She lives! Celica GT4 breathes after a year

[Husky]

Got to work on her in the sun on Sunday, I tried on Saturday but the second I walked outside it hailed on me

I'm still trying to dry the driver footwell out, had the windows down all day and it does seem better, a way to go yet though before she's bone dry.

 

 

First up was a tug of war with the exhaust bung

 

 

 

The bolt was (as always) rusted hard in there so needed hacksawed out

 

 

I had to clamp a rag to the bug, wrap it round my hand, bridge against the rear wheel and pull has hard as I possibly could.

 

Once free I could see why she was stuck

 

 

She sounds great once again, I took a video so I'll see if I can cut that down later and post it up for you to hear.

 

 

 

 

Driver door next

 

 

So there has always been this issue of the driver door not shutting correctly, it also affects the window closure letting water in.

 

Looking at the catch I figured it was related to wear and perhaps bending of the metal?

 

So I took it off, jesus more rust.

 

And flipped it round. Sadly it made no difference, the door must be hanging on the hinge wrong, or alternatively bent? Not sure yet.

 

 

 

 

 

Onto the engine bay once again

 

 

I scrubbed some bits here and there and decided to sort out the front bonnet seal, it had a lot of crud trapped in there and the metal holding it down was rusting.

 

 

Never ending rusty things

 

With it unbolted and peeled off, you can see the crap collecting under there

 

 

I started sanding down the metal to be repainted when I found a lovely buckle in it that had been hammered back. The front end ding from someone driving into me had a @*!# repair from a shop in Birmingham (long story, much anger). They didn't bother replacing the part, just bent it back to shape and stuck it back on.

 

 

At this point I didn't give a crap about doing a nice finish on it as it'll get replaced, I put some random black paint on and some 5 year old lacquer, 5 year old rattle cans don't seem to work so well But with the crap all cleaned out and some rust protection on there, it does the job.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strut brace

 

 

While I had the paint out I figured it'd be rude not to sort something else that had been bugging me, the strut brace

 

 

 

I gave it a quick sand down and chucked some matte black on it, it isn't meant to last a long time, just stop the rust progressing for the time being.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I gave the engine bay a bit more attention cleaning the lights out and other stuff, this is where it's got to now.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally not wanting to waste the expensive race spec oil I took out the celica, I started treating the 80 year old shed It's as dry as kindling so drank it up!

 

 

 

 

[coldel]

Good work fella, another thing I would do whilst you are there is unbolt the front grille and spray it matt black, makes a huge difference to the look and feel of the front of the car as they tend to go grey and age the car badly.

 

...and, upside down Toyota badge?

[Husky]

...and, upside down Toyota badge?

 

It makes me cry. So long story short(ish); a woman pulled across me while I was doing 40mph, I braked, swerved, managed to keep the damage to only the front passenger side. Insurance sorted it, told them I wanted the car to go to Martin in Blackburn, they said absolutely no problem. Goes quiet for a while, I'm fine, I have a courtesy car doing crappy work miles for cheap fuel so don't hassle them. Eventually call Martin, he hasn't had it delivered yet, call the insurance, garage has it, call Martin, he defo doesn't have it, call insurance... It had gone to a @*!# hole panel beater cheap garage in Birmingham, they had had it the whole time. So my pride and joy with a 2000 mile old forged engine still being driven gently to run in was with some ass hats in brum. I didn't see her for a few months in total, I got her sent to Martin before me so he could assess the repair work. He told them that the repair work was sub standard and the paint match not good enough (it's @*!#). The independent inspector however signed off on it all, I complained all the way to their director before eventually saying **** it and giving in I have better things to do with my time.

 

Paint match is terrible, their reasoning for it being ok was that "the rear doesn't match the body, so it isn't critical that the front matches", however ****ing angry think you'd you feel about that, I was that angry.

 

Toyota badge is on upside down.

 

They didn't align the new headlight whatsoever, I had to do it.

 

Parts not replaced that should have been.

 

They bent my key!

 

**** knows how much they aged my nice new engine.

 

I'm sure there was a lot more but I can't remember off hand. The insurers, (Sky insurance I think it was) barely gave a **** or had any power to do anything, they used a crap 3rd party company and they were shocking.

 

I'm going to go take some Valium now to calm back down.

[Husky]

Good work fella, another thing I would do whilst you are there is unbolt the front grille and spray it matt black, makes a huge difference to the look and feel of the front of the car as they tend to go grey and age the car badly.

 

The one at the bottom of this pic?

 

 

I may sort it, may leave it for when everything gets resprayed, not sure.

[coldel]

Yep that one, it goes greyish and ages the car I think - took me a few hours to prep spray and put back et voila - best couple of quid improvement on the car

 

[Husky]

I'm guessing it comes out? or do I have to mask it all off?

[coldel]

You can reach down behind it from the top in the gap where the bonnet catch mechanism is, six hex/cross heads (cant remember which) hold it in place, just inscrew all 6 and it pops out no problem. You can actually unscrew some of them from the front through the grille. If you have the undertrays installed though make sure you catch them and dont let them fall in!

[Husky]

You can reach down behind it from the top in the gap where the bonnet catch mechanism is, six hex/cross heads (cant remember which) hold it in place, just inscrew all 6 and it pops out no problem. You can actually unscrew some of them from the front through the grille. If you have the undertrays installed though make sure you catch them and dont let them fall in!

 

I am skilled in bolt retrieval from the undertrays now I might look at removing the front bumper tbh, I want to take a look at the rest of the work the garage did on that area...

[Sargara]

Looks like your wiper arms would benefit from the same treatment as your strut bar, good to see its not just Nissans that suffer from it too flaking at the joints

[Husky]

Looks like your wiper arms would benefit from the same treatment as your strut bar, good to see its not just Nissans that suffer from it too flaking at the joints

 

Yeah they are buggered I want to do a nice job of those though so I'll have to get hold of some new rattle cans for it. I should probably pick up some kind of wire wheel thingy to save my hand from all the sanding, no idea what to use though.

[coldel]

Did my wiper blades by hand with a coarse sanding block, worked a treat. Rattle canned it also.

 

[coldel]

...and remember to put the bolt caps back on when you do it

[Husky]

Nothing wrong with some pocket bolts

[nowhereboy]

 

they used a crap 3rd party company and they were shocking.

 

 

 

Wasn't called "claim fast" by any chance was it? No fault incident?

[Husky]

Nah it wasn't them, it was most certainly the bitch's fault who pulled across me though

[rtbiscuit]

you have been busy