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

[Box]

New members have to have their posts approved, a measure implemented after a spam bot attack awhile back. So welcome!

Anyhow, I think the best thing to do would be to rebuild what's there and get it running and driving first. It'll cost less and be easier plus it'll allow you the money to refresh the whole car; tires, brakes, suspension, battery, fluids, clutch, etc... Also the 7A was the most efficient engine and with the manual it's not too unbearable, I was getting mid upper 30's out of mine. Then later down the road you can always figure out how to swap it, but the ST is a bit more involved with the mainstream options since you need the S series transmission used in the GT and everything that comes with that. So you're pretty much stuck with the ST, you'd be better off buying a GT with a blown/sick engine if you want something to swap since you'd need a GT parts car anyway to get everything needed.

[Box]

That or if you can find a running 7A somewhere that'd probably be the easiest thing to do.

[Livewire]

Probably going to go with a rebuild for now then. C: I’m going to have around 4K as a budget for the build in October and that should get it running pretty well. C: I was looking and rebuild kits aren’t very expensive compared to what I’m used to, (was expecting 600-700) so I’m definitely going to start with suspension/tires/wheels after the motor isn’t spewing white exhaust. Now to do some fitment research

[Bitter]

rebuild the 7A and a small turbo? Would make for a fun car, assuming you don't need to pass emissions and can run some kind of stand alone ECU. As mentioned being a ST swapping to a S series engine is more involved and expensive but not impossible, though for that amount of work you'd be better off swapping the GT parts car.

This post has been edited by Bitter: May 19, 2019 - 7:50 PM

[Box]

Probably going to go with a rebuild for now then. C: I’m going to have around 4K as a budget for the build in October and that should get it running pretty well. C: I was looking and rebuild kits aren’t very expensive compared to what I’m used to, (was expecting 600-700) so I’m definitely going to start with suspension/tires/wheels after the motor isn’t spewing white exhaust. Now to do some fitment research

$4K should definitely get everything taken care of, as far as fitment we have some threads on that: http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showto...t=0&start=0
http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=32534

[cheela]

7A is definitely a good engine for daily driving and MPG but it gets boring fast so just a heads up. but if you put $$ into the suspension/tires etc then it can still be fun to throw around in the twisties. $4k is a good budget for either a rebuild or a swap. I'm close to $3k into my swap from 7A to 3sge BEAMS so it's definitely doable.

I'd give it a real long nice power wash first to see what you have to work with. and check the hatch area. I see that the spoiler is off and the holes for it were left uncovered so I hope water and whatnot didn't seep into it and into the hatch area. other than that, good luck with the build, it'll be nice to see it restored once you're finished.

[Livewire]

Yeah lol the original spoiler pulled off when I was 14, my smart self pulled up on it to put some stuff in the hatch and it just so happened to be 40 below poor guy snapped in half and my dad pulled the other half and capped them from the inside because it was pulling to one side. learned my lesson quick and now that I’ve gotten a lot more into car culture I heckle myself on it all the time

[cheela]

well at least your dad capped it off.
another thing I would do it take off the front bra and get rid of it right away. Those tend to hold in moisture against the paint and cause damage. and with it being outside all this time isn't too good.

but lemme know if you need any parts. I currently have 3 STs right now and a crap load of parts. Some usable, some not so much lol.

[Livewire]

Alrighty boys its project time!
Spent the last 2 days pulling out the seats and giving it a deep vacuum, as well as dusting out all the cobwebs and draining the liquid out of the bottom of the hatch. I really thought they were capped off, but I was mistaken. Oh well. I messed around with the ignition system and replaced the spark plug wires and actually got her to start and idle, really rough but it's there. I did see the white smoke that my dad described and the oil level on the dipstick is HIGH. Going to drain all the fluids tomorrow and see if I can find evidence of coolant/oil exchange as cylinders 1&2 had really low compression with the gauge hooked up. 3&4 look fine so I'll be pulling the engine and installing a rebuild kit I just ordered off YOTAShop. While I was at it I ordered a Gates timing belt, water pump, and a basic AutoZone lifetime warranty clutch kit just to get these out of the way. Going to save the exterior wash until I can drive it down to the self serve wash, but I'll post some pictures of the cleaned out interior later.

[Livewire]

Dropped the fluids, from what I can tell the oil is free of coolant, but the dipstick was reading high. Coolant definitely contaminated. Goal is to have the intake off today, head off before the 8th when I can get the cherry picker and stand over here. Going to do a bunch of interior work and get the tires replaced in the meantime

[Livewire]

Intake disassembled today, really dirty and looked wet despite the engine only being run for a little bit. Going to give it a good clean before it gets put back on



Intake ports are actually really clean despite the state of the intake, exhaust ports in cylinder 1&2 slick with oil, 3&4 are still pretty dirty, going to clean the entire head while I’m waiting for the rebuild kit to get here as well as do some port matching and polishing on the upper intake and exhaust manifold. Both have some imperfections that I’d like to smooth out.


Timing belt seems to be in amazing condition and will be going in the gates box as a spare JIC I need it down the road.

[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.

[Bitter]

Hot damn, looks like a moose took a nibble out of those valves!