1976 Toyota Carina Coupe 1.6 Mk1 TA18

Wow

Many thanks for the appreciation from the everyone!

Plans did someone say? I've already been busy on it which I shall provide an update on later. The plans for now are to get it driving better and performing nicely. So far that is going well.

But being RR anything can happen .

I had a good look around it at the gathering. Great car! The coupe is such a beautiful design!

what a curse word great car! good score man.
is it running a 2TG?

That is awesome! Very cool car, look forward to seeing more of this one

Cheers,
Drew

What a fantastic piece of design.

Cheers!

It's running a Toyota 2T engine, specifically the 2T-U. It's essentially the 2T with emissions gubbins on it like a cat and airpump, which Toyota dubbed Toyota Total Clean - Cat aka TTC-C. A 2TG would be awesome. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been looking at other engines! OTOH I reckon simply binning alot of the emissions gubbins would free up a few horses. Toyota claim it made 88BHP with the cat ...



Cheers! It is an eyecatching shape and very cool! For me it's leftfield but very cool with a number of great features.

However, there is a price to pay for this coolness! When we first got it the car didn't run. It's been quite some time since I have bought a car without test driving it first ; this car is probably about the third car I have done it with. I knew that I'd be in for changing a few bits with that in mind prior to buying it. However, it couldn't even run from a standstill! With that in mind we trailered it back home as soon as we bought it. On the trailer it fired right up. Yet on the ground it didn't. Putting in a little more fuel seemed to cure this.

However, putting in more fuel did nothing to cure this. With some new plugs in the car did run better. With all of this going on we decided to get it registered where the DVLA christened it for the first time in this country. With the plates on I also took the opportunity to change one of the blown main beam headlamps for some new Halogen items courtesty of eBay. It made no sense to pay almost £20 after delivery for a sealed beam headlight when a pair of Halogen lights with good quality bulbs came to £40 tops, especially when the other headlight was not looking much better. Unsurprisingly the headlight output improved massively, better but also than when I fitted the same sized Autopal branded lights into my Triumph Stag. Maybe the car having a factory headlamp relay helped things. Maybe it was also down to the better quality GE bulbs over what cheap rubbish I was given by the Stag supplier at the time. Either way it was a result and with the car now legal!

With the 'period' number plates fitted from a supplier I have used before as well as the headlights working the car hit its first maiden voyage as a registered car on UK soil. Aaaaand it was.... stalling like, and slow. It was just as well that it didn't win races as it was very wayward ; I'm sure Gazza walked straighter after a few pints! It made no difference what you did to the steering wheel the car would just wander off where you wanted!

It did not pull that well and it kept cutting out every mile or so. We decided to pull into a petrol station and brim the tank. Sure enough it took about 30 litres to refuel it. We then went out on a longer drive. Hallelujah! On a 5 mile trip including stopping off for a drink it was beginning to look like the car might just be reliable. Little did I know that idea would be short lived.

While it ran it would not idle at all. The ignition system was checked and seemed OK. We played about with the carb to no avail and it still would cut out at idle. With that in mind I took the car back to my place and set out trying to sort it. Little did I know the problem would be an easy one. From messing about with changing many leaking vacuum lines thanks to the emissions gubbins, playing about with the carb and checking the timing the problem culminated at a local classic car show in Kineton. While there a friend of mine was curious about the location of the fuel filler cap and where I then then opened it. Doing the latter greeted us by a few litres of Shell's finest going over our feet as it shot out of the filler cap! Ah, that may be why it's running badly! With the car removed and only refitted for driving the problem was solved. It was idling fine once again! Finally I had a car that would start at the first turn of the key and drive OK!

With that done it was time to tackle the wayward steering. Being steering box based I was never expecting miracles but I knew something was amiss. After jacking the car up I checked all 6 balljoints in the system ; that is the 4 track rod ends coming off the steering arm/bar so as to connect to the stub axles as well as the Pittman arm and Idler arm. Upon checking them 3 out of the 4 track rod ends them had play. Ah! That would be why the steering was interesting!

IMG_8613 by Charanjeet Randhawa, on Flickr

IMG_8611 by Charanjeet Randhawa, on Flickr

However, as I suspected I'd have fun sourcing them.

Cheers 79cord . No retro comes fault free but it is interesting seeing how people work through those issues.

I left the tale of me sourcing the track rod ends for the Carina. All 4 of them were past it. Going to GSF proved fruitless as did other motor factors despite you telling them that a reg. no. would not work ; the car was never sold here neither was UK derivative. Motor Parts Direct could get them but if they were wrong they were non refundable. A bit of a gamble on £80 worth of bits. There was one thing for it; think outside the box.

Someone mentioned that Corona and Celica bits of the same generation would work on the car. This would make life easier, but still have me dealing with tricky-to-source parts. After looking on the internet I found through one or two suppliers parts that would fit my car. That was after going through the Delphi catalogue and others! Before I knew it I had 4 new track rod ends on my doorstep within a few days

Fitting them was easier than I thought. Aligning them was trickier ; remember that the old TREs were shot with plenty of play in each. Once the alignment issues were sorted the car was actually pretty good. It was no longer wayward and was not a bad steer. The steering box actually helped with having less weight about it.



I then had the headlining to deal with. This was in a bad way! Some of my photos allude to it falling down and allowing a complete loss of the rear view mirror. However, I could not procrastinate any longer; I'd have to tear it down. And so I did.

Would this be a disaster or a sucess?

Seen this for sale and was very tempted to buy it, I already have one but wouldn't it be great to own two of an extremely rare car haha. I kinda hope you're not selling, as I do think you will regret it.

This is mine 1972