Well i drove it for a year or two, when i was at home working as a summer student at one of the local pulp mills, for one or two of the summers, and started on the basket case that it was, but as so often happens, life intervened, schooling, different cities, adventure, excitement, and just time past, while the corolla sat.
It sat from roughly 2004-2005 till last year when i pulled it out of the line up of other cars, my initial thought and for quite awhile afterwards was just to scrap it and move on, but my dad convinced and prodded me to continue with it, because of how much work I've already put into it, even though i had at least 10 times more work to go on it, but I was ready to throw in flag so many times, i literally don't know how i kept going, possibly due to shear willpower.
Honestly i don't know how I've made it this far, and it just seems like a blur to me, but due to this adventure i have gain alot of valuable fabricating, and perseverance skills, that i wouldn't ever give up now that i have experienced them.
So more onto the info
Started as a really really rusty corolla, i have since fabricated, new rockers, inner rockers, inner wheel wells, rear shock tower mounts, spare tire holder, inner and outer fender lids, front left fender, and welded new hatch pieced together from two shoddy ones and sheet metal.
It would of been way easier to start with a less rusty hatch, but to give you an idea of what i started with here are some pics from about 8-9 years back (2004 ish) when i started working on it and i didn't know better, here it was rocking the bad fenders, doors and hood from a 87 hatch parts car i had, while i was working on the so called "Good" parts
Now resurrection, these photos start from about a year ago, i was living in PG at the time so worked on it quite often, but now I'm currently living/working about 250 km away in Williams Lake, but i make frequent weekend trips to fix it up and visit family when i can, apart from the other weekends where I'm on-call or visiting friends and or family south of where i am.
So Starting last year here's the progress
Done with the body work and onto primer
Had to repaint and fix the lower dashboard, as it was dented due to a crappy window replace some time in the past
Had to test fit my wheels which have been in storage since 2004ish, but threw them on as i could remember if the actually fit or not, clearance wise, but i was pretty damn sure that they were good.
That brings us up to almost today, currently im almost done, just have a few things left, such as e brake cables, replace the clutch master cyclinder, and try and find some one with some zenki usdm front bumper,valance,lip brackets they want to sell me, and just throwing i few more things on the car, i estimate probably two more weekends till its on the road
Couple of extra things i have done to the car is to fill in the rear side marker lights to make them flush, removed and filled the standard antenna hole and a few other things.
Its running stock USDM bumpers as i figured why not instead of going the oh so typical kouki jdm route, and have painted it in a traditional Panda paint scheme just going green instead obviously.
My plans are to make this car into a reliable summer daily driver, so going that route it will be made more for comfort than race/drift related, but i plan on going with lowering springs, decent shocks, and associated parts to make it work nicely, aka panhard bar, traction brackets, new 4 link, bigger sway bars, rca's, instead of going the standard 8kg/6kg coilover route, i will also be redoing the stock interior as the drivers seat, and front carpet is kinda thrashed so might as well redo the rest of the car while im at it. My engine plan int the future is to just do a mild tune for street ability (cold air intake, headers, thinner head gasket, and a motor refresh, plus an m factory taller 5th gear for highway use, but you never know what the future holds as a mild turbo setup would be nice, but then i would have to be doing a tranny and rear end swap for longevity, so im just gonna keep things stockish till i decide if i want to tinker with it abit more and update its power.
So yeah, thats where its at, and the plan is to have it back on the road shortly.
