CorollaGTS Recommendations?

[moojester]

Hi. You may remeber i posted a while back re a corolla gts that i was looking into.

Well i went and took a drive and took some pictures of it today.

Details:

1985.
234xxx kms.
no sunroof (YAY)

First the Positives..

CorollaGTS,
New Alternator,
Recent Fuel Pump
Recent Parking Brake Cable
Recent valve cover gasket,
Recent Clutch Fluid Resivour+seals.
Replaced steering column turning switch
assembly

The Negatives.
Drivers Seat torn. (typical)
Rust on Wheel wells, Partially attempted to solve this problem by sanding and priming and respray.

ugliest fix:
http://siffleur.cs.ualberta.ca/GTS/CorollaGTS%20002.jpg
Coming back out: (there is more like
this on the front of the car, in a larger patch, behind the front drivers wheel well.
http://siffleur.cs.ualberta.ca/GTS/CorollaGTS%20028.jpg

In an accident.
http://siffleur.cs.ualberta.ca/GTS/CorollaGTS%20004.jpg

As a result of the accident, there was a problem with the headlight, it was fixed and they both go up. The drivers fender was crunched a bit by the drivers door, the drivers door doesn't close that well. (seems to sit lower than it should)

There wasn't any rust in the middle of the trunk bay, though i did pull up the covering of the strut tower enough to feel that rust had formed at least on the outside of the tower (orange on finger, rough surface etc..)

Mechanical:
Back brake pads are toast.
Passenger Front Tire shows signs of wear on outer edge (poor alignment? or possibly ball joint? )

Driving Impressions:

Smooth.

Needs an alignment, Steering wheel doesn't sit right (does it have a spline for the steering wheel for adjustment?)
Guy told me that it was time to shift at 3000. Ignored him. Peppy on whitemud above 4000, no guts at 3000 in 4th.

Little noise outside of car. Engine sounds kinda like it has noisy lifters when idling at light.

Transmission is smooth, very very smooth compared to by ancient vw tranny.

Seats NEED a headrest.
(does anyone have a solution to this, aside from buying seats.. If buying seats, which ones are good and still adjustable for height (i'm 6'4"))

Electrical seems good. Everything
adjusts.

Carpets still wet from snow.

I offered the fellow 1400.

I was leaning more towards 1250 but didn't want to lowball him as he seemed to put money into the car as required. (At least this is the impression that i recived from my conversation with him and the prior conversations..).
He repeated a couple things about
fixing it and mentioned that he had some paint and a haynes manual, mentioned his wife.

And so i offered 1500 pending a full inspection.

Is this a good price? How serious is getting the rust issues. As far as i can tell the fenders are ok on the other side and only one has the begining of edge rot. The strut tower wasn't fully examined and i'd like to get those plastic pieces off when i go get it inspected. Is there any trick to getting them off? How many plastic retaining clips are there?

I'm buying this car for autocross and as a side project.


Thanks Guys!

http://siffleur.cs.ualberta.ca/GTS/CorollaGTS%20024.jpg

[Redlyne_mr2]

$1500 for that is a really good price, the car appears to be really clean. I would look into cutting out that rust though as soon as you can and welding in some new metal just so that it doesnt spread. I would hate to see a clean car like that rust away. The roof line above the windshield also appears clean and rust free and no sunroof is a plus as well since thats another area prone to rust. check the bottoms of the doors and well as the bottom of the rear hatch. Rust like to hide there as well. USDM front bumpers are easy to come but and front fenders are $120 each brand new so those are cheap fixes. Hows the diff? does it whine? What seats are those? They look like factory seats with covers. Whats nice about corollas are that you can find junkyeard parts for them. If you dont like the stock seats and want to change them a nice set of first gen mr2 seats would fit. Good luck

[nosegrindR]

BUY IT

[moojester]

Originally posted by Redlyne_mr2
check the bottoms of the doors and well as the bottom of the rear hatch.


There seems to be a bit of rust starting at the corners of the door.
http://siffleur.cs.ualberta.ca/GTS/CorollaGTS%20033.jpg

as far as cutting out the strut towers ( if they are toast) what is involved with that. If it's just surface rust is it enough to sand and treat it with anti rust black goo and repaint?




Rust like to hide there as well. USDM front bumpers are easy to come buy and front fenders are $120 each brand new so those are cheap fixes.


sweet. I'll keep that in mind, are fenders a dealer item?



Hows the diff? does it whine? What seats are those? They look like factory seats with covers.


I think factory seats. The are covered, the drivers left bolster has been wrapped up in duct tape.

How do i check the diff? There is a whine from the car, that i assumed was the engine (in first gear at around 3k rpm).




Whats nice about corollas are that you can find junkyeard parts for them. If you dont like the stock seats and want to change them a nice set of first gen mr2 seats would fit. Good luck

Awesome. I need a place to put my head =p..

[C4S]

Buy it ! even you keep it for a while, then sell it, will get money back ! :D

[Redlyne_mr2]

Originally posted by moojester


There seems to be a bit of rust starting at the corners of the door.
http://siffleur.cs.ualberta.ca/GTS/CorollaGTS%20033.jpg

as far as cutting out the strut towers ( if they are toast) what is involved with that. If it's just surface rust is it enough to sand and treat it with anti rust black goo and repaint?




sweet. I'll keep that in mind, are fenders a dealer item?



I think factory seats. The are covered, the drivers left bolster has been wrapped up in duct tape.

How do i check the diff? There is a whine from the car, that i assumed was the engine (in first gear at around 3k rpm).




Awesome. I need a place to put my head =p..
Since that strut area is hidden you can cut away at the rusted metal then weld in pieces of sheetmetal plus since its covered who cares what the welds end up looking like. The fenders that I bought for $120 were from a place called fenders in NE Calgary but the exact same fender at the exact same price is availble through other parts places so just look up automotive/body in the phone book and call around. Are there silver automotives in Edmonton? I know they carry the jobber fenders for sure. The toyota metal is very very thin. If you sand and repaint the rust will come back guaranteed, try taking an angle grinder to the rusted areas and grind right down to the clean bare metal. One word of caution however, if the metal is badly rusted the use of the angle grinder on it may totally eat away all the rotten metal without leaving any to work with. If the car whines while cruising down the road at 60kmhr then your diff isnt in the best of shape. Change out the diff fluids and start saving for an LSD. Have you visited www.dorikaze.com , i think there are a few guys in your area with stock seats for sale.

[moojester]

Great.

Your advise is invaluable.

=p

Appreciate it.

[chukilabs]

I would get it they are terrific cars and when you are willing to invest money into it you appreciate it so much.

[JDMAE86]

I think you should pick it up, sounds like a good deal especially with a decent body like that. Do worry about the parts they are so easy to come by.

Just my two cents.:thumbsup:

[moojester]

sweet.

=p

thanks for the info guys.

I'm just waiting for a call back.

Forgot to mention that
the front glass is totally screwed.

I figure this is around 300.. is that a reasonable estimate?

Do most shops let you leave after an inspection fails? Ie.. the back brakes are worn totally.

[CelicaST-162]

I have a question, if Moojester is planning to use this for Auto X....and if the rear strut towers are rusted. Wouldnt that make the structural integrity of the car weaker? And by welding new metal for example wouldnt it not be as strong as before?

[moojester]

Originally posted by CelicaST-162
I have a question, if Moojester is planning to use this for Auto X....and if the rear strut towers are rusted. Wouldnt that make the structural integrity of the car weaker? And by welding new metal for example wouldnt it not be as strong as before?


Assuming the rear towers are totally fux0red and they need new metal, and the metal is welded in properly.

It's shouldn't. A fellow i know that autox's his NX completely re welded his rear strut towers and fabricated a strut brace too. It's not the prettiest in the world but it is at least as strong as it was before.

It would probably depend on where the new metal was hooked into.

It's a *really good question* and this is just my take on it. I wonder what other people think about this.

[Redlyne_mr2]

Yeah it obviously depends where your cutting and welding. Most of the metal is there just to keep the elements from getting into the car but if youre cutting away the area where the strut attaches to the car then youre going to have to fabricate some new strut mounts. It also wouldnt hurt to install a rear strut bar as well as mentioned.

[hjr]

As far as corolla's go, that one is fairly low on the rust spectrum. It would be considered by some almost rust free.

As for the car itself, ya there is no power under 3000 but its still really fun to drive. for 1500 its hard to loose. you may even be able to turn it around for a profit if you wanted to.

overall the car looks good as long as there is no frame damage or anything from the accident. it looks pretty minor though.

[moojester]

I don't think there is any frame damage, but i really have no way of knowing.

Would shop like Silverstone that could do an inspection on it be able to check the frame dimensions with ease?

[4wheeldrift]

Originally posted by moojester



Assuming the rear towers are totally fux0red and they need new metal, and the metal is welded in properly.

It's shouldn't. A fellow i know that autox's his NX completely re welded his rear strut towers and fabricated a strut brace too. It's not the prettiest in the world but it is at least as strong as it was before.

It would probably depend on where the new metal was hooked into.

It's a *really good question* and this is just my take on it. I wonder what other people think about this. I would think that if the repairs were done properly with decent gauge material and properly braced this should be no problem. Obviously the integrity of the body structure is paramount both for safety if the car is ever in an accident or if the car is going to be seeing hard use. If the new metal was well connected to metal that wasn't suffering from rot and properly welded and reinforced to at the very least a configuration similar to what was there from the factory I can't see any reason why it would cause you any trouble even in a high chassis load application like solo/racing. However, one thing to note if you are going to be doing any sort of sanctioned racing is that changing/moving/reinforcing the suspension pickup points may be a no-no depending on the rules and classing you are running under, so it might be best to resist the urge to mess with the suspension geometry while you are doing all that welding unless you don't mind ending up in some ungodly high class where you might not be competitive. If maintaining a similar to stock configuration is important to you it might be worth tracking down a toyota body manual for that car, so you can use the factory approved techniques and guarantee you stay in a class you can live with.


Originally posted by moojester
I don't think there is any frame damage, but i really have no way of knowing.

Would shop like Silverstone that could do an inspection on it be able to check the frame dimensions with ease? They might charge you some labour for getting the car on the rack to check it, but it might be worth a hundred bucks just for the piece of mind of knowing the chassis is straight to start with.

[moojester]

Originally posted by 4wheeldrift
If maintaining a similar to stock configuration is important to you it might be worth tracking down a toyota body manual for that car, so you can use the factory approved techniques and guarantee you stay in a class you can live with.


Defiantly want to stay in stock. After racing in super stock with my scirocco (should have mounted a fire extinquisher and i probably could have stayed in stock =p) i'd much rather keep this car oem and solo in stock...

And a LSD is only 1pt in stock so if i go that way in a year it'll still be able to stay in stock.

Yah. I haven't managed to track down a factory toyota manual yet it would be awesome to have one =p.

[Jason Lange]

Looks to have the downgraded interior (the base interior, most GT-S models have the nicer interior)

Rust doesn't look THAT bad, and for $1500 it's a pretty decent price.


Good luck.

[GTS Jeff]

curtis! did u end up buying it?

[moojester]

hehe =p

Stilll WAITING on a response.

I"m going to try to contact him today or this Weekend and ask to have a conversation with him about it.
He hasn't given me a counter offer =p

bleh =p.

thx for asking.

[GTS Jeff]

damn, thats taking a looonng time. hurry up and buy the car so i can sell u my drivers seat!! haha actually, if he doesnt budge, dont sweat it, cuz that car is pretty beat anyways. if u want me to talk to the guy, ill be able to do that in a week..

[moojester]

thanks for the offer but it's ok.

I'm just going to have a conversation with him, See what he's up to and if he's even thought about it.

If he doesn't want to sell I'll just go on the lookout for another =p. Continue my journey.