Project Car

I just took my wife's car out of the paper, since no one would give anything for it.
When I married 21 years ago she came with an 1981 Toyota Corolla 2dr Deluxe Sedan,
3TC5speed with air with 10K miles and a payment book.

We both have a few more miles on ourselves and the car has 275, 000.

My choices are to give it to charity or put it in the garage and strip it down for a
complete rebuild, and as a teaching device for our thirteen year old son ( My
similar teaching device many years ago was a similar looking Ford Cortina GT, but
that's another story.

First question:
Any suggestions on mods, including parts upgrades from newer models (what bigger
brakes, better struts, engine parts etc) fit? One thing I am most interested in,
before it fails again is the alternator and separate voltage regulator.
The car was built in late 1980, and is VIN'ed an 1981, but the Alternator has a plug
that fits the loom but shows up as a 1980 truck part. If I ask for the 1981 I get a
2-prong plug part that won't fit the 3-prong loom plug.

Is there a later Toyota Alternator, with internal VR that can be grafted to the
loom.

Next is the rear axle. The center section spun the pinion bearing and had to be
replaced, and was a couple of months locating one. Does any later solid axel fit
up, from a truck or something, that may have a LSD available?

My goal is a Rally Beater and weekend autocross car, my son is kind of gravitating
to a "drift car" with a chain-saw sounding exhaust system with a giant-sized exhaust
spout.

I have pretty considerable shop facilities and welding capability so can fabricate
some stuff.
Another step will be to transition to EFI from a carburetor if a system can be
grafted from a later vehicle into this one. I hope to use as much salvage equipment
as possible to hold cost down and so parts are always available from the Toyota
dealer. This may not be possible itself, as once the cars pass 15 years old, the
local dealers Here in Birmingham Alabama stop stocking parts for it and it takes an
order from the warehouse in Mobile or Atlanta to get anything,

Anyway, a guy at work just completely restored his 1976 Honda Accord hatchback, and
after seeing that, I knew the Corolla was at least as deserving.

Anyway, any suggestions and advice will be appreciated. I don't have a digicamera
yet, but am thinking of buying one when the after Christmas sales start, and I will
try to post "before" pictures.

Also, if there are particular websites or news groups catering to this kind of
stuff, let me know.

And Thanks to All in advance for any help offered.

Big Al Brown
Birmingham AL, (USA)

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 23:19:00 -0600, "Alfred Brown"
<abrown2749@charter.net> wrote:
[color=blue]
>I just took my wife's car out of the paper, since no one would give anything for it.
>When I married 21 years ago she came with an 1981 Toyota Corolla 2dr Deluxe Sedan,
>3TC5speed with air with 10K miles and a payment book.
>
>We both have a few more miles on ourselves and the car has 275, 000.
>
>My choices are to give it to charity or put it in the garage and strip it down for a
>complete rebuild, and as a teaching device for our thirteen year old son ( My
>similar teaching device many years ago was a similar looking Ford Cortina GT, but
>that's another story.[/color]

My opinion is that solid cars don't deserve to be scrapped lightly.
If the kid helps with the restoration now, when he gets his license
he'll have personal effort invested - making it far less likely that
he'll do something exceedingly stupid like wrap it around a tree.
[color=blue]
>First question:
>Any suggestions on mods, including parts upgrades from newer models (what bigger
>brakes, better struts, engine parts etc) fit? One thing I am most interested in,
>before it fails again is the alternator and separate voltage regulator.
>The car was built in late 1980, and is VIN'ed an 1981, but the Alternator has a plug
>that fits the loom but shows up as a 1980 truck part. If I ask for the 1981 I get a
>2-prong plug part that won't fit the 3-prong loom plug.[/color]

Make friends with a local wrecking yard that specializes in imports
- they have cross books that cover all this. If they'll let you sit
down and study the books, you can find all sorts of interesting stuff.
[color=blue]
>Is there a later Toyota Alternator, with internal VR that can be grafted to the
>loom.[/color]

The first step is getting an alternator that will bolt into the
existing brackets and get the pulley with the right size groove and at
the right depth to line up with the other pulleys.

After that, the electrical half is a piece of cake.
[color=blue]
>Another step will be to transition to EFI from a carburetor if a system can be
>grafted from a later vehicle into this one.[/color]

KISS. If you can get the carburetor dialed in and working right,
leave it. Unless you find a simple Racing EFI kit, fuhgeddaboudit.

Changing to an OEM-style EFI system is a huge job that affects
almost every system on the car - new fuel tank with a high-pressure
pump, new fuel lines, major electrical changes, all the added senders
on the engine, emissions plumbing that has to be there or the computer
won't know how to act.

The worst part would be doing a Frankenstein job to modify a Carb
car wiring harness to handle the EFI tasks, and we're probably talking
400 wires here. Probably simpler (but not a lot) to take the EFI
harness and modify it to work in an older chassis. Either way, we're
talking hundreds of labor hours minimum, if not thousands - and when
you're done you will be the only people who can work on it.

Then you have to find a place to mount the computer. You even need a
new speedometer and instrument cluster to give the computer speed
monitoring pulses.

--<< Bruce >>--

--
Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop
Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700
5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545
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