Practically Classics Forum

Another 40 miles and you can pick up this flippin' mower engine !

Toyota corolla??? Twin Cam ??????

If that moggie had wings it'd fly with a nice twin cam under the bonnet

arceye wrote:Toyota Corolla??? Twin Cam ??????

Arceye shoots, he scores , they think it's all over... I still need to do some sums and I get to drive around in something Japanese for a few weeks while I make up a loom to get Mr Lucas communicating with Mr Denso. Oh, and there's the small matter of finding the main casing from the RWD type of AW gearbox to mate the thing to a propshaft. And how to avoid halfshaft meltdown in the Minor's stock axle when I used to tear these apart at a rate of one a month in my A40, which only had a very slightly modified 1098 under the bonnet?
Knowing my luck, the Corolla will turn out to be a really nice one and I'll end up taking pity on the thing.

could you modify a mk 1/2 ford escort axle & prop to fit?

I could, it's been done and, like most things Minor-related is well documented but I'm taking a complete U-Turn .
Allow me to explain:
Yesterday, I went to see the Corolla that I'd bought and was expecting to see a tatty old thing with a good engine and auto gearbox, after all, I wanted to remove these parts and, after modifying the gearbox to work in the casing from a RWD car - a challenging, therefore interesting possible way forward that I read about in an old copy of Cars & Car Conversions - use the Toyota parts as the mechanical basis of the Minor auto project.
So I turned into the seller's drive and saw before me one of the cleanest, most original 25 year old cars I've met in my whole life. The registration plate matched that of the car I'd bought from the internet advert but this thing looked spotless apart from needing some attention to its (original Toyota 13") alloy wheels, which have no kerb damage but will look fabulous once I've polished them.
The guy who sold me the car came out of his house to greet me, confirming that this Steel Grey vision of retro Japanese loveliness was in fact the one I'd bought. I'd brought an old sheet and some foam to allow me to lie on the floor and have a good look underneath and when I did so, I was met by the sight of a completely rust-free underside. Sills, floor pans, spare wheel well/boot floor, door skins, arches, inner front wings, suspension turrets and in fact every square millimetre of the delightful old thing are as sound as they would have been on that day, three days before my 26th birthday, when the Toyota had been collected by the first of its two owners from the dealership in Essex.
Having checked that my key policy allowed me to drive other cars than those I currently have on the list, I took it out for a test drive, the seller told me not to rush but to take it on a good mixture of different road surfaces and traffic conditions. "Give yourself at least an hour to get used to her, she's old you know!" said the chap, handing me a key.
As I'd requested, the seller hadn't started the engine since the day before so that I could experience for myself how easily that engine starts so, in line with the general condition of the machine, it fired up first piston over the top and settled into a lovely sweet idle. The engine is actually an AF, fed by something that I recognised as a carburettor and not the otherwise similar but fuel injected AFE that I'd thought I'd be getting but to drive it, I really wouldn't have known without looking, such is its eager and free spinning nature, That automatic 'box changes virtually as quickly as the Glof's DSG but does so much more smoothly than the overly complex piece of German/Chinese/Mexican engineering boastfulness, the Toyota's brake pedal is light, yet much more progressive than the VW's massive stopping equipment, the PAS on the Toyota is of the hydraulic type, with a very light feel but that's fine as it works, it goes where it's pointed and none of the various joints and bushes around the place are showing any wear, so all, it appeared, was better than I had expected, especially as the Japanese motor has lovely soft furniture, a surprisingly large boot and comes with every single invoice, a fully stamped service book, all of its old MOT certificates and 3/4 of a tank of petrol!

Well, what would you do? Exactly, so I'm not going to waste such a good car either and the seller is keeping it down on his drive for now as I'm waiting for the DLA404 form from the DVLA that will allow me to tax it at the post office for free, as my old form was full (a DLA404 allows you to tax four cars - not at the same time of course, and I'd already filled it with a Volvo 340 and three other cars), though I was tempted to tax the car online and lose a month's VED because I like it that much.
So fingers are crossed and if the form arrives by Wednesday, I'll be picking it up after work and taking the Corolla to the Metro Centre meet that evening as the venue is close to the seller's house.

Rather than continue scouring the world for Datsun Sunny bits, I've sold the Minor shell and all of the associated parts and the Golf will also be leaving me after two years, the Corolla will be taking its place and rather than take its original mileage (under 70,000) skywards, I'll not be using the car for work and shall instead use taxis when I have to move students around between interviews, placements and home visits.
I'm attaching a little piccie from the original ad for the car but it actually looks much, much nicer in the flesh so I'll aim to get more photos up, in a fresh thread as soon as I can. If I get the DLA404 by Wednesday then I'll aim to post pics from the Metro Centre meet, failing that, I'll post as soon as possible. It's all in the hands of the DVLA! ^^^ Is it wrong to find the bloke's wall interesting as a result of recent posts in another thread?

So there it is, retro transport for daily use is sorted, and I'll be having a change of working hours next year so who knows, I may even get around to dealing with some of the other old motors I have sitting around looking lonely.

Lovely car and a great find!

Kev

Cheers Kev, yes, it's a tidy thing and I would surely have been melted down by Lucifer herself had I taken bits from it and thrown such a straight shell away.

I'm in two minds whether to remove the word "Executive" from the tailgate though. The lettering is only stick-on stuff and is easily replaced but to me, it's a bit too Alan Partridge!

Very sweet

A credit to a careful and conscientious owner, I'm surprised that you haven't called it a Barn Find!

I have to confess that I would do the same as you if I was in a similar position - forget the Minor and Golf and enjoy looking after a good "modern" classic. Who knows, you may be on free VED by the time it needs any repairs!

That's the thing though; when my replacement DLA404 arrives in the post and I get that filled in and taken to the post office, it will be free. OK, so it's not the same as "Historic" class but free VED is free VED for all that, not that I'm recommending a degenerative illness as a preferred route into saving a few quid . If my older form hadn't been used the maximum number of times, I could have changed the taxation class tomorrow morning and had the Toyota on the road in under 24 hours from now. As it is, the car will be worth the wait.
I must admit that I expected to have the Minor sitting around for a while longer but the first contact I called - to ask whether he fancied taking that on - jumped at the chance and is going to build it up as a standard car to concours d'état quality, using the low mileage mechanical components he rescued from a rotten car some years ago. I was possibly not asking enough money for that as I'd expected to have to advertise it, even beg someone to take it since - rust free or not - the car is in the absolute back of beyond and will have to have more mechanical parts added before it can be towed along the long, unmade and usually rather muddy track that leads up to its location.
It's strange, but I remember when 25 year old cars felt old and invariably came with some disadvantages over equivalent modern motors. Now, this appears not to be the case. The only real difference in my (semi) regular use of this compared to the Golf is that the Toyota has a device that will play my cassettes and a built-in storage facility for half a dozen [cassettes]. This is a good thing!