Will's 1985 celica supra restoration

[02taco]

I've been restoring my supra over the last 4 years or so and finally decided to do a write up on my past and future progress.

I bought my car back in 2004 and drove it around for a year before i decided i wanted to fix it up. There was a little bit of rust showing up outside the rear flares, so i thought if i just got rid of this and had it repainted i would have a sweet looking supra. That was my first understatement on this project, the more parts i removed, the more rust i found to repair and the more i repaired the more parts i would take off the car. This led to the point where there is not a single bolt, nut or rubber plug remaining on the car (100% stripped down). Pictures later on.

I entered this project without any hands on experience in bodywork but figured it out pretty quickly as i went along. I found that the further along i got at repairing the rust the more critical i became of the work i had done. This meant that there are some parts of the car that have been done twice (ie I patched some of the 1/4 panel holes only to find mint rust free complete 1/4 panel later on) I'm not going to bother showing pictures of the early repairs but will focus on what i did in the end.

ok here we go

This is my car when i bought it on the left with my buddies on the right



This is some early on pictures of the teardown.





My car was originally and automatic and i wasn't interested in keeping her that way so one of the first things i did was tracked down the upper clutch bracket and shifter opening.

Upper bracket welded in

shifter opening panel removed along factory seams

Manual opening fitted in place


I was not a fan of trimming the opening for the shifter and having a bigger hole than the boot would cover. So i swapped out the opening with the properly positioned hole from a 5-speed car.



The next task i undertook was to replace the rad support. The original one on the car was crumpled on the passenger side where the fender and bumper cover meet (and here was rust). Replacing the rad support with a straight one also allowed me to remove the engine and transmission the lazy way.




Here is the new one installed. coincidentaly also black.



The next thing on the list was the common problem of a rusty battery shelf from a leaky battery. I found a mint one at the wreckers and popped that baby on using the original seams.



The progress shown so far dates back a couple of years now but i'll get caught up over the next couple posts.

More to follow

[02taco]

OK where was I?

After spending a little time collecting parts i came across a young man in Calgary by the name of Keegan (some of you may have hear of him.....). Well he had on his possession a pair of mint and complete rocker panels that he brought back on one of his road trips and was dieing to get rid of them. This was a lucky break for me and it allowed me to return my rusty rockers to their original glory.



Here you can see my old ones with my early attempts at repairing the rotten rear section.



Hidden rust on the inner layers of the old passenger rocker




After some wirewheeling, cut and patching and application of Weldable Zinc rich primer



The new one stripped down and ready to mount


Installed




You can see that i had originally used part of the 1/4 panel that came with the rocker (this will be replaced later on with the complete 1/4 panel swap)

Part 3 to follow.

[02taco]

At abour this point in time last year, I decided that i needed to source out some good 1/4 panels. I searched high and low and settled on my only option and a great option i might add. The world famous Junkie provided the 1/4 panel you will see in this thread (can't thank him enough). So i drove my Tacoma from Calgary to washington state and picked up more parts than you can shake a stick at. Man they have some great condition parts in the PacNW. Word from the wise don't bring a bunch of used car parts across the border with a hand written receipt, they really frown appon that.

Before i show the 1/4 panel replacement here are some pictures of the driver side rocker panel replacement.



Neat inner shot looking back into the cross-section of the rocker.





This was what i used to have for rust on the driver side



New rocker panel mounted and removal of 1/4 panel begining.









And now some of the prep work, had to replace some of the rusty seam.



New one getting ready for surgical reattachment.




After many rounds of test fitting



Ther we go, all mounted now





Looks pretty easy.....eh.

Well it was but it took forever to do.

More to come.

[Rockheadjc]

Damn, bro, you got some serious time on your hands.
Nevertheless, great body work! Looking fwd to more pics/progress reports.
Keep it comin!

[BillyM]

That's 100% awesome. I am in complete awe at your drive and attention to detail. Well done stuff man, really truly well done.

--billyM

[rexgo]

Holly Shit! you must like to weld. "surgical reattachment." very funny.
I know I would have found another car. Lots of work - good job - you're committed - or should be. lol

[dannymk2]

props for all the hard work. i know none of that is easy to do. i wish i had the time/money to do another project like that, but i dont right now. keep up the good work.

[02taco]

Thanks guys. I've always wanted to restore a car from the ground up, but never thought it would be this early in life or even with this car. It just happened to "snow ball" as i fell more in love with this Supra. I know I could have gone down south to a dry state and picked up a pretty descent one, but even the descent ones from the south have a little bit of hidden rust. Even my 1/4 panels that were from a California car had a little rust (not anymore) in between the seams (from Toyota not paying enough attention to detail). It would have been harder for me to allow myself to repair a little and then repaint an entire car that was "pretty good", it's much easier when there is enough rust to justify it......atleast thats what i tell myself.

Maybe i am crazy.

like Forest Gump once said, "now that i got this far, i thought might as well just keep on going. And then when i reached another ocean (Supra body panel) I turned around and just kept on running (welding).........or something close to that.

I'm about halfway to being caught up with my cars current progress. I'll ad some more tomorrow.

Thanks again.

[RedP85]

There is not too many persons undertaking such cutting and welding !
You sure are talented to do so well !

[Greg G]

Im in awe too.... that isnt a restoration, thats a remanufacturing of the car.

Keep the pix coming please!