The Garden Find

I'm afraid Calais is going to be the closest I'll get

On the other hand, let me know if you decided to holiday in the Alps, get a good old Celica tour going!

 

The Eagle Has Landed

The next coming week progress was exceptionally quick. I could barely keep up myself. It was Now November, about ten months since the first bolts and tea bags were removed. I was going to be starting a new job shortly (sorting post for Xmas work) and this was going to severely eat into my car time. As such I pushed hard before the end of November to see how much I could get done.

I finished installing all the running gear and nearly everything else that was needed to be done under the car, bar a few special exceptions. It was now absolutely the time to get the engine in. I hoisted up the back of the car with a block and tackle and removed the stands. I lowered it back down to earth gently. I then hoisted the front up and proceeded to lower that back to earth. Great. One small push and I'd rolled the car out of the way enough to get room for the engine.

I'd put the whole engine on a steel plate, atop some old scaffolding acting as rollers. So gradually I pushed the engine back into position, ready to be lifted.


The Eagle has Landed


Ignore the ugly engine mount that somehow escaped sand blasting...




The engine is just about ready to go in at this point. All I have to do is push the car back under it.


And Voila









I still need to fibreglass up the wormhole. I don't want to be disturbed by quantum fluctuations, tachyon displacement or other anomalies when driving.
I don't know where the re-route power button is for starters.


I'm a happy chappy at last.




It may be a bit of an old dog, but its got it's own unique charm I think. It wears it's years with dignity once more.



Some time later that week I finished putting everything back to where it should be. Now then... Will it run?

 

Ahh that's wonderful , though I imagine you certainly have your hands full, and not the greatest sleep pattern aha.

That's too bad to hear about the car. I'm desperately hoping that mine will be ok. Bringing a few little parts with me, lots of fuses, a few belts, spare injectors and a bunch of tools too. It's done a constant 150 mile trip, 300 all round with no issues. 521 miles will be the longest continuous stretch for me, and about 1,800 miles over the two week holiday. well... I will have breakdown cover but here's hoping!

 

Bah my block and tackle does a wonderful job! Although I do have to go and put some acros up on the roof beams when I do that kind of heavy lifting.

Regarding the hole, it's meant to be filled up with a rubber bung, similar to others found in the floor pan. While I did have the bung, too much of the supporting metal had rusted away, I could not be bothered to craft a new hole for the bung in fiber glass either. It's bad enough trying to fiberglass a simple thing above you!

 

Phoenix

It was time.

10 months of work had built to this moment, and this one moment had the potential to shape the project in either of two ways. The engine would run, or it would not.
A betting man would possibly side towards a running engine, after all, it drove into the shed 10 months ago. None the less I was still anxious.

Day one:

Everything is ready, fuel, electricity, and everything bar one item ready.
I turn the key and crank the engine.
It turns.
It turns.
It turns.
I stop cranking the engine.

Unsuccessful.

Diagnosis, knackered spark plugs. Oh why haven't I replaced them? Well I've ordered some already, but There seems to be a problem, next day delivery has turned into lost in the post. I have another set on the way from a different company, iridium no less too.

Day two:

I clean the plugs (I know but it's just temporary, not like I'm going to leave them in)

I I turn the key and crank the engine.
It turns,
It splutters,
It runs!

It is not a happy engine however, an obvious miss is occurring. Could be the plugs, looks like an injector too, its slightly intermittent

The video is needlessly long, but you're welcome to watch me swan about and be all dorky if you'd like.

[video=youtube;Y-QFXsCBcXI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-QFXsCBcXI[/video]


Day three:

The new plugs arrive and save the day.

The engine runs much better now. Still missing though. The issue would turn out to be a faulty injector4 and would be remedied by replacing it with an injector from the red car. In the following video I have not changed out IJ4 and I believe that is why it is still rough running. The clacking sound is the rear engine mount, not fully tightened. That's one issue with not having working room under the car, cant get to anything under there! I would drive it up little ramps and squeeze myself under to fix this.

[video]https://youtu.be/vRcaCOf-9dY[/video]

Day Four:

On with the new boots!

I got these at an excellent price, 5x Continental Conti Premium Contact 195/60 R14 for £180 including delivery. I managed to get them all fitted and balanced for only a further £50.


I painted the strut brace too. The old one was really scruffy and I thought it would not look bad matching how I'd coloured the rest of the bay.




I'm quite proud of this actually. It's made from parts of both my and the red car. Neither car had a proper antenna seal but by using bits from both, i've gotten something good.
The antenna still works too, super cool.








And behold! it's first major milestone achieved. It's driven the first 30 meters or so and gotten to the drive. It can just smell the road from here.

Time to book the dreaded MOT.

For those over the pond an MOT is a yearly and compulsory check of a vehicle's roadworthiness, checks include:

Lights


Steering and suspension


Wipers and washer bottle


Windscreen


Horn


Seatbelts


Seats


Fuel system


Emissions


Bodywork


Doors


Mirrors


Wheels and tyres


Brakes


Quite a lot on the list.

 

Thanks. Hopefully the battle against the rust is mostly over. I'll be owning and using this car for a good many years to come, I don't tend to change often. Actually it is my second car, having owned and still own my first for 6 years counting. So it's likely to keep evolving in the future.

Little headlamp spray points. I did have them working but they are currently not operative. I think I may have forgotten to plug the switch in / not done it properly, when I was doing some other dash work. After all the rest of the sprays are working and it's all driven off the same tank, so I'll bet it's switch related.

 

Thanks

Yup lots of elbow grease. Some warm water with a little washing up liquid for starters to get through all the dirt. And then some pretty much run of the mill dash cleaner / shine for the hard bits. Concerning the upholstery and the carpets, I had to pat everything a lot. Knock the dust out of it. I had a hoover right nearby to try and swallow up all the dust that puffed out the seats, not much point cleaning the seats if the next time you sit on them they puff a load of dust back out! For finishing I used a decent foaming cleaning, the type you spray onto fabric and brush in, then vacuum back out. That stuff can do a really good job at lifting dirt. This worked well on the door cards too.

Lastly good lighting for the photos

 

The Shakedown and The Ministry of Transport

Three things stood between the Celica and the road. Insurance, road tax and the most daunting obstacle, the MOT. (Ministry of Transport, although it should be DOT for Department of Transport as that is what we have now)

Insurance was looking to be a major financial hurdle now. Earlier in the year I'd checked and had been quoted about £450, about a hundred more than I usually pay for my Golf. As the year had gone on this rose to a minimum of £900, crazy money! it was especially disappointing when a specialist insurer for classics and the like was more than the high street. The ugly prospect of not being able to afford the insurance and thus not use the car was looming.

A few more phone calls and I found my way to Footman James and got myself a cracking good deal. £250 fully comp, 7k miles, commuting, salvage, europe, legal: The works. This brightened my day considerably! From being nearly the most expensive insurance I've ever had to being the cheapest. Nice.

That's one down.

Tax is easy, it's just a flat extortionate rate. But does require an MOT. I book it in to a fairly local place, just 5 miles out maybe. I put the jack and a whole bunch of tools in the back! I was quite nervous about my little trip. Anxious about the test results, even more anxious about actually making it to the test centre.



I started it up, reversed it out the drive and suddenly I'm on the road. First call was petrol. My ears were perceptive of every noise and my eyes darted between the gauges and road. My feet attuning to the new pedals and my hands to the steering. It was very obvious even in the first hundred meters that there were some things severely amiss. My steering wheel for one was not straight. Not at all. Perhaps I'd put it back on wonky? Although I was sure that I'd marked everything up and had done the procedure correctly. On the plus side the car went in an easy straight line, not wondering about the road at all.

Noises... what is that noise... Front right. Scraping metal. What is that? I pulled over for a visual inspection. I could not see anything out of place. I assumed that it must be a rubbing brake shroud.

I got to the petrol station a mere mile away and put in a tenner.

Off to the MOT centre.

Well I made it there without much fuss. I surrendered the car to them, to a friendly but very reserved tester. It's not unusual to be asked why a car hasn't had an MOT for 10 years. I probably got alarm bells ringing when I blurted out excitedly the history of the last 10 years in the garden and how this was my first attempt at any real car work. I was asked if it had any oil in it. A small bemused pause on my side "But of course?". He then proceeded in starting the examination.

I wondered off into town. I had an hour to kill. A really long hour. My Golf, as reliable as it is has a history of failing MOTs. Usually on stupid things like one brake light being brighter than the other, or the little switch under the brake pedal getting sticky. I was running through all the things the Celica might fail on and preemptively thinking of ways to solve them.

After a while of condensed stress, pacing and being unable to engage in any shopping I wandered back to the test centre. Reception desk asked me to go and speak to the tester. Well that's a fail then. Must be serious too. Usually they just charge you for the test and hand your keys and paperwork back.

Solemnly I made my way to the test bay occupied by the Celica. "What's wrong?" I asked. "What do you mean?" replied the tester. "It's failed right?" I added. "No, it passed" he said.

Well my smile preceded my emotion! A 28 year old car that had sat for 10 years, that I took apart and put together again without any prior knowledge or experience passed an MOT test first time! Ecstatic!
It turns out the tester had bought me in just to have a friendly chat about it all. Running me through the test, commenting on the work and offering some advice. It didn't quite get a clean sheet. Minor play in front wheel bearings and minor corrosion in the head lamp reflectors. He mentioned the brake shroud rubbing too and had bent it away from disc. It was a quiet drive home! As for the rest; Well I can do the wheel bearings in the future and I have spare lights courtesy of the red car so I'll change them out in the future too. At this point I still had all four of the original injectors in. Number 4 had seemed to come back to life, but would periodically cut out when driving. This was a major priority to fix. It had in fact played up and started missing during the emissions test. It still passed easily none the less!

My primary mission had been accomplished my car was now fully road legal.


Despite the monumental day I only took one photo and it was on my phone, so not the best. I picked my brother up from work and stopped to put a bit more fuel in.



However my work was not finished, far from it. The next few weeks would prove to be difficult.

 

Hmm clear headlights? I believe they are already, there is no tint to them, they are not the yellow colour. Perhaps I'm missing a trick? I do want to get some new ultra bright bulbs for my holiday though. I think they are H4 fitment. Will investigate soon enough. As for the wings I might look into getting clear ones eventually, but I'm pretty content with stock

 

Ahh I see what you mean. Well at the moment I'm not too bothered. The paintwork is very tired, so I think I will be holding off from any other aesthetics until I can sort that out. Alloys all need blasting and repainting etc. Lots of things like that to do before any other potential spends on making it look nicer.