Tercel 4wding stories?

GTSSportCoupe · Post by **GTSSportCoupe** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 12:30 pm

How capable are the tercel 4wd wagons as 4wd vehicles? Please share some of your tercel 4wding adventures; especially backcountry exploring.

I have not had my tercel 4wd for long, so have attempted nothing too hardcore yet. The city that I live in (Victoria BC) only gets about 2-4 days of snow a year; usually all in a row too. So I have not even had much time to try the car out in snow. I did however drive to the interior of BC this winter at Christmas though, and the car was amazing in the snow that I did hit. I even took it up a bunch of very snowy mountain back roads when I was out there, and had no problems at all. I had very aggressive 155/80R13 tires on it. Pizza cutter tires are great in snow.

I hope to do lots of exploring in the back country of Vancouver Island this summer. I'll be figuring out first hand just how capable my tercel is. I have lots of 4wding experience as I grew up on a cattle ranch, and did mineral exploration work between school years. My favorite 4wd vehicle would have to be the old two door Toyota Landcruisers. I used one for much of my exploration work; it was unreal.

I'm guessing the main disadvantage with the tercel is the clearance. This can be overcome to some degree by driver ability.

icE · Post by **icE** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 1:37 pm

Yeah, clearance could be improved, but other than that the 4wd feature rocks! Just get tires with some good tread and you're ready to go. I took mine into this huge dirt pit a few times, and it outperformed some of the newer trucks. We drove straight up this huge dirt slope. Took a few tries, had to build up enough speed, but we got over it like nothing. And that's with 4 people and sound equipment in the back!

Other than the pit, we've took it to various back roads and dirt roads. There's this one dirt road where my friend's uncle lives. He has an 89 civic and he bottoms out every now and then, but this rally car just blazes through. I've driven it up sidewalks, up the lil things in the parkin lot. There's this road called Baseline, basically a long 2 way street with a center turning lane. It has grass on the shoulders, and it's close to my house. We take the road everyday. The speed limit is 55. My friends were following me, so i went into the grassy shoulder, making sure there wasnt any hard obstacles in the way. Hit 65 in the grass, car barely shaking, doing perfect, leaving a huge puff of dirt n powder in their face! They thought i was losing control

I love the car. Wish i could lift it up and get better tires for it. There could be so many uses for the car, especially with the 4wd.

takza · Post by **takza** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 2:02 pm

The main thing that worries me about my Tercel is the exposed trans...drop it on solid stone and I can hear the aluminum cracking now.

I've hit the steel frame on dirt and mud a few times...no problem if you don't get hung up...on stone it would be another story.

Also, you have to watch for brush stubs where they have mowed down brush...these can hit your CV boots and then you've got problems.

The low clearance with the Tercel is helped a lot by the short wheelbase. This makes the effective clearance over humps a lot more than you'd think.

I have a favorite run about a mile or two back along a big drainage ditch...it has some 10-15' grass banks to run up and down and all the mud you can eat...if it rains. Snow is fun too.

Also some major ruts made by farm equipment that I avoid like the plague. Drop a wheel in one of these and I get to test out my earth auger and winches.

Mainly just testing out the 4WD capabilities of the wagon and mine also. And having lots of fun.

3A-C Power · Post by **3A-C Power** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 8:01 pm

I drove up a hill that me and my brother used to go sledding down. It's very steep, about 30 degrees according to the inclinometer. I usually think my Tercel 4WD can do anything, but on this hill I stopped halfway up thinking for sure it wouldn't work. My wife and/or brother were encouraging me to go for it, so I did. The top half was very steep and involved negotiating a path to the right between a sideways hill and a fence, and I had to build up a bit of speed starting from the middle. This was wet dirt with some grass. The top was blocked off from the road so we had to drive down again. Later that night, we went back and did it again with more people in the car. I tried it again in the snow, but didn't make it. This was all with 195/60 touring tires that aren't good on dirt.

Gasoline Fumes · Post by **Gasoline Fumes** » Thu Apr 08, 2004 5:38 am

I've gotten my friend's '86 (Hornbeam) stuck many times in both mud and snow. I'd consider myself an expert in getting Tercels stuck.

155/80 tires are great for some surfaces like frozen ground under snow, but will sink into soft mud and bury you before you realize what happened. Besides ground clearance, another problem is the long front and rear overhangs on these wagons. We broke the front turn signals and the hitch is always caked in dirt. But it will crawl up a hill that's difficult to walk up. I tried the same hill with an inch of snow, I ended up sliding down backwards with all 4 tires locked. I never tried that again. Good thing it levels off before the tree line.

I want to lift that wagon, lock the diffs and put some really small tractor tires on it.

GTSSportCoupe · Post by **GTSSportCoupe** » Thu Apr 08, 2004 4:44 pm

Haha!

. Awesome! I'm liking these little cars more all the time. I think the low centre of gravity along with the light weight of the tercel 4wd are what make it such a good 4wd. I'm going to have fun soon...

20vtercel · Post by **20vtercel** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 5:49 pm

Not really a dirty story but a 4wd story none the less....

I was out for cruise night on the local street. Some young punk in a civic pulled up beside me a did the reving bs. Light turned green and off we went. I was half way across the intersection when i realized i had all four wheels ablaze....hence why I have the 205 yokahama's now!!!

Oh, BTW, I smoked his ass....litterally!!

***Disclaimer: I do not condone or promote street racing because it is highly dangerous and people can get hurt.........but it's fun***

icE · Post by **icE** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 6:46 pm

i want a turbo 4wd...20v.....moo! B)

20vtercel · Post by **20vtercel** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 8:48 pm

icE wrote: i want a turbo 4wd...20v.....moo! B)

its for sale!!!

aussie 4x4 · Post by **aussie 4x4** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 8:37 am

i have owned my 86 SR5 for 5 years now. i live in Australia and have put these things through parts of Australia that most people wouldn't walk. Had it on the sand, in the mud, dirt, water, snow. Had it bogged to the floor pan. U name it, my cel has done it! I have raised the ground clearance. Put raised springs in and also done a few mods of my own to make it work (front macphersons used to top out) Hope to here from other people with cels and there experiences. I am planning on putting a 4A in in the next year or so. Have done 320,000kms now. getting a bit long in the tooth now.

I have a mate with a 90 model subaru whom i go 4wdin with. He spends most weekends working on his car. I spend very little time with mine. I just can't kill it. I love it when my little cel gets in places that his subaru can't get

GTSSportCoupe · Post by **GTSSportCoupe** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 9:31 am

aussie 4x4 wrote: i have owned my 86 SR5 for 5 years now. i live in Australia and have put these things through parts of Australia that most people wouldn't walk. Had it on the sand, in the mud, dirt, water, snow. Had it bogged to the floor pan. U name it, my cel has done it! I have raised the ground clearance. Put raised springs in and also done a few mods of my own to make it work (front macphersons used to top out) Hope to here from other people with cels and there experiences. I am planning on putting a 4A in in the next year or so. Have done 320,000kms now. getting a bit long in the tooth now.

I have a mate with a 90 model subaru whom i go 4wdin with. He spends most weekends working on his car. I spend very little time with mine. I just can't kill it. I love it when my little cel gets in places that his subaru can't get

Welcome to our forum! Thanks for sharing. I saw the message you sent out on our old yahoo tercel4wd forum; that is great that you are starting up a tercel 4wd group in Australia. Please feel free to join us on this forum. We consider this to be an international forum, not just North America based. We have already had visitors from Australia, Norway and France. It is better that we all share our knowledge in one area than have divided groups per continent. Hope you learn something from us, and can share something new too! I'd be interested to know the details on how you lifted your tercel.

Cheers,

Nick

3A-C Power · Post by **3A-C Power** » Mon May 24, 2004 11:12 am

I went on a dirt trail this weekend while driving some people to a music festival. I got going fast and having fun, and a rock or log appeared in front of me. I thought surely there was sufficient clearance, but I bottomed out on it. It hit two places, I believe those were the front crossmember and the transmission mount, both made of thick steel. I check underneath, found no leaking oil, and continued. Now my 4WD indicator doesn't work.

takza · Post by **takza** » Tue May 25, 2004 5:27 am

I'm thinking....skidplate. You are lucky that didn't do in the exhaust.

Juando · Post by **Juando** » Thu May 27, 2004 4:24 pm

ok, this is all the stuff I can remember of importance that I have put my car through...<BR>

I have used it to pull many many things..usually with extra low. From fridges to couches to other cars. When I was in highschool I helped pull a large chevy truck out of a muddy ditch..the rednecks respected my lil car a little more after that. Countless baja outings on logging roads (I live in the coastrange in Oregon near Eugene...lots of offroad) There is a road near my house that is 2 1/2 miles of gravel on a straight stretch and there is a large intersection half way that slowly slants into a huge ditch...that was where I performed my first 180 (actually the first of any manuever in my car..thats what got me hooked) and the ditch fills with water when it rains...have spent hours making runs through there. I have used the Tercel for chasing deer in fields, extreme baja-buggy style driving in the cascade mountains around Odell and Crescent lake...as in catching air off jumps, but as someone said before..they could imagine the tanny cracking from that. It does. I lost 5th gear less than a year later..but it was fun. I too would use any excuse to take the wheels off paved road..parking halfway on sidewalks, actually took a shortcut through a firestations practice feild to get to a friends house. I only got my car stuck once. Pea-gravel pile. I completely burried the front end took about 3 hours to extracate it and another couple weeks for the gravel to work its way out of all the nooks and crannys it had found. good times!

3A-C Power · Post by **3A-C Power** » Fri May 28, 2004 2:46 pm

The 5th gear isn't actually that hard to change because it's in front of the transmission case behind the front differential. You can use one off a front wheel drive tercel too.