Another newbie from the Pacific NW

[83Red4WD]

Greetings all!
Only found this site recently. It's funny, I had a 92 Miata fall in my lap so I started researching them and found a great Forum devoted to them. The thought of a car forum had never occurred to me. So after participating in the Miata forum for a while I got to wondering if there might be a forum devoted to Tercels and here we all are!

I have an 83 Red 4WD. We've had it for about 10 years. It has over 315k miles on it now. No mods at all, Bone stock. About 5 years ago It started jumping out of 5th gear sometimes. Pretty soon it got to where I couldn't get it to stay in gear no matter how hard I pulled. Shortly after that it lost 5th gear all together. Nothing there at all, like another neutral. I continued to drive it for another three years or so with no 5th gear. Used it to teach Both my boys to drive a stick. That was too much for the clutch so I decided it was time to tear it down and finally find out what was wrong. I was going to be p. o.ed if it was just a roll pin that had fallen out or something like that after having suffered with it for three years. But no, I found the 5th gear synchro hub in about a hundred pieces in the bottom of the case. Show me another car that can survive that! Got a used 5th gear set for a hundred bucks and a set of synchro blockers and seals and slapped it back together. That was about a year ago and it's still going strong!

Anyway, glad to be here! You sound like a great bunch of guys. And I hope I can contribute to the group. I've been an auto mechanic for over 30 years. And between mine and my customers I've fixed just about anything on a Tercel that can break. Here is a picture of it. And the other five cars in the stable . How did I wind up with six cars? The beige 84 Toyota 4WD PU you can just see the front of My wife and I bought new, one of my boys drives that now. The white Altima We bought new the other kid drives that. The Blue 78 Ford pu you can just see the back of in the other photo my folks bought new. I guess if you never get rid of anything that's how you wind up with six cars! Hope the pictures work!

Cheers.....................Todd

[ARCHINSTL]

Welcome!
A real wrench - Arright!
Was the Miata Club you mention miata.net? If so, that is an excellent site. I peruse it often, just for ideas. I stole the idea for our Tool Talk Forum from them. They have a huge number of members, and are seemingly a lot more pecunious than us T4WD folks, as they sure spend money on nice tools and shtuff!
I have a link to that site in the Tool Talk Topics thread in our TT forum.
Tom M.

[Neu]

Nice to have you on board here.

[83Red4WD]

Thanks for the welcome Tom. Yeah, it is miata.net another great group of guys/gals. I'm 92MarinerBlue on there. Yeah there are a lot of fairly well to do people there no doubt. Although in the 1st generation, i.o.w. NA or '90 - '97 forum where I normally hang out people are very down to earth. In the NB ('99 - '05) and NC ('06 - '08) not so much . But then again, it's a toy. Most owners are older. their kids are grown (like mine) so I can forgive them.

Neu, thanks for the welcome! Monroe huh? My kids are going to school just up the road in Corvallis. Go Beavs! Hope you're not a Duck! j.k.

Cheers..................Todd

[Neu]

definitely not a duck. My girlfriend goes to OSU, along with my brother and a few friends all OSU. My family has always been beaver. I've gone to games, etc.

It's fun. I spot a Tercel on campus every once ina while. There's a bronze/rust colored one on 9th street, and one that i see(blue) on campus every once ina while and he's a firefighter.