to extend it (not pictured here, should be posted soon).  We decided to reuse the stock linkage connector, which was not keyed.  Since it needed to be keyed to prevent slippage, we cut the keyed section out of the Weber linkage and tack welded it on over the existing hole. The new carburetor has issues with its linkages sticking (not returning completely to the stops).  I plan to call LC tomorrow morning to find out how we can remedy that.
Read more