Toyota Celica GT4 Project

[Insanity-74]

Another OCD driven build by the looks of this Anymore pics and info of how you got on with the mini blast furnace? Did you use proper refractory cement? How well did it hold up to the heat?

Yep, practice for the 306 build i have planned

I used fire cement, it worked okay and the bucket never really got hot. It melted aluminium easily but making a cast prooved problematic and getting an even flow was difficult.....so i gave up on the idea.....probably for the best as molten aluminium isnt the friendliest of stuff

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Definitely a great day.

At last I have put colour to car and I must say it looks f'in brilliant, I so love the colour. It goes on very well, is very forgiving and is the perfect colour, love it, very happy bunny today. Well chuffed.......and it's only the engine bay, imagine how happy I cam going to be when I paint the topside I will be smiling so much the top of my head will fall off

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Only the first layer, a small amount of flating to do, then more colour.

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Well that's the rear sub frame in....not easy to lift that in on your own.....sore back today.

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A small bit of progress today.

Fitting the front coilovers

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Took a bit of fettling but its all sorted now

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rear coilovers fitted

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as you can see, i dont have much space to work in...need to build myself a bigger garage.

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A whole lot of fun today, i still hate fibreglassing things. Whos daft idea was it to install a roll cage???? the top half of the plastics that frames the window will get flocked, the lower half, after a lot more work will get painted a high gloss black, along with the front door lower sections and the bottom half of the dash, dash inserts will get painted a silver.

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A small bit of progress tonight.

Inspired by someone on here I figured its was a good idea to remove the casting marks from the rear lights.

You can see the casting marks.....the dam things always get gunked up with wax polish.

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after a rub down with 600 grit wet n dry.

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Test fitted to the car along with the rear bumper to check its new duct clears the crash bar

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Got some colour put on the other day, managed to hand paint on some extra tough 2K lacquer. its not perfect but to be honest I am not that bothered, its just for protection as it will be covered by carpet etc......the engine bay is better. Some more of the 2K lacquer will arrive in the next day or so, I will then spray it onto the rest of the engine bay and finish the interior. Then i will be ready to install the brake lines, wiring and interior. Busy weeks ahead

My little garage with my cramped working space

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the interior - front

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and the back

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the boot...slight problems in the wheel well, but again it will be covered by sound deadening etc so as long as the rust protection is there i aint bothered.

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hopefully by the end of the week it will be all shiny

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Another coat of lacquer...i have to resist the temptation to touch it for four days now for it to fully harden (That sounds wrong )

I gave it a liberal squirt with cavity wax and fitted the front crash bar.

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My compressor set up, working well so far. no water in the lines

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A few more parts added........

Brake & Clutch Pedals & Dash beam thing (whatever its called)

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From the engine bay

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Fitted the first layer of sound deadening, similar to dynomat but lighter and not so thick, other than the boot floor this is the only area I will be putting this stuff. the second layer will be a light closed cell foam which will go all over the floor, roof, boot etc.

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fitted the refurbished wiper motor and wiper mech...what a horrible job.

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ID plate re-rivetted in place.

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the wiper arm pivot and those little hook things that catch the back of the bonnet

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still all clean......for now

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tonight i will start recovering the wiring loom.....i hate electrics.

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There should be a bit of progress every day now

Todays fun and games....brake lines. it dosent look like i have done much, but alot of time is spent retapping bolt holes and cleaning threads up.

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I am having to rebend the brake lines as they dont quite run parallel to each other, but thats an easy fix.

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I also started to fit the closed cell foam (sound deadening) to the roof, its very light, weighs almost nothing, but its a bit expensive for what it is. the floor, bulkhead, roof door insides, boot floor will all get covered in it

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tackled the recaros today....well one of them. i tried one of the ebay bolster suppliers and the quality is spot on, so i will purchase the other bolster for the other seat later.

You can see the split in the foam.

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Under the foam there is a metal support ring, it is this that cuts through the foam making the split. The bolster has this bit re-inforced but i guess old age has taken its toll.

with the bolster replaced

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its a pretty easy job to do to be honest, i was expecting it to be harder, about ten mins to do a bolster from start to finish.

I think thats it for today...i had planned on doing more but Jo has bought me some beers and the last Hobbit DVD so its feet up time

back on with it tomorrow

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Painting the roll cage...this is hopefully the last bit of major painting to do until i decide to tackle the outside. Its a rubberised & textured enamel, goes on with some force, but dries nicely.

The roll cage in all its masked off glory

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tomorrows task is to finish a bit more sound deadening on the firewall then start refitting the loom which i started refurbishing at the weekend.

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The odd but of progress, I have been doing some design and preparing stuff for the engine rebuild. Getting more parts zinc plated, redoing wiring, battery relocation and basically waiting for the dashboard to get finished.

More parts in the engine bay, pretty much only missing the engine now, and a few radiators


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I dont like to harp on about Bilt Hambre Deox C.......but by god its good stuff.

Rear Diff Before

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235000 miles of crud and salt etc

and after 2 or so weeks in a bath of Bilt Hambre Deox C (and some minor wire brushing to help it along.

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Dash finally back and freshly alcantara'd

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Rear suspensin fitted and the brakes sorted

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Tank....dont know if i will fit the OEM tank guard or make some kind of defuser?

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Hmmmmmmmmstill shiny and new

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In the words of Hannibal Smith....."I love it when a plan comes together"


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So, back into the garage again, this time to do a bit of bodywork checking. i knocked the passenger side rear quarter so after making it smooth i decided i had better check it for symmetry.

I splashed out on a 30cm profile gauge

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not that expensive and well worth it.

First off i checked the drivers side,so i measured to get an exact location so i could replicate it on the other side.] and offered up the profile gauge

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I then moved over to the same spot on the passenger side.

As you can see there was a bit of a difference, at least 1mm out.

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So after alot of hammering (I found that a large rubber hammer was best) I managed to knock the wing back into shape.

Not perfect, still 0.002inch out but i can live with that, the primer might take some of that out :clap: :thumbsup:

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I checked over a large portion of the car and the rear quarter panel was the only one that showed any difference. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

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Frustrating day #618.

After much sanding and sanding and sanding, i was finally ready to apply some epoxy mastic 421 undercoat, i carefully masked off the car, a task which in itself took a whole day. I launched my new Devilbiss GPi spray gun and merrily sprayed away, looking like a pale darth vader in all the spray gear, respirator etc in managed to scare the local cats away and spray toxic material without dieing..........the finished job looked okay for a beginner/amateur/novice but one of my neigbours decided that it would be a good time to "beat a rug", now thats not a metafor for anything rude, but who the hell beats a rug these days? Havnt they heard of a vacuun cleaner? Needless to say, the laws of "f?ck you Nial" came into play and all of the dust from the rug managed to drift directly into my garage, dont swirl around the neigbourhood at all giving me a chance, it was like someone had stuck a dust magnet in my car, the beautiful primer now looked like it had mange, either that or the shell suddenly reached puberty as i am sure theres a pubic hair or two gracing the roof. Luckily the primer had semi set so alot of it just blew off with the airgun, the rest, well it looks like i am back to sanding again, began wet sanding yesterday, finish it off today and maybe get a new coat of primer down......this time the garage door is staying well and truely shut until the primer is dry.

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I also managed to get hold of some projector headlights which after repairing two broken tabs look fabulous. Once i have managed to get this primer down, i will put all the panels on to make sure everything lines up okay before i apply any more paint....fingers crossed its not rug beating day again. Grrrrrrrrrrr

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TRD strut brace finished and fitted with stainless domed nuts or acorn nuts.

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I thought that the regular nuts didn't look very smart, these finish off the suspension tops a lot better.

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The project has been on hold for a few weeks whilst I rewire the garage, and add some lights

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Back to spraying again tomorrow.

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Starting to get some colour down its only the underside of the bonnet, but a successful step for a diy novis paint sprayer

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And the Toms front lip done

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And getting thebrear crash bar refurbished

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Managed to get the front bumper sprayed, not perfect but it will be soon, a couple of runs and some dust but easily sorted with a bit of wet n dry.

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Starting to put things back together now. the bodywork needs a bit of flat polishing to get it perfect like a mirror, i have done the roof and it has come up amazing, well pleased.

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These will cool the engine oil and the gearbox oil. all stainless fittings and correctly rubber mounted.

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In front of those is the FMIC also with stainless fittings and rubber mounted.

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