Project Mango, '72 TE27 Corolla Rustoration

[tonny240]

OOOOO man i <3 oldschool

[JDMsneakerz]

thats awesome!

[efrue57]

....

[thewirelesssolu]

nice rebuild

[ta22lt]

Nice project, I can hardly wait to see the next set of pictures!

[accordh22v7]

nice

[viera]

man i wish i had the time and money to do me one

[RamoncilloSI]

coming along nicely!!!

[Deuce1]

We need new pics!!

[EKREY]

any progress?

[95_civic_gsr]

Originally Posted by Nachtmensch

congrats on those finds! hopefully you never crack that windshield

Ahhhh, don't say such things! That would be horrible.

Originally Posted by JDM_Matter

Where do you guys find all the parts for this car????

I think he is part bloodhound. When he found this car in the junk yard, we were a quarter mile away when he saw just the roof line. I had no idea what he was excited about until I turned the corner and saw it.

He finds these parts all over the place. I think some parts are from Okinawa, the Philippines, Australia,... he should keep track of that, because it is almost as interesting to know how far the parts have come to make this car.




Thanks to everyone for their continued support and kind regards. When the car is in these stages it seem like all work with no end in sight. The heap begins to look more like scrap metal than anything resembling a car. It is very motivating to read that people are in fact interested in these cars, and that you are following this build.





On a side note. My cousin Lee, (the one doing all this work) has taken a short break from this project because his job has required him to put in serious amounts of overtime. Its also an awesome project. I can't put up all the pictures, because they don't pertain to the JDMU. However, I thought I'd share the beginning and end pictures, so you can see why this Project Mango has stalled completely out.


1940 Ford Truck


These are the only before pictures I have of the truck. It was in very poor, rusted out condition.










His next project at work is this car. Another complete restore from the ground up. Hopefully this one will continue on time so it doesn't eat into his off work hours again.






I have 150 updated pictures of the Corolla. Its just going to take some time to sort through, re-size and upload all of them.

[Wraith]

Damn this is what I get for being away from JDMU! I some how missed this build thread until today! This build is going to be awesome I cant wait for more progress pictures!!

[95_civic_gsr]

How about some updates of the actual Project Mango?



Just another picture of the car in its current state. The front fenders have been ground down to bare metal for rust inspection. Therefore the entire car is covered in the old paint powder from the fenders.






I guess the junk yard crew is required to punch holes in the gas tanks of cars so that they don't explode when they crush them, or for environmental reasons. What ever the reason, did they have to punch two huge holes in the gas tank? None the less, they have been welded up. As of right now the tank still needs sealer poured inside if there are any gaps left over from the welds or other rust spots not found. I believe it will also guard against future rusting inside the tank. These tanks are going to become harder to find, especially if salvage yard workers keep punching holes in them.





This is the location of the gas tank. It fits right up behind the back seat, just like it is pictured above.






Above the gas tank seems to be the only area on any of these cars that was able to withstand the years of wear and tear, and not only retain the base coat color, but also the clear coat paint as well. This is the color that this Corolla was originally painted. The new color will be close to this color, but my cousin has found a new one to use. Lee (the car's owner) said he found the deepest color red he has ever come across on a motor cycle tank, and that is the color red this corolla will be.





This is the donor trunk from the green Corolla all primed up and installed. The reason it is used was found when the paint was removed from the original trunk pictured below.






Two nice surprises in the form of rust spots lurked beneath the paint. This is a common location on these corolla trunks to rust out. Sometimes you have to grind off all the paint to find everything wrong with a body panel. Sometimes you get lucky and everything is great, and sometimes you find problems like this.






The original Corolla Coupe Deluxe emblem.






The difficult to find rare 5-speed Coupe emblem that will be going in its place.







This is the rear window seal for the Corolla. In 1971 they used metal in the middle of the gasket to add strength and styling to the car. In the year of this car, 1972 they switched almost everything over to plastic, which added nothing The plastic has lost all of its chrome and is peeling up. Close up below.





In Japan the windshield and rear window gasket had no chrome accent piece. Fortunately Lee located some JDM front and rear window gaskets that are solid black! So he doesn't need to search high and low to find replacement trim for this section of car. It might have been stylish for the chrome accents in the 70s but I think the blacked out JDM gasket will look much better.

[95_civic_gsr]

More updates to the project. The engine bay had lots of rust towards the front of the car. The rest of the bay just needed some cleaning up. I had pictures of the pressure washer, but they were lost to a bad hard drive. Its not that you really need to see someone pressure washing a car, but some times its nice to share how much work actually goes into building up a car. Its also helpful to see all the little things that a project like this requires before you dive into your own project car. That way you know what to expect and aren't overcome with the amount of work.

Before: (notice all the grease at the back, and all the rust at the front)

After: (pressure washing, grinding, blasting welding and priming)

The rear of the engine bay looks pretty good as far as being rust free. The entire front end was taken apart and media blasted. Then after parts were welded in and holes were patched, etch primer was used. High build primer finished up this section for now.



This is the battery tray area before and after:

Not much can be distinguished in this picture except that it looks rusty. That is because there is no battery tray, it disintegrated into nothing. If you look close you can see the top portion of the bracket with dust on it. That is the only part not eaten away. You can see what its supposed to look like in the next picture.



Well almost. When this section is finished it will be painted. But for now, this is what the structure should look like. These parts can't be purchased anymore from a parts store. This bracket was cut out of the green donor car and cleaned up as best as possible. You can still see the rust pitting marks in the bracket. There is still enough metal there to make for a solid mount, and this section will be covered by the battery tray, so appearances are not as important to this section.




Another before picture that isn't so close up that you can't see what you are looking at.



Moving to the other side before and after:

Here you see all the emissions equipment. The rust isn't as bad on this side because battery acid didn't leak all over on this side. But that bracket still had to come out in order to get the rust out from under it.


All primed up and ready to go.



Originally this bracket held the emissions parts. I believe that is the charcoal canister. We will not be needing these parts anymore.



But this bracket also just happens to fit just perfectly for this electronic ignition. This ignition was donated from a 1985 Corolla. Hopefully it still works as currently it sits untested.




An after market air conditioning system was installed in the car before Lee purchased it. The installer cut holes through the firewall in the wrong area. Lee is a stickler for factory appearances. Also they had to go through extra work to make the hoses fit in that location. If you look just to the left of those holes, right about the center line. You can see a dimple poked out towards us. If you look about the same distance again to the left on the same horizontal line, you can see another dimple. Those dimples were put there as a guide for the factory workers to cut holes for the a/c lines. That is where the lines will be run in the future.

Also take note of the condition of the fuel lines. The brake lines were dirtier and more rusty. They are shown cleaned up in the next picture.




Steel wool and lots of patience to polish up these old brake lines. They look to be in good enough condition to use again.




Another angle close up, showing the lack of rust.

[95_civic_gsr]

While preparing the hood is a large body panel finished, it just doesn't say progress to me like having the fenders and doors ready to go.


The paint needed to be ground off to reveal any hidden rust spots lurking beneath. These fenders look to be in prime condition. They don't show any signs of serious body work.


Since fender flares will be used on this project, the front fenders will have to be bent up and body worked considerably. A pair of fenders in this condition are too rare to waste on a project that will destroy them, so these will be prepped out and saved for when they are needed for the other all original corolla. The fenders from the green donor car will be used instead.




The door looks to be in prime condition as well.



The above pictures were taken three weeks after they had been ground down to bare metal. This spray was used to keep rust off of the bare metal until etch primer can be used.



Just a close up of what was used, for those of you doing rust preventative measures yourself. I believe this product is similar to Ospho, but is in a more concentrated professional form.



Before picture of the front valence.


After picture of the front valence, completely body worked out, primed ready to have finishing sanding work.



Here are the fiber glass reproduction fender flares. The original fender flares from Toyota were metal. If anyone had a set of metal fender flares, please contact me. In the mean time, these fiberglass replicas will have to do.



Here is a before shot of the passenger side fender that will be used in conjunction with the fender flares. As you can see, there is considerable damage done to them.


The other side looks as though someone got mad and beat the top of the fender in.



Here you can see the top fender on the car is the original fender for this car. The bottom fender has been modified to fit the fender flares. The main difference is that the Corolla fenders with flares did not have the style lines going around the wheel well. They also did not need any part of the body flared out like the original fender has. This requires that line to be pushed back out, in order to allow fitment of the fender flares.



This is a close up of the style lines and molded in flare that had to be removed.



Just in case you don't see what a style line is, it is now pointed out. Just below that is the flare.



You can see that there is a significant amount of the flare that needs to be removed. There is also lots of work required to take the style line out for a smooth flush mount of the new fender flare.



Here is the fender that already has all that work done to it. The top of the wheel well had to be rolled under, because otherwise it would stick out beneath the external fender flares.



The fender has a green tint due to the etch primer used in rust prevention.



I threw in an action shot, since everything seems to be before and after the fact. Pictured is grinding smooth the welds left from closing off the emblem holes.



Test fitting the fender flares. The gap looks good all the way around where the flare meets the fender.



From this angle you can see where the fender needed to be rolled up under the flare, so it is not an unsightly protrusion into the wheel well. This angle also starts to show the aggressiveness that the fender flares adds to the car.



Thankfully the rear fender flare doesn't require as much work as the front flares do. They fit almost flush all the way around in stock form.



There is a small section towards the front of the car that will need some body work to make everything flow smoothly. This is minor though in comparison with the front fenders.