Monday 27 January 2014

4Runner again: Recent progress..

My 1984 YN60 Toyota 4Runner SR5 - 3 months later.
Just a handful of update progress since the last post, which can be found here.

Photos are flattering as usual, but the car really is an improvement on before..
Polished from top to bottom to get a little shine into the remaining paint; tidied up some rust, the drivers seat, seatbelt, cargo area panels, and so on..

You're going to have to try and ignore that colour match...!

I still love this thing without the roof...

..and the factory chrome 16's..

...and those stripes?

 Yep, properly awesome in my eyes!

No more rips, no more frayed belt, and the 6-foot crack in the dash gone. 
..Throw in autobarn's finest $10 floormats, and its basically brand new amirite? ha


Anyway, that's all for now.
Just gradually cleaning and fixing everything. Keeps me busy...



Wednesday 22 January 2014

Leisurely Levin..

Not quite Takumi's Sprinter.. but classic panda paint, and a very sweet car nonetheless!

An early (1984) AE85 Toyota Corolla Levin SR hatch..

As usual; Corolla Levin as apposed to a Sprinter Trueno thanks to its upright front end with fixed headlights, among other details..

..while the AE85 chassis code, and 'SR' model designation means this is a single-cam, 1.5litre, 3A-U powered car - an engine usually found in more pedestrian early-80's Toyota's, and strangely, the powerplant of the AW10 MR-2.

 ..speaking of strange - how about the purple seat bases? I love it.. and along with the rest of the car, that interior is near-enough perfect.


Always refreshing to see a neat, stock, AE85/6; particularly when towering over its skinny little wheel/tyre combo..!
3A-U power may mean 'anywhere it goes it gets there eventually'... but light weight, RWD, and a 5speed to row along, means it can still be a laugh! :)








Thursday 16 January 2014

Neo.

SSR EX-C Neo.
..15"
..1988
..A rarer find among the Mesh/Fin/Scope of the EX-C family. These ones are NOS, and as sharp as the day they were made!

Ingredients to assemble the wheel...

All these older SSR's conveniently come with two sets of wheel nuts  (12x1.25, and 12x1.5)

Centre cap, Centre-cap-centre-cap (..coin), and a key.

 Decals for the lip, and face of one of the spokes.

Exploded view just in case..

 Threaded collar screwed on.

Centre plate slips over the collar..

The locking/ratcheting cap. As usual, I just bloody love these.
Anyway - complete with rubber O-ring in the machined groove..

 Cap on, no coin..

..and assembled!

These are just super nice; and have a finish a level above even other SSR's of the same era.

Always a sucker for a machined face wheel..

Mirror finish polished lips; still shining a quarter of a century later..

Yep - September 1988. Would surely have to be early days for this design; but I just see too few to know!

This particular set is a 6.5", 7" stagger.. and would have looked killer on an early champagne/beige S13..!

Finished off with an interesting pad design, which definitely appears to have been done with 5-stud fitments in mind. First I'd seen of it!


Done. Love these!


Next up will be another car - I promise!








Monday 6 January 2014

Early CRX..

As I've said before; I just never see these early CRX's around...

...which is a shame, as they're so cool. Small, light, and a twincam four? Despite how cool they were, they just got overshadowed by later, even cooler Honda's..

So what is it exactly? A 1984 (AS) Honda Ballade Sports CR-X Si (and a particularly nice example at that) - first generation of the Civic-based economy/sports compact car, manufactured between 1983 and 1987.

The exterior on this one is very much left as Honda made it, with the exception of the wheels. Replacing what were possibly the awesome unequal-spacing four-hole alloys, are these (BBS copy) Volk/Rays Superfine Mesh. I actually owned an identical set a few years back, that were complete right down to the locknut tool. Definitely don't see them too much.. even though I somehow had another (lower offset) set at the same time... ha

the slightly scruffy ZC twin-cam four. Very early days for this motor, and its 1.6litres produced a whisker over 100kw - no mucking about for 1984!

The awesomeness of the factory seat actually makes the bride in the drivers position a shame.. and the overall cleanliness of the interior easily makes my eyes ignore the Zebra floormats!

Just look at that profile!

Another fun classic, that I wish I saw more of...