1973 TA22 Toyota Celica - Patchwork quilt

My other half would skin my jewels if I had car things on the kitchen side, well done if yours never saw them there

Brief update time!

After work decreeing that I can no longer use Imgur on my work laptop (it's a file sharing site afterall), this has subsequently meant that I can't see any images I've previously posted, so I've decided that it's time for an alternative approach, so hopefully adding them straight to RR works...


So last weekend was the RR weekender at Goodwood, but as I wasn't able to attend both days I decided that I would spend part of Saturday fitting up some of the treasures from my road trip and carring on with the axle and spring refresh. First up was the fog lights and N/S indicator. Yes there's a bit of bumper adjustment required, the marks on the wing illustrate the point of the dry build!

Look closely and you will also see my heath robinson method of temporarily fastening the chrome bonnet strip on it's a bit twisted so hoping by doing this it will start to resume it's proper form.



Just one side left to do - It's almost starting to look like it should again 



It was then time to crack on with giving the springs a paint - the old cattle feeding troughs do still have a use



as well as putting the first dust coat on the axle



Due to other farm jobs that was about as far as I got... but no need to worry, plenty of car related activity was to follow on the Sunday. 


After a somewhat early start, I headed south to rendezvous with @johnnybravo before winding our way along the south coast to GoodWood. As it happens we made rather good time and arrived at the campsite/parking at 7.30am... that tells you the time we left! Unfortunately we were greeted with words to the effect of "your names not down, so you're not coming in", or just simply that we couldn't park till 8... Johnny also hadn't revealed his party piece t-shirt at that point.

Breakfast hunt it was then, needless to say we didn't have to head too far away and we joined some similarly like-minded folk at the golden arches for their finest fayre. The car park resembled a bit of an eclectic car meet with everything from a classic AMG merc through to a collection of Peugeot 309's heading to the RR event. Everyone then got buzzed by a whole host of mini's who were heading across to Brighton to the London to Brighton run. If a farmer hadn't turned up in his crop sprayer and taken up most of the car parking spaces then I've sure we'd have seen even more.

Breakfast (of sorts) sorted, it was past the witching hour of 8am so we headed back to Goodwood to try and park, sure enough we were let in and while the main event wasn't open still we decided to have a wander round the campsite to witness the hungover and those hastily prepping their cars...

yup we were in the right place 



There are plenty of threads depicting the show, but a few highlights for me that I've not seen elsewhere:



3.9 V8 in something that looked rather cool and probably moved along rather well... 



A classic Japanese shape with some interesting wheels that until now I had considered for the Celica... however on seeing them the initial impression was 'a bit big' for what my uses so will stick to the plan I've some up with. Talking of which, my 'new' wheels were also at the show, although as they were still stuck on something also from japan and rather rare I decided I wouldn't replace them for bricks... was tempting though 



Loved this, so much attention to detail



and the perfect car to pull off my folically challenged Vin Diesel impression in:



As mentioned in another thread, big thanks to the organising team, was a good day out and I'll certainly be keen on making a weekend of it next time. Met some familiar faces, some not so familiar and a whole lot more besides.

Well done HoTWire, bstardchild et al. your heroic efforts certainly paid of from this visitors perspective.

As folk started to drift off and make their journeys home, we decided to do the same. After dropping johnny off and popping in to see a mate with a newly acquired stag project, I even managed to get back to the workshop in time for a final coat on the axle.



Came out rather well I'd say.



Long weekend and another automotive adventure beckons - lets hope it's a productive one too. 

I worked on these when they were new  72/75 we used to pull the centre out of the steering wheel and leave a message inside !

Nice tale, made me smile anyway. 😊

Ahhh sun, sea, sand and heart attack inducing ice cream... Hockings proper ice cream to be precise, all smeared with a good dollop of clotted cream. It tastes truly amazing...


The beach wasn't bad either!


T'was a brief 3 day escape to Devon to recover from a friends wedding, celebrate the Mrs' birthday and essentially have some time out for some well-needed R&R. However it was soon back to reality for some more jobs on the house - so much for my week off with grand plans to work on the Celica. 

I did get one day to play however so what was I going to do... well essentially the messy stuff I'd been avoiding. Starting with some rather crusty brake drums while I procrastinated .


These were effectively attacked with a wire-wheel to clean off as much rubbish as I could (including at least three layers of paint!). One down...


they were then covered in primer and left to dry in the sun while I cracked on with the main job


Which was angling the car enough to allow me to get underneath to start cleaning the underside - I won't lie this is probably my least favourite job and I was severely procrastinating by this point. Still it needs to be done. (those who like a tidy work area, look away now!)


Here's what I was going to be dealing with (the exhaust did get removed...again!), and so did the arms, once they'd put up a bit of a fight!


after much swearing, sweating and covering myself in all sorts of rubbish that resulted in me looking like I'd been down a sooty chimney, I sort of achieved this... all surprisingly solid which is a result. It'll eventually all get a good coating of hydrate 80 before priming and painting, I have yet to decided on the best protection/paint yet so thoughts/suggestions welcome.


The next hit will involve trying to get in those areas that can't be accessed with a grinder and needle file, especially the rear suspension box sections which are classic dirt traps. Deep joy.

My current thinking is to use a drill with a variety of smaller wire attachments to get right in the corners but may be a case of experimenting to see what works. The alternative is to try to get hold of one of the handheld soda blasting kits for small areas but will try the cheaper option first!

While doing this I also painted the drums so they had plenty of time to dry and also finished cleaning and painting the O/S bracket for the front indicator which meant I could get that fitted on the car - starting to look almost decent if you squint a little



Last job was to fit the drums back on the rear axle - quite chuffed with how much better the axle looks compared to before. Going to have to do something about the centres though...


Another job on the list is to deal with the arms and replace the rubbers, unfortunately I ended up cutting a couple of the bolts so will need to replace those at some point too.


Boy do I wish I had booked another week off! Despite making a reasonable start on one of the jobs I was avoiding, I couldn't help feeling a little despondent with how much there is still to do, this is certainly not helped by having to snatch brief amounts of time whenever I can at the moment, meaning I'm never able to get into any kind of flow .

The joys of car restoration - perhaps my feelings will change with another go this weekend.

To be honest I quite enjoy the fixing bit, makes me feel like I've actually achieved something... Well other than the fixing of others previous bad repair attempts. Sadly have got that to come - the bottom of the rear wings are full of the hole repairers favourite weapons - P38 and P40 🙄🙈

I've been reading this over the last several days and thoroughly enjoyed it. In regards to underseal, I've recently bought everything (i think) i need from Bilt Hamber, you've already got the hydrate 80.

I've bought Electrox which is a zinc rich corrosion resistant primer and their 2 part Epoxy Mastic. Also dynax s50 for cavitites and their seam sealer. Their prices are very reasonable too. You are upto the same stage as me (stripping underseal/paint etc. Hot air gun or a butane torch (used carefully) with a scraper works well.

Good old knotwheel angle grinder attachment, file sander for hard to reach places, black scotchbrite attachment also works brilliantly at attacking old paint/rust.

Oh and bookmarked!

Glad you enjoyed catching up with my meandering musings . In truth it's been a bit of a sporadic journey so far, but that's part of the fun I guess, have to keep reminding myself to enjoy it as much as I hope to enjoy the final outcome - I've certainly met some truly fantastic folk on the way.

I do have a trio of Bilt Hamber products already; the Hydrate 80, Deox C gel and the Deox C concentrate for mixing and submerging particularly rusted parts in, however I've not used their electrox primer yet. I do have a few tins of the U-Pol equivalents but am always wary of mixing 'systems' in case there is a reaction.

Thankfully the underseal has not been too stubborn - age has played it's part in that I think. My technique so far has been a mixture of knot wheel on grinder, wire drill attachments and a needle power file kindly lent to me by a very generous individual. Unfortunately there are still some hard to reach areas that I cannot get to with any of the above so have opted to purchase a reasonably inexpensive soda blaster for those tricky spots... time will tell if it proves successful. I'll update in due course on how that goes.


Chris, many thanks for the advice. The Dinitrol cavity wax I've used in the past for the MG but wasn't aware there was an under body product also, will look order some shortly... I say shortly as I have a little bit of metal work to get on with first...

Just want to add, a blaster is a great addition to the tool box, but it won't help you with the underseal, the mediawill just bounce off, heat gun and a scrapper is the way forward.
Nick