Tommy's TE31 : old school 77' corolla build (Picture heavy!!!)

[tommy]

Here is the little story...

It all started in october 2010, when I bought an old 1977 Corolla that needed a little love and the owner couldn't bare to watch it go to the junkyard...

The car had been for sale for over a year and a half, stored in a barn on the south shore of the St-Lawrence half way between Quebec and Rivière-du-Loup... I had been searching for an old corolla to bring back to life for a lot of time... but I had to make a deal with my girlfriend to get it. I ended up exchanging my '07 Mazda 3 M/T dealy driver for a brand new '10 Mazda 3 A/T and gave it to her... what would I do for an oldschool Toyota..? Anyway, I don't need a daily driver, I commute everyday by train... I love cars but I hate traffic!

Followed a road trip with a friend... the car had been stored for too long and could no longer be registered... so we made the round trip with an Old Dodge Diesel and a dolly. The good thing was that I got it for real cheap because of that... nobody wanted to go through the trouble of bringing a non registered car... after 8h of driving, this is what I ended up backin gin my driveway

1977 Corolla TE31 deluxe 3 speed automatic (A40)... tranny swap anyone???







Sporting a nice old 2T-C 1.6L pushrod hemi, all original, 81,000 miles!



The car came with a second A40 in the truck (as an anchor I guess lol) And the trunk full of spare things, like a second dash/cluster, a couple of gauge and a newly recrhromed rear bumper

The original plan was to use a 4age silvertop intake and go from carb to ITB - EFI....


... but since everything was original on the car, I changed my mind about that... I decided to restore it back to shape and tune it in a "period correct" fashion, If you couldn't see it back in the '70s, it will not go on the car. Visualy, I'll try to stick as close as possible to stock, and fix a couple of "eye sores" in the meantime

First of all, lets, get the autotragic out of there! I made sure I couldn't use it anyway even if I wanted to... The ground was dirty and wet outside that barn when we rolled the car onto the dolly... and I didn't want to get dirty for an old crappy 3 spd auto tranny... so I gave it a good ride for it's money : 300 miles at 70mph being spun by the rear wheels lol

Lets gather parts...

New Master cylinder


New slave cylinder


2T-G Flywheel


Front section of a manual driveshaft


Clutch somewhat "agressive"... and pressure plate


crossmember and manual pedals, shipped straight from Hawaii baby!


Bellhousing with throughout bearing and clutch fork


shifter with tranny support and bearing shims


And a nice T40 4 speed (never mind the whole "tranny on kitchen counter" thing... it's an inside among my car friends here)


Mandatory inspection for a 1979 piece...


1st Synchro...


...2nd, 3rd...


...and 4th


everything looks good... but when I removed the tail housing...


damn... one of the snap ring let go and a 1$ ball is missing..


... it's supposed to fit in the output shaft and serve as a key...


... for the worm gear that drives speedo driven gear


And in the midst of all that, the nylon gear took a beating...


So all in all, I only changed the input and output seal, it's not expensive to have piece of mind...

...front seal...


...back seal



Now for the damn speedo gear... most of the manual TE Corollas came with the same diff ratio as the SR5 AE86 3.9:1, having a 6 teeth metal gear and 20 teeth plastic as a speedo setup... but I bought one of the few tranny that were bolted in front of the 3.727:1 FD the metal gear has 6 teeth, but it is different than the one on the AE86 since it runs a 19 teeth plastic gear... I ended up buying a n AE86 GT-S speedo gear brand new (50$ form toyota) since it also has 19 teeth, but the pitch is wrong because it's being driven by a 5 teeth metal worm gear (Still have the gear in it's plastic bag if anyone is interested...)



Here comes the custom stuff... a little patience and imagination (and some JB weld) and here is the new-old gear... hand crafted using jewellers tools...


since I'm dropping the tranny and driveshaft, might as well inspect the floor and repair while we're at it...

Out goes the carpet...


Driver's side is a mess... big hole and lots of surface rust



A little less worst on the passenger's side



But the joint on the floor in front of the back seat is beginning to open dangerously





Otherwise the rest is nice...




... until we reach the trunk area...



Removing hte old autotragic wasn't a luxe, the rubber mounts litteraly droped in my hands when I put it on it's face



I don't have a lot of picture underneat... the whole car has been heavily coated with antirust grease... nasty stuff

Here is what it took to clean it all :

1- Lift everything using a scrapper. I removed 50lbs of sound deafning while at it, quick weight reduction made easy


2- Engine degreaser wash


3- Then varsol to remove the rest of grease and sound deafning


On a side, you're left with this...


...and on the other side, this


And here comes the surprises

[tommy]

Time to fix up













Followed by a think layer of gravel guard to protect the thing...

from this...


...to this





Tranny swap time.

Step 1 : Swap the fron section of driveshaft since the automatic has the 21 spline yoke shared with the W transmission (a lot thincker too) and the manual uses a 20 spline yoke


Step 2 : stiffner plate modding, no need to remove torque convertor bolt anymore... weld the hole shut





Step 3 : fabricate a bracket for the clutch pedal... if you cannot recycle, reuse guys

Part of an old hide-a-bed









From this...



... to this



Step 4 :Lets throw everything back in place

flywheel (with ARP bolt) and pilot bearing...


...clutch...


...transmission (transmission jacks are for the weaks )






...and the drive shaft



The clutch master cylinder needs a custom braket to hook up the the pushrod



and bring the pedal to the right height

before


after


Bend and flare hydraulic line



And bleed the thing with my trusty assistant


I can almost take the car for a spin, except for a little somthing...



fixed it underneat


and on top












It's working (forgot to take picture of it after the paint...)



After the floor, it's now time to cut outside to get rid of the damn rust

Rear fenders





Doors







Front fenders :

Driver's side














Passenger's side







and undercoating underneat to keep the rust from ever returning




I also shaved the driver's mirror and antenna


To make place for my "old school" fender mirror

[tommy]

I repainted the interior (this is after 1 coat, I forgot to take after the job was finninshed








followed by a clean-up with the help of my "padawan learner"


And to go with the old school look, I made myself a nice shifter (flame me I don't care ) and I found a nice old school steering, I just needed a little spacer to adapt to the toyota hub





I then customized my bumpers to tuck them in and get rid of the post 1975 bench park

here are the shocks



I only reused the flanges, the rest is good for weight reduction (and they are heavy)


here is what it looks for the back





and the front



and using a correct nylon spacer to bring it right in place, here is my "bumper tuck"






I needed to "re-touch" the rear bumper support due to rust damage, sadly I didn't take picture of it after paint ...



I had a little stance problem... I'll talk about wheel gap next...

front fitment


and rear


Front is not so bad... rear is awfull

...solution





from this...



...to this



Next, I found out that weight reduction has it's downfall... (I have something planned on that matter...)


after a steep learning curve, I finaly repainted the car, but it took a whole lot of wet sanding, as can be seen by the driveway color











Alright, I't not perfect, but it's "rolled on" tremclad after all lol I finaly got the feel for it near the end, so I'll probably finish the job for good next year... so I didn't waste too much time on the buff... hey, for a 60$ paint job, it's not so bad!

I then needed to flush the old tank... 4 year old gas is not that good
1 gallon...


... with a good 2/3L of water in it...


...and unidentified stuff...


Brings us to the first miles in over 3 years (I know I need a drop)


But I need to change the gas filter...



for a new one


Now everything is well, I put a couple hundred miles on the car, I need to balance the shaft and the suspension is shot, but it runs like a champ!


Plan for next year :

First suspension... the car thinks it's a 4x4, we'll have to change that...

In the rear, I'm gonna put an other leaf, and reweld the eye to make it drop a little... the rest will be taken care with the use of lowering bloc. I'll use whiteline polyeurethane bushing and tokico gas shock (for rx7 FB) While at it, I'll pull the whole axlecarrier to paint it, change the bearing and rebuild the brakes.

For the front, I got myself a pair of these


Shorten AE86 tubes toped with TRD shock and TRD coil, good for a little drop.

With that setup, I'll be able to run 9 1/4" vented brakes in place of my 9" solid



I got a pair of caliper I need to rebuild, but no photos... I'm only missing RCA and camber plate, to keep a good suspension geometry in the front

Secondly, I also found a pretty rare setup, a 2T-B intake straight from japan land


It's bolt-on, I came on TA2X and TE3X in japan and Europe, good for 105hp... I have already modified the linkage into a "center pull" setup, but I didn't take any pictures yet





This intake splits cylinder 1 and 2 on an original downdraft aisin 2 barrel carb (the same that feed my 4 cylinders right now) and an other one for cylinder 3 and 4... it also convert to manual choke, which is better IMO and that setup leaves the same distance from all 4 intake port to it's carb! Plus it's toyota OEM stuff, original!

I'm gonna gasket match it to this new thing I got last week, 2T-C early bigport head, without EGR... I'll do a mild port and polish the CC and exhaust port... I'l also shave about 0,040" to bump up the compression to about 10.5:1 (along with a 0.04" cometic HG)







It need a little cleaning, but I have all winter to work on that!

[REN69]

Nice! I remember this car, I think Fred Flinstone owned it back when it was new...

Good to see someone bringing it back to life.

[leboe]

wow awesome build thread already, very cool little corolla

[sunray]

Sweet build man! lots of hard work there so far, and a little yet to go. Nice job sourcing the 2tB set-up. Toyota milled the heads a little extra from the factory which is how they bumped the power ever so slightly.

One question is about the auto spline count. I've never come across an auto from the 70's that had 21 splines. Every one I ever took apart had the exact same driveshaft as the manual ones. Its was the later trannies from the 80's that had more splines. You think it was swapped?

How large are the ports on the old head? It was only 1971 2T engines (not 2tc) that had the 36mm intake ports. Lucky find if you have one. Jealous.

[tommy]

The A40 had the 21 spline driveshaft, I don't know where it started, but mine had it's tranny swapped with an other A40 (the one in the trunk was the old one) and they were the same... I think it's the 2 speed toyoglide from the early E2X that had the 20 spline driveshaft... That's something nice when going with a W tranny... just start with an auto car, you can use the stock crossmember and driveshaft... makes it a direct drop in... just need to source the G bellhousing

Oh and I didn't mesure the port, and I can't compare them since I didn't get to play on the engine in the car yet (fully stock) I tuned it up so I could drive it a little, that is all... anyways I'll port the early head I bought this winter, all that matter is that I didn't have EGR port... I'll go mesure them now, I'm curious lol

*edit*

The opening is 36mm and has been machined (it's a smooth finish, not like the rough casting), it tappers to 30mm toward the valve where it becomes a "cast finish" instead of the "machined finish" closer to the intake manifold flange... so I don't really know if it's indeed a big port head, or just and early head withtout emissions... I'm trying to find a picture from the guy I bought it off, It was showing that head on top of 2 "normal" 2T-C and If I remember correctly, there was a notable difference between that one and the 2 underneat... just need to find it...

[pitobread]

Looks Good! Much love for the old Toyota's.

[clay72]

Nice job. Looks like lots of long hours and love have gone in.

[shancerlelby]

beauty project! glad you spent the time to save her!

[solid_state]

Man, that's some awesome work! I love the rims. Makes me want to get my ride on the street even more!

[coldstar64]

Instead of putting blocks in th rear. I would try flipping your leafs upside and re stacking them unde the flipped main leaf and add one or two. That should get you lower and stiffer. If your woried about stress on the eyes of the main leaf you could get a new one made. It should drop the ass 3inches with out block. While your at it you could build a anti wrap bar, or pinion snubber. My 02¢

[tommy]

Thx guys for your comments!

The plan for the top leaf was in the same string as what you suggested: weld the eyes upside down so the top leaf passes on top of the mount (although welding the eye will heat treat the metal and will leave the leaf prone to snap, so I might end up flipping it like you suggest)... I can only add one leaf using the stock brackets, otherwise I'll have to fab everything out... so I'll start with one more leaf and if it's not stiff enough, I'll go through the fab work. Also, I heard that this setup drops you about 2" without de-arching the leafs, that's why I was thinking of using a lowering block to make up for the rest. If you are right and it drops it 3" then I'll be even happier to not have to run lowering blocks!

Oh and I have a design (actually a copy) of Caltracs I made for the car... but I'll wait to see if I have issues with axle hop with my 1.6L N/A pushrod engine before I get through the trouble of making those... The plan is to leave the car as light as possible (retaining the interior) so I'll only bolt things on the car if they are needed... exemple: I could've gone with a W50 tranny (would've been easier starting with an auto car) and have a tranny able to handle +++ torque, but that tranny weighs as much as two T-40 and I didn't expect to push more than 150ft/lbs out of that engine, even with a full race build... so I bought a T40...all in all, I don't want to add weight unnecessarily

Go on and throw in your thoughts or idea, I like it!

I don't expect to work as much during the winter as I worked last summer (all that pictured above was done between june and october), but I'll update as things gets done. So expect lots of indoor pictures of headwork and carb work, along with brake rebuild... as the car will sleep outside through the winter (I know I shouldn't do that...).

*edit*

Man, that's some awesome work! I love the rims. Makes me want to get my ride on the street even more!

I get that remark on my wheels all the time... they came with the car when I bought it and at first I wanted to change them because I wanted wider ones... those things are stock Toyota 32 spoke 14x5.5 et+27... came stock on the AE86 and some Cressida. They are the ones that come stocks on the Trueno's in a lot of videogames lol...


But the more I got to work around them, the more I got to like them. Now seeing that other people actually think they look cool on the car, it gives me the drive to restore them and continu to rock them on that car!

[tommy]

Small update...

Got ahead and measured the volume of my combustion chambers


Got a reading of ~67cc all around, which was a little unexpected... everywhere on the internet, I kept getting 63cc. The chambers on the 3T-C appears to be 63cc (I never measured them, but that info is everywhere) and everyone sais that both 2T-C and 3T-C head are exactly the same...

Well the early 2T and 2T-C head had a CR of 8.5:1 which later changed to 9.0:1, but they both share the same piston (same compression dome) so it's logical that something changed somewhere up top around 1975... well, I am truely aware that toyota milled 2T heads to bump up the CR to 9.4:1 in the 2T-B so It might be logical that toyota started milling 2T-C head around 1975 to bump the compression by 0.5. Anyways, if you calculate the difference between 63cc and 67cc chambers using the same 23cc dome you get about 8.5:1 CR for the 67cc and 9.0:1 for the 63cc... so it makes sense.

Anyways, It changed a little bit my plans, I intended to run a cometic 0.030" gasket and mill 0.040" off the head to get to 10.5:1... well that was measured using 63cc chambers. If I want to run 10.5:1 cr I need to run the same gasket and mill 0.050"... which is about the thinkness between the matting surface and the lowest part of the intake valve. So that will leave the head gasket thickness (0.030") between the top of the piston and the lowest par of the intake valve at TDC... so I might end up enlarging the relief in the piston to clear the valve...

Anyways, after that I removed all the valvetrain

Carbone build-up on intake valve anyone??


I even have mold for my valve if anyone is interested in duplicating them


Everything is now soaking in injector cleaner and will stay there for a couple of days before I finish cleaning them up.

I just bought a set of aftermarket valvespring/chromoly retainer and harded keepers to replace my stuff, and for the haters here... they are Volks Bug aircooled valve spring :P same dimension and a whole lot cheaper than stuff design for the 2T lol

I just hope to be able to reuse my current valves, the seat are perfect, so if I can get them back to A1 condition, I'll only have to lap them on the seat and will save a 3 angle valve job...

Intake seat #1


exhaust seat #1


the rest looks exactly like that

Update soon... porting is about to begin, just need to clean the head before so I don't get my tools/hands dirty everytime I touch it

[616racing]

Holy crap that looks good! I love your fender patch panels. Nice work.

[tommy]

Thx, it's not even close to the kind of work you are doing on you're own projet, but I'm also a newb at body work trying to figure it all up...

[616racing]

Doesn't matter, its all the same ****. Making outer panels look good is tough. I like your folding technique, I have a few rusty bits to fix and I was wondering how to make a nice outer edge.

[tommy]

Hey, I only tried to copy how Toyota did it 35 years ago glad it turned out O.K. lol


Anyways, been crushing some numbers on the piston to valve clearance...

Using a stock cam (although I only have seat to seat timing and total lift... would really help if someone has 0.050" duration also in order to really dial the profil in...) and different rocker ratio (1.5:1) which is my plan for now on the valvetrain side

For now, I assumed (I know it's bad) that the cam profil is a true sine profile,

- 250 duration (16deg BTDC to 54deg ABDC),
- 6.39mm lift at the cam (1.5:1 rocker = 9.585mm at the valve
- Intake valve to vertical angle of 35 degres
- head shaved 0.050" (lower portion of intake valve flush to mating surface)
- Head Gasket thickness of 0.030"

Graph


yeah, interference engine...lol

close up on the danger area


minimum distance between Piston and valve happens around 6deg ATDC, with a clearance of ~0.361mm without acounting for the valve relief in the piston... I would just like to confirm this using seat duration and 0.050" duration along with max lift to get an accurate ramp rate, but as it is now, I should be in a safe zone...

[MPTness]

You're awsome

[tommy]

You're awsome

You know, when I was in highschool, they called me "nerd"... lol

Nice change!