Matt's Ke17 Sprinter (56k Go Make A Coffee)

[whatthe?]

Hi all, saw this on ebay 30 minutes after the auction started and after a very quick call to the seller I hit the “buy it now” button and she was mine.

 

She’s a 1970 KE17 Sprinter, owned by only two owners for the last 20 years. In the 7 years the most recent previous owner had it it’s been almost completely restored, with a bare metal respray and completely retrimmed interior. It has KE20 disc brake front end and KE20 full height seats which have be re-upholstered to suit the rest of the interior.

 

Unfortunately the paint prep wasn’t the best, and there’s a few bubbles/humidity blisters coming through. The doors and guards have been pretty extensively repaired so I'd like to replace them at some stage. The bonnet and bootlid are rust free, but have a few little dents that will need to be tidied up. The engine bay was left untouched during the re-paint and then sprayed rattle can black afterwards, so it could use the engine pulled out and paintwork tidied up.

 

Wouldn’t be any fun if there wasn’t anything for me to do though!

 

Here a few of the features from the previous owner’s ebay ad;

 

Engine - 3K stage 2 cam, 40 thou over rebore, flat top pistons, double valve springs, fully worked head, 2 x 40mm webers, extractors, electronic dizzy, electric fuel pump, all work done 4yrs ago, only done 5000kms since rebuild.

 

Body - Back to bare metal respray and all rust removed 3yrs ago and painted in Polar White, small bubbles in paint above drivers door otherwise in very good condition.

 

Interior - New carpet, new hoodlining, new doors rubbers, all seats and door trims re-upholstered in Black vinyl, CD player head unit fitted inside glovebox with amp and 6 stacker in boot.

 

Wheels - Brand new Superlites with near new tyres, front 13x5.5 rear 13x7.5.

 

Gearbox - Split case Celica 5 speed, rebuilt same time as engine rebuild, new clutch fitted with lightened flywheel.

 

Suspension - KE20 disc brake front end with coil-over shocks, new ball joints and wheel bearings, rear suspension standard with heavy-duty shocks.

 

Now hunting for an undented KE1x front bumper, a tacho cluster, centre console and an original steering wheel if anyone has any of these things for sale

 

Here's some pics

 

Edited October 19, 2009 by whatthe?

[Chobis]

Hubba Hubba Hubba.......... That is Delicious!

 

Are people still on dial-up? Gawd. There's not enough coffee in the world to put up with that anymore.

[philbey]

Madness. I love it.

 

That's not a sprinter dash cluster in there by the looks of it - I'm pretty sure they're all brown, and I reckon the 17's had the tacho dash with 3 gauge faces in it.

[36panvan]

damn thats sexy, very very sexy

 

that interior looks clean and comfortable :)

 

congrats on the pickup i bet your stoked with it

[whatthe?]

Madness. I love it.

 

That's not a sprinter dash cluster in there by the looks of it - I'm pretty sure they're all brown, and I reckon the 17's had the tacho dash with 3 gauge faces in it.

 

Entirely possible, I got 3 clusters with it, two of which are faux woodgrain brown (one of which is in km/h too). I did however think that even with 17s only the SL variant got the tacho cluster? I could be wrong, still trying to get as much info on these cars as I can

[67Rolla-Ken]

WOW..... I like, I want!

 

Looks magic, great work.

[philbey]

Yeh, you could be right, the tacho cluster might have been SL's only. The woodgrain ones are the sprinter ones for sure, at least KE15.

[canna]

I just made a mess on my keyboard

Edited October 19, 2009 by canna

[silverra23]

Cool car.. excellent buying :)

[JiP]

Wow dude VERY nice find. I'm pretty sure those seats are not from a KE2x but they've done a great job making them match. Plus those headrests look removable and removable head rests didn't come in till the update KE55 in 1980.

 

So apart from those parts you are after what do you plan to do to her? Full respray? Will she be a daily?

[whatthe?]

Thanks for all the comments guys, I'm very happy with her. Always wanted one but never thought I'd get to own one, theyre just too hard to find!

 

Wow dude VERY nice find. I'm pretty sure those seats are not from a KE2x but they've done a great job making them match. Plus those headrests look removable and removable head rests didn't come in till the update KE55 in 1980.

 

So apart from those parts you are after what do you plan to do to her? Full respray? Will she be a daily?

 

Yeah, probably a full respray at some stage. Take it back to metal again and prep it properly. It wont be a daily driver so it doesnt matter if it takes a while to get it right.

 

Wouldnt mind getting into a few motorsports events like Gav one day....

 

I also have another project (1985 MA61 supra) that's taken 3 1/2 years so far (pretty much a ground up rebuild into a dedicated sport compact class drag racing vehicle) so I'll probably get that finished and just collect parts for the sprinter as they come up in the meantime

[olskool]

Man, that is an awesome car. It looks really clean and everything that is done to it definitely keeps with the era. :P :) I also really like the foggy's on the front.

 

Well done on an awesome buy. :)

[seabiscuit]

Wow, I'd be very happy with that! :P

 

Nice shopping :)

[camerondownunder88]

Hi,

I saw this on ebay AWESOME car. You will enjoy this one. And it has some very tastefull mods.

 

But can we get some pictures of inside the trans tunnel? I wanna see how they fitted the T50 gear box as I know a KE70 K50 needs a few hammer taps to squeeze it in so would be interested to see if a T50 fits or needs hammering.

 

Also with your seats there stock.

 

KE15/17 had removable head rests as an optional extra. So Jip KE30/55 were not the first to get them.

But there was a lot of differences from KE15/17 SE to SL sprinters. Some are listed below:

 

KM/H speedo was optional in the KE15/17 so makes life easier if you have it mine has MPH :)

 

Dash sprinter dashes are fake wood grain in finish. ONLY SL sprinters got a tacho dash SE and just sprinter (3 types of KE1X sprinter SE, SL, and jsut a sprinter type) so if you don't have a tacho dash it was originally prob an SE sprinter.

 

SL sprinters was stock with front disc brakes so if the original owner up graded to them again prob a good sign it is an SE sprinter. Also SL sprinters were released with 2 types of front disc calipers different brand run same pad so look out for that.

 

And steering wheel SL got wood grain, SE optional wood grain jsut a sprinter was the black plastic normal one. Also the Sports model KE11 could get a tacho dash adn wood grain steering wheel factory jsut point that out so not only sprinters got the good parts.

 

And if you still have the original KE17 motor there a fair bit different to a normal KE motor wont list here atm but hang on to the stuff.

Keep us updated with the car.

 

Cheers

Cameron

Edited October 20, 2009 by camerondownunder88

[whatthe?]

Hi,

I saw this on ebay AWESOME car. You will enjoy this one. And it has some very tastefull mods.

 

But can we get some pictures of inside the trans tunnel? I wanna see how they fitted the T50 gear box as I know a KE70 K50 needs a few hammer taps to squeeze it in so would be interested to see if a T50 fits or needs hammering.

 

Also with your seats there stock.

 

KE15/17 had removable head rests as an optional extra. So Jip KE30/55 were not the first to get them.

But there was a lot of differences from KE15/17 SE to SL sprinters. Some are listed below:

 

KM/H speedo was optional in the KE15/17 so makes life easier if you have it mine has MPH :)

 

Dash sprinter dashes are fake wood grain in finish. ONLY SL sprinters got a tacho dash SE and just sprinter (3 types of KE1X sprinter SE, SL, and jsut a sprinter type) so if you don't have a tacho dash it was originally prob an SE sprinter.

 

SL sprinters was stock with front disc brakes so if the original owner up graded to them again prob a good sign it is an SE sprinter. Also SL sprinters were released with 2 types of front disc calipers different brand run same pad so look out for that.

 

And steering wheel SL got wood grain, SE optional wood grain jsut a sprinter was the black plastic normal one. Also the Sports model KE11 could get a tacho dash adn wood grain steering wheel factory jsut point that out so not only sprinters got the good parts.

 

And if you still have the original KE17 motor there a fair bit different to a normal KE motor wont list here atm but hang on to the stuff.

Keep us updated with the car.

 

Cheers

Cameron

 

Good info, thanks for that. I'll get some pics of the trannie tunnel this weekend. Want to get under it and have a good look around anyway. From what i could see from parking it on a kerb and crawling under it before I bought it, it looks very neat.

 

On the cluster, the one fitted is black and MPH, but I got a really nice conditon woodgrain unit with Km/h. If I can't get the tacho cluster I'm currently negotiating with a guy on I'll put that one in.

 

Not sure if the engine is a 3K-B or not (think that's what youre referring to in your last point?), any way of telling apart from not being able to get gaskets? Interestingly the rego papers have a 4K listed (engine number starting with 4Kxxxxxx) but the engine in the car is definitely a 3K, as the engine number starts with 3K.