Freelica, $0.00, new trans, new life Options

[cheela]

When life hands you lemon, you make lemonade.
but what happens when life hands you a '96 5 speed celica ST, aka Freelica???

so, this thing just kinda almost literally fell into my hands. Thursday night my uncle hits me up on facepage and was like, "hey, i got this sitting in my yard, you interested?"

I'm like "swching! yea!" (but i didn't say the swching part)

so details are it was my cousin's car, they were driving heard a big noise? in the general engine bay/engine area and then it died. got it towed to my uncle's and it sat for 3 years. possibly spun bearings but we'll see once i dig into it some more.

Friday comes around, I'm like ok cool another celica would be nice to have to work on but I'm still kinda broke so i'll let it simmer for now. then my cousin was like, "eh yo, if nobody's interested, I'm junking it today!"

so I hit her up and was all like, "ey ho, i'm interested yo, how much ya want for it?"

she was like "free fiddy!" and I'm like free fiddy?, she's like yeah free dollars and fiddy. you just gotta tow it out and it's yours.
so she left the title with my uncle but forgot the key so that will be mailed to me.

so for the price of towing, i got me a freelica.

onto pick chars.

the pix my uncle sent me:





of course, first thing i do when it got dropped off was line up my green celi with it for a photoshoot. lol



then proceeded to clean the crap out of it.
BEFORE:

seats are trashed. had various smells of old pets and smoke.



seems to have taken a slight hit here. tail light's cracked and pushed in a bit...

came with a half torn apart system? lol

doors are typical of a midwest car. but seems to be the only bad rust i see on the body so far.

rear quarters looks surprisingly ok. this is the worst of it.


AFTER
gave it a quick wash to see what's left of the paint. hood's been spray canned and they didn't bother to mask anything so i had to spend some time scraping black overspray from the headlights and windshield....
she looks good from 30 maybe 20 ft.



dash cleaned up REALLY well. aside from the torn leather steering wheel (i have my stock one and a 3post to replace) and shifter, everything looks in relatively good shape.



I believe I should have an extra door panel to replace this if needed. there's dimples everywhere.

seats, I'll most likely trash. aside from having various stains and rips. the ever present smell of cigarettes just doesn't cut it for me and I still have my tan seats from my green one when I did the 7th gen interior swap.


overall, it only takes a bit of loving to make it able to sit next to my green one. they're both pretty happy I'd say


This post has been edited by cheela: Aug 27, 2019 - 12:03 PM

[mkernz22]

You need some speaker grills? Cause I have a few sets of speaker grills laying around. At least I think I still have them...

so, I got the key today. thought i'd entertain myself and try starting it to see whats wrong. used a jumpstarter. connected to the battery, turn the key...... VROOM....???? what? I thought they said the engine gave out? a puff of smoke under the car and I can tell the flex pipe is busted so I try to put it in gear to move the car. 1st gear nothing, 2nd gear, nothing, 3rd, 4th, 5th, reverse... nothing... so i guess it wasn't spun bearings. looks like somebody toasted the clutch.

so it looks like i'll be do a clutch job instead or engine swap. I know most of you are booing me right now because you wanted an engine swap. but if this works out, I can have this black one as a daily driver and then focus on swapping my green one.

I would check the axles first. Just to rule them out. You just never know.

[Box]

Check for snapped shifter cables too!

[cheela]

I'm good on the speaker grills. they were just taken off for some reason?

yeah, talked with Daniel and we said it could be clutch, axles, or cables.
but I think cables might be ok because I can feel it go into each gear. just gotta wait for better weather to take a look. it's been 50s and rain this past week and this weekend looks just as bad too. rained all day today.

[navseal345]

It's amazing how some cars will start after years of not running & others... good luck.

[cheela]

yeah same thing with my RA24 when I bought it. the guy was like I don't know what's wrong with it, can't get it to start. we pushed it onto a dolly and towed it home. I started working on it, poured some starter fluid down the carb and it started just like a toyota should. lol

[TimeslideZ]

k20's down though... lol
I gotta make room in my barn if I'm gonna start going deep into this project. we'll see.

Ahhh he'll get it rumning again. Still a k20 celica haha. Na just fo 7age! Lol or throw in a BT 20v and call it a day.

[njccmd2002]

the muffler bearing need lube.

[cheela]

I did check the headlight and blinker for fluids and refilled those but didn't think to check the muffler bearings! you're a genius!!

[cheela]

update:
so this past weekend we rolled it from the middle of the yard to underneath the carport and while we were rolling I did hear a clunking/scraping noise as we rolled it but didn't have time so I just left it at that.

Today, I went ahead and started it in gear and in the video you can hear a noise as it starts but then it goes away. With it in 1st and my foot on the clutch, it sounds normal but as soon as i let my foot off the clutch, you hear the clunking noise. so anytime the clutch isn't in now, it will clunk.

here's a video for a better explanation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUcIf59irS0

[richee3]

Holy bad knock! I’m pretty sure that’s the throwout bearing. Time to drop the trans.

[njccmd2002]

i kne it was a bearing of some sort....

[cheela]

Holy bad knock! I’m pretty sure that’s the throwout bearing. Time to drop the trans.

yup. gonna be a fun one...

i kne it was a bearing of some sort....

you were close.

[NgoFcukinWay]

You should take a black light to the interior and see what comes up....

While you're replacing that throw-out bearing, drop in an LS4 while you're at it. Might as well since the transmission is coming off.

[Box]

LS4, now there's an idea.

[cheela]

no thanks on the black light... i'd rather live in ignorance.

drop an LS4 off at my driveway and I will do it.

[Box]

I'm going to start marketing UV black light interior light kits, "See things like you've never seen before!"

[NgoFcukinWay]

no thanks on the black light... i'd rather live in ignorance.

drop an LS4 off at my driveway and I will do it.

Living dangerously there I see.....I like your style.

I'll think about that LS4.... I may send the imaginary one I have saved aside that I was going to use for the Accord.

[cheela]

but....... just to be safe, I'm gonna do this and put it all there for a bit, while I contemplate my life choices....




and is that imaginary LS4 the v-tec compatible version? those are much nicer than the regular ones.

This post has been edited by cheela: Jun 13, 2018 - 1:55 PM

[navseal345]

I think that the tan interior kinda seems to look a little better BUT it's hard to keep clean thus black carpet is better.

[Box]

I like the 25th Anniversary seats and the confetti Recaro seats the most, oh and the JDM seats that had that interesting clawed stripe pattern thing going on.