Natalie Portman project

After a couple month of CCM (cut cost management) and part time working, i manage to save up some money to start my own car project. The first plan is to buy a Nissan Cefiro A31 but after some financial problems and shortage, i changed to plan B which is to buy the cheapest rear wheel drive car in the market which is a Toyota Corolla KE70. Although my interest and heart was on the Cefiro, i still need to change to the corolla if i want to proceed with this hobby. The car was supposed to be a on road car which i will be driving all the time. Plus, a corolla road tax and insurance cost will not be as high as a cefiro. Well, i gotta have a financial plan since i need to maintain two cars and a bike now and to make things worst, im still a student..huuuuu

After some searching, i managed to find one seller from Seremban area who wants to sell his corolla with a quite interesting price. The first price given is RM8800 but after some negotiation , I did manage to get the car for RM6350 complete with a 4age engine, T50 gearbox, ae86 long shaft, sport rims and air con. And the story begins....

On 13th of March, I come to Seremban to have some look of the car. The first time i saw the car on the traffic light as the owner arrives, i already fall in love with it. Not sure what is the feeling but it was heart pumping. Furthermore, Mr.k which was with me at that time, saw 73workshop sticker on the car. We were relieved to know that the car was maintained by Ah Song 73 workshop.

After some business talk with the owner, i and Mr.K did a test drive on the car and we immediately address some problems with it. First, the clutch is out. I need to dump all the way to the floor before i can enter a gear and sometimes, it quite hard to enter most of the gear. Then the suspension, simply said it was too buoyant or feels like floating on a boat. Maybe i need to have a proper setup for the suspension or just replaced with a new ones. Next is the gearbox which i have problem down shifting from 3rd to 2nd and the last problem is the long shaft which i think relates to the coupler because as soon it reaches 80-90kmh, the whole car starts to vibrate like hell. While for the body of the car, it was not in a good condition, rust were quite a lot at different spot and seriously this car need a new paint job. But was surprise me that day is how much torque and horsepower that car got. 1st and 2nd gear puts quite a great amount of g force to the driver, owh hell yeh i like that !! as soon as it hits the powerbands around 3k-4k rpm, it shoots like shit i tell ya..hahaha

interior

the bottom floor were quite heavily rusted. need some seriooooous money to repair this one

the dangling muffler due to worn out bush rubber

and lastly....the heart pumping generator.4age redtop taken from ae92

after a few days later, i confirmed with the owner to buy the car. On 17th, i came to seremban again to settle down all the document transfer, Puspakom, JPJ and also the payment. Thanx to the insurans company, we managed to settle all those things at around 3pm that day. later that day, i drove it straight to Malacca. The ride were really tiring as i need to maintain the speed below 80kmh to avoid the crazy ass back paining vibration. Luckily ibu and abah were willing to come all the way from Muar to convoy with me. Thanx bu n bah !

The next day, the car wont start due to power lack. The battery were out and need to be changed. Thanx to the help of min and din, we pushed the car to start the engine then off the the nearest workshop. I changed the battery to yokohama and have the engine serviced. Changed the engine oil and replace the oil filter. I also replaced the compressor belt and starter belt and also have them check the vibration problem and it was the coupler just as i suspected. Also spot a small leak on the oil pan below the engine. I guess i need to replace the gasket next.

later that day, came to zie house to pick up some stuff and to do some DIY's. hehehe

clean up some rust on the long shaft and at the shaft coupler with some WD40 and brush. Cant believe it works. Although the vibration is still present at high speed, but after the WD40 treatment, it pretty much became lesser

the new rubber bushing for the exhaust piping. no more dangling muffler..hehe

had her washed, clean the interior and have some random photoshoot

stay tune for more update later on on this project

the picture that sparks it all up at the first time