1987 Toyota Corolla ee80 [pic heavy]

[superbean]

A last minute ebay bid saw me jumping on a train to collect this







1987 Toyota Corolla ee80/ae80
1.3 12v (don't laugh its got 15bhp more than my last car did)
Brown interior and velour seats
52,000 miles with service history, original purchase invoice (£6800 new with metallic paint option at £95) and still wearing the original supplying dealer number plates, tax disc holder, rear screen sticker and bootlid sticker.
The cars as solid as a rock and has never been welded. Theres a dent in the drivers front wing and a blister on a rear arch..... Thats it! If it had a VW badge on it would be worth ten million quadzillion pounds (maybe)













so there we have it

[superbean]

You know how everyone bangs on about J cars being bullet proof? Well their wrong! The drive home from Bristol to South wales (40 miles) curse word the corolla off and it decieded to munch its headgasket. The car has always been registered in Bristol so I think it wasnt used to the higher revs of motorway driving for a prolonged period hence the gasket blowing.

new parts were ordered





yup that'll be the problem and in the words of a mate, its more bloated than a tenner lady. A huge shout needs to go out to hoopdub at this point who kindly offered to do the greasy bits when all I wanted to do was attack every panel with a hammer.



cleaned up



and almost back together

[superbean]

you'll have to bear with me as I'm playing catch up..........

I had some wheels lying about so I thought I'd try them on for size and fitment





I instantly loved the Borbets but.....



this is the front 7.5'', I'd have no chance of getting the 9's on the rear. The fronts wouldnt even be doable with a healthy drop.

Time for a rethink

[superbean]

The aux belt was changed which I'm glad I did as it had more cracks than Dot Cottons top lip





Next up was the dreaded mot but I didnt have to worry, the Corolla didnt even need a bulb and was only advised on a tyre but the wheels will be changed anyway. RESULT!



and just to show how solid this little car is



The biggest headache I've had so far is trying to sort a suspension and wanting the adjustability of coilovers but found nothing available off the shelf in the uk. This model corolla has a following in oz and the philipines but coilovers from Australia are £800 which just isnt going to happen. I looked at adjustable inserts which the rally boys use to convert standard struts to coilovers but my struts are too narrow for the sets I've looked at so far. I've ordered a set of 4 lowering springs as a stop gap but they don't fit the springs are too wide for the cups on my struts.

[superbean]

The need to get closer to mother earth resulted in some chop-suey action



Looks much better but needs to go lower

[recarouk]

you MUST do whatever it takes to get those borbets on.

that looks sexual chocolate fella!!!

[cesarbarbosa]

I have some original hub caps if you want them to complete your stock wheels, for free just costing you the courier..

[superbean]

recarouk......... I would of loved to get the Borbets on but theres just no way without major surgery and I just cant bring myself to start chopping the car about. The Borbets have since been sold to stop me trying!

The original plan was jdm arches and wide dished wheels but clean and low is the new plan

cesarbarbosa........ thats very kind of you! thank you, but the original wheels are coming off for some alloys. Should I change my mind I'll drop you a message

[FOAD]

Brings back childhood memories, my dad had one of these in a gold/beige colour on an A plate.

[octagonalpaul]

My dad had one of these too, a blue one. Great cars from what I remember, hell of a lot of potential here!

[dougie1142]

This could be mega, a model not many people know about! Look forward to reading it.

[Speedle]

me thinks all this little beast needs is a 4AGE block I'd imagine that would be an easy conversion too seeing as its used in most of the Corolla variants of this age.

[ra28celica]

Borbets really suit it! keep them on!!

[dreadnought]

no,no,no,no,no, borbets belong on third reich-mobiles. put the other ones on they look jdm as rice.
get used to the "my dad used to have one of those" i get it all the time with my laurel.
should be bloody cool when done. theres an estate one dropped on its backside in yeovil i see reguarly.

[superbean]

thanks for the replys all. I'm glad to know its not just me that thinks its a cool little car, all my mates think I'm mental

I have some slightly out of the box wheels here awaiting tyres

[superbean]

wow its been a while since I've updated this!

Both sills have now been colour coded (for some reason I cant stand sills being any colour other than body colour), banded steels bought and fitted. I'll let some pictures do the talking



I decided to have a look behind the front wings and this is what I found





25 years of leaves and curse word all busy turning to compose. Glad I did this as it wouldnt of done the car any good in the long run

and the new wheels



I know I said earlier in the thread I had a set of wheels planned but they just werent exciting me

[superbean]

^^^^^ 14'' vw wheels banded to 7'' front and 8.5'' rear

Obviously the Vw centre caps just wouldnt do so I attacked them with a d.a to get rid of the logo

from this





they'll have a quick flash over with some satin black so they're all one colour

[superbean]

And today I've been playing with colours for the steels. I almost went for a classic mercedes cream (I had a can lying about) but in the end opted for







;D

[jawathemutt]

thats a very bright silver ,where did you get that ?have you got the code off the can?

[discostu]

Haha, that looks great! I love banded steels. You going to get lower?