Jerkberg's GT-S Daily & SR5 Racecar Corolla Builds

[Jerkberg]

Hey Club4AG,

This might get a little complicated to follow because I'm going to combine two builds in one thread. I love old Toyotas, and thus have 3 AE86 and a 1985 Cressida wagon at the moment (I'm broke because of them too of course). Though, one of the Corollas isn't much of a car anymore. Anyways, long story short I bought my GT-S as a daily driver and later picked up an SR5 as a new project, and a car I ended up using as a parts car somewhere in-between. I'm going to date things and try to keep this all chronological until I catch up to present day.


My GT-S the day I bought it and some pics from the previous owner (8/18/2013):





When I first bought it, it had a ton of issues. It idled very high, the rpms would often hang, the car had a random no-start issue, a terrible misfire that eventually got so bad it could stall the car, saggy doors, leaky everything, and I could go on and on. The typical type of things you might expect from a nearly 30 year old car.

But overall, it was mostly stock. It had ground control/eibach coil setup on the front with shortened strut tubes, cut rear springs, and an HKS Hi-Power muffler.

[Jerkberg]

(8/27/2013)
A friend of mine sold his silver zenki, so before it left I grabbed a few bolts and interior pieces my car was missing.




(9/18/2013)
I bought/installed a rebuilt manual rack/tie rods to replace the de-powered power steering rack in the car



9/28/2013
Replaced the brake booster as it was no good

11/6/2013
Replaced the coil as it was no good

[Jerkberg]

1/1/2014
My header was leaking, so I was going to just replace the gasket until I noticed the whole front half of the exhaust was now one monstrosity.






Sooo, I left it in one piece and painted it with thermal coating, and because the heat shield had rusted off, I made a heatshield for the alternator.





The same day I also decided to go ahead and replace my door hinges to get rid of the terrible sag.



The door handle was also messed up so I thru-bolted where the plastic pin typically goes. It doesn't work perfect, but it keeps the door handle operating correctly for the most part.

[Jerkberg]

1/10/2014
Replaced the timing belt, water pump, crank gear, and a few other things.

4/16/2014
Finally figured out why my car misfires! One of the previous owners installed non-turbo 7m injectors in it. After wiring in new pigtails and reverting to OE injectors, it was running great. Also, I stripped the paint from the valve covers and cleaned up a lot of wiring mess. Also, replaced the coolant temp sensor and a few other things.




5/19/2014

I drag home Corolla #2 which had been sitting for the last 14 years, but had surprisingly nice interior. Just check out all the algae and moss growing on this thing!




After a good cleaning (it doesn't actually look quite this nice, the wetness is deceptive)

[Jerkberg]

6/26/2014
I got a finelinetuning rocketbunny wing.




7/6/2014
Started to tackle some of the rust on the car with my first ever attempt at body work. It didn't turn out perfect, but that is ok because I can always address any imperfections later when the car gets a full respray.









7/26/2014
Replaced the driver's side door with the one off my parts car (way less beat up and wavy). Also, the striker was quite damaged from the door being misaligned previously, so the backplate had to be welded back up because it was broken. Unfortunately I forgot the tools to correct the rust at this time, so I only cleaned up what needed to be welded





You can see in this pic how the backplate of the striker broke in two peices. This allowed the striker to move around and for the door to not shut properly

[Jerkberg]

8/7/2014
Replaced the shaky power mirrors with manual mirrors and pulled all the mirror wiring/switch to be replaced with a blank. I don't have any pictures, but I also removed the cruise control system, and replaced it with a throttle cable from a 91 tercel. The stalk was already broken off the column so I just put a non-cruise steering cover on. It's actually quite funny to think, but my car started life out w/ cruise control, power mirrors, A/C, power steering, and no sunroof. Now it has power nothing and no A/C, and someone in the 80's installed a sunroof. Hah!





As you all know, corollas even basically stock are a lot of fun. So I try to keep up the enjoyment.




Short Video:
http://youtu.be/mVXiZFJqtKE


Also, since there was no chrome on the car I replaced A/C knob slider things with the ones out of the Tercel. I think they match the grey/black interior much better than the ones with chrome accents.

[Jerkberg]

9/15/2014
Aaaand I buy Corolla #3. Somewhere along the line I decided I'd like to keep my GT-S nearly stock and use it as a daily driver, and build a second more serious car for competition. Because the other shell was so rusty I decided I need a better starting point. Overall this car wasn't too bad. It ran and had no more rust than my GT-S did. Maybe even less. It's really just a coincidince it ended up being yet another red coupe. Opposite of the last car I bought, the worst thing about this one was the interior as it had sat for about a year before I picked it up and the window was left cracked.



I immediately started stripping out the nasty interior and getting rid of the sound deadening.

[IndiaDorifto7]

Not a bad thing, but how much time do you have on your hands? Man, and I wish I could work on my ae86 at least 3 hours a week, you're lucky man Good luck with the build