2001, 2004 Toyota Celica GT(-S) | Frankenstein.

Always wanted one too. Always wanted any year US alltrac more, but would settle for a gt-s like this. As long as MT and the earlier model with the higher redline, can’t remember what year the tamed it down cause people were blowing them up.

 

Alright, I'm back at it. This next part will come in multiple posts!
Discovering 'Bigger' Problems, Part 1

So while I was disassembling the brakes, I noticed a couple things. The spindle, lower & upper control arms, and sway bar all had a wholesome amount of rust. A couple hits with a hammer and they'd shed tons of rust flakes. I wasn't sure if it was some coating, or if it was the original finish:

Rusted up control arms, spindle. The e-brake backing plate was also rusted through in the edges of the dust shield.

The toe adjusters, as well as the other mounting bolt from the spindle to the lower control arm had completely seized.

At this point I hadn't gotten the other side apart yet (I was determined to fix this wheel bearing first), but I knew the story would be the same on the other side.

So I made another trip to LKQ and picked up replacement lower control arms, spindles from a GT, and upper control arms for both sides. They're the same car right? "Haha, no issues here."
Until a day later when I took a closer look at the spindles.

Lower control arm, spindle, & upper control arm from a non-'Rust Belt' Celica, very light surface rust on unfinished surfaces and dirt. Much, much better!

The spindles from the GT Celicas have this 1/4" of extra material. The GT Celicas all came with drum brakes, so the thin mounting plate bolted straight onto this. However the GTS Celicas have disc brakes, and the caliper mounting bracket is about 1/4" thick, so the GTS spindles are machined down from the spindle shown above (see the GTS spindle in the pictures at the top) to account for this thickness differences. The end result is, both the GT and GTS Celicas have the same track & handling characteristics.

The pairs of hardware I picked up were in much better condition, and while the original stuff was still structurally sound, I'm happier knowing this stuff will last (hopefully) a lot longer.

With this new thickness difference, the original bolts to mount the wheel hub & bearing are too short to sandwich the caliper bracket between. So I planned to order new hardware later when I get around to putting the vehicle back together.

All this considered, my GTS will end up with a track that is ~1/2 wider in the rear than stock (and ~1/2 wider than the front track), resulting in more understeer. This will probably not be noticed.

I did do a bunch of research into this spindle issue and saw a handful of people who did a drum brake to disc conversion with the GT spindles, and they all reported using longer bolts and having no issues. I will probably comment on this later when I know how it turns out.

After my brake parts arrived, I went out to take a look at the calipers and finally noticed this:

On a scale from 0-100, this Piston receives a 1.

So... I placed another order with RockAuto. For rear caliper pistons & seals.

 

"Matt, you've noticed some rust on the body, don't you know you should check out underneath the car before buying?"

...Questioning my intelligence? I bought a cheap car 'from Virginia', underside-unseen. If I was smart, I wouldn't be buying a car with from there with over 200,000 miles. I at least would have gotten the CarFax first.

If I was smart, I also wouldn't have to be doing any of this work myself! Or making mistakes every step of the way!

_____________________________________________________________________________
Discovering 'Bigger' Problems, Part 2
Anyway. I had a cup of coffee at midnight and decided to get the other side of the suspension off.

First, I dropped the exhaust and heat shield (thankfully the flange bolts came right out) to get access to the sway bar, and removed that.

Yummy sway bar rust.

Jacked up the left side and started tackling it from the inside out. First time physically underneath the rear end.

Witness my rust! Left rear shock is nice, leaky & blown. Nice. Notice anything else?

Got the control arms disconnected and the 4 hub bolts out. The smart thing I mentioned? It helps to take the tire off the hub first. It also helps to remove the caliper before trying to remove the rotor & hub, as well.

Rusty with a chance of PB Blaster. Sheared off the head of the caliper bolt. Exquisite.

Twenty minutes of struggling, prying, and hammering and I was able to pull the caliper around the rotor & remove it from the rusted bolt & sleeve.

Now that I was underneath the car with a light and able to look at everything, I finally noticed the 'big' problem.

The rear suspension sub-frame on this Celica has a mild case of rust.

After a thorough beating, the passenger side was not much better.

This side of the sub-frame is good for at least another dozen miles, or so.

I had been hoping the surface rust I saw on the underside of the sub-frame was just surface rust and wanted to ignore it. After being underneath it I realized it had to be replaced while I was replacing the rest of the control arms.

At 3AM my caffeine high finally wore off, I had the sub-frame, strut, & control arms disconnected, and I was able to drag it out from underneath the car.

If you ever get the opportunity to drag the entire rear end out from underneath a car, it's pretty fun -- as long as it isn't your own.

Over the course of a few days, the amount of time (& money) I thought this Celica needed increased exponentially. I placed another order from RockAuto for more brake parts, and planned another trip to LKQ.

Some of the casualties.

Celica: 1
Me: 0

And I'm not even done! Stay tuned for Part 3.

 

Discovering 'Bigger' Problems, Part 3
After removing the sub-frame, I did a thorough check of the bottom of the body.

Imgur Album

A few significant spots of bubbling paint were uncovered and wire wheeled.

Noticed a 'bit' of rust on the rear crash bar, so I removed the bumper cover.

This crash bar has got serious rust problems.

After that, I checked the inner rear fender area and created a nice hole with a screwdriver.

Hole in the inner fender that's rusted through. Spreading up inside the interior metal.

I don't have the funds to cut out the bad metal and get new pieces welded in. So it's going to be a future project, some day. This same panel also had apparent fender-bender damage. Whatever person or body shop that repaired the Celica didn't pull this out.

Dented quarter panel, usually hidden by the bumper. After a light sanding. The inner fender well, where the quarter panel meets the body. Removed some undercoating.

This dent and other areas involving this panel I am assuming created the rust issues at the passenger door, both places at the fender, and the rear lower place pictured above. This is going to be incredibly time consuming to fix myself.

At this point I've decided to leave the crash bar how it is. The bolts & nuts are so rusted, I don't think it will be possible to remove it without having to weld new plates & mounting bolts.


Punching out rust. It's like this on both sides. I assume this was also not repaired whenever this car was in a collision.


Thx 4 reading.

 

Sub-frame & Miscellaneous Rust Issues
Made another trip out to LKQ to the same car I got the control arms & spindles from, to get the sub-frame "suspension cross-member" & sway bar. Much better than the one I had since this one has no holes! A few tiny surface rust spots.

Replacement Celica sub-frame. Not new, but cheap!

In the meantime, I took another look at the hole into the cab underneath my passenger door. Did some wire wheeling, sanding, & sand blasting to knock all the loose rust out. Primed it as a 'temporary fix'. At least it's garaged and not movable at the moment.

At this point I was unsure if I wanted to let it happen or duct-tape it.

Also did some grinding on the passenger fender where the paint was bubbling.

Super pitted metal means this will need a patch or new metal to get it looking right again. Or lots of body work.

Pictures of both these areas are in post #10, before the paint was taken off.

Went to the store and hesitantly bought the tiny POR kit to take care of the rear of the body. None of the rust was too severe here, but doing this helped me sleep at night.

Rear underbody of Celica with POR15 applied to areas with surface rust. Please ignore the rusty gas tank seams.

Now I am expecting to have to replace the gas tank in the next few years, if I keep this car that long.

Preparing the Sub-frame for Install
So what I don't want to do is slap on this other old sub-frame onto my Celica just for the same thing to happen over the next few years. Enter sandblast cabinet. Now I'm not a scientist or paint engineer or whatever. But what I could fit into the cabinet I did. With the gun 6-7" away from the metal, I could comfortably knock off all the loose rust off of the sub-frame without taking the paint off (it did lightly sand the paint for better adhesion when I prime & paint). 1/3 of the sub-frame was sticking out the door and I did coat everything in my garage with blasting sand.

Spot-blasting rust on the 'new' sub-frame.

My assumption is, the original primer & coating used by Toyota is more durable or rust-preventative or has some electroplating or whatever, I don't know. So I just wanted to get to raw metal in the areas where it failed, leaving me with this:

Celica sub-frame with problem-areas sand-blasted to bare metal. Right before painting.

Now to prime & paint. Rustoleum self-etching primer (grey/green). Rustoleum high-performance enamel, gloss black. Spray cans. I followed the directions...

Primed.

Painted.

As I was painting, several pinholes in the welds where the control arms mount became apparent. I can't tell if the robots at Toyota didn't know how to weld, or if the splatter over the part was from a mechanic's repair.

Looking back, I should have hand-sanded the entire piece with a coarse grit. (Maybe 320-600?) I incorrectly assumed the sandblasting was good preparation. After a few days of drying inside, it was too easy to scrape the paint off... yeah.... whatever... we'll get 'em next time.

This process was repeated for the upper control arms.

 

Assembling the rear Suspension & Beginning Body Work

hi


Installed the rear sub frame underneath the car, and also swapped in the spring on the left (from LKQ, the old one was covered in oil).


Then got around to installing the control arms and spindles. Didn't take any pictures of that. I am putting Celica GT spindles on a GTS, which required custom-ordered bolts from McMaster-Carr that were longer than the OEM bolts.

Lining the caliper bracket on the spindle while threading in the bolt to the wheel bearing was a challenge, but I got them eventually (with lots of red threadlocker)!


New wheel bearing bolted to rusty caliper bracket & dust shield.

I wasn't able to replace the e-brake hardware, because the backing plates were almost destroyed themselves, which are very rare, and expensive to replace with new parts.

Then got my nice Centric rotors installed.

Centric geomet coated rotor installed.


My parts table!


Now I switch over to body work and will get back to brakes in another post.

Used a cutout of a bondo patch to fill the area under the passenger door, and bent another sheet to reform the rear fender well area. Then got to work with the bondo glass and gold body filler.

About halfway through the process:




For my first time, I wasn't too embarrassed. A little sloppy, but followed the directions as best as I could. It definitely got better after these pictures though.

 

Awesome

 

Rebuilding the Rear Calipers

A not-too-in-depth guide.

The day after I placed the order for the caliper pistons & seals, I removed the rear passenger caliper and got to work. The rubber boots looked alright, and thought I would be able to reuse them and the slides. Disassembling everything proved otherwise.

Rusty rear caliper... hmm.. wonder how bad it could be.


Had to beat out the slide sleeves. Having some grease left was nice, but the rust was not.

As seen on my parts table, I ordered pistons, piston seals, piston boots, slider boots, slider pin sleeves, and slider pins. The rubber piston seals I received from RockAuto were dry rotted, and the original Toyota seals looked much better, a setback. O'Reilly could have them by tomorrow, so I ordered more from them.

The caliper rebuild kit from Toyota was considerably more expensive than the assortment of aftermarket parts, which is why I went the cheap route.

While I waited on the piston seals, I hit the caliper with my sand cabinet. Care has to be taken when doing this so that you don't get sand stuck inside or scarring the important machined surfaces. The bleeder screw was left in and wrapped with tape, as was the brake hose bolt. A cardboard circle was cut out and placed inside the piston well, and taped off.

Here you can see the ring around the piston well that was not hit with sand.

I then dunked the caliper in my electrolysis bucket (low power, for a short time) to blow the worst rust off of the areas I couldn't get to with sand.
While I was waiting on that, I took a look at the old piston and knocked the loose rust off... There was not much metal left where the boot seats on the piston.


The entire circumference of the piston had holes like this (after knocking loose rust off).

Before painting, the caliper was sprayed with air to remove sand and dust, and thoroughly wiped down with alcohol to pick up any other cOnTaMiNaNtS. I hung the caliper with some wire inside a shipping box, so I could rotate it with the wire and do it all in one go. The important parts of the caliper were masked off or plugged as previously described. To paint, directions on the can were followed (no primer). I sprayed it on a little too thick. After the paint had dried, reassembly could begin!

#BCP102, Duplicolor Caliper Paint

Assembly was completed with Toyota Pink Rubber Grease, 0887-01206. The inner piston seal went in first, with a very light amount of grease along the outside of the seal where it meets the caliper groove. Then the outside of the piston was lightly coated, and it slipped in with the pressure of two thumbs, and then glided perfectly in and out. The surface of the caliper where the piston boot seats was greased, and the piston boot installed. Then the sliders, the boots, and the piston boot retaining ring.

Unpainted, exposed surfaces were touched up with a small brush.

At last:

A happy caliper! After 20 years of faithful service, he is ready for 20 more!

Installed later in the day.


The caliper on the driver side was still unbolted, so a block was paced in-between the piston and the caliper. This side was bled, and the brake pedal was cycled many times to make sure no fluid was seeping from the hose or caliper itself.

_______________________________________________
Then I removed the driver side caliper. The bleeder valve was rusted in and no amount of lubricant or map gas got it loose. It ended up snapping off.

After 2 days of work on the passenger side, and driver side was replaced with a NAPA Eclipse re-manufactured caliper in about 1 hour. Lots of wasted parts and time.

 

Bondo Woes & Body Work | How to Fix a Cracked Plastic Bumper Like An Idiot

Imgur Album

Anyway.... after that happened, I got the brakes bled & made a few laps around town to bed in the pads that don't need bedding. And I kept getting this high pitched squealing noise that would go away when tapping the brake pedal, then reappear a minute later. And everything was greased nicely and all the spring retainers were installed correctly, too. Confused on that one.

Brought it back inside to finish the body work I had kind of started, so that I can free up the garage without worrying about the entire body rusting away.

These are the areas where I used the bondo mesh metal pads that I think I mentioned earlier.
Before I got to this step, both areas were sanded as much as I could without going insane. Then I used sand and compressed air just in case. Then I used rust removing jelly just in case. Then I sprayed rust converter just in case.
Then I cut out and bent into shape my 'patches'. I followed ChrisFix's "How to Repair Rust on Your Car Without Welding" video for the patching/bondo/painting process.


The lower area of the passenger door jamb & the rear fender. Both areas were on pinch welds that exposed the 'interior' of the car. They were stuffed with bondo.

Tried to round off the fender well- but for my first time, settled for 'good enough' as I was running out of sandpaper and didn't want to make another trip to the store. There was also a ding I tried to fill.

Pictures of the wet clear coat here to make you think I did a good job, when I really didn't do a good job. Someday when I have big boy money maybe I'll get a new piece welded in instead, if this repair lasts till then.

Kind of gave up on the door jamb since nobody is going to see it. My paper is curled too tightly and I masked off too close and the paint just... didn't feather. Rookie mistake.

Plastic Bumper Time
When I got the Celica, the rear bumper was droopy and cracked, but looked like it had been painted over. Pulled it off and scraped off a ton of weird caulk-y stuff which made it look 20x worse. Then took a trip to Lowe's for some J-B PlasticWeld.


With a Dremel on the backside, ran over all of the cracks and into the splits to take out material and rough it up to take the J-B PlasticWeld. Then with laser-like precision, applied it very evenly and used a trigger clamp to hold it.


Once I thought that dried, I flipped it over and started dremeling the front side of the cracks, and they proceeded to pull apart.

Enter soldering iron. With the soldering iron, apply heat to the cracks till the plastic starts being mushy, but not burning. (Well, some of it is going to burn, but that's fine whatever). I was most successful with a little downward pressure and quick back & forth motions- as if I was playing a scratch-off ticket-and was able to tackle each branch of the crack like that. Then once the plastic was all goopy, mix the sides together and cool it off. Now we have a wonderful concoction of J-B PlasticWeld, weird caulk, plastic, primer, paint, and clearcoat. Wasn't terribly level or in shape, but the higher bits just meant more plastic to spread out in the low areas.

Enter palm sander. Sand it good. Makes leveling quick & easy. The super low canyons were filled in with the plasticweld & smoothed out with a plastic razor blade.


Hand sanded with wet, soapy sandpaper in higher grits... 320, 400? You don't want the plastic too smooth.

Primer


The imperfections that were left were filled in with bondo glazing putty, which probably isn't the right stuff for the job but I think I read somewhere that it can be used over primer? Let that harden.

Some mounting holes & clips snapped off or didn't exist, and I also used the plasticweld & mesh to reattach or make new ones.

A little 3M tape as padding, and a drill for the bolt hole, we are just checking all the boxes for hand tools!

Paint.

If you only look at the paint in the area I 'repaired', it looks REALLY really good! If you look at the whole bumper, it looks like sh*t!

Next day, got it fitted on. Fitment is much better, but still not perfect.


I have an issue with masking off and now I have nice, harsh paint lines on the side and rear of my Celica. Now I think I know what NOT to do and what I can improve on -- whenever I get to the driver side.


Outside for a drive, then a wash. Happy, no-longer-rusting-away(-as-fast) Celica

 

Was browsing youtube one day and stumbled across this video.
My picture in post #5 got used in this guys video... your welcome, I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BboN6Me5vcI
@ 0:18

 

Moved on to the interior the next week.

Removed all interior panels except the headliner, doors and dashboard and gave them a thorough wipe-down, removed the carpet. Also disconnected the front seat belts and gave each one a long, hot bucket soak for de-oiling.


Also wiped down and scrubbed the entire floorboard, the trunk area, the spare tire well, and hard to reach interior areas between panels. Vacuumed out the voids of the car and found some dead bugs, clips, and dirt. I wanted to get as much contaminants & odor out of the car as possible (I need to go back and remove the headliner or find a new one, it is also very nasty). I think one of the previous owners smoked/vaped.



Found 1 floorboard rust hole, and worked to grind way the rust and bondo-patch that hole on the passenger side.


Installed almost a box of Kilmat on the floor, rear wheel wells, and areas of the interior body where I could reach. Didn't buy the roller, but made do with a rubber mallet. I kind of liked the tar smell, which aired out after 2 days in the garage.




The carpet was vacuumed, brushed, vacuumed, power washed front & back with tons of soap, rinsed, air dried, and reinstalled. Didn't fix the holes on the driver's side, but looks and feels much cleaner. Almost no dog fur now. Or people fur.

 

How it Started...


How it's Going...

Photo Taken (Aug 11, 2022)

 

After doing the work on the interior, I was pretty happy with how the car was, & the Celica made it out for a few dates.

August 2021, the car gf had been using had some overheating issues, so I loaned her the Celica...

And a few days later, I got a phone call...





















This was a couple hours away from home. Dad was able to take off work, and drove me and the truck down there to pick up a Uhaul car carrier and rescue the car the same day.

 

Well, I am severely underwater.

I bought an OEM core support expecting that I would weld it in & be on our merry way. Well, we removed the hood, fenders, bumper, radiator, pulled the engine & transmission, removed the front suspension.

And bought:
OEM core support,
headlight support/fender brackets,
$400 of used parts I pulled from another celica at a junkyard, including shifter assembly, fenders, hood, intake manifold, headlights... blah blah

and I still have an entire box of OEM toyota seals, aftermarket calipers, stainless steel brake lines, etc, etc.


Well, we got to the subframe, and snapped both subframe bolts off, and we tried to extract them with map gas & extractors, but they won't come out. And it's a rust bucket anyway.

So we dropped another $600 on another wrecked celica with front end damage.... big brain....


This is a light blue 2004 manual 5-spd GT. The chassis is actually pretty rust-free, and it has a black interior instead of gray (what i want).

So for $600, I got everything I need for a manual swap, minus the 6-spd, and a black interior, and a non-shattered windshield, and another wrecked car. But the 2zz will hook up to the 5-spd just fine.


Test fitted the junkyard parts... this one also has core support damage, so I will still have a use for the replacement I bought, but this one still holds the radiator just fine and doesn't need immediate replacement.


And since this photo was taken, I've pulled the 1ZZ out, and am now ready to tear-down & rebuild my 2ZZ, or just chuck it in & fire it up. Need flywheel, M/T ECU, clutch, axle, wiring, brakes.

Biggest concern & unknown is if this chassis will drive straight without oddities... then if my 2zz is still good.

And I won't have a sunroof anymore.

i get teary eyed everytime I think about these cars

thx 4 reading