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mtheis wrote:The one and only time it will be out of the garage until I get new tires and stuff.

Yay!

I got it registered yesterday and took it around the block a few times. It died on me when I was driving back home. Thankfully, I was able to coast the 1/4 mile downhill to my driveway. I smelled raw fuel and figured the carbs had flooded. They needed to be rebuilt anyway, so I spent most of today doing my first rebuild. The car still didn't start. It turns out that I lost prime on the fuel pump and will need to install a check valve. I really should mount the pump somewhere closer to the fuel tank anyway since it's designed to push fuel and not pull it.

I also had a hell of a time getting the ignition timing set. It was always way too far advanced and if I retarded it to the stop (went full retard ), I could get it to 8 degrees BTDC. I have an adjustable cam gear from LC Engineering, so I called them to see if they could figure out what I was doing wrong. It turned out that the two wires going from the MSD ignition module to the distributor were backwards! I really should pay closer attention when I let my friends work on the car.

The fuel pump may be to blame. I'm picking up a new one tomorrow to replace the inline pump. We'll see what happens. I'm just tired of stalling at the top of the street and coasting back down with just enough momentum to nail a perfect landing inside the garage.

mtheis wrote:The fuel pump may be to blame. I'm picking up a new one tomorrow to replace the inline pump. We'll see what happens. I'm just tired of stalling at the top of the street and coasting back down with just enough momentum to nail a perfect landing inside the garage.

It's running a lot better now with the new fuel pump and new spark plug wires. Today I'll be adjusting the valve lash and syncing the carbs.

I'm pretty sure that I need a new master cylinder. The pedal goes almost all the way to the floor without sinking the rest of the way. Pumping the brakes gets the pedal a lot higher and it'll hold. There's also an electrical gremlin that could just be a bad ground wire. The volt meter shows more than 1V drop when stepping on the brakes, using turn signals, headlights, radiator fans, you name it. All accessories off is around 14.7V and with the headlights it's 12.6 (and continues to slowly decrease). The battery is brand new, so that can't be it. Adjusting the valve lash wasn't too bad and the carbs are a little more balanced now.

Here's a video shot before the carb adjustment to test the acceleration (I apologize in advance for the cameraman).

BIG UPDATE:

The car is completely drivable now. I took the wheels off, went and got 4 new tires, and acquired a full-size spare. The electrical problems were from a bad alternator and the braking problems were from the slack adjusters being out of adjustment. I also replaced the master cylinder just to be on the safe side (and bled the brakes again). Out of frustration, I built my own manometer so that the carbs could be properly balanced. It ran really lean after balancing and I had to back out the mixture screws 3 1/2 turns to make it stop backfiring on deceleration. Sounds like I might need larger idle jets. The Celica's maiden voyage was to the gas station where I filled the tank. I'm curious about the fuel mileage. The fuel gauge doesn't work right and it'll either show 1/2 tank or fluctuate between empty and 1/4 tank. GPS and tachometer readings confirmed that my transmission is a W58 (used in the GT-S and Supra) and that the speedometer reads 6 MPH fast. The reason? The GT-S that this transmission came from had a 3.42 rear end and I have a 3.73. I'll have to swap out the speedometer gear in the back of the transmission if I ever want it to read correctly. This car feels moderately fast and I'd say with a very conservative estimate that it'll run 15s at the track. One of these days I'll find out what it can do.

New 195/70/14 tires all around. It used to have 215s up front and 225s in the rear.


Here's the manometer with 10 ft tubes. I wanted them really long so that I'd have time to shut the engine off if the oil suddenly shot up one of the tubes.


Filled with motor oil.


Washed it today at my parents' house.

New battery tray (after some modifications). It sure beats the bungee cord method.

New K&N air cleaners.

mtheis wrote:New battery tray (after some modifications). It sure beats the bungee cord method.

Good Job. Batteries that bounce around fail sooner, as the material cracks/flakes off the plates, falls down to the bottom of the case and eventually piles up high enough to short across the cells. Back in olden times, battery manufacturers left more room below the plates for this material to fill up, but with underhood space at a premium now, this is one area that has been compromised in order to get more cold cranking amps / amp hours in a smaller package.

So, I ordered new parking brake cables back in May and received one of them last week. Amazon decided to cancel my order YESTERDAY on the remaining cable (after waiting for 6 weeks) because it mysteriously became "out of stock". It's the left rear cable and it seems to be impossible to find anywhere except maybe from a donor Celica. Mine was seized from rust and I didn't think it was fixable or even worth fixing. With no other options, I spent 5 hours removing the cable (snapping a bolt in the process), soaking the cable in brake fluid, hitting it with an endless supply of PB Blaster and 3-In-One Oil while yanking on it with vise grips, and reinstalling it.



Replacing the cable on the passenger side will require removal of the driveshaft. The list of other miscellaneous stuff that still needs to be done: cleaning the fuel pump strainer and fuel filter, re-clamping the upper radiator hose to make it stop leaking, wiring the parking brake dash indicator, fixing the vacuum advance (bad diaphragm), setting the timing and idle speed again, and replacing the exhaust manifold gasket. Then I can take it to be inspected and properly registered.

Also, I think I finally figured out how to properly tune carburetors:

You can tune your carburetors, but can you tuna fish?

mtheis wrote:Replacing the cable on the passenger side will require removal of the driveshaft.

I removed the bolts from the driveshaft and still couldn't get it to budge. Time to use my "torque wrench"!