Saved This One From the Junkyard. Intro, a Story and Pics

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BAMF
Newbie
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2016 5:41 am
My tercel:: 84' 4WD SR5 Wagon

Saved This One From the Junkyard. Intro, a Story and Pics

Post by BAMF »

It all started about a year ago. I arrived to work one glorious New Mexico November morning and found a faded little red wagon in my back parking lot, along with a collection of other old and rusted neat cars and trucks. Turns out the owner of the mechanic/restoration shop across the street struck a deal with my landlord and had moved, as he put it "a buncha junk", over to my lot while his lot was getting repaved. Lucky me. Little did I know.

Im the curious type, and im into wagons, so I wandered over to this "junk" car and started checking it out. The door was unlocked so I plop into the rather nice looking drivers seat and start looking around. "Thats a funny looking instrument" I say to myself when I look at the strange gauge in the middle of the dash board. I go to move the shift lever and notice it has two. "Hmm, I wonder what the small lever is for". There wernt any markings on it. I glance around at the rest of the retro tan plaid interior and think "man this is cool, somebody took care of this car, its gotta be 30years old!" I look underneath and find zero rust and zero leaks from the motor and transmission. I look to the rear and notice a differential....huh? Thought this was front wheel drive. I pop the hood and everything looks clean and complete. I started to wonder why the shop owner thought this car was junk. Sure its old, faded paint, quite a few dents and had been hit on the corner and needed a new bumper and fender but it seemed well cared for overall. Then I look at the odometer and it reads 286,651. Whew. No wonder someone discarded it. Little did I know.

Keys were in the ignition, turned it on and she fired right up. "Doesnt sound too bad, I thought". Then I saw all the smoke pouring out of the exhaust. "Oh". My interest dwindled after that but over the couple weeks she sat in my parking lot I couldnt help looking. Nothing wrong with looking right?. Little did I know

December comes and the Neighboor shop has new pavement. They send a couple guys to come get their "junk" and I decide to ask about the wagon. "Oh we've had it for years, its got a rod knock, needs a new motor, owner is saving it for his nephew who loves to go snowboarding". Hmmm, didnt sound like it had a rod knock. Actually sounded rather smooth running. Why would this wagon be good for snowboarding? Room for snowboards maybe? So I do a bit of research and I find this amazing site. DING DING DING. I WANT THIS WAGON. Little did I know.

I go talk to the owner of the shop the next day. "My nephew bought a Subaru, you interested? Wanna buy it? $1000 or its goin to the junkyard." I say man thats a lot for a car that needs a motor and minor collision repair. "Needs a motor?" "Nah just needs a head gasket". "We've been servicing that car for 20 years, motor is good the owner just overheated it"."He gave me the car in exchange for some work on his other car" I offer him $300, he counters with $400 and we shake hands. Ive replaced two head gaskets in my wrenching career but....little did I know.

I am very fortunate to have been able to follow the Petros method for replacing a head gasket on a 3AC. Petros, you have my gratitude. A big heartfelt thanks for making your experience available to the masses. I have a good bit of wrenching experience and I am confident I would have been able to complete the repair without your guide and im equally confident I would have had to do the repair over again because I would have over looked a number of procedures that are vital for the repair to last. Again, thank you.

Due to my work hours I was only able to wrench after work a couple days a week and a little on the weekends so it took me a couple weeks to do the head gasket. I opted to take the head off whole and just do the gasket rather than take off the intake/exhause manifolds and distributor to have the head rebuilt. I got lucky. The timing belt looked great. I got the head off and not only was it NOT warped in the slightest but the cylinders still had cross hatching on them. The valves looks extremely clean. I thought "this thing must have been rebuilt recently". I got it all back together and bled of air and (after everything burned off) no smoke. Great response and power and the compression readings were great but it was still overheating on the highway. After a bit of diagnoses it turns out the culprit all along was a faluty radiator cap. Wasnt sealing right and so it couldnt build up pressure. Dang. A $6 part almost killed this engine.

According to the shop owner the carb had been rebuilt recently, all the vacuum hoses had been gone through and the brakes were recent. I decided to replace the catalytic converter and the trans fluid as well. I also put on new tires. I wanted all terrain style but no manufacturer makes all terrains in 13" so I went with Firestone Winterforce snow tires which have a very aggressive tread and have done great in the mud and snow I regularly drive through.

With the wagon running and driving great the last project I wanted to focus on was the collision repair and paint. I work as the GM of a national automotive paint and body supply store. We supply paint and body shops with all the materials they need to complete a repair. I convinced one of my customers to let me use their shop so I could paint my car, as there was no way I could afford to pay a shop to paint it for me, nor would the invesment be worth it (I received quotes from $4,500 to $6,000 for what I wanted to do). I ended up painting her myself for A LOT less and learned A LOT more. I had done spot repair jobs before but an entire car is another level. Took about a month working after hours and some weekends. Well worth it.

Im not a fan of red cars but I didnt want to change the original color and have to paint the door jams and engine bay to match the ourside so I came up with a scheme that would allow me to keep the jams red while having half the car a different color. All the colors minus the red are from other Toyota models. I did the bottom in epoxy bedliner so She wouldnt get so scratched on trails.

There is a large pool of experience on mechanical knowledge on this wonderful forum but I havnt seen much on paint and body work. If anyone has questions in that area feel free to PM me.

Thanks for reading my story!
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Last edited by BAMF on Mon Jan 23, 2017 6:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
ARCHINSTL
Goldie Forever
Posts: 6369
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 1:52 pm
My tercel:: Goldie is a 1986 SR5 attualmente con Weber/also owned the first T4WD in STL in late '82
Location: Kirkwood, a 'burb of St. Louis

Re: Saved This One From the Junkyard. Intro, a Story and Pics

Post by ARCHINSTL »

WOW!
What a great story and the final result is pretty cool as well.
Thanks for taking the time to write it all out!
Tom M.
T4WD augury?
"Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?' Let us go and make our visit."
T.S. Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
"Now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates."
Mark Twain
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Petros
Highest Ranking Member
Posts: 11930
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 6:31 pm
My tercel:: '84 Tercel4wd w/extensive mods
Location: Arlington WA USA

Re: Saved This One From the Junkyard. Intro, a Story and Pics

Post by Petros »

BAMF,

Welcome to the forum! Great story, fantastic paint job! Sounds like you got a fair deal for the condition it was in.

Happy you found my head gasket thread useful, that is why I assembled it. My current daily driver and my project Tercel4wd getting the 4age engine swap all could use a nice paint job like that. I just do not have the patience to do a lot of body work and nice paint, about all I can manage is spot repairs (if you do not look too close). It would be nice for you to start a thread on doing body repairs, particularly small patches of rust or small dents. Most of us on this forum can use that kind of knowledge, consider all our cars have over 30 years of "road rash"

Now all you need is a set of 14" polished alloy wheels, and it will be perfect. The Toyota MR2 "triangles" fit nicely and look better on the Tercel than the MR2. Usually you can find them on-line cheap.

Welcome again, always feel free to ask for help. What part of New Mexico are you in, I drive through NM once a year or so when we drive to go visit our daughter in Austin, and I have a sister in Tucsun area (we just visited both places last year in march). Perhaps we can drop by and say hi next time we drive through your area.
'87 Tercel 4wd SR5 (current engine swap project)
'84 Tercel 4wd (daily driver, with on going mods)
'92 Mazda MPV 4wd (wife's daily driver)
'85 Tercel 4wd DLX auto(daughter's daily driver)
'01 Honda Civic (other daughter's daily driver)
BAMF
Newbie
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2016 5:41 am
My tercel:: 84' 4WD SR5 Wagon

Re: Saved This One From the Junkyard. Intro, a Story and Pics

Post by BAMF »

Thanks for the kind words Archinstl and Petros!

I would like to move into 14" wheels as that opens up my tire choices considerably but would want to do a 1" suspension lift first. It turns out I kinda need to replace the strut mounts up front anyhow. I have searched many of the forums already available on this great site but I havnt found a thread that informs me of a swap I can complete that uses stock parts from other models. Do either of you know of other manufacturer/model stock parts I can utilize in place of the stock struts to lift Her up slightly? I would be doing all four corners.

Thanks Again!
oldfaithful
Top Notch Member
Posts: 118
Joined: Thu May 21, 2015 2:06 pm
My tercel:: 1984 Tercel 4WD

Re: Saved This One From the Junkyard. Intro, a Story and Pics

Post by oldfaithful »

Hi BAMF:
Nice looking paint choice! jimcrazy could answer your questions on how to lift your car the amount you want, he done his and it looks awesome.
larry mcgrath
Highest Ranking Member
Posts: 606
Joined: Mon Aug 16, 2010 3:23 pm
My tercel:: 83 tercel v20 B/T (The ROCKET)98 toyota t100
Location: Wilds of Montana

Re: Saved This One From the Junkyard. Intro, a Story and Pics

Post by larry mcgrath »

Love the paint job Larry
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