New to the forum.

[83Whit3Hatch]

Hi All,

My name is Chris and I own a wonderful '83 2wd 3 door hatchback Tercel. I purchased her for $400 from my university's auto program 2 years ago. She was sort of my graduation gift to myself, I graduated from that aforementioned auto program. She had 94k miles on her, and now has just under 130k.

So far I've replaced all the wheel bearings except the front passenger, brakes at all 4 corners, front brake hoses, timing belt, thermostat, oil pan gasket, clutch, fuel pump, battery, starter, cap, rotor, plugs, wires, and tires. I've upgraded the headlights to composite housings and have swapped in a rebuilt five speed (car was originally a four speed). I've rebuilt the carb and the five speed. The car was donated a month or two before I purchased it because it wouldn't start cold very easily. I sprayed some carb cleaner down the throat, freed up the choke, and drove her like that for a year and a half before I rebuilt the carb (she sat for who nows how long, when I got her running the fuel pump seals had failed and the exhaust smelled of caramelized gas).

As my signature states, she is a stripper model: manual steering, rubber floor mat, no passenger mirror, no dimming rear view, no rear defrost or wiper, but she does have a/c. Before I swapped transmissions, I was getting about 38 mpg even with the clutch slipping quite heavily. This was on summer fuel and acheived over multiple tanks. I'm hoping the five speed will help with maintaining speed in the mountains, I live in Denver, but I dont think it will help my economy.

Everything and everyone on this forum seem to be very helpful and I look forward to learning and contributing to this wonderful forum.

Goodnight,
Chris

[Mattel]

Welcome Chris - thanks for posting.

[dlb]

the fuel economy was one of the first things i was going to ask about. i'm always tempted by the 2wd wagons, hatchbacks, and 1st gen tercels because i wonder how much better economy you could squeeze out of them. i'm planning on installing a vacuum gauge in my current dd, a 4wd corolla wagon, to improve my mileage. from what i've read, it sounds like the single most effective way to learn how to drive more economically so i'm really curious. i wonder what you would get in your car with one of those.

i like the manual steering but no passenger mirror, no dimming rear view, and no rear defrost? those are crucial! luckily, i think all could be added to the car without too much difficulty.

your hatchback shares the same engine, carb, and emission controls with the 4wd wagons. a lot of the front end is similar too, though not interchangeable. the rear end is complete different, of course.

sounds like you have some great experience with wrenching so welcome aboard. always great to have more minds to help out here.

[TURTCEL]

Hey Chris,

Welcome to the Terc family. 2wd or 4wd, wagon or sedan, the help you can get from all the great people that have so much knowledge on this website about these cars is priceless.

I am new to the Terc family as well. I picked up an '85 4wd 6 speed wagon that I did almost everything to just like the project you undertook. Sounds like you made yourself a very roadworthy machine.

I have found that no matter what the question you have about these cars there is someone here that can give you some form of direction. I have found other Terc specific websites out there but nothing compares to the info and support that you can find here.

Just a note on the tranny swap that you did from a similar experience I had with my '84 2wd Toyo pick with a 4speed. I didn't swap tranny to a 5speed like I had intended since I found out that the 5speed was actually geared differently and the 4speed's final ratio was actually taller than the 5speed. What I did was swap my rear diff from the stock 4.1 to a 3.73 which gave me around 28 highway and around 24 in town....about 4 miles more per gallon that the listed specs for the 5speed. The 4speed with a 4.1 was said to get about 2 miles more per gallon than the 5speed stock.

I don't know if you Terc is rear wheal drive since it is 2wd commuter...but do some driving with new trans and then maybe consider a gear change if you are not happy with the final drive. It was an easy swap on my pick up so I would imagine with your automotive backgraound you should have no problem with that.

Enjoy your Terc man.

Peace

[83Whit3Hatch]

Dlb,
I was contemplating the same thing just haven't done it yet. I hope with the diff swap and new clutch I will be able to hit 40mpg.

Turtcel,
The 2wd has the front half of the 4wd transmission, so changing the front diff is a little time consuming; but after reading on here that the later trannys have 4.1:1, I plan on swapping my 4spd diff section onto this five speed.

[dlb]

oh, i bet you could easily hit 40 mpg. i've checked out the ecomodder.com forum a bit lately and a lot of those guys are able to get in the area of 50 mpg without any substantial mods--they all say it's 90% how you drive, which is really exciting. i can't wait to try it.

[83Whit3Hatch]

Dlb,

Yeah, I've seen that forum. A lot of those guys do engine off coasting and accelerate like a snail in mud to acheive it. I would be very happy with 40mpg. Especially since I only have a 10 mile commute.

[Petros]

some of the methods are very useful to achieve "hypermilage", however many of their methods are just stupid, like taking a longer route to save traffic or avoid steep hills. You might get better mpg this way, but you will not burn less gasoline getting from one place to the other, plus you waste a lot of time. It is just plain stupid to drive twice as many miles to avoid a stop light intersection!