My 96' Coupe "re"build

[Eric N]

A few weeks ago, i was looking into getting a new car, deffiantely toyota. My camry has 312,000 miles, and whiles its been nothing but good to me, its starting to have its issues. After a few Pm's, i found my car. J_tex's 96 coupe. I wont reveal what i paid, because id say its a score . Anyways, in late november, it was in a crash. Thats where the rebuild comes in.

Before the crash:



After the crash:


As you can see, the drivers side fender, Corner light, headlight, front bumper and the directional are all junk. What you cant see, is that theres a little more underneath, most of the fender and bumper supports on that side are no-good, aswell as the headlight housing, and parts of the frame are bent.

THis is the good side of the frame:


And the bad side:


This is after my teardown of the front end. It turns out that the passangers side fender is junk aswell.

I have my plans for the frame, using my comealong, ill hopefully be able to bend it back into its orignal postion. If you look closely, you can see that the radiator is sitting slightly higer on the right. the support above the radiator/headlight needs to be pulled down too. That, in addition to a few smaller things should take care of the frame.

The fenders/bumper/lights/etc are a different story. Since this is a 96, and my old sedan is a 94, everyhting will swap right over .



Anyways, i have a few plans for her...


-Replace the front end, using my current camry as a donor car (gen3 facelift? haha)
-replace deployed airbag/cover. Does anyone know if i can bend the stock airbag cover back?
-He threw in some lowering springs, i need to install the rears. 2in ones.
-Pull engine, for a few reasons, mainly to remove a coupe of mounts and parts i want to sandblast, like the header, valve cover, etc.
-Come spring, ill have the new front end painted to match. However, while the engines out, im going to clean up the bay, and give it a coat of HT primer, and a coat of a paint similar to rhino-liner, just for some extra durability/fun really.

Im in school, and class is over, ill update later!

oh, by the way, its a standard


Peace
Eric N

[71Corolla]

I had to look up what a comealong is Wow you have some serious work planned, best of luck with your project.

[LynchburgCSI]

^ Same. Now I want one.

That frame damage is pretty bad... I don't know if bending back is gonna be enough... Good luck though!

[Eric N]

Thanks, and yeah, heyre pretty awesome. realitively cheasp too.

Im a decent welder, and im pretty good at most metal fab, so getting everything lined up again shouldnt be crazy difficult. just time consuming.

[bigbird]

good luck with the rebuild man, coupes are hard to come by. consider popping in a v6?

[Eric N]

i was thinking about it, but i cant find many, and theyre all expensive lol.

[Mister_Perkins]

i dont think that just bending the airbag over will work. It splits down the center, so your going to have a gap between the two sections. Best bet would be to either fiberglass it and upholster it or just replace the airbag / SRS Harness / SRS Computer

[LynchburgCSI]

The best bet would be to do it the right way and find one in-tact in the junk yard.

[Eric N]

The cover does? didnt notice, werid.

But, i was just asking because it matches, lol. i have my 94le as a donor car, but it has a grey interior. its no big deal though, i can just get a matching one later on.

[Eric N]

Ill have more updates tomorrow!

Anyone know anyhting about.... http://www.topsellings.com/en/can-eo...n&currency=USD ?

I want to hook it up with my laptop, use it as a monitoring tool. Seems inexpensive, and has the software needed. Opinions?

[jtex2717]

I miss my coupe..........BUT I am glad it went to Eric as he is surely restoring it....We are going to have some fun this spring bringing her back to life....Her original name was Frammy(Frankenstein Camry) because she has the interior and other parts from my very first 96 Coupe....I think she will def deserve that name after a Gen 3 Facelift....

I am super excited.....Eric we will have to replace the Air Bag and I think that scaner tool would be a pretty cool idea...

[Eric N]

Originally Posted by jtex2717

I miss my coupe..........BUT I am glad it went to Eric as he is surely restoring it....We are going to have some fun this spring bringing her back to life....Her original name was Frammy(Frankenstein Camry) because she has the interior and other parts from my very first 96 Coupe....I think she will def deserve that name after a Gen 3 Facelift....

I am super excited.....Eric we will have to replace the Air Bag and I think that scaner tool would be a pretty cool idea...

Aw shucks, haha, thanks man. ANd i know the airbag needs replaced, i jut meant the cover itself. that bends when its deployed.

anyway, updates!





There she is in my driveway. Made a little progress today. Took out the radiator. Good thing too, it looks like its junk, a good ammount of the fins are bent and gone. As soon as i remove the battery, and when my dad brings back the cable for the comealong, ill be able to try and bend the frame back....hopefully tomorrow. we'll see.

[Eric N]

Made a little progress today. mostly digging th e car out from the 22in of snow we got this week.

But also, i made this




Anybody have any guesses as to what it is(going to be)?


similar to;

[LynchburgCSI]

Someone is finally doing it! Thank god. I can't wait to see.

[Eric N]

haha, i personally hate those big flappy boots. I just need to take some measurements and slot it next week.

If theres a big enough interest, i can have a few made at the machine shop i work at...