How far was your Tercel road trip?

[T4WDOR]

What's the largest and longest road trip you have done in your Tercel? I want to do a lot of the west coast pretty soon, but i need to get to know my new to me Tercel before i do. It's an 86 4wd that i swapped a 3ascv into before i left the country, so i haven't been able to dial it in or get to know it very well. It appears to be a pretty fresh engine, and it drove well before i left (could only drive it for 3 days minimally). Anyways, tell me about your tercel road trip! Thanks, Dallas. (And i will get some pictures of the car when i come back!)

[Mark]

My longest was from Victoria (on Vancouver Island) to Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlotte Islands). It was about 1500-2000 kms one way (over 1000 miles). We did the drive in 3 days each way, not including ferries. Since the coast of B.C. is cut up with deep inlets, there are no roads so you have to go up through the center of the province. It was the first time we did this and it was interesting to see the variety of landscapes. From the green coastal mountains to the weird red streaked rocks and rapids of the Fraser Canyon to the desert-like Cariboo, etc.....
We found that every small town has a Fields store and at least one "Chinese and Canadian food" restaurant. We had a laugh taking pictures of all of those restaurant signs. It would make a good hipster art project.
I would definitely recommend planning on taking longer than driving directions suggest. We drove for about 8 hours a day, which was a bit much, but we had to meet ferry schedules. If possible, take a different route back. For us, there was really only one route for most of the way so the way back was more tedious since we'd already seen it.
The Tercel handled it fine. I have the auto and I was driving faster (110 km/hr 68 mph) than I normally do on the highway (80-90 km/hr). The rpms were higher than I would have liked with my automatic, but I got used to it at it went fine.

[dlb]

within a month of getting my first t4, my wife and i took it down to burning man. it was about 3000 km (1800 miles) round trip. we went down the oregon coast on the 101, turned inland and went into the shasta area of northern california, then headed east towards reno/burning man. i think the route we took home was all small highways, and much faster. we went through cedarville, alturas, la pine, bend, and yakima on the way to vancouver, bc. i didn't know much about cars at that point but luckily my terc did just fine. it was a little hard to start once warm in the hot california weather but that was it. i wish i had tracked my mileage back then. this is one of the few photos i have of the car from that trip. you can see how weighed down the back end is. in hindsight, i should have got roof racks and one of those thule storage containers to go up there. would have given us more space and distribute the weight better.



if i can make two suggestions for road tripping, one is to give yourself lots and lots of time to stop and look at stuff. it took me a while to get used to stopping and checking stuff out but to me, that's what makes road trips so cool, so whereas i used to plan for 8 hrs of driving a day, i now don't like to plan for more than 4. my other suggestion is to bring make sure your spare is inflated and have a basic tool kit and possibly some spare parts in case you have a break down. if you do a search on this, petros gives a good list of parts that are most likely to need replacing, and can be brought along easily.

mark, the fraser canyon is pretty cool, hey? when i was a kid, it was a tourist hot spot. hell's gate air tram was a big deal, but the whole canyon is pretty much a ghost town now. it's sad and beautiful, like a lot of small town USA too. next year we're going to do the badlands of alberta and some ghost towns in soutern AB and SK. should be fun.

[T4WDOR]

i was totally thinking of going to burning man this year during my trip but was put off by the price of it... Some awesome info and i will check out Petros' thread on parts to take with, and its awesome to have some confidence in the car on the highway. Thanks again and i'd love to hear more stories!!!

[dlb]

yeah, tix are getting stupid expensive for BM but we still love the event. we got every second year. we spend a week and a half road tripping there, a week at BM, and then just 3 or 4 days to get home. it's a great trip. i usually just look at google maps to plan a nice, non-I-5 route, and ask on the forum here for places to check out. last year we went through mt st helens and then stayed on the east side of the cascades for the rest of the way south to BM. pretty hot but some incredible sights. on the way back, we went north west out of BM to the oregon coast. wound up driving along the umpqua river, which was one of our fave places so far. it's beautiful, there weren't a lot of people along it, and there were a few freaky little almost-ghost towns.

if you're in southern oregon, have you been to the oregon country fair? a friend just told me about it and said it's pretty similar to BM. we'd like to check it out sometime too.

[teranfirbt]

I recently put 2400 miles on mine driving from Portland, OR to Waco TX for an internship. I had it loaded up pretty good, but having Pathfinder springs meant the car was about level. I ended up toasting the RR wheel bearing, it was howling something fierce by the end of the trip.

[dlb]

teranfirbt, do you have those bike carbs in your terc right now? how are they running? at least i think they were bike carbs, not positive.

[Mark]

mark, the fraser canyon is pretty cool, hey? when i was a kid, it was a tourist hot spot. hell's gate air tram was a big deal, but the whole canyon is pretty much a ghost town now. it's sad and beautiful, like a lot of small town USA too. next year we're going to do the badlands of alberta and some ghost towns in soutern AB and SK. should be fun.

I remember going to Hell's Gate when I was a kid too. We stopped there this time, but it was closed down (I think it only opens in the Summer). I agree that the area seemed to be partially abandoned. Here's a shot of an old abandoned church we passed:

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Here are some more "Tercel-ish" photos prom the trip:

Skeena River:

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Cariboo:

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Beach at the Northern end of Haida Gwaii:

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Driving through Haida Gwaii:

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Haida Gwaii near Tlell:

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Haida museum in Skidegate:

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Diving near Skidegate:

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I also carried a bunch of spares that I had (starter, distributor, belts, hoses, fuel pump, etc.) and an extra spare tire, but I ended up not using any of them. Our car was pretty loaded down in the back as well with all my dive gear.
Our next ambition is to drive down the US West coast maybe as far as Monterey (My wife wants to end up in San Fransisco, but I want to go a bit farther to the Monterey Bay-area for diving).

[c_j]

I made the same miles as dlb last year, and the Terc did great. Went through a few liters of oil, but that was no surprise.

However, the igniter in the distributor let go on me some months later. So, next time I would be big on having a spare distributor like Petros et al have advised previously. I would probably even go to the length of installing the spare distributor and running it for a few days to make sure it is good, and then tape the tool you used to install it right to the distributor. FYI: when the igniter goes, it means the engine dies right now without warning, and you are coasting to a stop. Then walk/bus/hitchhike to the local parts store, and *maybe* they have one or maybe you are off to the Toyota dealer...

That being said, I've had four T4WD's and I have put a lot of full throttle hard miles on and have had to change many a head gasket and burnt valves, but only once an igniter.

[T4WDOR]

Some awesome photos of your trip, gives me some confidence in my car as well. And dlb i havent gone to the oregon state fair yet, im definitely going to look into it though.

[Petros]

I have taken some epic trips on "rescue" missions, where I would find Tercel4wd in other parts of the country, bring my tools and the parts I knew it needed, fixed it and took off cross country. the longest one was about 4000 miles. That one I paid $100 for an '84 in colorado, replaced the timing belt and the front seals, the battery and a few other items, than drove it to Austin TX in January through snow and ice, where got more service. Than to Los Angeles, where I replaced the head gasket, than back home to the Seattle area. Than there was another one I got in a trade in New Mexico where I did some heavy maintenance on a old Toyota box van in trade for an old beater Tercel4wd that also needed the front seal, hoses, and some suspection parts, drive it to Austin TX to recover my daughters CRX that had badly overheated and damage the engine. That old Tercel towed the CRX back to Austin, where I turned around to get back home and promptly hit a deer that did some sheet metal damage and wrecked radiator. It was left in a small town for a month, where list member Danzo helped out by replacing the radiator, hood and water pump (that got bent), drove it back to Austin for me in the Texas summer heat. I returned in November where it was much cooler, than drove it almost 3000 miles to Los Angelses again, than to Seattle. Another time I flew into Reno to pick up an appearantly good running '86. I was going to drive it back to Seattle in one day, but it was getting very poor fuel economy. I stopped in Corvalis at list member's Terrafit's place and found the "new" rebuilt distributor was junk, replacing it somehow I poped the gear shifter out of place and had to abaondon it in Corvalis, took the Greyhound home and returned two weeks later with a replacment trans, and new clutch, drive it home to the Seattle are that day.

I have done trips like this but you always take a chance with an unknown car that you may have to leave it behind. Most reparis can be done on the road with just a handful of tools, and either give good weather or a place to work on it. but any major failures of the drive train (trans, clutch, etc) or the low end of the engine are not easy projects in primative conditons. Therefore I would recommend you check or replace all hoses, all fluids, check all the suspension parts (ball joints, tie rod ends, steering rack, etc) for exessive wear, replace as necessary. Check the brakes (especially the rear wheel cylinders) and you will have less likelyhood of trouble. I also like to carry spare parts of what ever could leave you stranded if it fails: a fuel pump, an alternator, and a distributor assembly.

[teranfirbt]

teranfirbt, do you have those bike carbs in your terc right now? how are they running? at least i think they were bike carbs, not positive.

They're throttle bodies from a CBR600 running Megasquirt with a Ford EDIS coil pack (but no EDIS module..)
They ran great until I ran the fuel system out of fuel (not throttle body or EFI related, just me cutting corners on the fuel supply system..)
I just got them working again today and they still work fantastic. They get a couple more MPG (31 vs 29 at 70mph) cruising and definitely give the car a solid 10 more hp. Plus they sound Amazing.

[dlb]

neat. you should post some pics or even video of them running. that's a really unique set up.