here's a story..

[pensanian]

of a lovely FX.

hello there, it seems like many of these posts include "i'm new here" introductions, so i'll follow suite. i've peered in here from time to time and thought i'd ask for some advice.

i drive an '87 corolla fx16 gts, and i own another that i have parked in my backyard that i use to pull parts from. the one i drive is silver and quite loaded.. sunroof [currently busted.. we'll get to that later], AC [that doesn't work], power goodies, active head rests, the works. tonight, she just rolled over to 208,000 miles and i love the car. i have owned her for four and a half years and she has never let me be bored with her. the other FX is white, and a bit of a stripper model with roll-up windows, no sunroof, no cruise, but it still has [non-working] AC!

anywho..

i'm running into a few problems. some time ago, my sunroof stopped working. today, after much tinkering in this beautiful weather, i've found that there are two cables that are driven by the motor in the roof.. at the ends of these cables are plastic pieces with metal rods sticking out of them, and are ultimately attached to the sunroof panel. one of the plastic pieces cracked, leaving the other to carry the burden of the panel, and finally, it just stopped working entirely. my local toyota dealer can no longer order pretty much ANY parts related to the sunroof because the suppliers don't make them anymore. *breath*

does anybody have any earthly clue where i can find this kind of hardware? the junkyard is penciled in for tomorrow, but i doubt i'll have much luck, which brings me to my next topic.. how rare is this car? i personally have never seen another one in person, except for the two that i own.

another point.. are these cars still in demand for project guys who like to swap 4agze engines into them? i am very timidly considering purchasing a new [to me] car within the next few months; i'd like a subaru or an older toyota with all-wheel-drive for this bullshit winter that the northeast likes to have. and what i'd like to figure out.. is if there is somebody out there who would buy my FX [or both of them], take good care of them, and put the time and funds into making them beautiful again.

just a few thoughts and questions. thanks for welcoming me to this forum, i look forward to hearing from anyone who wants to speak up. pictures are coming soon, so no worries.

any stories? let's share =]