Sounds like the beginning of a great project!

Something you might want to replace is the PCV valve. Super easy to replace (it'll probably take you two minutes) and it costs like $5. It may reduce the crazy vibrations you're feeling, it reduced mine. The rest of the vibrations are obviously engine mounts, which are pricey and a challenge.

I hope you ordered a Prizm-specific tach cluster, I don't think Corolla clusters fit into a Prizm.

Hopefully you can just take off the door cards and lubricate the window system, it shouldn't be a big issue.

 

I tried a Prism cluster in my Corolla once. It fit, plugs fit but the wiring was different. It didn't work.

 

I think the Prizm cluster hood is slightly smaller and has sharper angles, so it could look weird on a Corolla cluster when it's all installed. Repinning a cluster shouldn't be too hard though. So if it fits and the hood looks fine, repin it and it'll be good! Hopefully.

 

I ordered a Prizm cluster, so it should work well.

I just checked, and the car currently has 121,621 miles on it. Which works out to less than 7k per year, so it's pretty low mileage for its age.

Here it is when it was about 2 years old. It looks substantially the same now.
This color is called Woodland Green Mica.

 

I also just dug out the paperwork.

We ordered it on 10/21/95 and it was delivered on 12/12/95. Not bad. A month an a half to get built and shipped to Virginia from the factory in California.

We paid $14,914.84 for it (plus tax,) which was only $100 over invoice. The MSRP was $16,035.

We got the LSI trim package for $1,312, which included A/C, power steering, electric remote mirrors, intermittent wipers, split fold rear seat and floor mats

And then we paid extra for a tape deck ($189) ABS ($511,) and a rear defrost ($146.)

 

While expensive for their time, you look back on these cars and realize they were a great value compared to the cost of cars today and how well they've held up both from a quality stand point and the fact to this day they are really good cars. I know we were the third owner of my Corolla, but it sure feels like it was ours from the get go.

On the creaking noises from the back end and grinding on turns in the front: I know it sounds weird, but remove your hubcabs and see if it goes away. The rear is likely tired suspension parts but my car was making a weird noise up front and it turned out the hubcap on it was just not fitting well anymore. It costs nothing and is worth a try.

As mentioned, the vibrations could be from your motor mounts getting worn out. Inspect for tears and damage.

For reducing the noise, try removing the wheels and spraying something like Duplicolor Undercoat & Sound Eliminator. You'll need about 2 cans for all four wheel wells. Spray it around on everything but avoid hitting exhaust, suspension, and brake parts as well as any brake lines and the axles/transmissions components. You can also spray some up under the car on the various floor boards, under the trunk, etc. Again, figure on about two cans. I would also try removing the door panels and lining them with Dynamat (count on about two 18x32" lining kits for all four). You can either line the trunk in Dynamat, which will cost about $150 for a kit, or you can spray that undercoat in there, but be warned this will stink up your car and trunk for a few days even with vigorous airing out and Little Tree applications.

 

This package was waiting for me when I got home.

A junkyard part from Maine, bought on eBay for $32, including shipping.

I plan to install it tomorrow. It works perfectly. Nice and tight in the swivel joint, and the day/night switch works perfectly.

 

Yeah, the Corolla and Prism gauges are 100% INcompatible.... I did the swap lol

 

-The rear view mirror day/night switch mechanism has stopped working and the mirror is very wobbly.

My mirror was like this too when I bought my Corolla. First thing I did to the car was put in the mirror from an '80s to early '90's Camry (something like $3 from the local Pick-N-Pull). The glass is a little bit wider, enough to let me see the full width of the rear window and maybe a little more.

-the car is really loud inside the cabin and the headliner buzzes from vibrations at idle stopped at a light

Replacing the passenger side engine mount would likely help with this.

 

I was fairly productive yesterday and this morning.

First let me go back in time. About 5-10 years ago, our cassette deck broke. Some cheap plastic part inside snapped, and it wouldn't play tapes any more. So I got on EBay and found a brand new OEM CD/Tape/radio, and installed it. It's great! I love being able to play CDs in the car, and we have one of those cassette line-in adapters so we can play the iPod.

Installing it wasn't too hard. That big oval plastic trim piece that surrounds the radio and climate controls just snaps out, and then you take out some screws to get the radio out.

 

So yesterday I started with the mirror, because I figured it would be easy. I was right. You just snap off the trim piece that covers the screws. And unscrew it. And install the new one the same way, but in reverse. I used a putty knife to snap off the trim piece without gouging it up like a screw driver might have done.

And here's the new mirror, installed.

 

Then I turned my attention to the rear door windows. Both of them were really squeaky and difficult to roll up and down. I didn't know what I was going to find, but figured it would be cleaning and lubricating.

So for anyone looking up how to fix squeaky windows on a Geo Prizm, this is how I did it:

First, unscrew the two screws holding on the armrest.

Then, you need to remove the window crank. This isn't obvious at all unless you have the manual or otherwise know the trick. You take a rag and wedge it up under the crank, kind of tugging back and forth. This loosens a retaining clip just enough so you can pull it out with a pair of needle nose pliers or the tip of a screwdriver.

This is what you're pulling out so you can get the crank handle off.

Then you have to get the interior door handle out of the way. Unscrew the single screw holding it in place, and then pull it towards the front of the car about half an inch. That will allow the tabs to release from the door and it will come loose.

Use a putty knife to pop the panel off the door. Just slip the knife in the gap between the door and panel, and slide it over to where it's right next to a fastener clip and pull the panel away from the door to pop that clip free. Do that for each clip, until the panel is really loose and just being held on by the interior door handle. Twist the door handle a little and push it through the hole in the panel as you pull the panel free.

Pull the panel free, and you'll see the plastic water barrier covering everything.

Carefully remove it. I found that sometimes it just pulled easily free, and other times I had to cut at the adhesive with a razor blade. I cut through the plastic barrier around the two points that support the armrest, and I also cut a larger slot so I could slide it off past the interior door handle.

 

So now I had access to the inside of the door.

You can't even see the gears and stuff that lifts and lowers the window. But you can see part of the channel that the window slides in. I wanted to start by cleaning this channel and then lubricating it.
So I got a small brush and swept it clean and then sprayed silicone lubricant on the brush and brushed that lubricant into the channel.

I did the same thing with the channel way inside the door by the hinges. I couldn't take picture of that, but I could feel my way in there and clean and lubricate that channel by feel.

I stuck my phone inside the door and took a picture of the regulator.

The grease on those gears had dried up a bit, so I put a big gob of grease on my finger tip and felt around in there until I could apply it well to those gears too.

 

Then I rolled the window down, and it was still pretty squeaky, and now I could see why. The roller on the regulator arm was all frozen on its little rusted axle. So I sprayed it like crazy with silicone spray.

After doing this, the window rolled up and down beautifully and quietly. So it was time to put things back together. You basically just do everything in reverse, except that once you have the plastic barrier in place and are putting the interior trim panel back, there are these 4 (or actually 5) holes in the top of the trim panel.

Those holes are there so that the padded trim up by the window opening can attach to this trim panel. There a thin metal tabs poking out of the bottom of that padded trim piece, and you bend those tabs straight with your fingers, poke them through these holes, and then reach behind this trim panel and bend those tabs over to hold the two trim pieces together.

I can't show you any of this, because the metal tabs are hidden from view, but you can feel them, and all this bending is done by sticking your arm back behind the panel and bending those tabs. After the tabs are attached, and you have fed the door handle back through the opening, then you can snap all those yellow snap connectors back into place.

The last thing to do, other than putting all the screws back in the armrest and interior handle, is to put this window crank handle and its finicky clip back into place. I used a putty knife again.

So that's pretty much it. The windows work perfectly again. I should have done this ages ago.

 

These are some fantastic pictures and how to guides for new users!

 

Damn good work my friend.

Quick tips on the doors:

The handle can be removed from the door entirely. Just push the little clip on the metal bar off, and the metal bar slides out of the door handle. Very easy to remove and install.

You also don't have to take the door card off of the top part. You can slide the entire card up off the door instead of taking it apart.

Glad everything is working!

 

Thanks guys!

I was trying to figure out how to take the top padded trim piece off, but it was tucked under the molding of the little corner partition window and it looked like I'd have to remove that molding too, and when I was looking at that, the big bottom trim piece basically just detached, so I went with it. Those metal tabs are easy enough to bend in place.

It looks like there are a few different ways it can be done.

I was surprised at the amount of dirt that had gotten inside that door and fallen to the bottom.

 

Tuesday, my "new" instrument cluster that I ordered on Ebay arrived. It was $47, including shipping.

I unpacked it and examined it. It seemed like it was in pretty good shape, except I could hear some loose plastic bits rattling around inside.

I took it apart to roll back the odometer, and when I did, I could see that the trip odometer was broken.

That's what was rattling around in there. You can see some of the little plastic levers are missing here.

So instead of rolling back the odometer right then, I thought I'd remove the original from mine and see what I could see.

To take out the original, you have to remove the two screws above the cluster and fight the trim piece out. You kind of pull down on the top part and just tug the whole thing out toward you. Some clips at the bottom eventually get loose.

To remove the cluster from the dash, take the screws out of the white bracket.

With the two clusters side by side, I could see that the speedometer/odometer gauge is exactly the same in both, so I removed the good gauge from the original.

Here, you can see what the trip odometer is supposed to look like.

Those black lever arms are not broken off, and there are little gears where they are supposed to be.

So I switched them and also cleaned each clear plastic cover, selected the best one, and put together the best possible cluster I could with all the parts. I even switched all the bulbs out of the cluster with lower miles, which was my original, and I knew the bulbs all worked.

Here are the two clusters side by side. The good one and the partially broken one.

And by then it was getting dark, so the picture I got of the installed cluster is a night shot. It's better that way, because it was easier to check that all the lights worked.

The tach works! I haven't compared it to a OBDII scanner tool to make sure they read the same, but it looks like it works. Cold idle a little over 1K.

The gas guage was slowly going up from empty, but after 10 minutes still wasn't reading quite the same as the original gauge. It's about an 1/8 tank lower. We'll see how it behaves after a fill up.

I didn't get a chance to take it for a drive, and my street looks like this right now, so I'm not going anywhere. I don't know yet how well the speedometer and odometer work. This swap was very easy with my 1996 Prizm LSI. I just unplugged 3 bundles of wires from the old cluster, and plugged the same 3 bundles into the new cluster in the same spots, and it all worked.

 

Good work! It's funny, I had to do the EXACT same thing. I bought a new tach cluster for my Corolla, opened it to roll it back. No arms were broken, but the numbers on the trip meter just wouldn't move when I tried it later. I went back and swapped in my old odometer and threw in my old bulbs.

My new gas gauge shows just a LITTLE lower, I don't mind. If yours is significantly off, just bump it up with a screwdriver I guess, should be fine. I set mine to how the old one showed before using it. If you have an inaccurate speedo, that's a procedure in itself.

 

nice man, ive had 2 93 lsi's in the past :thumbsup:

 

Nice upgrade! Yeah we've all been there with those broken odometer pins lol.

 

Nice prizm you should try crazy rays In Jessup off of 95 and 175 and route 1 if you ever need parts. Nice progress my Lsi needed work too when I bought it. How's traffic In Arlington these days? Ugha I hate n glebe road lol I do deliveries down there sometimes

 

Crazy Rays, huh? Have you been there? Do they let you pick through the cars yourself? Are prices fair?

 

Yup I have been there I've been tocrazy rays in Jessup and mt airy. There prices are good. Every now and then I do see the Lsi wheels every now and then. Yes you can pick through the cars your self crazyraysautoparts.com

 

Nice work! My rear view mirror has finally given up. It vibrates and sort of flops around. Might be next on my to do list. Edit: Which ebay seller did you go with? I've seen some for $32 that say they have noticeable defects in the glass but your looks clean.

 

Which ebay seller did you go with? I've seen some for $32 that say they have noticeable defects in the glass but your looks clean.

The seller was a guy named junkyardbub. He doesn't seem to have much good right now.

 

I went to Crazy Rays once.... $1 to get in, and not a single Corolla there!!! Not ONE!

 

I need to catch up a little bit on what I've done recently, even though it's not so much.

I got one of those LED lights for my trunk. Very nice. So much brighter. The pictures don't do it justice. I took a picture of the light, instead of the trunk, because my trunk is so dirty.

Before, the standard bulb.

After, the LED. This thing is bright! And a nice natural white.

Thanks, Haloruler64, for the idea, and link to the Ebay seller.

This is the auction where I got the light. Faster than I expected to get a shipment direct from China.

 

That light installation was a week or so ago.

On Sunday, I got the car up on jack stands to inspect the motor mounts. As soon as I got it up there, my wife came out to tell me that my daughter needed a ride in five minutes to a study group that had just been planned. So in five minutes I did a quick job of inspecting 3 mounts, but not the 4th. And I saw that the front mount by the radiator was shot. Had a big crack in it so only one side was connected. I don't feel confident in my inspection of the others. I need to check again.

And the other bad news was that I saw a fair amount of grease had been flung out of the two CV boots in the very center of the car. The inner edges of each one. I didn't see any tears in the boots, but stuff that looked like wet mud was splattered in line with the edges of those two boots, and the "mud" had a greasy, oily feel to it.

I couldn't inspect them more closely at the time because I had to drop the car back down and drive somewhere. Maybe there's a tear or something on the side that was hidden from view.

Fun!

 

By this point, it's almost guaranteed that all four mounts need to be replaced. No matter how well taken care of the car is. If you do end up replacing them, only use OEM Toyota mounts. Aftermarket mounts last only a few years and get just as bad as your 20 year old ones. It's a bit pricey, you need $360 for all four... but it'll be worth it. But it's not an emergency, save and wait until it's viable.

Check for tears in the CV boots when you can. If they're not torn, leave them. Even if there are tiny tears, it's not the biggest deal. These axles last a long time. Replacing just the boot isn't the best idea, you can often get an entire axle for a close price and it'll be a lot less work.