I have always been drawn to cars that were a little misunderstood, what some might consider to be odd, and while I initially didn't consider this to be either of those... I do now.
Little over a year ago I stumbled across this mango while scrolling through CL one afternoon. As I read the vague post it peaked my interested just enough to where I wanted to find out more about this thing. So I inquired for some more information through the post. Came to find out, the lady posting it was doing so for her husband and suggested that I come and talk with him in person as he wasn't very tech savvy. So I figured, whats the harm in just taking a look at it...well you know how it goes... I met the owner, fell in love with the car and its story, left him with a small deposit and plans to have the car delivered in a week to my storage unit.
Here is the car after they removed it from the barn that it was sitting in for around 15-20 years. Originally, it spent the majority of it's driven life in California & Arizona. It was brought up to Michigan with the original owner (yes, I'm the second owner!), driven for a couple of years and then parked until about a year ago.
When the car made it to my unit I started to dive into right away, I wish I would have gotten more pictures but here are some pictures of the interior. 
It was a mess to say the least...
So I started cleaning up the interior and removing everything to figure out what I was really working with! Being that the car was from out west but driven during a few Michigan Winters I wasn't completely sure how much rust there was going to be. To my surprise there wasn't all that much, just a couple spots on the drivers and passenger floor boards, which would be a good opportunity to practice some welding!
That was it for a little while, took some time to work on some other projects and got busy with the summer months and auto crossing another car. More updates to come in a little bit to get this thread caught up to where the car sits today! Next we got the car running, shifting, and driving! (more pics to follow!)
Very cool! Having owned an '80 Corolla in the past I'm very intrigued with what you end up doing to this one.
Lowered, aftermarket steering wheel and gauges? Loiks like its been tweaked.....
If you're in Michigan I have a '73 Corolla that I've removed a bunch of parts from. It was an ITC race car and I don't need the suspension or drive train. There are a few interior bits and pieces, too. If you need stuff let me know, I may have it. Mine is a Corolla SR-5. Is yours a 4-speed or 5 ?
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
you are not wrong! I'll go over some of the more unique aspects of the car that I have been finding as I dig through it!
In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :
That would be a huge help! I'm located on the west side of Michigan near Grand Rapids/ Holland. Currently, it is a 5 speed on a 2TC but I'm interested in checking out what you have!
In reply to B_scherms :
I've returned your email and listed some of the stuff available.
Heyy I recognize this one!
As it sat, lo-rolla hadn't run in maybe 15-20 years, the tires were completely shot, and something was up with the clutch or clutch pedal. There was a lot to do and I didn't know where to start... with some help from my buddy Jack, and the article he wrote (below), we started troubleshooting why it wouldn't start.
(https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/troubleshooting-101-basic-steps-when-your-car-wont/)
After confirming there was air and fuel we started working on tracking down the electrical gremlin...my favorite. So we got out the multimeter and test light and got to work with Jack starting in the engine bay and I started with the dash. Now, I knew that this car had undergone an engine swap at some point, along with a couple of other changes that I will get to later, but there was a lot of wires that we had no idea what they were going too. As I was monkeying around trying different wires I noticed a switch under the dash and what else do you do when you find a random switch....you hit that sucker! Well, lucky for us, Jack was testing spark and that switch must have been a makeshift kill switch of some sorts because all of the sudden we had power to the coil/spark and after a little fiddling around the engine roared to life!!
Unfortunately the night continued to get more exciting when Jack started to have an allergic reaction to some mice nests that were being blown out of the exhaust as the car was running....after a quick trip to a 24 hour pharmacy for some Benadryl we were able to end the night with Jack being happy that he could breathe again and me being happy the corolla was running!! Needless to say we have included Benadryl to the first aid kit to avoid trips to the pharmacy again... (sorry Jack!)
There was still a lot to do but what a relief to be able to hear that engine! Next we focused on getting it running and driving!
Also, I"m working on getting some better pictures to include with this thread! Any advise or suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Now that we new it ran we set our sights on getting it driving!
For it to be driving I knew that the tires would need to be addressed either way so I started there by sourcing some cheap ones from the Discount Tire down the road from work. Lucky enough for me the manager there was a Toyota enthusiast and gave me a good deal on some better tires so that was a nice plus!
Next item to address was the clutch...which has proven itself to be quite temperamental to say the least. Originally, the clutch peddle wouldn't move more than a couple inches so we replaced the slave and clutch master cylinders which fixed our initial issue. However, we ran into another issue, being that when the car was running it wouldn't shift into any of the gears. Normally I would have just stopped here and ordered a new clutch but before I did that Jarrett and I did some research and wondered if, due to the the car was sitting for so long, the clutch had seized to the flywheel. So we moved the car outside, jacked up the rear, and started the car in gear and hit the clutch...probably not the best idea but it worked! After some slight adjustments to slave cylinder we had a clutch and we were able to drive it around the storage unit!
Now we still had a lot to do but what a relief! Now we can start moving to some of the fun stuff! Or so I thought...
Great progress on this. I have a thing for the old Toyota's, especially the old rear drive Corollas.
Can't wait to see more pics of the process.
So now that the car was running, driving and stopping it was time to get it road worthy!
I installed some hood pins as the hood release has broken and well.....race car!
After that I noticed we didn't have any break lights so we started digging into that with a test light and multimeter. Unfortunately, we were never able to quite figure out why it wasn't working, even when we just installed a new brake light switch. While we were digging through this GRM released an article about tossing out the old rats nest of a wiring harness and installing a generic one to simplify their race car. So the idea was there and I was done with trying to figure out all of these gremlins between the engine swap and they random faulty kill switches so I choose a basic package from a company called EZ wiring.
So as I was waiting for the wiring harness to arrive I was able to meet up with DeadSkunk who really helped me out with some cool parts from an old '74 Corolla that once was an ITC race car! More to come shortly!
If you could post up some good in depth stuff when you do the EZ wire harness. Be nice to see as I’ve floated the idea a few times as my long time project rabbit is just a shell.
In reply to rattfink81 :
Yeah I definitely can! It will be a little past tense because I have already started on it but I will try and be as detailed as I can!
Is it "T", "K", or something else....?
I've recently been dabbling in "T" heads..... 
In reply to oldeskewltoy :
The car is a KE20 which I believe came originally with the 1.2 L4 but now has the 1.6 2TC with a 5 speed. It has what appear to be aftermarket headers with a Weber carb. Supposedly the previous owner also did some internal upgrades but I can't tell without tearing the engine apart!
What are you using that head for? it looks really good!
In reply to B_scherms :
it is for a client. And... that is a 2TC head!
His plans are for running boost, and converting to efi. Plan is to also fit 1mm over size valves 42/37 instead of the original 41/36. The gaskets needed a little massaging as well
As to converting the 2TC to EFI....
Add 1 part
and add 1 part
In reply to oldeskewltoy :
Oh interesting... I will have to do some more digging into this EFI conversion, I have always wanted to do side draft carbs but they just haven't been the biggest priority right now!
SkinnyG
UltraDork
6/25/19 9:33 a.m.
That Jenvey unit is VERY cool!!!
Hey Everyone,
Sorry it has been so long, life has gotten busy and some things have changed with the project!
After some convincing from Jack I have decided to put the old wiring harness in the car due to time constraints of trying to get this car on the road before my wedding in September. So I apologize as I won't be able to do a write up on the new wiring harness but it is going on the shelf for future projects!
With the new wiring harness out we got to work cleaning up the engine bay and got a little carried away and started on the outside of the outside as well. Here are some better pictures of the car!
Some shaved door handles anyone?
And how about that 80's Camaro wing on the rear? That thing weighs a ton due to the excessive amounts of bondo!
Next week I am going to get started on hooking up the old wiring harness and seeing what is going on with the clutch slave cylinder. We bled it the other day but it appears to not be holding its seal and letting air into the system. I'm going to remove it to make sure its not adjusted incorrectly or anything before picking up a new one.
That cleaned up well, looks good out in the sun.
In reply to elhartspeedshop :
Thanks! I hope to bring it by the speed shop in a couple of weeks!
How is the September deadline looking?
