My '00 Facelift Corolla Sr Vvti

[Steven252]

Well im at the primer stage, and well its starting to become a chore. The biggest problem ive had is the bumper i bought was a non painted one and its been an absolute nightmare to primer. Ive had to sand it down countless times to get it flat inbeteween primer coats. Would have been sooo much easier if i had bought a painted one - its a lesson learnt.

Anyway heres the pictures of how it looks

The hard work and countless hours have been well worth it :) i need to yet again flatten it down for another 2 coats of primer then a coat of paint.

[PaulinhoT]

Another good update, the thing is I think in the end you will be much happier knowing that your bumper is exactly that, yours, both in uniqueness and creation.

10/10 so far :)

[Tibs]

Great effort being put in, keep going!

[Steven252]

Thanks mate :)

Well its in paint, i took it to a bodyshop to have a quote and they kindly said "if you take all the primer that youve just put on, back off for us well do it for £200" i thought about it and then just decided to spray it myself. The finish isnt 100% but it doesnt look like its been rattle can'd outside in the wind

Got it on the car

Ill do some close ups when ive had chance to wet sand and polish it, ive also got to remove the overspray off the lower grill too :)

[Tibs]

[PaulinhoT]

Now that is really good, well pleased with that one :)

Can you do mine please lol

[Steven252]

Thanks guys :)

Paul its not by any means a perfect job atm, but with some slight sanding/polishing it will be. its suffering some orange peal like the spoiler was, i have to give it about a week to fully harden before i can attack it, that and ive done enough sanding for one week

Dont fancy giving yours ago?

Now onto the sideskirts :)

[PaulinhoT]

I think trying to do mine myself would be the cheapest option, we will see :-) did you buy your paint at Halfrauds ?

[Steven252]

I think trying to do mine myself would be the cheapest option, we will see :-) did you buy your paint at Halfrauds ?

I use hycote double acrylic paint comes in 150ml cans of eBay. Requires no clear coat as its included in the paint. Means one less step to mess up - as clear coats a nightmare to get right from rattle cans. I apply a LOAD of paint to it, then when dry sand it down with 800 grit then 1200 then 2000 wet sand paper to remove the orange peal and get a super smooth finish. Bit of polish to get the deep shine u see, then a massive layer of wax to protect the paint

Would it help if i do a step by step tutorial of how i personally do it?

[PaulinhoT]

A guide would be pretty cool :) thanks

[Steven252]

A guide would be pretty cool :) thanks

Ill do one when i come to paint the rear bumper and sideskirts :)

Another day off and more messing about with the car as im bord of sanding and painting atm - need a well earned break from that front bumper! So ive left the sideskirts/bumper alone today.

First on the agenda was to sort out my epically poor handbrake, it barley held the car and was well... Useless! So i pulled the centre console out to see what sort of adjustments i could make to it.

Theres a 10mm nut that takes the slack of the handbrake cables. Simply slacken it off all the way with the handbrake off, turn the engine on, bump the brakes a load of times (this resets the drums/discs closeness as the pads wear) tighten the handbrake nut back up until you get a good travel and so it doesnt bind. Mines actually on 1 click to hold the car properally and 2 clicks will lock both wheels up.

You dont actually need to remove the centre console as you can actually get at the 10mm nut here

I also modified my passanger side rear tail light to accept a fog light. Now i know this sounds stupid but i really cant stand cars not being symetrical and lights are at the top of my list! So i wanted to have one fog light either side rather than having just one on one side

So i removed the rear light and took a look at what was needed.

Brilliant, so theres a cluster there but it hasnt been cut out :D my guess is that LHD cars have the fog light instaled on the passanger side, like many fords/vags do.

Even better was the fact toyota had left the outline to be cut out.

So i got my dremel rotary tool with an engraving attachment and roughly cut it out to shape

I then used this tool to hover all the bits out from inside the light from the cuting ;) yes, macdonalds straws do have an extra use :D

I had to replace my drivers side tail lamp as i thought it was leaking (it wasnt - it was the boot seal in the end!) so i had an extra 4 bulb 6pin wiring loom left over that i could use

Once instaled it ment the light was ready to be used. I took a look at the connector that provided the power, and yup you guessed it, its a 6pin connector with only 5pins installed.

So i had a look at getting a drivers side connector but as there are NO corollas in any of our local salvage yards i came up with a better idea. I looked for any toyota from that era to see if the "pins" inside the connector were the same. I quickly found a MR2 that did. So i chopped it off and cut the pin out by removing the plastic around it.

Once it was out i then pushed it into the passanger side connector using a small flat head screwdriver.

So now it had the extra pin for the fog light. I then run another wire down the factory conduate cable cover to the drivers side (so no lose wires hanging about and looks oem) and soldered it to the drivers side + feed to the fog light. Put the lights back in and hey presto i now have two working fog lights :D

I know its rather sad but its kept me busy and atleast it matches now for the two or three occassions a year i actually use the rear fog lights

[Tibs]

Great work with the foglight Steven.

[PaulinhoT]

Thats a really good tip that :) if the weather is nice I will take a look at mine tomorrow.

Your car is looking mighty red today :)

[Steven252]

Great work with the foglight Steven.

Thanks :) i guess its a modification that will never get noticed but it looks like it came out as factory intended. I actually got to use it today driving home as it was really foggy, so was chuffed that i could put it to use

Thats a really good tip that :) if the weather is nice I will take a look at mine tomorrow.

Your car is looking mighty red today :)

Thanks paul, id suffered with a poor handbrake since i got it and cant believe its taken me this long to sort it. Toyota made it very simple as the rear calipers are self adjusting which gets top marks from me

I treated her to a wash today too, and she always amazes me how shiney she comes up for a 12 year old car with 150k. she may see my machine polisher next weekend as the paints very swirled in the light. Im getting really fond of this car :)

Ive read that you have parts for yours, please do share when you get chance ;)

[Steven252]

Right had a play with the rear bumper and sideskirts today. Sideskirts are going to take to much effort to make fit, i got so annoyed at it, i didnt even take pictures.

I got the rear bumper on and fitted it to the car with half the splitter on to get an idea of what it looks like

The splitter lines up lovely to the bumper, but no matter what i do the curve in the bottom piece of the bumper just makes it look like utter crap TBH. Id have to flush this off to make the bumper more square, to make it look good. The idea was good and it would work lovely if i had the time or the paitence to make it work which i just dont have ATM

So ive ditched both ideas off. I am going to get something that actually fits the car in the first place and modify that to how i want it like i did with the front bumper. Its stung me £150 but i can atleast sell the bumper on and that money goes down the pan as a "lesson of life" - fit something that was intended if you havent got masses amount of time on your hands to make it fit

[Steven252]

Ok so i may have picked up my tools after my hissy fit this morning and re assesed the bumper Decided that itll only go in the bin anyway so i might aswel have another go at it. That and i had nothing to do on this lush day

So the massive curve

Cut out ready to fibreglass it smooth.

Ill fibreglass it in after work one night and see if it looks any better smoothed off :)

Sideskirts are binned now

[phatali]

This thread is pretty sweet dude!

[PaulinhoT]

Another epic update, can i say that the blue bumper looks pretty cool with the red car, kind of odd I know lol.

:)

[Steven252]

This thread is pretty sweet dude!

Cheers dude :) been hard work as everythings pritty much custom on these cars!

Another epic update, can i say that the blue bumper looks pretty cool with the red car, kind of odd I know lol.

:)

Ye i thought the same, a colour combo that on paper should not work but it did look kinda cool. Hopefully have more updates with the nice weather weve got forcasted ;)

The E11 nearly left my possession this week. A good friend of mine called in to say he had something that he knew id be interested in and would take mine as a px at a good deal. So i popped over to his forcourt and set eyes on this beautifull car

Yup its a compressor, in the best colour (and the colour i buy all my cars in, i love RED!) on a 55 plate with 44k on the clock. It had all the optional extras that was listed for one and had a full main toyota dealer service history. Needless too say i fell in love with it at first sight. However after spending so much time and money on mine, i decided that i couldnt just let her go just yet. Shes not finished yet either, so going to keep her another year and see what else takes my fancy :)

Ive got a second pair of sideskirts on the way to me as we speak so therell be an update this week on that too :)

[PaulinhoT]

nice looking car, but I know how you feel about keeping the E11 :)

[Steven252]

nice looking car, but I know how you feel about keeping the E11 :)

Ye it was a really nice car, though i would have to part with 5k ontop of my car for it too. Not that its a problem, but i dont really want that much tied up in a car that will only quickly go down in value. Plus the extra insurance costs + petrol to run the thing made me think twice.

My E11s half finished, ive got everything to do finish it now but im finding i really fancy a change even with the amount of work ive put into it. I dont know what it is, but i get like this after a couple of months ownership of any car i have, admitidly its taken a lot longer for this to happen with the E11. If im honest, im hankering for something RWD. I havent experienced owing one yet and really fancy getting one, or get back into something thats turbo charged, or i really fancy a levin bzr. Well see what happens - knowing me ill move on after a couple of weeks after ive completed the E11

[PaulinhoT]

I know what you mean, I normally change my cars every 3 months, but it means something special that I have owned my E11 for over a year now. I have been asked by people if I would sell it for £1000 - £1500 but if I'm 100% honest I don't want to yet.

I have had rwd cars, monster turbo cars etc.. and would love a 4wd car myself.. but each and every time I take "Connie" for a spin I just smile :) it's not the fastest thing by a long ways, but it's a tidy chassis which offeres a lot of fun. So yeah stick with your plans and see it out..

:)

[Steven252]

I know what you mean, I normally change my cars every 3 months, but it means something special that I have owned my E11 for over a year now. I have been asked by people if I would sell it for £1000 - £1500 but if I'm 100% honest I don't want to yet.

I have had rwd cars, monster turbo cars etc.. and would love a 4wd car myself.. but each and every time I take "Connie" for a spin I just smile :) it's not the fastest thing by a long ways, but it's a tidy chassis which offeres a lot of fun. So yeah stick with your plans and see it out..

:)

Im exactly the same paul, on one hand i want something fast again yet cant part with the e11!

Then i see this and think mmmm yes please

Yup thats a facelift E11 with a celica 3gs-gte engine and 4wd system. Its had only minor floor plan modifications - the whole corolla one remains with some brackets made for the rear diff/suspension.

And it begins again

[PaulinhoT]

Yeah now one of those in my lovely little E11 would make me smile a lot :)

Looks pretty mighty don't you think.

[Steven252]

Deffenately looks mighty and i want it.... In red please ;)