puzzle man's AE92 Corolla sedan

[puzzle man]

just sighed up, saying hi and showing my car

car:AE 92 Corolla
motor:4AFC
heaps of custom work all done by me




this this some of the custom work Ive done to it..
painting my wheels..
this is what my wheels looked like.

i wanted to leave the lip polished, and make the inside white.
i got this primer from bunnings TOP STUFF only $11 a can it so thin. normally primers are very thick in a can.
i needed 2 cans of primer and 2 cans of clear. and a can of degreaser

so then i got to cleaning the wheels the better you clean the better the primer will stick.i soked the wheels in degreaser and used a old tooth brush to clean them.

then i had to fix any chips and scratches

after i saned the bits.

you have to feather out the chips.
i then went over with sand paper the bits that were going to be painted.

then sprayed with wax and grease remover.
then i taped and put paper over it. and hit it with some paint..

iv put about 3 cotes of paint on them.
im just leting it "bake" in the sun and then i will put some clear on
as you might be abell to see the primer is very matt

And after a cote of clear..


and wile waiting for the clear to dry i found some plastic primer so thought i would spray the caps red like the car. so taped them up and..

3 cotes of clear latter...


and the center caps just paint ATM will clear later...

put the wheels on this morning and i think there pretty snazzy
the caps are the some red as the car (Rio red)

[puzzle man]

I'm working on my dash.
I wanted some thing LIKE this just were the small gages are.

this is what i had and wanted the gages to face me more eg on an angle.

so what I'm going to do is cut some pool pipe 560mm that the gages fit very sung in.

wile i was going to do this i thought i would fix my first cup i made.


so i cut the pipe at an angle (i just guessed the angle i needed)

and all 3 in there

started glassing..
i just put a little hot glue to hold the cups..

and i decided that the gages should be spreed out more rather than bunched up. i added the plastic i cut off the end to the middle bits to make it stronger.
and made shore the gages looked right.

and the 1st bit of glass

just put a little glass on the back to strengthen it..

i sanded the fiberglass a little and then started bogging it up..

theres a lot of bog as this is were the shape will come from.
all so sanded the crack in the old cup back a bit and bogged that up as well..

some people have PMed me and asked how i made the 1st cup so here a little run down no pic sorry i just sort of put it together.
its the same as how I'm making the new one just one bit of pipe about 560mm its from bunnings its actually pool filter pipe just take your gage along to make shore it fits snugly and then fiberglass the pipe to hold it then bog it up... easy hay.
STILL bogging and sanding but looking better..




just about finished sanding had to put a little more bog in some holes.
it looks a bit ruff because i used 2 different bogs but it nice and smooth.

and finished the cup just have to paint.

put a thin layer of paint on. its primer sealer when it drys its like the plastic use to be a Little ruff (it hides bad bits)
i do this so if theres bit that was bad i can just sand a little.
when this drys i will be putting about 2 more cotes on then sand smooth then put a clear cote on it...





added clear... and finished



I'm just sorting out the wiring today will post pic when in the car..
well it may have taken me all day and night to finish wiring and putting back in but its all done now...

just some more pic because i know you all love pic and
i thought because i had the weal off i would get some pic.


and thought i would point out a little stuff up (be for someone else dose )
this one i did not square off the hazed switch.
and can you see a like bubble above the switch?
that was hardened resin that was so hard to sand back but took
it back heaps and thought the paint would cover it up but alas it did not.



and here i did not round the edge that much as i wanted and i
scuffed the paint when i was puting it back in.


all in all I'm REALLY happy with it.
it did take a bit of time (manly sanding) but had fun making it.

it cost me all up id say about $24-$26 as i had most of the stuff in the garage from last time.

[puzzle man]

this was my attempt at making a custom strut brace...
well here is my attempt.....

this is what i wanted to do..


the AE92 has to big pipes on each side (passenger and drivers side)
inside the vent (fire wall) up top
i was thinking of runing a 36mm thick bar from one side to the other
then ad the rest to it...eg the triangulating thing..
but ran in to some problems

can't go straight across not enough clearance between the air filter and hood and my wiper motor arm was in the way for the bar right across from passenger and drivers side.
so we made a plate to go on to the fire wall bit and fabricated two little things to go round the top of the strut.
I will take some more pic if eny one wants them i might do a little write up but i didn't take the camera with me so no "in the process pic"
and before eny one says

some smart ass dick wrote:er why didn't just get a sx/gti one..

this is why..
old water pipe: $0
old bits of steal:$0
having a brother in-law as a master fabricator: priceles.....

[puzzle man]

hi guys i replaced my speedo lights with LEDS didn't see the problem some of you were having with it lighting up specific areas like a spotlight. I used these LEDS that I found they have concave lenses, which helps disribute the light more evenly then the regular ones that are avaliable. This picture shows the bulb near a piece of perspex, from how I see it the light beam hits the perspex and then is re-directed into the area of the speedo. There are 4 LEDS that can be replaced with 3 that are used to light up the speedo area and a 4th one which is used for the battery light. I only replaced the 3 that are used for the speedo. I used red LEDS but you can also find them in yellow, green and blue I purchased mine from Pep's Auto but you can get them from Autobarn aswell. They are rougly around $10-12 for 2 LEDS, they are like a wedge style globe - the same as the ones that go in your indicators. One point to remember if your thinking of doing this is to undo your speedo cable from the engine bay.



While I had everything out I also decided to paint my speedo surround. I used a plastic primer, then several coats of colour and a clear just to give it a glossier, brighter look.



This is everything all put back together, and lit up at night.


had a day off so thought i would pull my dash apart agen...
because i got a new tacho and it looked
tops but my red dash did not match so i wanted to try the white LEDS...
and took some pic ..
the is the speedo cable some people were asking about..

the brassy looking thing is what you have to undo..

now went looking in my garage and pulled out a white pack i had from awhile ago
there was only 2 so went looking in my bag of trick and fond a convex one
so i got some 80 grit sand paper and ruffed it up (so the light would distribute better)

then put it all back 1 point i will make is when you put the LEDS in BEFORE you put all the dash back together make shore the LEDS work if there not working all you have to do is turn them around.
all finished and only took about 1/2 hr

[puzzle man]

just thought i would put this up as you can do this to most FWD cars

Had a few people interested in how I modified my gear shift so thought I’d put it up and let you guys have a look.



I actually opted for buying a second hand gear shift from Pick and Pay less so if I destroyed it, it wouldn’t matter.

The object of the whole process is to move the ball which is the pivot point of the shifter up which increases the throw down the bottom thus shortening the movement made by your hand at the top. As you can see I didn’t go sick I’ve only moved the ball up about 3cm which is plenty and makes a big difference moving it up any more would make it difficult to distinguish correct gears and have good control and also increases the chance of snapping the lower area of the shifter.







Firstly removing the gearshift, I just removed by gear boot to allow access to the area but you can remove the plastic surround which extends up to the centre consol. After this there are 4 nuts and bolts which actually hold the shifter in place, you obviously need to remove these but the key here is not to drop anything unless you have really small hands or a younger sibling on hand, I on the other hand had to use pointy nose plyers. One point for those of you who drop bits and think it’s ok to leave them there don’t or you’ll end up with an annoying rattle and you’ll have to pull it apart again to fish them out. After you remove the nuts and bolts the metal surround that they are holding on should lift off the shifter and then you need to move the shifter into 1st or 3rd gear to focus on the small wire circles just underneath (see picture) You need to insert pointy nose plyers one side into each circle and open the plyers out to extend the space between them enough to allow you to move the shifter up releasing the ball at the very end of it.





Ok now you have it out of the car you’ll notice that you have the metal surround which contains a plastic bush and also a plastic piece that is inserted from underneath into the metal surround which keeps the metal ball in place and flush against the plastic bush. Once you remove these you have two options on how to move the ball, you can either heat the metal using an oxi torch or something similar if you have it or you can beat the living crap out of it with a hammer (tool of love) like we had to do.



I had my brother in law help me, so he moved it up little bit it still seemed sturdy so I installed it back in the car and tested the throw to see if and how much more it need to be moved. After we achieved the desired throw which ended up being just above where the teeth etched into the metal finish, you can move onto welding. I went with a full weld rather then just trying to tack it and I also went both the top and bottom of the ball.





This is where you guys gain some insight, when I went to re-install the new shifter I realised because we had raised the ball this extended the length of the lower area which resulted in it hitting the metal plates below what would be the completed gear mechanism, stopping it from accessing the gears correctly. We tried just using washers underneath the surround to raise the whole piece up but this resulted in the plastic piece which is inserted from underneath as mentioned before falling out which still results in the gear shift falling back down – same problem again. To rectify this my brother in-law constructed a new metal plate



which I must say turned out pretty damn good to install underneath the completed unit to keep the plastic in place allowing the unit to be raised up as much as needed to let it move unrestricted. With the thickness of the plate we chose to also add 10mm washers to give the extra height we desired.







By the end of it all we had shortened the throw of the shift from 1st to 2nd and 3rd to 4th from 130mm to 74mm and it looks something like this.


for the OLD and NEW
click the bottom pic on this page
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/727141/3

[nam]

wow, i wish i were able to custom make things like you do

[Sp33dY]

Not bad ..... top marks for all the DIY

I literally lol'd at the puzzles on the side of the car

[Marc]

Hmmmmmm, i never knew rogercordia got into toyotas j/k

GW on the strut brace tho

[4agte]

you seem pretty handy whens the gze conversion happenin

[xero]

what happened craig got booted out of toymods?

[puzzle man]

you seem pretty handy whens the gze conversion happenin

after we own a home with a double garage

what happened craig got booted out of toymods?

lol nah i just stepped down as cruise secretary

[xero]

oh ok... cool a bit more less stress in your life

[Frogger]

Wow... good work with the DIY! Really like the gauge cluster u put together.

[puzzle man]

well Ive been looking for this wing for years now, very hard to come across...



just have to fix it up a bit sand, primer, paint, and clear.

[josh..]

thats so impressive! they are some awsom skills!
keep it up1