I hope I'm not the only one to love my turtle this much.

[HomeSkool]

I am very pleased to have found http://www.tercel4wd.com for the first
time today.

Long story short.
I was a punk 16 year old who wanted a sports car.
My grandpa was getting to the age where he could'nt drive.
Parents and grandparents discussed it and agreed to ask me
if I wanted their old 1987 Toyota Tercel Wagon. Sure I wanted
a car. But I wanted a sports car. I acutally remember saying
no thanks. I was insane. I took the car. Best choice I ever made.
I acutally remember seeing these cars drive around town and
telling myself I'd never be one of those people to own one
of those ugly piles of junk. What a young fool I was.

Been driveing the car for 7 years now. About two years ago
I got so lost on this logging road in Northern Idaho with 5
people in the car comming back to Canada from an amusement
park we had gone to for the day. The short cut back to boarder
was not a highway at all but a logging road. The Map made it look short
so why the heck not lets give it a try (since we already went an hour out
of our way to get to the shortcut) 4 hours into this logging road
it was 3 in the morning. I stopped the car on the top of mountain that
I just climbed because the poor girl was overheating. Thank god for 4wd.
I Got out and patted the old girl on the hood and told her if she
got me home tonight I'd fix all her rust and dents and give her
new paint and Rims.

The Tercel got me to the next gas station and then home about 4
hours later. If the nukes drop I'd rather have my Tercel than a hummer,
and I mean the cool original hummer not the new dumb ones.


Yes those are 17' Rims.







If anyone is interested I can upload more detailed photos of custom
stereo install I did and other custom interior items. I have recently
tinted all the rear windows limo black as well.

Tell me I'm not the only one to love Tercels this much?

[Mattel]

Welcome... Wow, Clean ride!

My old Boss had a mustard one, but haven't seen a yellow before, Nice job with the detailing and good set of shoes on it. I think you'll find a few others here that share your passion.

Last time I looked on Google we are now the second in the list when you type in Tercel 4wd!

[ARCHINSTL]

Welcome !
The yellow actually looks a lot better than I would have thought. It is a nice contrast with the black trim. Speaking of which, did you paint or tape the trim (I'm presuming that the OE black coating had worn off)?
What did you use on the bumpers for the finish?
Did you remove the rub strip, or is this a DLX?
It would be interesting to computer-paint the grille to view its effect - or did you do that and reject it?
Kinda cries out for an air dam for a bit of a chin.
Thanks for the photos!
Tom M.
EDIT - Hopefully, this is not a double post-I did it originally under your first (other) post and then it disappeared for ? reason; first time I think that has happened.

[shogun]

nice car man, wellcome to the forum

ps. lower the hell out of your terc itll look killer

[Finder349]

Very nice looking car. Now I can not be the first with that yellow! I do have to say that I liked it in my head but it is WAY better on the car than I thought it would be... Maybe I will actually find a van then I can paint that yellow. Almost a nasty thought there.

Cool car,

Calvin

[HomeSkool]

Thanks for the feedback guys,

Archinstl I'll try to answer your questions, The Trim was re-painted then taped before the car was blasted yellow. As for the bumpers I did'nt do a thing they're original. I did'nt think i could do anything with the bumpers? Kind of a smooth rubbery feel to them I assumed nothing could be done to them, am I incorrect?

As for the rub strip I'm not sure, I did'nt do the actual spraying myself, DLX? It is the SR5 model with air conditioning if that answers your question?

I never played with the idea of painting the Grill, I always assumed because it is cheap plastic with some scratches it would look very bad such a bright color. But if that acutally can be done that would be awesome to do, I'll look into it.

haha, and as for the Air dam idea, in a second I'd put one on if I had one. I don't have the skills to construct one and don't know of anyone who could/or would create one, But man that would look awesome, The bumpers are the last thing on the car I'm not too crazy about.

Shogun I'd love to slam the thing, The people I've talked to said I'd have to loose the 4x4 if I was going to do that, Can anyone verify this? I love slammed cars but I was concerned the wheels are too wide already and such, I should look into this more.

yo Der349, Totally was a toss up between blue and this yellow. I am glad I went with the yellow, I gota talk to the painters to find out exactly what color it is, I've seen a newer mustang the same colour, Parked beside me in a parking lot once and I compaired and it was totally the same color minus the fact I had 3 layers of perl added. I had a restless night the night I dropped it off to be sprayed woundering if I had made the correct choice. I think what pulls it off is the fact it looks so clean without too many details besides the newly painted Trim.

PS.
In my opinion it looks 100 times better with the tinted windows, I'll upload
a high rez pic as soon as I find the time to take one.

[shogun]

you can use the 4wd, the thing is you wont have any ground clearance, i dont use the 4wd because i haver the rear end ratio different from the tranny. i have lowered my car as much as 4 inches it looked nice but it had cusco coli overs but it was too harsh a ride for daily driving

[ARCHINSTL]

HomeSkool -
Thanks for the info.
Since it is an SR5, at some point the big rub strips (with the SR5 logo) that were installed in the indented groove about 1/3 of the way up the body were evidently removed. Check out a couple of other photos to see what I mean. Their removal adds height to the car, I think. This looks better than were they painted yellow as well.
Even the DLX had strips, albeit not quite as wide. You could think about some kind of narrow rub strip, though, for peace of mind; perhaps transparent or painted the same color, at the top of the groove, and as unobtrusive as possible.

My bumpers have "oxidized" (?), and are kind of a "textured" finish now; definitely not smooth

Take a photo and stick it in the 'puter and play around with adding yellow. I may do this with my gold, as it looked so good in a photo of a Japanese Tercel that Mattel posted a while back - although that was kind of an unusual green...

The more I look at your photos, the more modern the car looks - especially minus the SR5 strips. Congrats!
Tom M.

[Mac]

you did what all tercel owners have wanted to do, but never had the courage to, lol


looks cool though, i like it. tercels are za best, i love these things.

[Typrus]

Courage? Bah. Money.

Slammed? .....

Lose the 4wd? No. Lose the functionality of the 4wd as anything but an ice-helper? Yes. You'll plow more snow if its lower, rather than going over. Plowing more= going less.

Nice clean yellow. Only seen one yellow before, but it looked as tired as my sis' 81 Tercel 2-doors yellow paint. Well done. I'd personally have gone with a deep midnight blue metallic. Just me.

Tint? I want tint!

17's might be a bit much with that much fender space.... I think 15's create about the lowest profile to look good with stock ride height.

I think we all want a nice air dam. If it was constructed right and complemented by some nice underbody panelling, your aerodynamics would shoot up as well.

[takza]

I've painted the bumpers on mine using Krylon satin paint. Not a really durable paint...sort of wears off eventually...but it didn't chip or peel. Any good quality satin outdoor paint made for lawn furniture, etc would work.

[GTSSportCoupe]

Sweet car!! Welcome to the club! I'm in Victoria too...we should hook up sometime. I think there are a good 6 or so people on this forum from the Island now. We should have a meet or something...

[dcn]

Trust me, you're not the only one to love your car this much... Almost any person that's owned one has loved one.

[HomeSkool]

Archinstl I totally was'nt thinking properly when you asked about the SR5 strip. I totally had them on my car for years. Where I had to park to go to work the sun hit one side of my car hard and warped the strips and caused them to start peeling off from the front. I had to remove them to paint the car and there was no way to re-attach them due to the fact they were so warped. I talked about it alot with some of my friends and we all agreed that the car looks better without any striping. My thoughts on it were that re-adding the strips breaks up the clean look of haveing that much yellow. Almost adding detail that does'nt really work well with the look of the car. I also put the idea out of my head when I called around and could'nt find any new/or replacement strips.

I'd love to hear what people think on this topic? It would'nt be hard to get some type of strip back down the side. Does anyone agree with me that it might take away from the clean look I got going on?

As to your bumper comments I'll try to find that a picture of that Japanese Tercel you were talking about. I love checking out other peoples tercs to see what ideas they have come up with.

GTSSportCoupe I am fairly new to the Victoria area, Would be cool to hook up with you and anyone else interested. I am eager to build some connections due to the fact I'm so new here. Just moved up from Nelson B.C in the new year. tbonetk421@hotmail.com is my mail if you want to drop me a line.

Typrus "Courage? Bah. Money."
It was'nt that expensive, Just way too much time on my behalf. Only really expensive thing (in my opinion) were the new rims and tires I got. As to your comment on 15' making the car look the lowest with the stock height. My goal was to get a cool looking rim/tire to fill as much of the wheel well as possible. My friend lent me some 15' rims for a day and they looked cool but they also made me decide it would look better to go bigger. Also think I decided to do it because I just never have seen 17' rims on a Tercel before. Does anyone else think I made a mistake with that?

In general if anyone has any tips or ideas let me know cuz I love thinking about new things to do to the car. I'm still just excited to have found some people who are happy to talk about Tercels. heh

[Typrus]

How much did the paint cost? The rims/tires couldn't have been more than $200/$100 a piece....

Heh... It'd cost me over $10,000 for painting, custom tranny work, chassis reinforcement.... lol...