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82L Bodywork & Slow Build

84K views 170 replies 55 participants last post by  SupraFiend 
#1 ·
So far I've owed 7 MKII's, currently possess 4. It started out as co-incidence, but now an on purpose pattern; I like 82's. The first L-type I owed is the focus of this thread.
I don't have many previous pictures to make the back story interesting, but here goes:

I acquired the car from another member in about 2004, I forget the exact date. It got driven home, sat in my underground parking for a couple years, then ended up getting transfered out to a friends farm for another couple years.


When talking to Seamus, we looked over both of my L's, and decided this was a better choice for getting restored.
So now the car is at Seamus place, mostly stripped and washed, and Seamus is starting on analysis and work. He should have pictures and updates as it progresses.

I have most of the suspension bits, brakes, and maybe the engine, but we'll get to that once the car is ready for it.

To end, a random shot of my other L:
 
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#38 · (Edited)
We should probably pull the sunroof tub but beyond that we got it all. I'll have to get the sunroof update on my red 86s thread soon.

Hey guys, thanks for all the comments! I didn't mean to complain, it just seemed like this thread either hadn't been discovered by the masses yet or no one was interested in the subject. I'll try and keep the info content up without going over board on post size. Speaking of, next update coming up...
 
#34 ·
Keep it all coming man. I did a good rust removal in my thread yet only 2 people responded after I posted all the pics praising me for my work. You Americans seem to have a bias against Australian's and anyone with a 82-85 Celica right hand drive. Its like you see it as the elephant man which should be seen but not admired.
 
#35 ·
That's not a fair statement, my friend!

I troll the restorations section and am constantly amazed at the level of commitment to these cars when people dig & dig & dig into them to repair rust damage and repair/refurbish these cars back to like-new! The stuff that's documented is absolutely mind boggling and should be celebrated because of the level of difficulty! I may not post in them, but I love to see the pictures and posts about what's been done!!

However, in all fairness, if all 12,000 CS.com members posted "Great job" in everyone's restoration thread, each thread would prolly have 30+ pages of "Great job, man" with about 1/10th of the posts being strictly about the work being done on the car! My hat goes off to anyone willing & able to tackle a project like this! I wish I knew how to do stuff like this, but so thankful I live where rust isn't a major concern and I don't NEED to know how to repair it!
 
#37 ·
this thread is GrrrrrEAT! Thanks for all the work your doing to get it on here for us to enjoy!
really excited for you to get to the windshield area , as that is where most to my rust issues are. Due to poooorly installed aftermarket sunroof cut into a hardtop =( by the original owner.......

DONT cut back on details. thats what makes it so interesting to read.

Again , Great Work. keep it coming!
 
#39 ·
Donor Metal Harvesting

Little update here. We may not have started with a near rust free Washington state car like we should have, but we're going to rebuild this car with one! Mostly we needed doors, bumpers and that rear valance panel, but if we had access to a full scrap car we might as well grab a bit more to make things simpler. So it was time to give Junkie's Garage a little visit! Shawn had this 85 Ptype that he's been trying to get rid of since Christmas, so we thought we'd drive on down and give him a hand with that...

As it was when we got there...

SMP7mgte himself there.



Alright, time to get down to business. If I'd taken this thing apart like these pieces need to be for my uses (drilling spot welds), we would have been there for days. So out comes the ol sawzell...


Rear lower Valance panel removed, and then the Right side rear rail and I grabbed the middle one while I was there, easier then cleaning up the original.





Now I mostly needed the inner wheel wells with upper spring mounts, but the outer lower sections of the quaters would save me a little time so I just grabbed the whole thing (it was quicker to cut out like this).

And the other side...

The convertable conversion was a side effect, we didn't need the roof.

We did need the lower radiator support though...

So we took the upper too while we there (handy to have and easier to remove together). Since there was metal for the taking that was going to the scrapper I grabbed that corner of the door just incase I ever decide to fix my beater as its bent there.

The haul!


All the metal chunks pictured above, plus two good doors (off the legendary Turbo Toad no less! Leslie Grovers old car), a virgin rear bumper with minimal rusty brackets and rebar, all of the under dash metal bracing (the 82s is pretty rusty) and some good gas tanks. Getting hard to find those, glad to have these.

Great haul in all. Big thanks to Shawn for the parts and hospitality!
 
#40 ·
OMFG, guys!! Have you been thoroughly checked for insanity yet?!?!?! :zzzzz:

What's sick is that I find it so intriguing seeing these cars butchered up like this!!! :eek4dance:

Can't wait to see the pieces grafted onto the '82L! Will you be converting the '82 over to a P-type since you grabbed both the rear quarter panels from the '85P?
 
#41 ·
Hell no, that would defeat the whole purpose of sticking with this car. We'll be using very little of the quaters we grabbed actually. Mostly just needed the spring mounts and inner wheel wells. The bottom rusted out sections will be replaced with some of this metal too. I'll keep the rest around, I'm sure it will come in handy for another car.
 
#43 ·
Ahhhh thanks George. Its about to go to another level too, there's some suprises coming up that are going to shake things up a little around here :naughty:

Loving your build too man. It seems like the most original thing to do with a mk2 these days is to build up a 5 or 6m :p
 
#44 ·
Not sure how much more you can shake things up, but consider me curious :).

It's funny as things are coming around full circle, it used to be said that if you want to be original you put in a 1J or 2J. Now if you want to be original you build a 5M/6M, as I said to my friends at our monthly supra meet yesterday, with the money I spent I could have put 3 2J's in the car by now.

**/thread hijack

Keep up the AWESOME work my friend.
 
#45 ·
LS Quater Skin Repair

The last couple weeks have been focused on repairing the removed quarter skin. Here's what we had after it came off...



First up was the big rusty hole on the top of the wheel well arch.

I cut out the rot and made this oddly shaped patch panel.


The object is make the patch panel fit as level as possible so very little filler is needed, not too bad. The entire inner lip of the wheel well is going to get trimmed before the skin is reinstalled so I left the inside edge unfinished for now.

Next up we're going to take advantage of some of the donor metal we got from Shawn. The bottom of the back end of the quarter was fairly consistently rotted and theres alot of odd compound curves and such under the bumper so replicating that stuff isn't much fun. Here's the donor (which itself was a factory replacement quarter from Toyota put on our donor car back in the day no doubt)...


Nip off the crap and the replacement part and crimp it to fit in evenly...


Even the donor metal needed a little sandblasting to remove some fairly minor rust and the bumper screw tab had to be removed, cleaned up and rewelded. I sleaved the end of the panel as my crimper makes a mess of curves. Also, I had to hammer out and fill the hole and indent for the flare as this donor metal is from a Ptype.

A little love and it went on pretty nicely...



Now for the hard part. As you may recall the front end of the quarter was pretty bad...


It always makes it a tricky repair when the rot has extended over the double bent crease that extends from the rocker. I've only had to make panels to replace below that line so far. Unfortuantly even the donor metal quarter was rotted out here, plus this is an LType and the metal is different above the line. I also wanted to remove the hole and indent for the side skirt as we're going totaly smooth sided on this car, so I had no choice but to make this panel from scratch.

First up is figuring out how to do that double bend. If you read through that thread I posted earlier, you'll see that that guy made this handy bender that would make short work of bends like this. I didn't have the time to build a contraption like that so I made a few pieces out of some angle iron to fit into my vice.

A bend like this we want to get right the first time so we test it first on a piece of scrap.


That should be close enough.


Now for the full panel. Now this didn't go as smoothly as I hoped. I used another section of angle iron as a mandrel to pound against the sheet metal to get it to fold over nicely but I would have been much better served making a die that just pressed the shape out that I needed and let the vice do the work. That or make a bender like that guy did. But it worked none the less, next bend!


This is an easy one. You just have to measure carefully where the radius on the metal needs to start. I didn't even need to affix the 2.5 inch exhaust pipe I bent it over, I just held it down with one hand and bent with the other, worked great.

A quick test fit before we finish off the welding and crimping on the new panel...

Looks pretty good!

The piece all ready to go on (minus weld thru primer).

Notice the drain slat pounded into the bottom edge. Trust me, you do not want to forget that drain! I'll have an update eventually in my Red 86 Cali special thread that will have more on that.

Alright, tack it on and test fit the whole quarter before we complete the welds...


And away we go...


You have to be so carefull stitching it on not to warp the metal. Not quite perfect but not too bad either. A little filler and besides the missing side skirt hole you shouldn't be able to tell its not oem.

And there we go, the quarter is derusted and the rotten sections replaced...


Its still a little while before it goes back on. There's some more work to be done underneath yet :sarcasm:
 
#50 ·
Hey thanks alot guys.

What do I do for a living, well right now this, sort of. I do this in the mornings to make a enough money to survive while I get my video game company off the ground. I've been working as a game programmer the last 10 years, but cars have always been a major interest. I put my self through school partially by working as a mechanic and then a bodyman for awhile but cars have mostly been a hobby since.

Anyways, if you want to see some seriously impressive metal work check out that thread I've posted. I've picked up so much from that guy, he's a fricken master.
 
#51 ·
Floor Bracing & Cowl Area

So back to business. This last couple weeks has been spent taking care of a few odds and ends on the drivers side, and then it took a slightly unexpected turn.

First up I stripped the new wheel well for the rear LS down. A little more TLC and it will be ready to go in...


Next I've got some rocker work coming up here so I've been taking care of a few issues in that area. I've started fixing the rust a little on the rear wheel well end of the rocker, and before I got into the front of it I figured I'd take care of the bracing under the drivers seat.


A previous owner obviously had an aftermarket seat installed, and poorly. I'm not sure if the rust was caused by a spill of something corossive or from fluid from the leaking clutch master making its way back this far (more on that in a minute), but this brace was a little messed up and the holes from the seat needed to be filled.


Sorry for the hit and miss photo quality. I've been using a camera phone for awhile now (albeit a pretty good one) as its so convienent but sometimes they're a little blurry. Anyways, this is the brace that the front of the seat bolts to removed and you can see there was a little rust on the underside of it too.

The rust ground off and starting to fill the holes...



The brace repaired and ready to install...

The tabs that had the nuts welded on for the seat bolts were just rusty enough that it was quicker for me to just remake them from scratch then to try and seperate the nuts from the tabs and then have to repair all of the rust and weld what was left back together. The new tabs and nuts are welded on here and sealed up so they won't ever rust again like that.

And here we go, all done...

There were holes for the rear of the seat too, also filled.

Now its that time again, time for me to spread fear into the hearts of Supra owners everywhere. Remember when I said that rust usually isn't much of a problem on the front of mk2s? Well once again this car is the exception. Sort of.

I knew it was going to be a bit of a headache as this stuff was all quite visible...


This is where the RS hood hinge bolts on.



Inside of the area in the previous photo.



To make matters worse a leaky clutch master was allowed to bleed for a long time at some point.

This last one kinda seals the deal. If you look closely the sealer running top to bottom between the 2 panels has a big crack in it and you can see a little rust in there. Yep, that panel is coming off. Easier said then done.

Also, I was worried about the rust visible on top of the cowl (panel at the base of windshield). Rust at the corners of the windshield is common unfortunatly. I always thought it was due to rusty cowl trim but apparently the problem stems from inside. Here's a pic from inside the vent and wiper linkage chamber...


It goes the entire way across, that cowl panel is coming off. Now this is obviously a fairly far gone car, but this is a weak point we should all be aware of as it can get really bad before any major signs are noticable. Which unfortunatly is water leaking into the footwells, which means things have already gone too far.

Have a look...


Yes, thats the climate system fresh air duct there. The fan is totaly exposed, you'd think they would have come with filters. Or maybe it disintergrated over time.



Now the rest of this chamber seams to be holding up pretty well, its just that seam under the windshield. I would say that most people could get away with preventing this by pulling the ducts out of this chamber, taking a peak under there with a mirror and flashlight to make sure its clear, and then run a bead of seam sealer on that seam that has rusted out the entire length on this car. Also reapply sealer on the seams around the hinges and at the tops of the fenders, these are weak areas as well.

So getting at this stuff is a challenge. I like to take things apart like Toyota put them together, but that means you have to remove panels complete in the order they were installed, which isn't always an option. First off I had to cut a chunk of the brace that extends into the fender bracing...


Then a chunk of the cowl area (a chunk that needed sections replaced at least)...


Then a piece of the plate that runs the length of the inside of the A pillar, and I was able to remove the big panel that I was originally after...


With everything exposed I removed the hinge reinforcements and started drilling access holes so I can clean up my welds when I put it back together...


Here's the insides of everything I pulled off so I could clean up all of the rust in this corner....


I may end up having to do most of this to the other side too unfortunatly.

Anyways, thats it for this update. I actually had other reasons for taking that big panel off, more on that next.
 
#56 · (Edited)
Rocker Removal & Footwell Repair

Ok, little behind on the updates here, so here comes a big one.

First off, after stripping down the lower LS A pillar area, the next area I needed to tackle was the rocker. For a few reasons, but we'll stick with the corrosion angle for now...



The back area here is where it all was...




Unfortunatly there is more on the other side...


I'm working on this area currently, but that will be another update.

What was a larger problem then I originally anticipated was the damage caused by the leaky clutch master. You might remember this shot of the LS front wheel well...


There was also alot of damage in the footwell area...


And on the underside where the factory emergency jack reinforcement is...


Also this brace was crushed from someone jacking from the wrong spot but you can see the rust goes underneath it...


So off it comes...


Once the surface rust was ground off and I pulled the inner rocker skin back I was left with a hole...


More rust was hiding. You can see it around the top of the firewall piece here...


It turns out the brake master was leaking as well...


I could see through the access hole for the rail that there was rust inside it too so that was the nail in the coffin for that panel, off it comes!



You can see how much rust was on the underside of this panel, particularly on the top of the rails.

Looking down into the rail...

Yeah, the lower piece is going to have to come off too. Not just for the rail, but the underside of the floor pan and a couple other areas I couldn't reach.



And here's a shot of the whole car, as stripped down as its going to get...


Now lets start fixing things and putting it back together.

I cleaned up the rail first.

Alot of grinding, a layer of POR15 on the bottom of the rail, then coatings of weld thru primer and then seam sealer on all seams where I wouldn't be welding near. You may have noticed that I drilled access holes to get at the other seams before I removed the panels.

Here's all the removed pieces, sandblasted, treated, patched, sleaved and primered...


Now we put it back together...




And seal it up as much as possible for now. Again I can't put the sealer near the areas I still have welding to do (like for the outer rocker skin).



On the inside of the rail from underneath.

In the engine bay...

Luckily the booster completely covers where I had to cut so I didn't have to spend much time hiding the work in the engine bay.

And the footwell...


What a pain in the ass. Things should move along alot quicker now. Thanks for reading!
 
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