If you havent seen Rad you dont know nothing about nothing!

I needed some wheels after relocating from the nyc to south FL, so I started searching craigslist.

My first choice was a really clean '82 Starlet I found on CL - SOLD. Noooooooooooooo

This caused me to enter into a deep depression, but I continued my search for some form of transport.

I saw VW golf that was ready for death, a Civic that looked like it had sat in the ocean for a few weeks, and really nothing else was in my price range.

My price range? FAK! I HAVE NO MONEY!

The depression continues.

In my desperation I scoured Craigslist every hour in search of that Starlet. We had been thru a lot together.

She didnt know me yet but those hours I spent looking at her pictures still hold a special place in my heart.

I may as well been trying to figure out a square root or what the little numbers above and to the right of the big numbers mean.

While pondering the reasons god hates me I remembered a site that I used before craigslist for auto shopping and took a surf over to autotrader.

I did a search for something like 75 - 90 toyota in hopes of finding my baby starlet. NADA. but what is this? Its definitely no Starlet but it is a toyota and a hatchback

After a quick test ride, I wasnt allowed to drive it, and some intense tire kicking I asked my aunt for some cash and purchased this little red she-devil.









Everything seemed ok in my ignorance.
I had noticed some rust under the car but how bad can a little rust be? *uncontrollable nervous laughter/seizures

TBC

that interior looks pretty decent to me....... all it needs is some body work

yea, give the body some tlc and you should be good. The interior look 50x better than mine did when I picked it up so good grab there!

hell yeah that is a awesome find. A paint job, rims and a good suspension setup call it a day

I dig the hatch louvres, they may look goofy now but once the car is tastefully lowered the will be totally unqiue/badass

Whenever I hit the brakes there was a grinding/scratching a chalk board sound and it didnt seem safe to drive cause it took half a block to stop from 10MPH.
Everything involved with the braking system in my little red hatch is completely rusted/leaking. I started my repairs with
But after going thru all the steps of replacing the rotors and thinking I was almost done... The brake pads wouldn't fit.
I compared them to what I took out of the old calipers, they didnt look the same... WTF! I go on the webz and search EBC and it claims I got the right pads for my car...

Maybe its the calipers fault! Perhaps my car dosent have the right calipers and they are all rusted to hell anyway so I orders some new ones for all 4 corners. hmmm the brake pads still dont fit and these calipers are exactly like my old ones minus three inches of rust.

I need my car on the road so I ride my bike over to discount auto parts and have them order me some regular pads... two days later I install my pads and put everything back together as best I can (the anti rattle clips *click* everytime they fall into the slots on my rotors wtf!)

After replacing all the calipers/rotors/pads I think - BOOM!!! I AM THE MAN MY CAR IS A STOPPING MACHINE!!! I bust out my one man brake bleeder kit I picked up in the Dominican Republic a few years ago
(I highly recommend it, no warranty though, and individual results may vary)

I start bleeding the passenger rear and moved to the driver rear, when halfway thru pumping my car squirted all over me... WTF is this!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! It seems my car wasnt in the mood to bleed. One of the rusted brake lines couldn't take the pressure and broke. I tied a bit of plastic bag around the hole in the brake line with a piece of string and decided my brakes were bled enough.

More searching of the webz resulted in me going to Harbor Freight and buying a brake line flaring kit and some brake line from Autozone along with some brake fittings.

After a few Youtube videos and more webz research... badabing-badaboom I can now bleed my brakes! YESSSSSS I AM THE GOD OF ALL THINGS BRAKE....

WTF! Why is my brake light coming on and my brakes don't seem to be working right... hmmm strange I topped off the brake fluid yesterday.... hmmm I dont remember that puddle in the driveway.... WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS!!!!

Now I need a new brake master cylinder along with the brake booster...

TBC

PS. I ment to start posting when I first got this car in aug 2011 but then I got high...

Beautiful car man. I have a GTS with SR5 "sport interior". What a kick in the D***. oh well. Now I have to invest in some decent seats.

if there is one thing you can not over look in these cars, that will definitely be the brake system. 26+ years old cars deserve a TOTAL REBUILD, go the extra mile and rebuild the calipers also (please do this properly, or find someone that does ) it doesn't hurt. Besides it's better to be safe then sorry !!!