Due in no small part to the encouragement of many fine members of this online community - especially Petros and Dlb, I rescued this Tercel from a weed patch and combined it with an '83 I found on Craigslist to make an awesome first car. It has just under 120,000 miles, an automatic, a fine paint job, a great interior, very little rust, functional AC, a roof rack, and a respectable custom audio system.
So far I have borrowed the engine (but not most of the carburetor or the IIA), the radiator, the AC pump, the sway bar, the inclinometer, and the plaid blue and white seats from the '83. Everything else is stock, except for the 185x70R14 snow tires I just installed and a couple other modifications I have done such as removing and repainting the trim and bumpers with rubberized truck bed liner (which worked splendidly), and building a custom iPhone mount / charging / audio interface system (which is, in my humble opinion, way cooler than all the expensive gadgets they build into new cars these days
).The larger 14" wheels gave this car around 1.5" of extra ground clearance, a more sporty appearance, a speedometer that is now accurate instead of being way too slow, better freeway cruising, and still just barely enough torque to get around.
It is possible to fit 4 6x8 speakers driven by a 200 watt amp with a preamp / 4 channel equalizer into a Tercel without sacrificing style, stereo imaging, or one inch or cargo capacity. I don't quite have the front two 6X8s fully enclosed yet, but you can see how I mounted the rear ones in the pictures below.
I look forward to many future adventures and additions - stay tuned for updates!
In the mean time, here's a couple links for those who may be interested:
>> Tercel4WD.com Repair Thread
>> Picasa Photo Album
>> Evernote Maintenance Log
>> Fuelly Mileage Log
