long time lurker, 1995 Celica ST liftback Options

[ds8]

Hello everyone,

This thread is to document work I do to my celica. It is my second celica, my first was a 1995 GT but somebody rear ended it while it was parked in front of my house.

Some pics of my old one

on the right




I had that celica from late 2009 or early 2010 and I junked it in january of 2016. On new years eve I was driving my 2016 WRX and left the celica parked in the street. I got a call from my brother around 3 or 4 am that somebody hit my car. the cops showed up, took his info, and gave it to my brother. I showed up the next day to find this







The impact pushed the car one house over. It received front end damage as well, it had hit another car parked in in front of the next house.

The kid who hit it was 18 and uninsured driving his moms 98 4runner. I have uninsured motorist coverage so after 3 or 4 weeks I got a check from my insurance for $2,800. They offered $3,000 and they keep the car, or $2,800 and I keep it. So I kept it and started looking for a replacement.

I found another 1995, same color as mine, but it was an ST with the 1.8 7AFE, not the 2.2 5SFE that my GT had. My GT had 230,000 miles on it and this one only had 71,000 miles. It also had decent paint whereas my GT had **** paint that I never got around to getting repainted. Oh and the GT's AC didnt work, and this one worked perfectly. The car was listed for $3,500, I offered $3,000 over the phone, and talked him down another $200 in person so I got the car for $2,800. Exactly what my insurance had given me.

heres a pic from the drive home



and the rest of the car




I pulled all of the useful things from the GT that I could think of, including my front seats, speakers, stereo, wheels/rims, interior trim pieces, etc... The new ST had an ugly tan interior and the front seats were dirty and kinda gross so I put my GT's front seats in. My GT had a black interior. After pulling stuff out I junked it for $150.

So far I have tinted the windows, installed a keyless entry system, a trunk popper, bluetooth stereo, speakers, and seat warmers. The ST has manual locks and windows. The windows I can deal with, but manual locks were really annoying so I purchased a kit with door lock actuators and installed them. I pulled out the entire interior to run wiring for the trunk popper, seat warmers, actuators, and the keyless entry box. While I had everything out I laid down the poor mans dynamat, peel n seal



A friend of mine had recently redone the carpet in his house and had leftover carpet padding he gave me for free. I laid it over my floor over the peel n seal. Then I got a black carpet from the junk yard, washed very well with a pressure washer and installed it. On all of my interior panels I glued quilting foam to the inside of the panels. The interior is nice and quiet now and I have 0 rattles. I still get road noise but overall its a good improvement.

I have also upgraded most of my lights to LED








one last pic of the car


One of my current projects is the rims. I got a second set of factory alloy wheels I'm restoring. I want one set in bright rally white and another in silver. Once I finish the first set I'll swap them and restore the other set.

This post has been edited by ds8: May 11, 2017 - 4:27 PM

[cheela]

damn! those crash pics. glad you weren't in it at the time.
lost almost half the car!!

and wow what a great price on the ST. especially with only 71000 miles.
looks like you're making great progress on it too. I need to put some sound dampening in mine as well. being lowered on stiffer suspension really creates noises. haha

[Box]

Nice colour and ditto, very good price for the mileage. I bet this one doesn't get left on the street.

[Malek]

Glad to see this car make it here!

I was very seriously considering picking it up as a daily.

[ds8]

When I first got the GT it already had the usual ripped/torn seat bolster that you see on just about any car of this age. I threw a seat cover on it for a while to protect it from ripping further and also because the torn seat looked ugly. The front seats were one thing I saved and transferred to the new one. I disassembled the old tan ones that were in the ST to make them easier to throw away and that was when I realized that the backs of the seats are exactly the same for the driver and passenger. So I hunted the junk yards for 95's and finally found a passenger seat in good shape. I bought just the back and brought it home, took the upholstery off, washed it, installed a seat warmer heating element on the foam, reinstalled the upholstery, and swapped the seat backs on the drivers side.



I only installed the heating elements on the backs of the driver and passenger seats, I did not do the bottom part you sit on because I only like the heat on my back. I am still looking for the matching upholstery for the back seats. Every one I've come across so far is usually super faded up top from the sun or just rip/torn/trashed. I currently have a dark pattern I took from another Celica but the patterns don't match. Its better than tan though and it'll hold me over for now

[Box]

The bottom cushion and cover is the same too, before I got my Anniversary seats I swapped the passenger seat back and the bottom cushion and cover to the driver rail since the driver seat was toast but the passenger seat was still ok.

[ds8]

Swapped out a few more things this weekend.

First up is the center console cover:



Pic taken before I cleaned it. I found this cover in the junk yard and it was in good shape minus the 4 dimples on there.

I also replaced my door panels. Also a junk yard find.

Here's my old driver side panel:



The passenger one wasn't too bad, but I swapped it anyway cause the new set I found was in better condition. I threw away the old drivers side one, but kept the passenger side one. I plan to store it for now.

Here's a pic of my door with the panel off, so you can see the door lock actuators I installed and their mounting location.



Finally here is the new door panel:



Lastly if anyone has a part number for these door panel push pins that would be great.

[ds8]

A month ago I ordered some LED bulbs for my high beams to see if I like them. Turns out that I do, they are great. I'll probably get some for my low beams if I can keep them aimed properly. They are crazy bright.

I made this gif to show the difference between my low beams and high beams



Anyway, while I was installing the LED bulbs, I noticed my alternator belt was frayed and cracked. It looked like the original belt as it still said Toyota on it and the car only has 77k miles on it. So I decided if I'm gonna change my alternator belt, I might as well do the other drive belts. Then if I'm gonna do the drive belts, might as well do the timing belt since I got 77k miles on it and don't know the history of the car. While I'm there I might as well do the water pump and new oil seals on the crankshaft and camshaft.

The list went on and on. ~$500, 3 trips to Toyota, 1 rock auto order later, I had a bunch of parts and seals and gaskets and stuff sitting in the trunk waiting for the weekend.

I replaced a bunch of stuff and while I had the valve cover off, I painted it wrinkle red.



Here it is installed. I painted the heat shield as well. Now I just need to clean the rest of my engine bay, it's pretty filthy.

[ds8]

My registration renewal paperwork came in the mail yesterday. I gotta smog it this year. Today was my day off so I did an oil change and went down to my smog guy to get it tested. It passed with flying colors. He was impressed.

Here are my results:




also why do I still need to wait for my posts to be approved? It's pretty annoying.

[ClevelandGaint]

beautiful car man, the mileage is a steal at that price

[ds8]

Thank you!

I worked on the Celica this weekend. I really haven't driven it much these last few months so its really dusty.

First I swapped out my low beams for LEDs



Then I swapped the amber corner lights and side markers for clear ones



Since the lenses are clear I needed amber bulbs. I put in LEDs as well, but for my turn signals I did switchback LEDs. When the parking lights are on they light up white, and when the turn signal is activated they switch to amber, then back to white once the turn signal switches off. I also swapped out the turn signal realy to fix the hyper flash issue that comes with running LEDs.





The other thing I did this weekend was replace all of my injector seals. One of them had a very minor "sweating" leak. When I pulled them all off the insulators were all hard and brittle. Since I had to pull the intake cover off, I cleaned it up real good and painted it wrinkle gray.



New before and after of my engine bay

[ds8]

Quick update

I got some JDM tail lights and installed them. Don't have good pics at the moment but they look brand new.

Here is a pic I took the other day



Also I found this fog light switch at the junk yard. I took the fog relay as well. I want to install a single row LED light bar tucked inside the bumper. I think I'm gonna mount it to the crash bar. I want the factory switch though.

[ErrohSync]

Looking good so far dude! Sucks about your old GT but a new one for under 3 grand is an awesome alternative! Are you planning on putting the 5sFE back in?

[ds8]

Looking good so far dude! Sucks about your old GT but a new one for under 3 grand is an awesome alternative! Are you planning on putting the 5sFE back in?

Thank you!

I don't think its worth the trouble to put a 5SFE in. The 7AFE is pretty reliable and it still has low miles (just hit 80k). It's a comfortable cruiser and I just want it to look good. If I wanna go fast I drive my WRX.

[ds8]

Not much of a car update, but I finally bought my own house! It has a two car garage and room in the driveway for another 5 lol. I've never had a garage before so I am extremely happy to have one now. Currently all of my extra money and time has been going towards the house, so I haven't done anything to the Celica except drive it. It is due for an oil change though, so I bought oil and a filter. Hopefully tomorrow or next weekend I can knock that out.



better pic of my JDM tail lights

[cheela]

Congrats on the house! that's a great feeling. I just bought a house last year as well. Garage looks great and will be perfect for the celica I'm sure.

[ds8]

I would like to hear your opinions on refinishing this set of factory alloys. I got them stripped and ready for paint. My question is do I powder coat or do regular automotive paint + clearcoat or engine enamel? I wanna do this set in bright white. I'm talking rally white. Once they are done I'll swap them out and redo the set currently on the car in silver.

[narly_charley]

I would like to hear your opinions on refinishing this set of factory alloys. I got them stripped and ready for paint. My question is do I powder coat or do regular automotive paint + clearcoat or engine enamel? I wanna do this set in bright white. I'm talking rally white. Once they are done I'll swap them out and redo the set currently on the car in silver.

Powder Coat all day. I had a set of TRD 18" wheels for my 7th gen that I sent to Wheels America (their Chicago branch before they closed it down). They were bent to hell and back and had DEEP curb rash. They sent them back and they looked better than new, I could not have been happier. If you plan on racing/tracking it with the wheels, I wouldn't recommend refinishing like that because they heat them up pretty hot and CAN make them more brittle. Mine was just driven on the road, so I didn't have any issues.


https://wheelsamerica.com/retail-services/w...epair-services/

[Box]

Either do powder coating or use actual wheel paint and clear, that or use epoxy paint but you're pretty much limited to white and black in that instance.

[danthrift71]

Just read whole thread up 'til now. Powder coat ovens usually don't go much over about 350 degrees F. I have several customers that powder coat automobile wheels and all
kinds of aluminum like high end bicycle frames (thin wall tubing. much more heat saturation). I haven't heard of any failures as a result of heat from PC ovens. Go for it.
That being said, have you considered a polished or wire brushed finish? Also really like the LED lights. I live way out in the country and my stock lights don't do much for seeing
deer and other animals. May I ask what kind of LEDs you got for headlights and high beams and how do you like them now that you've had them a while? Thanks.