Alaska Celica ST revival, Stuck on what I should do to bring my 6th gen back from the dead Options

[Livewire]

So not sure what happened to my first post, but it lacked pictures anyways...

How’s it going, new here, and I inherited a 96 Celica ST hatch from my parents. Basically there was a pop as my dad was driving it up a nearby hill, and it started spewing white smoke out the tail pipe. It then sat in their yard for what I can recall is about 13 years. That’s 13 years of Alaskan winters without moving. Needless to say this car is pretty rough. But, my parents were pretty easy to convince to get rid of the car for the low low cost of a tow dolly ��. Back in October I did a compression test and if I remember right there was two cylinders with 0 compression... now I’m considering doing a full rebuild or a swap, don’t know if I’m super keen on keeping the 7A when there’s so much more fun to be had with this car but stuck on if I should swap it, and if I do what I should swap with, or just rebuild and call it a day. I’m a delivery driver so gas mileage is somewhat of a concern here . What do you guys think? Mind the mess but whatever I decide to do I’m happy to have a new car to join a forum that’s not for another ford








This post has been edited by Livewire: Jul 16, 2020 - 12:20 AM

[Livewire]

Well after shearing two down steps I finally found a local 10mm 12 point in a 1/2” drive and got the head bolts out to finally get our first look at the head gasket And survey says...



Partial blowout somewhere, definitely faded but not so blown that there’d be zero compression in two cylinders... so I flipped the head over to look at the valve condition and...



Take a look at exhaust valves 2&4. Well that’s just great. I was hopping to be back on the road this weekend but now we have to order valves. Here’s a closer look at those burnt guys



Now for some good news. It looks like the piston oil ring is completely gunked on those two cylinders and the layer of burnt oil and carbon on the valve seats protected them from getting smashed. Cleaned this one up a bit to see if I was going to need a new head or now and it’s barely even nicked. At least now I’ll have plenty of time to get the clutch kit in, clr soak the rotors and calipers, fill in the gaskets, size the new rings and press the new pistons in.