bluesdrivemonster

This album chronicles the build of my 1981 Toyota Corolla (TE72). I bought this car for $1200 on Craigslist in 2008 as a graduation gift to myself and it's been a point of pride in my life since. I've manage to do all of the work myself (minus paint) and I have my Dad to thank for the skills and balls to get where I am today.

The day I towed the TE home. The guy I bought the car from lived pretty close to my house but the car was not running. The fuel tank needed to be dropped and the fuel lines needed to be blown out. The whole car was basically a rolling chassis at this point but all the pieces were there.

First side shot. The whole car was covered in black primer that was poorly applied and rubbing off

I guess not the whole care was covered in primer, the roof was covered in rust. The only seat installed was the drivers seat but I had the full interior in the back of my truck.

I have an awesome friend who let me keep the TE in his garage while I worked on it after work. Disassembly begins.

It would be almost a year before the car would leave under its own power

The sorry state of the engine bay when I first got it. Wrong plug wires, poorly plumbed fuel pump, lousy wiring. It all needed to be refreshed.

Removing all of the surface rust and other crap from the trunk

I scraped all of the sound deadening off of the floor pan so I could assess and repair any rust holes. Thankfully there weren't many. That's the advantage of living in the south where road salt isn't used.

The biggest rust spots were around the drain holes in the rear which is a common issue. They were easily patched up with a few small panels I made

Being young and naive (and most of all cheap) I elected to repair the rusted spare wheel well with fiberglass. If I ever go back I would replace this with metal but it's never been an issue since, and now if water gets in the well again I don't have to worry about rust.

It's hard to take a good picture on your back under the car but this is the fuel pump. When I bought the car the fuel pump was (poorly) plumbed in the engine bay. This fuel pump likes to push fuel, not pull it. so it was much happier back here. Also note that I installed a new (to me) gas tank that I flushed and dried before strapping back in.

Fiberglass again to repair a little rust around the tail light.

I always think wiring is going to be the worst part but then I just start doing it. Chasing wires, reading schematics, doing a little at a time and eventually it comes together. The engine is still disgusting in this picture. I also replaced the exhaust manifold with a better flowing one.

Like all old Corollas the dash board was severely cracked and covered with this fury pad.

The dashboard got removed for some proper repair. This was a little daunting

By now I was deep into body work and hating it

The car was nothing more than a rolling storage container at this point

This was my hell. Next time I am paying someone to prep the panels

The body work is by no means perfect, there are still small dents and low spots that I missed but it's worlds better than it was when I got it. You can also see the original tires that came with the car. They are way too big and rubbed the fenders.

No more rusty roof. I used all the sanding disks. All of them.

I knew if I spent too much effort in making the car perfect I would lament getting dings and paint chips when I drove it hard. Maaco supplied the paint and when I dropped it off I literally said, "Put as much paint on it as you can". It's by no means perfect but it looks good and keeps it from rusting. Money well spent.

It's much more satisfying to work on now that it's not primer color

Road legal. I was living in NC at the time and there are no emission requirements for cars older than 1996. I didn't have a catalytic converter but the guy at the inspection station liked my car and gave me a pass anyway. Southern gentleman are gems.

Cleaned up engine bay. Fun fact, that little gray box on the right strut tower is the voltage regulator for the alternator. Drive around without that plugged in and the alternator won't charge your battery and your car will die. Ask me how I know

The summer before I left for grad school and I finally got to enjoy the fruits of my labor

I didn't bother putting the back seat in at this point

This is how I left it before going back to school. I put some smaller used tires on the front so they wouldn't rub and left the larger tires in the rear. It gave the car a cool rake.

Fast forward to the summer of 2014 and I'm done with grad school, living in a new place, and finally have the means to work on the TE again. It's been too long. I used the car as storage while I was moving.

Its new home

Getting into it

As you can see in the previous pictures the sealed beam headlights didn't match and one was burned out. I found these headlights by Rampage and they convert the sealed beam units to new housings that accept a halogen bulb. They have glass lenses and are super clean and sturdy. I was very impressed and happy with these and would recommend them to anyone who still has old sealed beams

New parts are sex. The car never had a tachometer and that didn't sit well with me. I'm also finally getting around to adding a catalytic converter because I can't justify being cheap and polluting anymore. I've always wanted a Momo steering wheel like this (it came with a horn button but it's not pictured). Yay disposable income.

Steering wheel mock up. You can also see the aluminum floor plate that I made for the drivers side so your heals don't get caught on the ribs in the floor pan as you are shuffling your feet. You can also see the dashboard after its been repaired.

This is the engine bay as of late. It's filthy again and needs a good power washing but it's slowly being improved. Mainly, I deleted the brake booster because it was leaking. Instead of tracking down a new one I just installed a firewall adapter plate from T3 (techno toy tuning)

The car came with an Weber 34 carb with an electric choke. I removed the electric choke because it never worked right and the car doesn't have a problem starting unless it's below freezing and then it just needs a little manual choke to get running

Battery tender is your friend if you live in cold climates. God I can't wait to power wash the whole thing and remove 5 years of grime built up from sitting under a car cover.

The next step is to improve the ride height and handling. I have all the suspension and brake components for an AE86 that will eventually go in. This includes a new AE rear end with an LSD and disk brakes. The objective of this project is to make an AE86 GTS in a TE72 shell (TE72 GTS?). I would also love to drop in a 20V 4AGE and rev it to the moon but that is further down the road. If you live on long island look out for me on the streets this summer.