Diamond in the Rough - my 1985 Toyota Tercel build

No kidding, so much easier to work standing up under the car vs. crammed under it on jack stands.
To be fair, this plate didnt have to get cut out - I am more or less using it as a template to help me locate shifter holes in my other car. It will be cut down much further. I posted a picture of the tunnel cut out of this donor car on the Tercel 4WD Facebook page and damn near started a mob riot against me. lol

The only reason I didn't just take reference measurements & trace a pattern onto cardboard or something is that this car is junk now. It's got critical rust at the firewall and it's never gonna end up on the road again. So it's just here to make life easier for me completing the swap.

 

Makes sense to me. Tack screw the sheet metal back in with some seam sealer and it will be better than new.

 

Found a buyer for the engine I pulled from my donor car; a gentleman in Prescott. Not exactly progress on the build but I’m glad that the engine isn’t just getting scrapped. The engine will either be refurbished and kept as a spare (for his Tercel), or might be turned into a bench test setup of sorts, for testing alternative carb setups and such.

 

I never got pictures of the mounted AW11 MR2 seats until recently. Here is the driver's seat installed. Passenger seat has been successfully swapped but is currently removed to ease future work.

Steering wheel was recently replaced with a European spec wheel from Denmark!


Sneaking in some pictures of my Tacoma here. Just recently had a GFC platform camper installed and I couldn't be happier.
Here are some nice recent shots of the car in the daylight.

 

Making some headway on the project. Engine is out of my “running” wagon, and safely on its stand so I can do a bit of a refresh on it. Now I can easily yank the power steering rack & crossmember out, along with the automatic transmission. Going to give the firewall & engine bay a thorough detailing before the surgery continues with installation of the manual.


I bought this second-hand transmission jack recently, and it came in handy during the engine removal. It will make the removal of this transmission much easier also.

 

I’m bummed that I had to remove an AC line to clear the torque converter around the front diff/transmission, but at least I scored some more R12 for when I’m back up and running!

 

Why not convert to R134A?

Nice build. Haven’t seen one of these in years.

 

tercel wagons are neat but good luck buying anything for em... my buddies have had a couple and im friends with a load of people that run them

fyi join the facebook tercel page. loads of great people on that page with lots of help and usually many many parts for it! especially if you become good friends with luke haha

its tercel 4wd buy and sell or somethin like that i can get an actual link later tonight and send it here

 

R12 is more efficient in these older AC systems with small components, and since I can still get it, it makes sense to me to keep using it in this wagon. It keeps the temps down more than R134a will in this system. Thank you! This has been my passion project for quite a while now.

 

Thanks, I am active on the FB Tercel4WD page (and the Tercel4WD forum) as well.

Parts can be hard to come by, but usually not for any of the essentials to keep these things on the road, thankfully. The manual transmission is the "weakest link" in terms of parts access for sure, and thankfully I've got my hands on a donor transmission in great shape so I should be good for many more thousands of miles.

Funny enough since you mention Luke, he has contributed some parts to this project of mine haha.

 

very nice!

ya its a bummer some things cant be swapped into without major work but ive always thought the wagons were neat but i would want a 2wd to slam lol
my buddy keegan has one with a 7age in it he had one with a 4age years ago but it got crushed by a drunk drive if i remember correctly

no shit! thats funny af! luke is an awesome guy i was out at the midwest meetup in michigan this year in my ranger (dont own a tercel or have a desire to lol) you will prob see me once and awhile on the page talking to luke keegan or patrick haha

 

Awesome Project, very nice thanks for the update

 

Slow and tedious progress has been happening on the Tercel. The manual surgery is well underway. Removing & replacing components is one thing, but I have also decided to task myself with removing 38 years worth of grime off of every component I touch along the way. This has drastically increased the amount of labor involved with this project, adding in the time of several hours of grime-scrubbing and painting as I go.


Test fitting the new rack bushings for my remanufactured power steering rack.


Driver's side bushing is difficult to find / expensive, nonetheless I purchased one when I found it.


Passenger's side bushing is NO LONGER AVAILABLE, from Toyota or any other source otherwise. The bushing pictured was hand poured for me from another enthusiast, using one of the last remaining bushings floating around out there. The fitment is great! This power steering rack is ready to go in, when all the other work is performed.


Check out all that grime. This is exactly what I'm referring to when I mention the hours of behind the scene cleaning that's been going on.


I performed most of the crossmember cleaning with brass brushes and old toothbrushes.



I decided to use Rustoleum brush-on paint for the front crossmember and engine attaching brackets. Supposedly the longevity of this type of paint is preferred for components in these areas. That being said, I think for smooth stamped metal components such as the crossmember here, aerosol paint will still be my go-to.

 

Rear driveshaft removed, along with the automatic transmission!


The automatic transmission's attached front diff has an unusually placed breather, directly interfering with smooth separation of the engine from this bell housing.


The most stripped down this car has likely ever been.


Doing my best to keep things centered with so many components removed. Trying out this cool method of holding the wheel with the seat belt.



The end result of Day 1 grime scrubbing off of the manual transmission. It's looking a lot better already.


The 4WD light sensor has been damaged previously. Thankfully I've already coordinated a working replacement sensor being sent to me from another enthusiast.

 

Day 2 of grime scrubbing... as you can see I've found myself a far more effective method. I used small sanding attachments for a Dremel to achieve this. The attachments fall apart rather quickly, but they do work well and are inexpensive.


Just about finished cleaning this transmission, and ready to move on to cleaning up that firewall and front engine bay. Starting to feel a bit like the definition of insanity here.

 

Not quite clean enough to eat off of, but I think the engine bay is clean enough for me to feel okay piecing my car back together again.


I have been feeling pretty discouraged about this project, but I’m finally starting to feel good about things again. There is a hell of a lot of work left to complete, but things are all starting to fall into place.
The best part of this big project for me has been how affordable and achievable it has been for a hobbyist mechanic with minimal tools, work space and experience.

 

Subbed, you are doing an amazing job.

 

Little bites at a time and the project will come back together nicely. Good work

 

4WD light sensor was replaced with a good used unit given to me my another kind Tercel owner.

Greased up the shifter socket and the surrounding bore. Some folks submerge this area in grease, I don’t think it’s necessary in my case. Can always check on this later and see how much debris the circular shift boot lets in.


I used a hammer to gently tap a thin piece of cardboard around the edge of the shifter plate. This allowed me to cut my own gasket to size, and I did the rest of the shaping with razor blades. Covered both sides in non hardening gasket compound. The transmission was now ready to go in the car!


Bolted up in place at the rear transmission mount. As you can see, I still need to cut holes in the transmission tunnel for the shift lever and 4WD select lever.


Here is a front view of the Tercel’s “new” manual transmission/front diff assembly, next to my freshly painted front crossmember.

Reassembly continues onward…

 

I've added some more overlying information on this project onto the "main page" of this thread, on Post #1.
I doubt anyone is interested, but I've added a link to my online maintenance spreadsheet there as well.