Old Cecil Restoration : 96 GT gen4 3s-gte swap, My Celica (Old Cecil) has sat around long enough Options

[OldCecil]

I should have started this thread when the project began, but I'll catch everyone who is interested up in a flash. I decided to compile my experience into this forum to keep track of progress and have a place to go to collect my thoughts and stay organized. I'm no pro, but consider myself to be mechanically inclined. I hope this write up can potentially help people with their projects, maybe answer some questions about this particular swap, and be somewhat entertaining and not too boring of a read. I'm sure there is no shortage of more experienced mechanics and garage wrenchers on this site, so any suggestions are, of course, welcome.

Four years ago I bought this car because its rust free, the underneath looks great and the mileage isn't too hateful at 160k ish. That, and these cars are becoming more and more difficult to find in a GT manual trans format. I initially had zero intention of swapping it or doing any sort of restoration work. I just wanted a clean and reliable daily driver that was somewhat fun to drive... This car was just that.

IMG_20160330_091244 by zac savage, on Flickr

I drove this car for a few months until it developed a bad vibration at idle... and was hit in a parking lot on St. Patricks Day 2016... big bummer. After this, The car sat around for years until one day I decided I wanted something fun to drive again. I decided I was going to breath some new life into good Old Cecil.

IMG_20180219_174458 by zac savage, on Flickr

First step was to pressure wash the thick layer of grime that had developed on crusty old Cecil.

IMG_20191021_115827 by zac savage, on Flickr

The next step obviously was the easy part, tearing **** apart. Remove the beat up body panels, pull the engine and trans, get covered in goop and grime, turn some wrenches, and drink some beers.

IMG_20200405_162357 by zac savage, on Flickr

OK, now the old 5sfe and s54 are out and I'm waiting on something to replace it with... I ordered a "low mileage" JDM gen4 3sgte caldina motor and it'll be here soon. Ordered from Dallas JDM Imports in case anybody is curious. They were reasonably priced at $1350 shipped. I put "low mileage" in quotations because everybody says that, but who the hell knows really how many miles are on these things. (after I got the motor and opened it up, it sure didn't seem super low mileage). Anyways, I took the down time to clean things up and coat brackets and what not with POR15 or powdercoat.


IMG_20191021_123104 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20191024_222252 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20191024_222304 by zac savage, on Flickr

Will continue this post soon. I've got to figure out how to upload photos from google drive or something... The cool stuff is coming I promise!

This post has been edited by OldCecil: Jul 15, 2020 - 3:27 PM

[OldCecil]

Alrightttt time for the motor and trans to go in, This was actually really easy.. put the car pretty high up on jack stands, drop the subframe and steering rack out of the car (the damn steering rack was the biggest pain in the ass of the whole things, but it finally popped loose).... Then put the motor and trans on a dolly and wheel it under the engine bay... then took my cherry picker and slowly lowered the car down over top of the engine until the car was sitting on stands at their lowest setting.... thennn hook the cherry picker up to the engine and lift it the rest of the way up into the engine bay. Just make sure you take your time and have a friend watching to make sure you're not scratching up the other side of the engine bay.

This thing fit like a glove, not one scratch or blemish on the new paint, got the two side mounts hooked up then began connecting the dots. shifter cables, wiring, heater hoses, fuel lines etc etc.


WOOHOO! the motor and trans are in.

IMG_20200627_215026 by zac savage, on Flickr

IMG_20200627_215004 by zac savage, on Flickr

After spending some time checking and double checking that I had everything necessary to run the car hooked up... I retrofitted some grounds and decided I was ready for a test start. No dice, wouldn't turn over or anything... Luckily I had a good buddy over who recommended it was a grounding problem to the starter... DUH. I painted the face of the trans and the face of the starter that supply the ground. I removed the starter, sanded down the grounding face on the trans and starter and bingo. Old Cecil fired up and sounded sweet. Hopefully the video link works.. but click the image below for the video!

VID_20200627_231417 by zac savage, on Flickr

^^ click for start up video!