Kyle's '77 Celica

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...

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

Kyle had learned to drive stick shift in my Scion XD, but that was a couple years ago.  We used an industrial park near our first overnight stop, for a refresher.  After maybe 45 minutes of looping around a couple of turnabouts, we hit the interstate. Our first lunch stop was Nutty's Junkyard grill in Arlington, WA Kyle needed to brush-up on his stick-shift driving, before hitting the road The exhaust leak was right at the manifold, which was missing a couple of studs A box of generic pop-tarts was about the right height, to hold up the exhaust during a repair attempt A continental divide, somewhere in Montana I believe The old man on the right gave us directions to bypass the interstate for a bit A sunset Filling up near Sturgis, SD Representing Japanese imports at Sturgis 2016 Lunch at Wall Drug We rode with the windows down and the heat on, to ke...

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.