94 ST205 Celica GTFour - Weekender / Tracktoy
Discussion
Need something to play in and the diseasel BMW doesn't really cut it so resurrecting the ST205 which has been SORN since last December when it failed its MOT.
Pic of her from the last time she was out'n'about in my local hood:
Getting a wash:
Spec at present:
Engine
- Apexi intake
- Blitz copy BOV
- Ivana Humpalot 3in downpipe
- Apexi AVC-R boost controller @ 1.05bar
Transmission
- solid rear ally diff mount
- RPS 6 puk clutch
Suspension & Running Gear
- TRD -20mm springs
- 8x17 Compomotive MOs
Before the AVC-R was fitted and on the stock cat she ran 270hp/275lbft iirc (this was 2004 lol)
Current to do list:
- New discs and pads all round (MOT fail on front and rear disc pitting)
- New front banana arm bushes (MOT fail on play, known PITA on ST205)
- New timing belt and tensioner, been 5yrs so stupid not to really
- Fresh brake fluid
- Ally radiator, old one's end tanks are showing signs of age and these are known to go
- Mocal 10 row 235mm oil cooler with thermostatic sandwich plate
- Try refit undertray removed by a garage and never refitted
Wednesday's package:
Today's package:
Kinetix grooved and dimpled, refuse to believe these aren't coming out the same factory as EBC. Yellow stuff pads all round. Going to get some DOT 5.1 out of Halfords to finish off the overhaul.
I've never warped a set on the street (touch wood), we'll see how they hold up on track.
Pic of her from the last time she was out'n'about in my local hood:
Getting a wash:
Spec at present:
Engine
- Apexi intake
- Blitz copy BOV
- Ivana Humpalot 3in downpipe
- Apexi AVC-R boost controller @ 1.05bar
Transmission
- solid rear ally diff mount
- RPS 6 puk clutch
Suspension & Running Gear
- TRD -20mm springs
- 8x17 Compomotive MOs
Before the AVC-R was fitted and on the stock cat she ran 270hp/275lbft iirc (this was 2004 lol)
Current to do list:
- New discs and pads all round (MOT fail on front and rear disc pitting)
- New front banana arm bushes (MOT fail on play, known PITA on ST205)
- New timing belt and tensioner, been 5yrs so stupid not to really
- Fresh brake fluid
- Ally radiator, old one's end tanks are showing signs of age and these are known to go
- Mocal 10 row 235mm oil cooler with thermostatic sandwich plate
- Try refit undertray removed by a garage and never refitted
Wednesday's package:
Today's package:
Kinetix grooved and dimpled, refuse to believe these aren't coming out the same factory as EBC. Yellow stuff pads all round. Going to get some DOT 5.1 out of Halfords to finish off the overhaul.
I've never warped a set on the street (touch wood), we'll see how they hold up on track.
Rainy afternoon? Nothing like some spit and polishing:
Back up on stands for the timing belt change:
New brakes after a light bedding in. Waaaaaay better than they've ever been before
Pity the last garage that changed the belt decided to hammer the crank pulley on without cleaning it up. The pulley has been mushroomed and took a f
king hub puller to get it off!
Back up on stands for the timing belt change:
New brakes after a light bedding in. Waaaaaay better than they've ever been before
Pity the last garage that changed the belt decided to hammer the crank pulley on without cleaning it up. The pulley has been mushroomed and took a f
king hub puller to get it off!Bet ya don't miss these ones ruddmc!
Another fun day in the garage. Looks like I caught the belt at a good time, starting to look a bit worn!
Then the horrors came out the woodwork. Here's the tensioner. Grenade type. You'll notice the last garage that did the belt, same one that mullered the pulley, chose to only half pull the pin. Meaning for the last 5yrs the belt has been undertensioned
The real fun being, the bolts holding the tensioner on were only hand tight. Actually no, that would have been an almost happy situation. More accurate would be the threads had been over torqued and ripped out, meaning the holes need helicoiled. Here's how much space I have to play with:
Yep, full strip down to remove the head!
Another fun day in the garage. Looks like I caught the belt at a good time, starting to look a bit worn!
Then the horrors came out the woodwork. Here's the tensioner. Grenade type. You'll notice the last garage that did the belt, same one that mullered the pulley, chose to only half pull the pin. Meaning for the last 5yrs the belt has been undertensioned
The real fun being, the bolts holding the tensioner on were only hand tight. Actually no, that would have been an almost happy situation. More accurate would be the threads had been over torqued and ripped out, meaning the holes need helicoiled. Here's how much space I have to play with:
Yep, full strip down to remove the head!
Decided 2019 is going to be the year of getting cars back on the road.
With lots on, it ended up taking roughly ten months to sort the tensioner issue, so I got a months use out of it at either end of its MOT.
Also managed to create some other problems;
- There's also something wrong with the oem boost gauge on the dash, it's reading inverted, so cruising its reading positive boost and under load it's reading vacuum or lower
- My mate's M5 had the roof bricked and we fixed it in the workshop whilst my Celica was parked up. We didn't dust sheet it when spraying though assuming it was far enough away. It wasn't so it has a primer mist coat over most of the car
Now we're in to mid 2012 and going back to racing removed all free time and free cash so it wound up parked in my flat's underground car park for a few years. This turned out to be a remarkably dusty place to store it...
It then spent 2015 to early 2018 in a unit me and some mates shared. Still not getting used but at least it was in a place less dusty than the Sahara and not in the middle of a giant puddle.
Then came the Beast from the East, seemed like a good idea to get it back on the road. For 2 days it royally took the Micky out of all the pseudo off-roaders and everything else in my estate having no problems dealing with the 15 inches of snow we had.
Sadly it then started to live up to being an ST205, lovingly known in GT-Four circles as faffs, because the owners are always having to faff with something. In this case, the rear diff is seeping. So it's been parked up again since the start of March.
Task list:
- Sort the paintwork and remove growth from driveway life
- Refurb the diff
- Refresh whichever suspension arm is clonking up front (it had them done not that long ago so bit annoying that one)
- Fix the leaky O2 sensor
- Get a wideband up it's hoop to confirm the ECU doesn't take its boost reading from the same sensor as the dash
- Caliper overhaul and disc skim
- New radiator (current one is browning on the top tank)
- Refurb whining charge cooler pump
- Re-do the ghetto gauge wiring (yeah that was me)
- Wheel refurb
With lots on, it ended up taking roughly ten months to sort the tensioner issue, so I got a months use out of it at either end of its MOT.
Also managed to create some other problems;
- There's also something wrong with the oem boost gauge on the dash, it's reading inverted, so cruising its reading positive boost and under load it's reading vacuum or lower
- My mate's M5 had the roof bricked and we fixed it in the workshop whilst my Celica was parked up. We didn't dust sheet it when spraying though assuming it was far enough away. It wasn't so it has a primer mist coat over most of the car
Now we're in to mid 2012 and going back to racing removed all free time and free cash so it wound up parked in my flat's underground car park for a few years. This turned out to be a remarkably dusty place to store it...
It then spent 2015 to early 2018 in a unit me and some mates shared. Still not getting used but at least it was in a place less dusty than the Sahara and not in the middle of a giant puddle.
Then came the Beast from the East, seemed like a good idea to get it back on the road. For 2 days it royally took the Micky out of all the pseudo off-roaders and everything else in my estate having no problems dealing with the 15 inches of snow we had.
Sadly it then started to live up to being an ST205, lovingly known in GT-Four circles as faffs, because the owners are always having to faff with something. In this case, the rear diff is seeping. So it's been parked up again since the start of March.
Task list:
- Sort the paintwork and remove growth from driveway life
- Refurb the diff
- Refresh whichever suspension arm is clonking up front (it had them done not that long ago so bit annoying that one)
- Fix the leaky O2 sensor
- Get a wideband up it's hoop to confirm the ECU doesn't take its boost reading from the same sensor as the dash
- Caliper overhaul and disc skim
- New radiator (current one is browning on the top tank)
- Refurb whining charge cooler pump
- Re-do the ghetto gauge wiring (yeah that was me)
- Wheel refurb
Lnk cr b82rez 2g4
I guess you have to be a certain age to get that one, but anyways...
The Celica was looking a bit unloved, so with the MINI at the workshop, I had some garage space (turns out I didn't but I'm done getting annoyed about the amount of stuff in there) and some weekend time.
Dead as a dodo. It got a new battery in February last year, before being used to conquer the Beast from the East's snow, but not a hint of power. Tried sticking it on charge, my fancy digital charger just said "error" it was that flat. Gave it a jump off the BMW, soon as I disconnected the jump leads it died. Tried again and left both running for ten minutes this time, still died as soon as the lead was taken off. New battery added to the shopping list.
Now the lack of garage space didn't matter as I couldn't reverse it in. So I got out the claybar kit.
The paint on the car is dire. The mist of overspray means the paint feels like sandpaper and there's also crazy markings that look almost like Damascus steel, where I used G101 to dissolve some bird muck and didn't rinse it off properly.
These run off lines don't come off with normal washing.
The outline of a box that was sitting on the sunroof when the overspray mist landed.
That's a close up of just how bad the rear wing looks with all the overspray and bonded surface contaminants from the storage in the underground car park.
Turns out I already had a claybar kit, despite buying one on Saturday to use on the car. So now with more clay than an average pottery, I set about a section of the rear wing.
The results were extremely underwhelming. Despite 4 separate sessions with the clay, the paint is still awful. This was just 1 session and on an area less than a square foot.
There is a difference in feel, but it's like 1200 grit vs 800 grit, visually there's no real difference. You can just about see where I haven't clayed in the top of this photo
After a sulk, I decided to try something else. Cracked out a bottle of Meguiars Ultimate Compound and had a go at a section of the bootlid (the upwards facing surfaces are by far the worst). Now this was a different story, but bloody hard work!
So now I know the solution, just need to mentally come to terms with just how much elbow grease it's going to take to do the whole car!
I guess you have to be a certain age to get that one, but anyways...
The Celica was looking a bit unloved, so with the MINI at the workshop, I had some garage space (turns out I didn't but I'm done getting annoyed about the amount of stuff in there) and some weekend time.
Dead as a dodo. It got a new battery in February last year, before being used to conquer the Beast from the East's snow, but not a hint of power. Tried sticking it on charge, my fancy digital charger just said "error" it was that flat. Gave it a jump off the BMW, soon as I disconnected the jump leads it died. Tried again and left both running for ten minutes this time, still died as soon as the lead was taken off. New battery added to the shopping list.
Now the lack of garage space didn't matter as I couldn't reverse it in. So I got out the claybar kit.
The paint on the car is dire. The mist of overspray means the paint feels like sandpaper and there's also crazy markings that look almost like Damascus steel, where I used G101 to dissolve some bird muck and didn't rinse it off properly.
These run off lines don't come off with normal washing.
The outline of a box that was sitting on the sunroof when the overspray mist landed.
That's a close up of just how bad the rear wing looks with all the overspray and bonded surface contaminants from the storage in the underground car park.
Turns out I already had a claybar kit, despite buying one on Saturday to use on the car. So now with more clay than an average pottery, I set about a section of the rear wing.
The results were extremely underwhelming. Despite 4 separate sessions with the clay, the paint is still awful. This was just 1 session and on an area less than a square foot.
There is a difference in feel, but it's like 1200 grit vs 800 grit, visually there's no real difference. You can just about see where I haven't clayed in the top of this photo
After a sulk, I decided to try something else. Cracked out a bottle of Meguiars Ultimate Compound and had a go at a section of the bootlid (the upwards facing surfaces are by far the worst). Now this was a different story, but bloody hard work!
So now I know the solution, just need to mentally come to terms with just how much elbow grease it's going to take to do the whole car!
Edited by emicen on Sunday 10th February 19:55
Buy Argos' DA polisher, will save you heaps of time compounding and correct even more of the paint issues. Don't forget to follow it up with a polish to remove the marring left over from compounding to give it gloss and depth back.
Love these cars, would love one but just don't see how I'll ever get my hands on one as they just get more and more expensive and harder to find... Especially a reasonable unmodded one.
Love these cars, would love one but just don't see how I'll ever get my hands on one as they just get more and more expensive and harder to find... Especially a reasonable unmodded one.
Cookeh said:
Buy Argos' DA polisher, will save you heaps of time compounding and correct even more of the paint issues. Don't forget to follow it up with a polish to remove the marring left over from compounding to give it gloss and depth back.
Love these cars, would love one but just don't see how I'll ever get my hands on one as they just get more and more expensive and harder to find... Especially a reasonable unmodded one.
Been looking at one of the DAS bundles, but just spotted said Argos machine is on sale at £30. Granted I would still need to buy extra pads etc but that’s ridiculously cheap.Love these cars, would love one but just don't see how I'll ever get my hands on one as they just get more and more expensive and harder to find... Especially a reasonable unmodded one.
Comments on detailing world about changing the backing plate for a 5in one made me think as well. I’m sure I have an air powered DA of some fashion in the garage. Not a body shop style DA, more a drill style one, Lidl £20 effort, maybe I should figure out what I have before buying new stuff
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff