Well, I decided to start a new/long term project. After decided to part out the WRX, I was going back and forth on a couple of different ideas for the next project car. I was thinking S2000, doing another EP3 civic, going with something more simple like a Miata, but I had always wanted to build up another old school Toyota.
Bit of a back story, but both my and my wife's first cars were 80's Toyota. I had an 87 Supra, and she had an 83 Celica GT. I only had my supra for about 4 months before I decided to scrap it (couldn't get it registered), and my wife had her Celica for about a year and a half. They were both pretty beat, both pretty worse for wear, but they left us both with great memories and something to look back on years later. We loved the way they both drove, loved the character and loved the looks people would give them.
Anyways, so one car I've always loved is the E7 chassis Corolla's. They laid the groundwork for the AE86, but by comparison are usually looked over. I've been keeping my eye out for the last maybe year looking for a decent car to come up for sale at a decent price, but every time I found one, it would be some place like Arizona or Texas. I pretty much stopped looking in Canada because they are like hens teeth to find up here in decent shape or at a decent price point.
Last Saturday, I was at home going through facebook and I saw an add pop up for a guy in Canmore selling a '83 Corolla DX wagon for $1000. This is the car I was looking for. Within seconds of the guy posting it, I sent him a message and asked him if I could come out and see it on Wednesday (my next day off work), he had told me he has someone coming to see it on Sunday afternoon and it's first come first serve. I didn't want to miss out on this opporutnity, so I decided to wake up at 6am to drive to Canmore to go check this thing out, to hopefully leave a deposit and get back to Calgary for 11am to open the shop. So I did, drove out, saw the car, loved it, haggled a bit and within 20 minutes, I was the new owner of this Corolla Wagon, also known as CORAL!
Fast forward to Wednesday night and me and my buddy drove out to pick it up, bring it back to the shop and take a look at it. I would have driven it back from Canmore, but the carb's choke is stuck, so it floods out at opertating temperature. More on that later.
When we got it back to the shop, we saw how filthy this thing was on the outside. It has been street parked for who knows how long and hasn't been washed for who know how much longer.
Gave her a quick bath so we could finally see what we're dealing with. The body isn't that bad. Biggest areas of concern are the rear 1/4 pannels (just sheet metal, structurally everything under neath is solid), rear wheel wells, a small spot on the rear body behind the bumper, the hatch, some surface rust here and there and a couple of little dents along the way. But for a 34 year old car, this thing is in pretty good shape all in all.
The bad
The good's about it though, is because it's a Canadian car, it has a 4AC engine in it, and a T50 transmission in it. The 4AC is a whole whopping 74HP and has a carb that flood out when it hits operating temperature, but the T50 is the same transmission found in the AE86 and the 4AC is part of the A series motors, meaning other A series motors such as 7AFE, 4AGE, and the 4AGE 20V motors drop in to the front cross member with no modification required.
Also because it's an 83, it has rack and pinion in it already, so no manual steering junk.
More on the next post...
