Just picked up a nice 1980 te72 3tc 4dr sedan on Vancouver island.

this build will be slow and on budget, no high dollar anything, not a drift car, just an old corolla getting lower, wider, and a bit faster.

it's "rust free", rocker, fenders, quarters, front/rear valences, hood, floors, frame, and truck lid are rust free, but the doors have rotted from sitting and the spare tire well is somewhat rotten from a dumb carpet placed under the spare.

the car has recently had a lot of work done to it:
every single part of the brakes is new
new front wheel bearings
new head gasket, plugs, wires, cap/rotor, fuel filter, rad hoses…..

blah blah blah… just a bunch of stuff I don't need to do now

it needs doors, a manual swap, and wheels (something between 13x7-14x8, 15's sometimes look to big on these… not sure).
I'll be building coilovers the old way, with sw20 rear shocks up front, with threaded sleeves (~400lb/in) and cut the casing down 50mm and get some rca's and camero rear shocks in the back w/ cut down ae86 rear coils. simple but quite effective.








progress done today:
-fixed the passenger door the wouldn't unlock.
-vacuumed about 3 lbs of pine needles out of it.

urgent requirements: (aside from being lower and wider)
-new starter so i don't have to hit it with a wrench while turning the key.

it drives nice, low milage car so everything feels good, the shocks are done tho. I put a new starter in it today and now it starts right away every time. there's no catalytic converter and the carb is putting in too much fuel and that makes the exhaust quite stinky, plus there's an exhaust leak near the engine. it just needs a stud and a new gasket, no biggie.

all in all it runs pretty darn good for such an old car.

funny… I had to hit the old one with a hammer to make it work.

3 of the doors need major work.
Today I replaced a leaky heater hose and the thermostat , now it warms up and isn't running as rich and has better throttle response.
I had to drive it from comox to our new place in Duncan tomorrow… and it blew up


some pics,
exploded on the highway


removing some stuff



had some trouble with a poorly installed cd player


just a few pics of the egr port plugs that I jb welded in.




after tracing vacuum lines and reading forums and looking at vacuum diagrams (mostly the oil/coolant soaked sticker on my hood) I removed most everything I think I could… there’s a few more lines that I think I can loose, but I want to wait till the car is running then try those out.

before:

during



this is a pseudo after pic, still lots to complete.

Looks like a nice Car to start with. I have been digging the 4 doors for some time. I must just have to get one.

I've wanted one for quite some time now. I kinda needed a 2nd car for me to take to work so i thought I'd make it a daily/project and I found this for sale for cheap. I'm glad I found one with such a great body on it. I like being at the beginning of a project, especially one of this age.

there are several directions it can go, I think my goal is kinda "era correct" but a little lower and a little wider stance then true era correct, but no flares, no fibreglass(except maybe a lip) and no massively rolled spaced out fenders . I want to do it slowly, I don't want to get super desirable classic wheels and I don't want to get modern remakes, just something low key in a good size (13x7,13x8,14x7, or 14x8).

but right now it's about getting a solid base, I need to replace the radiator and make sure the engine is in decent shape, then it'll be a manual swap, then suspension and wheels…. the basics

Got it up and running today and after all the smoke cleared (from burning off all the spilt coolant), the idle is way too high and the carb needs many adjustments to the new setup. I also pressure tested the cooling system up to its rated 13 psi and its solid with no leak down.
All good news, I just need to test drive it.

Got the rolla running today, after much fiddling with the carb the lowest idle I could get was 1100 after a long warm up period and even at 1100rpm it's rough and missing, I was told it had new plugs, wires, cap, and rotor. I figure the distributor needs a rebuild and points set up, it seems to still be running quite rich still.
Good enough to get me to work tho.

I have the total opposite problem lol my carb is missing the linkage to the secondary but I'm sure if the stock carb is vacuum or linkage so its idle has to be high and i have a giant vaccum leak. And now my headlights just shorted out and I have to find the whole wiring harness lol

Check the vacuum advance they tend to leak and not hold vacuum. Mine are shot, they will move if a lot of vacuum is present but they wont hold it. It is cheaper to get a whole new distributor then just the vacuum modules.

Your ride looks great very good find lots of luck
with your project

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thanks for the info guys, I'll look into a complete distributor.
I drove the car to work today, it went reasonably well….. aside from doing an unintentional brake stand (extremely high cold idle mixed with an auto tranny) fun.

but when I was leaving work I decided to start it with no throttle (trying to avoid engaging the choke) and it started fine with a nice and smooth idle at about 1000rpm, until i touched the throttle then the choke engaged and it was back to the old fun. I think tomorrow I'll unplug the electric choke and see what happens, it doesn't really get cold enough on vancouver island to really really need a cold start loop anyway.

but it's still using a lot of gas

I got a new, very clean, oem rad off a friend yesturday, looking forward to replacing my rotten one this weekend.

one more oddity I found, for some reason both my charge and brake warning lights come on when my fan is on or sometimes when I'm signalling the lights will flash with the signal, I figure it must be a grounding issue but where to start? any tips?

I took all but the to vacuum lines that run to the distributor and the aap valve off and plugged every thing else. Also it might not hurt to do a rebuild of the carb, it is cheap under 25$. Getting it to idle is a pain it took me a few times and it still gives me trouble some times. Do you have a manual to show you all the emission stuff and how to set the idle? Canadian cars are different from the US ones and from low altitude and high altitude cars. Idle is different if you have power steering, ac or auto trans mission. There are like 5 vacuum system that change the idle depending on temperature, vacuum at the carb and altitude. These asin carbs are a finely tuned instrument, if you want to keep them with all of the emission stuff and get really good gas mileage.

tonight I pulled out the complete electronic choke system and the choke plate, the car finally starts and goes to normal idle and doesn't do brake stands all by itself at stop lights, but it is still boggy at low revs, I suspect the distributor…. I'll save that for the weekend.

I think now I only have the 2 vac lines to the distributor.

If you can live with out a choke on a daily driver, I cant get mine to start with out mine. Also with the choke on it should enter fast idle mode. Maybe the choke is just wore out. Resistance can be checked on the electric choke. It should be 6.5 ohms to 8.0 ohms across the terminals at 20c.

I got a stainless 4 to 1 header for that if you interested for 120 + shipping let me know!

I think I'll hold off on the header, gotta get it running right as it is.
As for running without a choke, the car has been running great since I removed it and starts great even near 0 deg C, but that might be because it's running so rich. Right now I think I need some new tires. And I still need to install the new rad as well.

I got slowed down by my first week of work and not knowing what carb route I wanted to go, but I think I figured it out, I've decided to either run R1 bike carbs or dual side drafts rather then a weber 32/38 progressive. This means the carb swap is 3-6 months away and that means I need to rebuild the aisan stocky.
This is good seeing as I really want to get wheels, a manual, and cut some springs (till I can afford to build some ae86 coilovers) and now I can afford up address this stuff sooner. Plus it's probably good to get this motor running right, as is, before big carbs to see what shape the motor is in.

I'll hopefully update this tomorrow with a healthy running carb.

i got the carb rebuilt. I did a lot of cleaning and found some other issues, coolant plate on the bottom of the intake manifold is slowing leaking all around the edge and the distributor diaphragm is leaking.
before

I still can't get the idle below 1200rpm safely, basically if I dial it below 1200 it will suddenly drop and wander between 700-900rpm and is nearly staling, but as soon as I turn it up a touch it jumps to 1200, I left it at 1250rpm to be safe.
sorry really bad shots, this is after.

the good news is that even though there's no advance or retard (permanently at 10 deg adv) the car drives waaaaay better, quick throttle response and no more bogging up hill. it even feels like I'm using less gas, I sure I am just by the sound of the exhaust and the throttle response.

so yay me, one down 800 more things to go!

yay corolla

The factory service Manuel says all 1980 cars with auto transmission the idle is 750. Try not hooking up the vacuum advance and plugin the lines and see if you an get the idle to level out. I got mine down t0 700-900 idle , the book wants it steady at 700. I don't think a higher idle will hurt any thing but your gas mileage. I don't know why Toyota wanted them to tdle so low most cars I have worked on are 900-1000 rpms. I'm trying to get a scanner so I can get a pdf copy of the book cause these carbs are very complex if you need to keep the emission stuff.

my carb is gutted right down to the basics.

there is only the 2 vac lines to the distributor, one to the sensor on the fender (not sure why), and one to the evap can.
there is no choke what-so-ever (removed the choke plate as well).
I still have the vacuum secondaries but with the spring flipped and that's everything.
all other ports are capped.

but now I need a new distributor. the carb works way better for now so I'll leave it alone till I fix some other more pressing matters.