So I bought another Celica..., And copied Bitter's thread! Options

[richee3]

I just couldn't resist. It's regrettably not a 6th gen. It's a black 2000 GT-S, auto. And Jordan, I'm gonna need you to go ahead and change your sig... I assure you, my GT-S is slower. It can only go as fast as the truck pulling it. Time to bust out dad's camouflaged Silverado again! :embarrassed: However, this makes Celica #6 for me.

Here's the story. One of my friends saw me go through a few Celicas and slowly fell in love with them. He eventually picked this car up a few years ago. The only mod he has on it is a CAI, which I put on. Anyway, he bumped into a deer a few months back which dented the hood. (Deer hate Celicas. Fact. They loathe these cars.) So the deer gets pissed and Spartan kicks the giy's front bumper. No lie. Shoved his hoof right through the bumper. So the body isn't in great shape, but it's acceptable. Then he hit something else, I can't remember what, which ripped his fender liner off and exposed his cold air intake filter. Then in September, we had quite a bit of rain. He hit a puddle of water. Not too deep, but it splashed everywhere. The car sputtered and died. After a few minutes, he got it started again. Drove it to McDonald's and got a McChicken, car ran beautifully, came back outside, and the car wouldn't start.

This is where I come in. I've looked the car over for him, checked all the fuses and relays, did my research, and looked at the car some more. The oil is black and filthy. Not good looking oil at all, but there's not a drop of water in it. When we try to start the car, we get one loud pop from the starter and that's it. I did more research and found out Toyota starters are prone to dying when being covered in water... Just like I told him. Based on what I've seen from this car, the fact that there's no water in the oil, the starter is killed, and the 2ZZ would have a bent rod if he sucked water in the motor. I'm fairly certain he didn't hydrolock it. Just killed the motor with the water either from water on the plugs or the sudden temperature change, and killed the starter by splashing water on it. He drove it after going through the water and it ran fine, indicative of no bent rods. He told this story to a mechanic, who didn't even look at the car. He just told him that the motor is ruined.

Quinten told me he was going to scrap the car. I'm not going to let it happen that easily. I've seen the car, the mechanic hasn't. I got the car for a very good price, but I'm giving him extra to help him out. Down payment for a new car. If nothing else, we've got new wheels, seats, and steering wheel for the BEAMS. I really think I can get it running again for the price of rebuilding the starter though, and have myself a cheap car for work. No more driving the Lexus to work mine construction! What do you guys think? Is it screwed or do I have a reasonable shot?

I have pictures of the car, pre-collision, at my house. I'll post them later. Picking the car up tomorrow or Monday.

This post has been edited by richee3: Dec 31, 2011 - 3:50 PM

[richee3]

Sweet Moses, nice. Didn't realize you had a 2ZZ in there - do me a favor and supercharge that. Congratulations though Daniel.

If I can get it running again, and that's a big if, supercharging has crossed my mind. I've got other priorities though.

sell me the rims LOL. nice pick up. hope u can get it running. would be a fun DD.

Lol the first day this guy had the car, he had it maybe 15 minutes, and that's the very first thing I told him. When I told him I'd buy the car from him, he told me he'd sell me everything but the rims because he knew I wanted them

Anyhoo, pictures. As you can see, it looks quite literally 100% the same as every other 7th gen- a cheap, plasticky, beat-up excuse for transportation. Seems like maybe 1 in 30 of these are actually in good condition.




Huge scratch at the bottom of the passenger door is from when the guy loaded it up on the trailer to take it to the mechanic that I picked it up from Then the other scratch above the rear tire was from the previous owner.





The reason he thinks it's hydrolocked:





Low on oil, fantastic.



More details I've learned about the car. I was previously under the impression that after he drove through the water, he got it started and it drove fine. Now he tells me that it was down on power after he got it started. The mechanic told me today that he cannot turn the motor over by hand. If that's the case, then that's why we hear a loud pop from the starter but nothing else happens. Nonetheless, I can take what the mechanic told me and still try. I'm not giving this car a huge time window. If I can't make any progress or find a 2ZZ for dirt cheap, then the car goes. I'm moving out January 29th and I need all my spare motors/car parts gone before then, and that includes whole cars. My dad tends to throw things away if I'm not here to guard them. I'm just curious why the mechanic couldn't turn the motor over by hand... If the car had a bent rod, that would explain why the car was down on power, but at the same time, water won't compress so I seriously doubt if he could have gotten it started again. I'll drain the oil later and see if there's water in the oil pan and pull the plugs (again) and check (again) for water in the cylinders.

Until I find a glimmer of hope for this car, and I have less now than I did when I started this thread, then it looks like the BEAMS just scored new seats, rims, and steering wheel. I just need to play around with this car- take the starter off and test it, see what it would take to turn the motor over, check the cost of replacement 2ZZ's (pretty sure they're around $2k from Ebay and I will not spend that much on this car), etc. It'll be Sunday before I can look at the car again though.

I personally doubt if the motor is hydrolocked. Locked up for different reasons could be a different story though... Cold water on a hot motor is never good. It's asking a lot for water to go through the air filter then travel all the way up the intake pipe and into the motor. I don't doubt that he might have sucked some water up, but I don't know if it would be enough to lock the motor up. Eh, we'll see. Thoughts and input are appreciated. I'm so unfamiliar with hydrolocking and the 7th gen in general.

By the way, really funny story about trying to pick the car up... I always thought it was kind of impossible to get locked inside a car, right? Well I found a way. The trailer I borrow to get cars like this, you can't open the car doors once it's on the trailer because of the trailer rails. The doors are too low and they open a couple of inches and hit the trailer. So today I had my phone in my truck to listen to my music, and I needed to turn the wheels on the car to straighten it up. Of course, I can't open the doors, so my normal solution is to roll down the windows. Dead battery, so I can't roll those down. My solution today was to crawl through the trunk. Well, the 7th gen doesn't have a trunk pop lever inside the cab like the 6th gen. It has a handle on the trunk and that's the only way to open it. So I popped the trunk and immediately noticed the struts were blown and wouldn't hold the trunk lid open. I remedied this by using the trunk shelf as a block to keep the lid from latching while I was inside the car. It would have worked, except when I finally got to the front of the car and sat down in the driver seat, my weight shifted the car forwards and then I hear the inevitable click from behind me. I turn around to see the shelf slid back inside the car, allowing the trunk to latch. No trunk lever inside the car, no way to open the doors, no way to roll the windows down, and my phone was inside the truck... I was literally stuck inside this car for 15-20 minutes with traffic going by, school buses going by, people walking by the truck, and nobody even looking. Those who did look assumed I was in the car and could get out. Finally, one guy walked by and I could get the door open enough to ask for his help. Talk about the most embarrassing moment of my life

This post has been edited by richee3: Jan 3, 2012 - 7:28 PM