More Parts!

I have finally managed to get all the parts for the Auto to manual conversion!

I met a guy through rolla club who had a whole bunch of Ke corolla parts and I ended up leaving his place with:
         two nice chrome bumpers (front included indicator lights)
         tailshaft
         Ke30 Grille in perfect condition
         Box of rubbers (including brand new windscreen rubber!)
         4 to1 red extractors

So it was a good day! ready to do the manual conversion! hope to do it next week sometime...

Going to go to auto one and grab a few seals today (rear gearbox, and diff) just so I know everything is new and hopefully won't leak!

Oh and I know last time I said I'd post pics of the marquee.. but I'm going to have to post pics of the marquee being pretty much destroyed by epic wind... I think it will still be usable, nothing gaff tape can't fix ;)

The restoration begins!

Okay, I know I said the previous post was my last for today, but this one really is ;)

I just wanted to throw up some pics of the first few steps in stripping the body ready for painting.

Took the rear, bar, lights trim and rubber off.

 This is how I've had to cover the car to protect from weather.

So I decided I needed a better solution and also something I could spray paint in without getting overspray on the neighbours boat :-/


So I bought this..

Yep, a 'wedding' tent/gazebo/marquee.. whatever you want to call it, it is well big enough to fit the car and has a roof and four walls. It was also dirt cheap! :)

I put it up the other day and will post pics soon!



New Battery Holder


I also put a new battery holder in the old one was pretty rough, as you can see below.

This is the new one, slightly nicer!

I had to make some minor adjustments/fabricating to make it fit, but it's now in and the battery is stable again.

Auto to Manual

Okay, done a bit of blogging today (bored at home...)  but I'll make this my last..

I have decided to convert my rolla from 3 speed automatic to 5 speed manual. This will be much nicer for my commute on the freeway.

So I have had to search for parts to do this. This is where I'm at..

So far I have:

        5 speed k50 gearbox

        manual pedal box

        New clutch kit

        Clutch cable

Still to get:

        flywheel (have paid for it but it's in the mail apparently..)

        tail shaft

Will also have to modify the crossmember for mounting the gearbox, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it..

I'll post some pics of the stuff I've got so far soon.. 

4k..no wait, 5k?!?!

I gave the engine a basic clean as it was pretty grubby.

And lo and behold!  On closer inspection, as I washed away the grime, I discovered that this rolla actually has a 1.5 litre 5k engine not the standard 1.3 litre 4k!!

Woot! I'm pretty sure the guy I bought it off didn't even realise this!

The mind boggles at the potential for getting more power from this engine now...

Paint

I was thinking, since I have to respray the new panels I have, why not respray the whole car! I mean there really isn't much more of it once those panels are done (boot, bonnet, tail and roof!)

So I went to Auto One and got some new paint!

Monza Red! Should be a brighter red than the Toyota red that it currently is.

New Panels!

I decided that before trying to fix the rust in the front two fenders and both doors I'd have a look around and see if, on the odd chance (as they are quite rare), there were any straight, rust free doors/fenders around.

I found a guy who was trying to sell a rolling shell of the same model rolla and managed to convince him to let me have just the parts I needed!

Straight and rust free

 Just need to be rubbed back for new paint

 Doors are ready to spray

These door cards came with the doors but I'll replace them with the ones from the car.

Before Shots

Here are the 'before' shots of the rolla after a clean, I've taken shots of some of the rust..

 Dented/twisted rear bar...

 RH Door

 Front right fender

 Missing badge

Front left fender

Catching up - the rest of the journey

Okay, so I'm not great at regular blogging... (thanks dad for the "blog's a bit quiet.." comment).

So I'm going to try and cut a long story short and bring this blog up to date...

Following on from the previous post...

Day 2 of the journey I was feeling optimistic about making it home in the rolla. We had to get a jump to start the day but once we were on the road the car was performing similarly to the previous day (rough, but pushing on..) the first half of the day was great, we stopped for lunch and the car started again no trouble! So the alternator seemed to be working!

About three quarters of the way into the days journey we were pulled over by a policeman who had been called by a 'concerned driver' informing him that we had no plates... there was no issue as we had a permit, so he went on his way.. However, we had had to turn the car off when talking to the policeman and unfortunately it would not start again! (I had thought about asking the policeman for a jump but he wasn't in a great mood ;)

We were in the middle of nowhere so I flagged down a passing car, I asked the driver if he could help us out with a quick jump start... which he flatly refused! (this was the only time in the trip where we had someone object to helping us out.. pretty disappointing..) So I had to call the roadside assist again..

The roadside assist guy was really helpful again but told us that the alternator really was busted this time and even the bush mechanic's whack didn't help. So he charged our battery as much as he could and offerred to drive behind us till we got to the next town!

We seemed to be ok as we drove to the next town (thankfully the rolla has very few running electrics!), but I knew it would only be a matter of time before we came to a grinding halt..

We pushed on to our destination for day two, we limped the last 5kms or so, and ended up bunny hopping the last 500m to the hotel as the battery fully died.. as we got to the hotel the car gave one last shudder and stopped.. At this point I knew there was not much hope of getting any further in this trip without a new alternator..

So after many phone calls to my dad and younger bro discussing options for getting home, in an act of incredible generosity, my bro and his wife said they'd come in the morning with a car trailer and get us home! (we were 6hrs away from where they live!! and at least 5hrs from home!)

The next day they arrived around midday and we set about trying to get the car onto the trailer and tied down.. we'd never done this before and it was a bigger effort than we had anticipated and took several hours.. here's some photos and a link to a vid of the saga!

Total amateur hour! :)

I'm a bit of a blogger noob so couldn't quite figure out video embedding but there's a link below to see the Vid.

Click here to see the Video