Poor students' beauty - working link!

Hello everybody,

I have been following this forum for approx. 6months and have learnt great things about this great car.

In November 2013 I have bought my Toyota Celica 1987. Since I was born we always had Toyotas and never in my entire life has a Toyota car disappointed me. Currently I am studying Electrical Engineering at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. You're free to contact me for electrical and electronical questions . I also work part-time at a local supermarket to keep up with my expenses on the car

The car has 134000kms now on its odometer

As of now (jan 2014), the car has following problems:

-It takes long to start the car, when cold; approx. 15-20sec of full cranking (colder than 10deg celsius)
-Heater LEDs not working: Also when heater is set to blowing to feet, passenger side doesn't get warm
-Gearbox: Upshifting or downshifting to 2nd gear results in not being able to shift or in crunchy noise

The first problem is due to a problem with the brown plug on the thermostat or due to dirty cold-start injector. Maybe it is normal?
When I tried out the car before buying I didn't notice the gearbox problem. I replaced the gearbox oil to gear oil 80w90, only to find out that the factory ATF was replaced with new ATF at 100'000kms. Before I couldn't shift the gearbox in second gear sometimes and if I could it made a crunchy noise, now I am always able to shift it, but it still does some crunchy unhealthy sound :S

I have following possibilities: a) replace it with a S54 (?) gearbox from a 3SGE ST202 (I have heard that 93+ S54/S53 have updated double (cone?) synchros). b) replace it with an original gearbox from another ST162 with 156000kms or c) hope for the gear oil to improve the synchronizing :S I am very incertain. What would you do?

 

Hi everybody,

I am back with some new goodies.

@CelicaSteve: Here are some pics of the interior. Engine Bay photo is coming as soon as I have fixed the wiring with my new daytime running lights. (Yes, I've installed DRLs).

Currently, when the DRLs are lighting, my speedometer doesn't get the RPM signal. It's showing 0rpms. I think I have took the wrong ignition power cable. Any good ideas where to find switched 12v?

Dash is mostly stock. It's got only a new gear gaitor, and a CD-Player with BT capability. Alpine CDE-134BT. Front got some Daytona speakers. 4.5'' I believe.


Remote control for the radio, and electrical mirrors. That's some luxury



A partly-functional (see above) RPM-meter with economy lights. Whenever I push the gas pedal harder, it switched to orange; otherwise it's lighting up green. I believe green means that the EGR system is working and orange means it's disabled for performance. (It's parked behind a Benz. Still girls be staring at my car :biggrin ). It's also got a steering wheel cover until this spring, I hope.


This shows the horizontal acceleration =P my gyroscope


I was sick of the huge power antenna that sticks out, so I replaced it with something much more neat.


Some speaker I got for free. Don't worry this isn't the original parcel shelf. The original one is stuffed somewhere in the house where it doesn't get dirty.



For now, I hope I'm getting my driver's license until mid-March. Then I will make a huge service, that includes: changing oil&filter, checking and replacing other fluids, changing tires, cleaning everything inside (hopefully I can arrange a steam cleaner for that), muffler covers, good cleaning outside, engine bay cleaning, fixing other little stuff and maybe fitting a little subwoofer under the driver's or passengers seat.

Gearbox has smoothed out. No more 2nd gear grinding, not even at higher RPMs. :hurray

 

Hahahaha, no it isn't. None of those lights are on all the time. The ignition was on, but the engine wasn't started yet, that's why everything is lighting up. As soon as I start the engine, everything lights off and the ECONOMY light goes green.

 

Hey MRocha,

I looked for your parts car in your build thread. I wasn't surprised that it had REMUS exhaust fitted Those were very popular in the 80's and 90s. You are right about the salt. Not even 12hours pass after snow has fallen, and all roads are salted not only with NaCl but also with other more aggressive salts. The first owner worked at a very big Toyota sellhouse in the suburbs and bought it in 1987 and sold it in 2007 to the second owner, who sold it to me

When we lifted the car, the mechanic instantly saw that the whole underside of the car was waxed with a special anti-rust wax called Dinitrol. That wax is very popular in Austria, Sweden and Switzerland. My mechanic told me once that they waxed an Opel Astra (these cars rusted the day they rolled out of the manufactury) and 10years later it still looked like new. The car litterarily has NO RUST on the underside. It looks like new. Even the chassis was waxed, the mount for the car jack was still yellow because of the waxing. But the side rocker panel mounts and the wheel case have a fair amount of rust. Wheel cases have been treated at some time, but still are now rusting very little from the inside. I hope someday I'll find the money to fix that.

Overall, Switzerland is a very expensive country. Expensive car taxes, expensive prices at the garages and expensive cars. My cousin was today at a BMW garage who told them they'd charge approx. 600-700USD for replacing an O-Ring (seal) and the oil dipstick, 500USD more for changing the oilpan gasket and 1600USD plus for changing his leaky power steering pump for his 2002 BMW 316i. Only diagnosing those problems will cost him now 200USD. DIY isn't very popular here, so people pay a stupid amount of money for regular service (200USD and more usually for changing oil+filter+air filter) The HUGE car importer lobby makes everything worse. Old cars are legally discriminated and driving a Toyota is seen as very proletarian. Instead they drive little turbocharged Volkswagens and BMWs. Despite the fact that in the late 80s and 90s Toyota was THE most bought car brand here. Nearly all of them were exported to Eastern and Southern Europe and to the Middle East. There aren't even any real car wrecks here

Yesterday I noticed that the gearbox didn't shift right. I realized that the freeplay of the clutch pedal should be adjusted. So that will be done in the next days hopefully. Adjusting the freeplay is very important. Otherwise you are ruining your clutch and gearbox!

 

After having seen the same problems as spyder with the cold start, I took a look into my coolant radiator.

Suspected a head gasket. Called a friend. Diagnose: blown head gasket. He was very surprised it still ran smoothly and idled like a king.

Will have to get the head down. Clean everything and get it skimmed, put on a new head gasket and replace other gaskets too (valve seals, manifold gaskets, ...). Its gonna be tough...

Here in Switzerland and Germany, Toyota experts say it is mandatory to use Toyota Red Long Life coolant for yotas from the 80s. Mine had green coolant in it and the head gasket broke at 134000kms.

What do you 3SGE experts recommend doing while the head is down? Re-seating valves? Porting? Polishing? I also plan to do a shim adjustment.

Best regards

 

I think the economy light indicates whether the engine runs on lambda=1 or enriches the air-fuel ratio lambda 0.85.

I have wired the DRL simply by an electrical 12v opening relais. Photos from installed DRL and schematics are coming in as soon as head gasket is fixed.
For now my gearbox feels a lot better with the gearbox fluid changed. Will change it again / top it up after head gasket. Otherwise St202 s54 are not hard to find here.

Well I think I have found the head gasket issue pretty early. Oil and water weren't mixed that badly and it runs very smoothly. No shaking idle or whatsoever.

I have took out the throttle body, airbox, exhaust manifold, egr pipe and coolant reservoir. I slipped off the timing belt and loosened the bottom nuts off the intake manifold holding H-like piece and loosened the fuel rail with the injectors. I unplugged all vacuum hoses and already removed the camshafts and their bearings. I need to buy hi-quality 8mm Allen wrench as I broke mine today while trying to loosen the head bolts.

My plan is to take off the cylinder head with the intake manifold, service T-VIS with some MOS2 moly lube and clean all valves.

While doing these I have encountered several problems:

Spark Plugs: all were 4 electrode Bosch super plus. no. 1: oily but good color. No. 2: white No. 3: white No. 4: white.
No thermostat (?) but it heated up pretty quickly and never overheated!
Exhaust valves: no 1&2: good color but a little dirty. No 3&4: white No. 5&6: white with huge white deposits. No. 7&8: white with big deposits.

I am wondering why this car was running this good with all those problems. It passed smog test. Apart from gearbox and cold start it was running very good. The head will definitely need to get pressure tested and skimmed. I will clean all valves and grind all valves and adjust the shims. Hopefully I won't encounter any other serious issues.

For now I still need to figure out why all valves were white. Running lean? Burning coolant? Burning oil?

For now I hope I can remove the head bolts, the head is healthy and get this thing done this week. And of course get all screws bolts and nuts to where they belong when putting together.

Can someone explain me how I should take the wiring harness over the manifold or how I can deal with it? I want to take the manifold out with head.




PS: bought struts with Eibach springs, and brakes. cant wait to get everything going and put them on with new tires and rims.

 

Pics:

This is from cylinder number 4. By far the worst! Note how the valve gasket is chewed up / burnt. I'd be glad if someone could explain me how this could be. Bad timing? (Distributor was all the way turned clockwise). Bad fuel? (octane 95 ron) Bad plugs? (Bosch Super plus, less than 1 year old) or something else?

More pics coming in tomorrow!