My Ae71

[Golberg]

Just got my project AE71 on Sunday, I bought it off another member here Kebin.

 

Its a manual, and being an AE71 it has all the gear to drop a 4AGE engine into it. :P That is the overall plan.

 

Here are some photos for everybody:

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately the corolla turned out to be deceptively rusty in the rear end.

Before I went digging, the rust looked like this:

 

 

 

After digging:

 

 

 

 

There is also rust all along this seam

 

 

Obviously from those photos, the rust was "repaired" once upon a time. Don't get me wrong though, Kevin had the car for a few years in which time it just sat in front of his house and I'm sure he didn't know how bad it actually was. Still happy with the car as I did get it for a very good price especially seeing as its an AE71.

 

I need people's advice now though. What should I do about all the rust, I only pictured the left rear wheel arch, as I haven't gone into the right hand one yet, but it looks like its going to be similarly rusted. Now the main options I can see from here is to:

1. Give it all a good clean up then bog it all back up again. (I really don't think this is a good idea as I want the car to last)
   
2. Cut the arches out and get some second hand unrusted ones or if you can actually get them, replacement new arches.
   
3. Buy an old KE70 which doesn't have rust and just swap the running gear in.
   

 

Now the clauses are, I don't own a welder, have never welded and I don't I'm likely to learn any time right away. So hence, if i was to get the arches replaced somebody else would need to weld it. The other thing is, I really can't afford to spend more than $500 in fixing all this. On the bright side though, a mate of mines' dad owns a massive wrecking yard in which I have seen a whole KE70, but I don't know the status of rust. The yard hasn't opened yet, so most of the cars are whole. :)

 

Cheers for your opinions people. :P

[Medicine_Man]

It will save you a lot of time if you can repair the rust instead of having to do a whole re-shell, but if you get a nice clean bodied ke70 for a reshell it would be worth going that route..

[Golberg]

Well I had another attack at that left rear wheel arch, it'd been bogged up so much. I'm really leaning towards a reshell, the rust has gone into the panel behind the arch as well. Its also through to the boot, to add to that, I've found rust holes all along the rear beaver panel above and below the tail lights. Here are some more photos:

 

Oh and, I do actually have a lot of time on my hands right now. I'm going to go have a proper look at that KE70 tomorrow as see if its the go.

Edited January 8, 2008 by Golberg

[Golberg]

I'm in need of some advice, as you can see, my corolla is full of rust. If I were to buy a rust free AE71 but which was auto, how difficult would it be to then swap the manual into the auto? Seeing as though I'd have both cars I would definitely have all the parts to do it. What I am wondering is though, does the auto gearbox (A42 I think) have a different cross member to the T50? i.e could I sell the extra cross member later on, because someone might need it for a 4AGE conversion into a KE70? Is there anything else other than having to cut the hole in the firewall and mount the pedal which is more than just a bolt in?

 

EDIT - I thought I'd add that I'll probably end up wrecking my current one afterwards, so there should still be some useful 4AGE conversion parts, like the engine cross member, mounts etc

Edited January 24, 2008 by Golberg

[LittleRedSpirit]

Going from my own expierience, Id build it into the rusty shell first, then once you have a nice tidy package all together, Id think about reshelling it.

If you make an error or butcher something in the current shell while doing the conversion, no tears for you, as you plan to change it long term anyhow.

 

May as well bend the rusty one first. The rust looks a lot like what everyone of us has faced, I guess to make nice light car bodies Toyota used some pretty poor steel. Its hard to find a rust free 71 these days too. If you persist with the shell you have, at least to get it running, you have plenty of time to find another overrated donor car, be it ke70 or ae71.

 

Thats what I reckon anyhow.

 

For me, I see xe7x shells as somewhat expendable, so I wouldn't cry if I bent it. $500 dollars and you have a new shell, and a month of weekends and shes back in top form.

[phife]

It's a fact of life that old corollas rust, just some worse than others.

 

Agree that you should work on this one until you find a good shell if you want.

Anyway this is a youtube star and should be kept alive :)

[Golberg]

Cheers guys for the opinions. :)

 

You certainly make a valid point, the only consideration I can see is that I do plan on getting this thing rego'd which means I'll probably want to make sure everything is in the shell I want to rego so I don't have to muck around re registering it after a reshell.

 

Also, I'm heading towards a doing a pre-apprenticeship at TAFE in panel beating for next year. I wouldn't actually want to work in the industry, I'd just love to have the skills and hopefully I could use their machinery to fix up the rust on my rolla. So we'll see where that leads.

 

For now though, I'm gunna go ahead with the engine conversion (once I get the remaining parts together) and get this beast running as is.

[Queen20v]

Go for some bolt on flares, I reckon! Live with it until you're able to purchase a new shell, etc but bolt on flares would look sweet as with a fat set of neg offset rims... :)

[Golberg]

I thought I'd make an update seeing as its been a while. Not much has happened on the rust front, although I did grind off all the paint on the front lip of the bonnet and on the underside. The rust wasn't extremely bad under there, there is one hole but its rusted all along the fold so I'll probably just be leaning toward a new bonnet in the future.

 

The front end is looking a little more complete than it was when I first got it, the headlights match now(and have bulbs) and I've got a passenger side parker too. Lights courtesy of Gilly :yes:

 

But then when I had a go at the bonnet rust, it ended up like this :P

 

I personally think it looks surprisingly mean without its bonnet and lights.

 

On the mechanical front, I replaced the water pump on the 4AC yesterday. The internal seal was gone and it was pissing out water, a nice rusty colored water. So after a good flushing of the radiator and a legend bloke at Repco selling me a brand new water pump for $44 as opposed to its RRP of $114 I ended up with a watertight engine :y:

 

You've gotta love new stuff, even if it was for a 4AC

 

I don't think I've mentioned yet, but at the same time as buying the car off Kevin I grabbed the Small port 4AGE he had too:

 

It came with a big port loom and computer as it was originally in an AE82 twinky which had its engine replaced with this small port. The combination does apparently work, but being the type of person I am, I decided to run it on its proper ECU, so I bought a small port ECU and loom elsewhere. Once I received it though I realised I would also be in need of a small port dizzy as the big port one on it was only a 3 wire. :(

 

Last weekend though, along came a perfect opportunity for more parts as member Matt-e30 was selling a small port in pieces for $150 so I went up and grabbed it.

 

 

It came with a couple of boxes of the other pieces for it including a dizzy(a little beaten up), an ECU and loom(yes, I now have 3) and to my surprise what appears to be most of the RWD 4AGE water gear. Here's a photo for you:

 

 

The only things which I seem to be missing from it are, the piece which connects the head to the water pump and the pulley wheel. So if anybody has either of them I'd be interested in taking them off your hands.

 

In other news, I've traded my 4AGE intake manifold for a cut-n-shut one with a member on AE86DC but I've yet to receive (only sent on tues from Queensland). And I've also got a T-Series diff heading my way along with tail shaft and some AE86 struts amongst other bits and pieces.

 

Other than that though, the plan for the immediate future is to clean up all the rust and do it relatively well, then fill everything back up again. Once that is done. Get it registered, and then start my engine conversion. Later on in the year I'll probably be cutting out the rust and fixing it properly once I'm getting closer to end of my panel beating course at TAFE. :P Other than that, who knows whats going to happen.

 

I've just realised how massive this update is, I'll try do it more often in the future

 

EDIT - Fixed image links

Edited April 6, 2008 by Golberg

[anastasios]

so youve started a panel beating course? thats awsome my 70 has rust and i would love to learn how to do it, how come u want to change the engine?

[Teddy]

Lookin good man :P

[marvis]

Nice.

Hows that rust doing?

[Golberg]

I want to change the engine because I wanted a good moderately challenging project where I'd end up with a quick car which was RWD and didn't cost a huge amount on fuel, so hence AE71 + 4AGE seemed the way to go. In terms of rust, not much has changed but hopefully I'll have another attack on it this weekend.

 

Well I spent the day at TAFE today, not actually at classes but ripping the chassis wiring out of an AE90 Corolla (6A-F) which they had lying around. Took me about 4 hours to get it all out. The reason I wanted it was so I had the wiring to connect the lights and horn etc up to the 4AGE fuse box amongst other things so I can ditch the original box.

 

My pickings:

 

 

All the wiring I have now put together (3 4AGE engine looms, 1 AE90 chassis loom, 2 coil/igniters, 3 ECUs, 2 fuse boxes and some other bits and pieces):

 

 

Turns out to be quite a lot doesn't it.

[Kebin[RL]]

That last pic is what my dreams are made out of :P

[superbmobile]

nice buy mate that rusts nothing you should see my ae86. :P