'84 WAGON REBUILD

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MARKSR5
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My tercel:: 1984 Wagon

'84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by MARKSR5 »

Hello everybody, I recently purchased what I presume to be a 1984 TOYOTA Tercel 3A-C 1.5L SR5 WAGON 5-Speed manual. I am unsure of the history of this vehicle, but it has been sitting nearly 10 years with almost 160k miles.

I'm planning a overlander/crawler project with it and was hoping to build it safely. I was trying to figure out the axle ratings and appropriate tire sizes. Concerns to be addressed:

What is the most practical way to achieve a 2-4" lift?
what size wheels/tires can I run without severe power & fuel efficiency losses?
Hteverow
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Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by Hteverow »

The most practical way to get a 2-4" lift to fit big tires and a high-geared, heavy duty axle, while still having enough power in reserve to drive it safely, would be to sell the Tercel and buy a Tacoma.
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NWMO
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Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by NWMO »

Hey Mark,

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13106&hilit=Definitive

The EL gear can be helpful for crawling, but clearance can be a challenge. CV joints in the front axles are one of the first challenges, but some crazy stuff has been done. The above link will be your best starting place I believe. Depending on how serious you are about it, the 85’ and later units may be preferable. The gearing in the 83’ and 84’ is 3.73:1, whereas the later units is 4.10:1. Good luck we love pics and welcome to the site!

Chris
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T4WD augury?
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MARKSR5
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My tercel:: 1984 Wagon

Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by MARKSR5 »

Thank you for both of your inputs, I am unsure of how far I want to go with this build, but I am planning on new shocks struts and wheels.
Tire recommendations welcomed!
Also looking do to switch from drum to disk brakes in back

much thanks, very grateful
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NWMO
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Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by NWMO »

Mark,

Rear disc brakes are a different can of worms. The search will lead you some, but rear discs are somewhat of a unicorn on these cars. There was a cellica GTS produced in limited numbers that is I believe the most straight forward, but not easily found and $$. On the bright side, there are some good improvements to be had for the front brakes w/o breaking the piggy bank.

Chris
Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart"

In remembrance of my friend ARCHINSTL:

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."
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LowBuckCanuck
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My tercel:: 1986 DLX 4wd Wagon "Jenny"

Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by LowBuckCanuck »

Tercels lend themselves better to rally car builds than rock crawler builds. There are several methods of achieving lifts, I would check out the sticky in General titled "The Definitive List of Ways to Lift a Tercel 4wd."

Rear disk conversions are pretty much a waste of time and money on most vehicles unless you are building a race car. You would be better off spending your brake allowance on upgrading the front, they provide 75% of the braking force even on a car with rear disks.

As your car is an '84 model, it has higher gearing in the diffs. This may make it a bit more difficult to run absurd tire sizes, you would be fine with a 14 inch rim and perhaps something like a 185/75/r14 tire with a slight lift.
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Petros
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Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by Petros »

welcome to the forum,

Post pics of your car. the best way to get increased lift in front of the car is to limit suspension lift to about an inch, or you will put too much angle on the CV joint and it will wear out and fail very quickly. You can reasonably get another 3/4-1 with a taller tire that you will have to make room for it in the fender well (that would not be too bad a job, it is all sheet metal). Rears you can either add air adjustable shocks or go with taller springs (Pathfinder springs) and longer shocks.

you will want the 4.1:1 final drive ratio of the '85 or newer Tercel drive train. you can either hunt up a later front and rear diff assymbly and swap it in to yours, or you can look for the correct model year as a car to start with.

You will want more power of course too. the stock 3ac is rather low power and limited on means to get more power. Easyest swap is a 4ac, it just bolts right in, all parts swap over. Getting a twin cam 4afe or 4age to work are better options, but much more cost and effort. both are fuel injected, both will require custom exhaust headers and systems. and a few other fabricated parts to make it work. One thing you can do on these is install the adjustable cam sprockets and push them to the limits to improve low end torque (with some loss in high rpm max power). That is my plan when I finally get my 4age swap completed.
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nerdsrule
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Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by nerdsrule »

I appologize for stating the obvious, but you can do some fairly silly things with just a simple tire upgrade on these cars. You wont be crawling by any means, but they do get you into and out of some highly entertaining situations. But it sounds like you're going for more. To achieve a similar angle of approach to a jeep, or even a regular old tacoma, this thing will need to be sky high, i think. We have a lot of car, relatively speaking, in front of and behind the axles. I'm fairly new here, but it seems like most of the talk about lifting is related to moving through deeper snow, mud, etc which it seems like can basically be accomplished with a little finagling of tires/rims to get an inch or so.
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LowBuckCanuck
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Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by LowBuckCanuck »

nerdsrule wrote: Sun Jan 27, 2019 6:53 am I appologize for stating the obvious, but you can do some fairly silly things with just a simple tire upgrade on these cars. You wont be crawling by any means, but they do get you into and out of some highly entertaining situations. But it sounds like you're going for more. To achieve a similar angle of approach to a jeep, or even a regular old tacoma, this thing will need to be sky high, i think. We have a lot of car, relatively speaking, in front of and behind the axles. I'm fairly new here, but it seems like most of the talk about lifting is related to moving through deeper snow, mud, etc which it seems like can basically be accomplished with a little finagling of tires/rims to get an inch or so.
Best way to get better approach and departure angles is to make new tube bumpers or remove the stock ones altogether.
DSCF2621.jpg
My L O N G stock back bumper was hitting the ground as I attempted to climb this snowbank. (just for sh*ts and giggles)
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Petros
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Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by Petros »

No one makes a rear disk brake conversion kit, however, it does not look too hard to adapt a set of first gen MR2 rear disks brake assemblies to the rear axle. it would need an adapter plate to be fabricated, and a parking brake cable mount I think.

I have a thread on upgrading the front brakes and master/power booster, that greatly improves break authority. It is over in the repair guides section. Not sure going to the trouble to fabricated rear disk brakes is worth the effort, but if you take it on make sure you post pictures. there has been a number of inquiries on this forum about it.
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'84 Tercel 4wd (daily driver, with on going mods)
'92 Mazda MPV 4wd (wife's daily driver)
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Yaut
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Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by Yaut »

Just as a small note to this. I had an issue with the factory C/V axles rubbing after a 1.5" lift. I used some after market axles made by TrakMotive which had a much smaller diameter joint and allowed for much greater clearance.
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Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by The Professor »

Petros wrote: Sat Jan 26, 2019 8:16 pm...limit suspension lift to about an inch, or you will put too much angle on the CV joint and it will wear out and fail very quickly.
It seems like nobody has taken the time to add lift blocks to the engine and transmission crossmembers. Adding lift blocks of the same dimensions as the front strut top spacers would eliminate any CV issues. We've been doing it this way in the Subaru community for years.

This is a Subaru Brat lift kit. You can see all the extra lift blocks we use to keep the driveline at the same height, just lift the body away from the running gear, allowing us to run 27-28" MT tires with minor fender trimming. The "grey" parts space the suspension away from the body. The blocks space the engine/transmission/rear suspension subframe away from the body and the black steel part spaces the front of our skid plates away from the body.

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LowBuckCanuck
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Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by LowBuckCanuck »

Yaut wrote: Tue Feb 12, 2019 8:29 pm Just as a small note to this. I had an issue with the factory C/V axles rubbing after a 1.5" lift. I used some after market axles made by TrakMotive which had a much smaller diameter joint and allowed for much greater clearance.
Do you have a link to those aftermarket axles?
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Petros
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Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by Petros »

a lift kit like that would not work on the tercel. the lower suspension lateral link and sway bar mount on the frame, not the cross member. Also, you would have to lower the engine/trans to keep the cv axle angles small. that also means you would lose the ground clearance under the engine/trans area, so not as useful as a full lift. lowering the front engine mounts to keep the angle on CV joint small would be rather involved: either a cutsom oil pan, or custom cross member, and it would be a complex redeisgn for either (with lots of cutting and welding). not enough of these cars left to make that worth making a kit, you could do a one off, but that is a lot of extra work.

simplest solution for the Tercel is limit front lift to an inch, and than use taller tires (which may require some clearance work in the fender wells front and rear). Rear can tolerate more lift, but you will need different longer shocks.
'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)
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Yaut
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Re: '84 WAGON REBUILD

Post by Yaut »

LowBuckCanuck wrote: Wed Feb 13, 2019 12:31 pm
Yaut wrote: Tue Feb 12, 2019 8:29 pm Just as a small note to this. I had an issue with the factory C/V axles rubbing after a 1.5" lift. I used some after market axles made by TrakMotive which had a much smaller diameter joint and allowed for much greater clearance.
Do you have a link to those aftermarket axles?
Yes. This is their website http://www.trakmotive.com/products/automotive-cv-axles/

The axles I used are part numbers TO-8039 and TO-8037. They cost me around $60 each so very inexpensive also.
'88 Toyota Tercel SR5 4WD (red)
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