Alarms often have a "starter interrupt" function, and if there's old wiring, where that may or may not have been bypassed, that's a good way to have problems. Did you find any "twist-n-tape" connections? If you do, put aside the beer money to buy a good proper crimping tool, you'...

There are hatches on the east coast. You just won't find a white GTS among them.

"Reporting the sale or transfer of a vehicle or vessel to the department does not constitute a transfer of ownership. The record is not permanently transferred out of your name until the department receives a completed application for transfer of ownership and payment of appropriate fees from t...

"2¢ I had a factory stock 1986 SR5 hatchback white body maroon interior....it was painted panda before sent to buyer. Maroon not red. Maybe no maroon gts interior?" He's looking for a GTS. not an SR5. In 1985 there were not white GTSes in the US market at all. I don't know if maroon interi...

Not only no "white with maroon interior" but they never shipped the white GTS here at all. So real "panda" black and white? Would be a totally custom paint job on a US car, or an imported car from another market. And they never sold many GTSes in the northeast zones. In NY-NJ-CT ...

My old Mustang had an extra "left of left" foot pedal. Push down on the pedal, rubber bulb squeezed, water came up on the washers. No motors, mo power except your left foot. And then one day it leaked and some wiper fluid got into the high beam switch, which was located on the left floor w...

A GTS is an AE88, if you ask for AE86 you'll get offers for an SR5 as well. And Panda paint jobs never shipped to the US, you'll be getting a custom paint job if you find one here. There are also no red interiors, there was a maroon (almost red) interior on some of the early 1985 cars, but that's al...

Oh, so it WAS your car but you're trying to prove you SOLD it to someone else. That's a bit different. In most of the US this is one reason why the plates are issued to the owner--and the plates and stickers come OFF THE CAR when we sell it. In Cali (and I think Louisiana?) the plates attach to the ...

Sometimes you can't let these cars hear about what other cars are getting away with. I must have hit the key four ties today only to hear a nice firm CHUNK! from the starter, indicating the solenoid had thrown it--but the starter motor wasn't getting powered up. Scratched my head, hit it one more ti...

Optima: No big difference. "How much volts should be going to the starter motor itself? I tested it while not cranking. " While not cranking, it should show virtually identical to battery voltage as measured across the battery posts. Black or green at the cable ends usually means the cbale...

"who the owner is" Ergh, hopefully the owner is you.<G> Who the last owner was, should be on your bill of sale, or on the title transfer records that you should be able to get copies of from the state DMV, if no one comes up with a name. If you bought it from an online ad, try using the wa...

Andrew, either your battery is dead or something is NOT connected. Start with testing the battery voltage at the battery, then test it again at the ignition switch, or the connector for that under the steering column. Check power at the fuses on the fuse blocks. Somewhere, power is not flowing and t...

If you are towing WITH an AE8x, what you need is the trailer hitch on your car. The towbar is what you attach to whatever you are towing, and it just drops onto the hitch. The hitch bar or hitch mount is what you attach to your car. There were a couple of hitch mounts for the AE86 but they are all w...

If you had a short you would have blown fuses or the fusible links on the battery post.

If no fuses are blown, you just haven't connected the power someplace.

I wonder if part of this confusion is that MAY 1984 build plate. Unless Toyota released the 1985 model awfully early, a May 1984 build should actually be a 1984 model. Normal production for the model year change starts in September. So a 2C5 built in May 1984...unless Toyota did one of those early y...

Very interesting. That does show a two tone, plus a black panda stripe. Front seats were replaced, wheels replaced, and the May 1984 build plate makes it one of the very early cars. SO now there' reason to think at least two of the 2C5 color codes made it to America.<G> Very early on.

"I left the battery sitting overnight and then let the headlights run for 5 minutes;" That should be either let it sit overnight OR turn the headlights on after charging, not both. " battery read 12.09 volts" And ssuming yo shut the headlights off that would be a very low battery...

Yes, that is the same first and only window sticker showing a two-tone, that was posted in another thread here about two weeks ago. "FIrst, one and only." For what appears to be a very early 1985, from the VIN and engine number. To the Chicagoland district. Now, if we could find any origin...

Aluminum ?! Come on Eric, get on the program. Titanium, carbon fiber, these are acceptable materials in an AE8x. Aluminum ?? Really ?! What, you're trying to make it so heavy no one can send four Sumos out to steal it? Although I'd figure one-offs on a metal brake with some hand work could be made f...

The site lists some Toyota brochures, when I selected the 1985 brochure and looked at it, the car I saw had fixed headlights, not pop-ups. Which means either the car was JDM or other non-US market, or it was an earlier year, when they had fixed headlights. I would note that Toyota has used the wrong...

Lost the road pan? Right, lighter is faster.<G> But serisouly, enough folks have posted about melting distributor caps so that the exhaust manifold heat shield and airflow in the engine bay shouldn't be totally dismissed. I wouldn't obsess about not having a shroud, but I wouldn't throw mine out, ei...

Privately run web sites like that often just add to the confusion. For instance, they show the 1985 GT-S in three paint codes. They do not indicate that the ordinary red and gray had black trim, but they show a silver/gray with black as a two-tone option. OK, fine, that would appear to confirm the 2...

"No engine driven fan = no fan shroud! Simple as that." Not so simple. If the fan(s) are bolted onto the radiator, sure, they'll draw air through it, so that aspect of the shrouding is no needed. But then where does the air go after it has come through the radiator? Smack into the block, s...

Adrian, I don't argue the color combos, I just note that in ten years on this forum, no one has ever shown, confirmed, or found any indication that any panda paint jobs ever were shipped into the US market. And it was only last week that one post showed that ONE two-tone silver GT-S went into the Ch...

The COR is not the saqme as the usual relay. There are actually two coil windings on it, and two circuits that can turn it on and hold it on. One for starting the engine, when there is no airflow, and the other during normal run time. If the ECU sees no airflow it will cut power to the COR in the lo...

"... the factory temp gauge being a liar and it melted the dizzy cap and oil cap and threw all the oil out of the valve cover and was very messy but..." Adrian, you want to rethink that. There's nothing wrong with a stock engine and stock parts that can or will melt the distributor cap or ...

I don't know what the factory spec is but the usual adhesive is a urethane sealant, not silicone seal. Butyl tape is not a high strength adhesive, but there are newer tapes (like 3M's "VLB" that did not exist in 1985. VLB looks like black double-stick tape but when used properly, it holds ...

A "clicking sound" in an AE8x can mean the COR relay behind the glovebox. Or, the clicking may be from the starter assembly solenoid itself. So just to say "clicking", if someone doesn't have a clue, won't help them much. If the starter solenoid is the clicking problem, then tell...

No fair, you've obviously memorized yours! I missed it on the way through the BE section, and of course, there's no index or TOC entry for it. For extra credit, can you find any diagram that actually shows the 1157 tail lights and how they are wired up? <G> The only one I found shows single-filament...

Racing oriented product. Hmmm...Carbon fiber any good for those axles? <G>

Titanium tranny gears, with lightening cuts & holes in them?

(These are reasons why I don't race, and why Larry Ellison can be so good at it with the America's Cup.)