st205 GT4 rebuild

[Bean]

After stripping my 5e ep85 i had some space so i bought this

great car, i use it every other week for work.

I had always loved the gt4's and when i heard about this one me and my mate planned to go halfs on it fix it up then sell it on for a few quid. But after getting it back and realising how much work it needed i thought it would be better if i kept it and pottered about with it getting back on the road eventually.

So we got the car loaded up from the previous owner





a cheeky stop off at the top of hartside



And we made it back in one piece and got the gt4 tucked up in its new home next to its old friend



So far things that need sorted

gear box is trashed!, i think its been ran dry on oil
all brake seals need replaced
hand brake shoes have little or no friction material left on them
no toyota badge on front which was soon sorted.
it was absolutely pitted so i cleaned it inside and out, clayed it then waxed it and polished the glass,, this took ages but what a difference it made



i started stripping the back end down to sort the brakes and the other problems i would come across



turned out both rear bearings where no good so after a bit of a fight i got them out

i ran my tig welder round them and they came out no worries



one of the bolts was seized into the bush so i had to cut it off



Ive also sorted out a few electrical problems with the car and got the boot closing and the catch had no springs on it, and issues with the fuel flap stopping it from opening.

Still lots of work to do but looks like ive got a good 30k mile gearbox on the way shortly. Ive got parts ordered to sort the brakes except for the rear brake back plates which looks like a trip to toyota again. Looks like this is going to be a money pit i think.

Time for a little update and some pics. ive not had alot of time to work on the car as theres been some building work going on in the front room which was more work than i thought.

i got some parts.



i stripped and rebuilt the rear calipers, fitted new pistons and seals and sprayed them.





the front ones are painted but ive not got round to fitting the new pistons and seals.

I got a set of rear hubs in much better condition than mine and some polly bushes for the back end. Big smokes was checking them out when i opened them



I got the rear diff and the whole subframe out yesterday


bit of a mission with bolts snapping and seized in but i got there in the end



i got the diff off to give it a check over





and some of the other parts off, all pretty rusty. im thinking about getting the lot powder coated, but i need to get a price first.



my exhaust has a really bad rattle so i checked it out and turns out the flexi is snapped



and the front section is an old mild steel 3" item (aussie??) which doesn't look too good so i bought 6m of 3" 316 stainless and some 90 degree bends to make a new front section to fit the blitz nur spec system. A good excuse for some practice with the tig.



I finally managed to get hold of a gear and transfer box. apparently only done 30k miles! and has sat in a garage for the last 6 years. hopefully its as good as it sounds.



i don't normally bother with aesthetic type parts but i seen this carbon dipped centre console so i got it. i also had a TRD gearknob left over from the short shifter i had on my starlet turbo so that found a new home too.



Also at the weekend i got my girlfriend to pick me up some new extra tall axle stands from machine mart in Carlisle £92 which i think is a bargain



i hate messing about trying to get at stuff under cars and fighting on with jacks, blocks and bits of wood to get the car high enough. so these should help. i would like a little scissor lift for the garage though.

Now i just need some more time to get the work done...

And thats about where im up too, except i got the new aerial fitted so that goes up and down now like it should

. i need to get cracked on with it. but i have no power to my garage atm as i have just had my front room re wired in the house and how my garage received its power from the fuse box was very dodgy so its been disconnected until the wiring faults can be found and then it can be connected up correctly though a breaker and the rccb so no lights or sockets even.

[Zeldoz]

Fantastic mate.

One of these will be my next port of call I think. Been toying with it for awhile!

Keep it up!

[daniel_g]

Love the ST205 celicas, some top work going on with this

[Ollieh17]

was going to go look at one of these to replace the glanza, just hard to find a good one. Glad people out there are restoring them!

[Bean]

If you are thinking of getting one either get a cheap one that needs tlc like mine or pay top dollar for one that's had all the fig 8s, diff mount, shocks, turbo ect all sorted. Parts aren't cheap for these like the starlets are. And there's not alot of off the shelf parts like the starlets either.

[morgey]

Nice to see the work being put in on it dude.

Super strut costs a small fortune, looked at prices as I was looking at Ae111 levins and it can cost over 1k for each front side!

[Bean]

haha yep its not cheap to replace them. luckily mine look fine ive checked out the front end and all i think i need is an upper ball joint and some cv boots.

when i drove the car it wasnt that quick as it was only running .65 bar of boost and there was a bung in the tail pipe but it did handle great. If anyone knows the hartside road to the cafe at the top they will know how good of a road it is!

[Liam_D]

Love st205s mate!

[paulgtt]

TCB will quickly become your friend with a faff

[Bean]

Yep I've had a few deliveries from tcb already. Toyota is within walking distance of my house so I get quite alot from their too.

[Phil]

lovely project, all the very best with it!

Phil

[Bean]

cheers Phil. i might put that vf35 on it! lol jj.

[Bean]

oops

Edited January 18, 2014 by Bean

[Bean]

No updates for a while as ive been busy with the house. Had to get my front room completely re wired. then found out my garage wiring was dodgey so i had no power for about a month. Ened up having to run a new armoured cable out to the garage and re wire all the sockets in there and theres loads of them! grr. But back to normal now so i can crack on.

Im trying to get the back end all rebuilt, poly bushed, and powder coated. ive got a few questions and a few things which are going to cause me bother.

front section of exhaust removed

the flexi sort of unravelled and the aussie front section has about had it too i think. so much rust fell off it when i removed it and t feels really thin. need to remake all this in 316.

i got the downpipe off to check out my turbo, turns out its the single waste gate hybrid


rear arb off, i had to cut through one of the drop links. it was just a stock one so i think i might get some stronger ones which i believe are recommended with the uprated rarbs?


I dropped the rear struts and disassembled them as the tein springs looked very tired and i have a set of brand new trd springs


trd box.

old springs removed.

one of the front teins snapped before i bought the car so the front trd springs are already fitted.

I plan to completely rebuild the rear end with poly bushes, powder coated parts ect. so i have stripped down the rear subframe. except i havnt got the arms out which have the adjustment on them.
Has anyone replaced the big cushions which the sub frame and diff mount bolt to the car shell through. i have seen gt4 racing do this kit http://www.gt4-racing.eu/index.php/toyota-celica-st205/rear-subframe-and-rear-diff-top-mounts anyone used them? what are they like for road use?

I had a few problems when i removed the rear sub frame and the mounting bolts arent too good. some of them snapped and left no thread on them. can you get at the top of them from inside the car to replace them? or is it a case of cutting into the car to get at them?



bit rusty this one


end snapped off



and a bit of cleaning going on



hopefully more updates coming throughout the weekend! :mrgreen:

[maddox710]

Good work buddy love gt fours what's that intake mani on the floor in the first pic?

[Bean]

Its an acis dual runner inlet from a 5efhe that has been fitted with a k20 civic throttle body with an adapter plate and ported out. I had it on my 5e. I should sell it really.

[maddox710]

How much??!!

[Bean]

£200 delivered if you want it mate. its a nice bit of kit. big plenum on them. i paid quite a bit for the k20 throttle and then the work to make it fit and port out. its got a big anodised throttle cable pulley on it too. if photobucket stars working i can link to some pics

[maddox710]

Send me some pics when you can please dude

[Bean]

will do. the pages just dont seem to want to load

[Bean]

little update.

i got another sub frame its till pretty rusty and mankey but atleast its in one piece.


i got all the bushes and plastic caps removed, then ran a thread tap through the captive nuts to clean the threads up ready for the new bolts.



I noticed on the sub frame that new where the back of the rear diff mounts to it one of the small welds had cracked and wasnt joinging the two pieces of metal togther. so i welded along the whole thing stitching the parts which Toyota never welded in the factory.






The poly bush collection is getting bigger




and i got the bumper off! it took ages due to rusty bolts at the top by the wings :tongue:



Charge cooler rad is mankey, so i either need to see how much a new one is or go fmic, i cant decide.

Lots more bolts and bits n pieces to collect from Toyota tomorrow hopefully all the rear end will be powder coated by the end of next week too!

[paulgtt]

What sort of power are you aiming for?

Charge cooler is good for 400bhp, only reason I went FMIC at 310bhp was because it was spending most of its time on track.

[Bean]

the engine is stock except for a cometic head gasket so i will just keep to at 1.2 bar i think. so it should make over 300bhp maybe 320 something around there.

[paulgtt]

If its got a hybrid then I would put in 850cc injectors, 225l/ph pump and a good mappable ecu, that should see you around 320-330.

I've only seen a handful of st205's put out more than 300bhp without some form of ecu upgrade.

[Bean]

I've got an emu with plug and play harness. I won't be changing the injectors. 850s would be massive over kill. It's already got the 255 pump.