Celica resources

Helping out a friend with a 1990 Celica 2.2 automatic with 205k miles on it. It's had lots of deferred maintenance and is now in need of repair. He's not into cars, just trying to decide if he should fix this one or move on to a newer used car. I'm trying to help him with some basic repairs. Are there any good forums or sites with information/how to's etc. on these cars?

Here's the problem list I compiled after checking the car out:

1) Brake pedal goes nearly to the floor before the brakes engine. Suspect this is related to the "brakes" dash light indicating low brake fluid. Leaky caliper, wheel cylinder or master cylinder might be the culprit? Not sure where to start on this one.

2) Interior vibrations hint at bad motor mount(s)

3) Check engine light - 7-1 EGR. I reset the code and it came back within a few miles. Remove and clean EGR or proceed to replacement?

I haven't been around a lot of Toyotas, but this thing feels pretty solid for its age and mileage. He wants to know if he can squeeze 100k more miles out of it. I'm not sure, but it might.

Please point me toward some good Celica resources if you can. Thanks GRM.

paging 92, paging 92...please pick up a white courtesy phone

1) Hard to say with it that old and with that mileage. If he wants another 100k miles out of it... just replace it all. It'll need doing. Calipers might be ok still... mine didn't show any signs of really losing performance until 230-250k miles. But again... just re-do the whole thing. It's worth it.

If you want to spot-treat it, the soft brake lines tend to go out before anything else.

2) The mounts are definitely bad at this point. The bad news is that finding the side mounts is not easy these days. Replace what you can and go with it.

3) I've never had an EGR problem on any of mine, sooo.... i guess try and clean it first?

If the motor is healthy and it's not a total rustbucket, it'll go another 100k miles.

Replaced the O ring behind the oil pump when you put a new timing belt on.

Motor mounts? Want hard core? Get some castable urethane from mcmaster.com, take the worn out ones off, seal up one end, stick in a bucket of sand, pour in the urethane. You now have "high performance" motor mounts for about $30 total.

Brakes should be straight forward. I dunno about the EGR either. I don't think I have anything with an EGR. I seem to recall some EGR problems mentioned in that era. Google it up, in particular with the MR2 MK2 NA set, as they used that motor.

Fix that and another 100K should be doable.

www.celispeed.com has a forum for 5th gen (90-93) celicas.

wrek496 wrote: www.celispeed.com has a forum for 5th gen (90-93) celicas.

Have they improved at all since ~2004 or so? That place was horrid in the middle of that decade.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote:

wrek496 wrote: www.celispeed.com has a forum for 5th gen (90-93) celicas.

Have they improved at all since ~2004 or so? That place was horrid in the middle of that decade.

Haven't spent much time there really but it does seem like there are lots of tech/ troubleshooting questions to sift through. I use 6gc.net for my '96. Great site.

Thanks guys. Helpful as always.