My Celica

1980 RA42 Celica Coupe

I have put a lot of work into this Celica.  I own one other just like it.  It is a 1981 RA42 Celica Coupe.  Difference is that it has a moon roof and a defunct 22R engine in it instead of a working 20R.  When I start working on it, I will post information about it also.

My Celica from a rear right view.

This is its best side.  Even with the faded paint on the trunk and roof.  Once I get my air compressor I will be working on building a paint shop in my garage to fix that.  This picture like the rest on here right now is out of date in that it does not show the new rims I have put on it.  I got a set of rims off of a 280Z in a junk yard.  I will be painting those also to match the car.

My Celica from the right front.

Same side, but from the front.  Still looks pretty good except for the rims and paint.

Shadowy view of my Celica from the rear left.

Mercifully this picture does not show the damage to the right side.  It is limited to the front right fender though.  I will show that in the next picture.

View of damage on the front right of car.

Here is the front right of my car.  A while back I threw a brake pad in traffic and even though I was only going about 5MPH at the time, I still smashed in a bit of my front end.  The fender, headlights and frame were pushed back about 3 inches.  I took a frame kit to it and straightened it out quite a bit but there is still about another inch to go to get the frame back straight.  I will do that before painting it.  I am also planning to replace this fender when I paint it.  It is though in a lot better condition than when I got in the accident.  I took a set of body hammers to it and put it back in the general shape it was supposed to be in and replaced all the light fixtures.  You can tell the frame is still slightly off because the headlights are nearly even with each other.  The inside (bright) light is supposed to be out further.
My Celica's engine.
Nice and clean, but stock and not too terribly exciting; my engine compartment.   This is before I patched the cold air intake, so the black air tube in the top right has been replaced with a steel flex tube.  Thanks to Mother's metal polish for the shiny metals under the hood, particularly the vale cover.  Modifications shown here include just the Accell Super Coil and the metal braided hoses that nearly cost me my engine.  Notice on the top of the valve cover are two hoses that are metal braided.  I could not find any speed shops that carried hoses like that so I got smart and took some washing machine hose that was metal braided and cut them to size.  Well, the rubber inside that tubing was not meant to stand up to the heat and vapors that the engine produced and it got all stretched out inside the metal braiding and ended up folding over on itself.  Seeing as one of the hoses is from the PCV valve, the sudden lack of air flow through the hose caused an increase in oil pressure that caused MANY MANY oil leaks.  I went through two oil pan gaskets, an intake gasket patch, and a new dipstick before realizing the cause of the problem.  I replaced the hoses with heater hoses and patched what I could of the leaks and I am down from over a quart a day to a quart every two weeks in leaks.  I will be replacing the head soon and at that time I plan on replacing all the other gaskets on the engine as well.  Moral:  Only use hoses made for the car.

Future plans:

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