99 Corolla work in progress

Need to update this thread... It'll be blank on this first post for a while.

This goes along with the fourth picture I put up:

I got a flat on the freeway, was almost gonna be late for work, so I was in a hurry. Well, one exit later, I get off the freeway, hit a pothole. FAIL. It dents the donut rim, as you can see in the last pic. So I drive it all slow the last 1/2 mile to work, and figure I'll worry about it once I get off work. My buddy let's me borrow his full size spare from his car, SCORE. Well it turns out I was in way too much of a hurry to put the donut on, apparently I cross-threaded a lug nut. FAIL #2. So I take that picture, knowing I'll share this story someday... I take two other lug nuts off, get going on the last one, what do you know, cross-threaded. FAIL #3. Had to break the studs to get the spare off, so I got a ride to Kragen, and got all new ones just in case the other ones were compromised in any way. Luckily they're relatively easy to change, just took off the brakes to get to it, as you can see in the fourth picture in the original post in this thread. If you look, there are two of them broken off. So in the end, I had two flat tires within 9 minutes of each other, one bent rim, two broken studs, one new tire, four new studs, and four new lug nuts.

Newest parts to go on the car:

I hope so Hummer, your car is freaking amazing. Here's what I got this morning More pics on the car to follow in a hour or so hopefully.

Here's the new muffler, right out of the box:



The TRUST logo:



Very nice looking:



I polished it up:



TRUST logo shined up a little more:



Much better looking:



There's the last pic of the stock muffler:



The new one bolts right on:



Undo these two right here:



Then take off the bracket:



The old one comes right off at that point:



Lines right up, put the bolts back on:



The bracket goes right back in place:



Tighten it all down:



All installed:



I think it looks good:



It sounds nice too:



What do you guys think?

Ok, I decided to replace my bettery terminals... The factory ones were all bent outta shape, they looked terrible, and the negative one would come off at random times. One time they both came off while my gf was in the car, and the car just completely died. Not cool. It's been a problem before, because my car wouldn't start sometimes unless I wiggled the battery cables a bit, then it would start, but after it died while I was going down the road, I decided a fix was in order:

Here's the battery with the old terminals:



The negative up close:



The positive up close:



Here's the new ones:



I started by disconnecting the negative cable:



Cut the old connector off:



Expose a little more wire:



Put the wires into the new connector, tighten the two bolts down:



Put it back on and check to make sure it fits good:



Cut the positive wires:



Same thing; cut the wires, strip it down, put it in the new connector, tighten:



All finished, looks better too, gives it a little more color:



Throw this crap away:


Another thing I noticed, those new ones I bought were nice and hefty, I like them. And it's nice and tight on the battery, shouldn't be coming loose any time soon. If anyone is interested in doing this, I picked up the set at AutoZone for $4.99.

I have one question though. In this picture, you can see the copper wire, or whatever it's made of, is exposed just about like a centimeter. Should I worry about that?

Here's the TRD valve caps:


Up-close shot:


Here's the old one:


Take the old one off (obviously


This little screw holds the new one on:


All finished, took 30 seconds:


Well after about ten miles of driving, one of the TRD logos came off. FAIL. So I have three that still have the logo on them, and one chrome cap.

Ok here's the latest thing I've done, I put some side markers on my car.
Started off by marking the outline of what I need to remove from the fender, and start drilling:


Finished along the top:


Start going along the bottom:


Yes it looks bad but I used a power drill, not a dremel. It'll look better:


Popped that little piece out:


I know it's higher than how most people put them:


I wanted it to be right above that little line that runs along the car:


I used a different bit to smooth it all out and make it the right size for the light to fit:


I ran the wires down that little hole near the back of the engine bay into the fender:


They will come right out that little spot if you line it up right:


Connect the light socket to the wires and wrap it up:


I tucked the wrapped wires under that little lip that goes along the whole fender, it hides it nicely:


Take off the corner light in front, and that's the hole I ran the wire through, and spliced it in:


I put the corner light back on, and put the cover on the corner light too:


Checked the fitment, it's not going anywhere:


A side shot of the install:


That little bit of wire is the only visual clue underhood of the install, which I wanted to keep as clean as possible:


Testing it out, it works good:


I'll post some more pics of it at night later on, along with a video of something strange I noticed.

Ok, so for a while, I've always hated the inadequate lighting in the trunk of the Corolla. So I did something about it.

Here's the OEM light in the trunk. I know it's a small car with a small trunk, but come on:


Undid the little clip that holds the light in:


Disconnect the light from the socket:


Disconnected the battery, then cut that all off:


Connected the new lights into the wires from the old one:


Re-wire the old socket back in:


Put the light back in the socket:


Connect the battery, test it all out:


It works, push the light back into that hole until it clicks in:


Used some super glue to hold them up there, the tape is temporary:


Took the tape off, checked it out at night:


I like the blue, it's a little different but I think it's cool:


It's brighter than that in person:


It took about 20 minutes, start to finish:


Those lights were free, that's why I did it. I might buy a set to put on the sides of the top of the trunk, since it's kinda bright in the middle only. But either way, it's way better than stock, and I do actually get in my trunk at night a lot so it helps. What do you guys think?

This might be my last post for a while, I'm getting my own place today, and I don't have a computer. There's a library down the street so I might get on every couple days. But I'll see you guys around, keep posting random crap for me

Ok a lot has happened in my absence, if you guys even remember me lol. Got some pictures I'll put up in a little bit of the stuff I've finished. I'm in the middle of a bunch of projects right now:
1) Still gotta put my suspension in, but I'm waiting for new struts first along all four corners, and new sway bar bushings up front.
2) I took off my entire headliner because the fabric is messed up along the back window, like I've seen on a lot of Corolla's.
3) My fog light install is being put off due to the 100 degree weather, and also my laziness.
There are things that I have finished though:
1) I got the tachometer installed, I got some pictures of that installed now.
2) Got my cross-drilled rotors and Hawk pads up front all installed (wow those are insane)
3) Painted my valve cover and got new spark plug wires, now my engine bay has a little color, not as bland looking.

Ok so I got a tachometer, it was really easy to install, depsite what people have been saying about how hard it is to do it the right way. So if you look on the first page of my thread, I have a picture of my interior all taken apart, and that is what I did again to get to the ECU. Once that is exposed after you get the entire dash taken off, you get to this clip, and after reading the instructions, I found that this black wire with the dots on it is the one I need:



The green wire from the tachometer gets spliced into the black wire from the ECU:



The white wire connects to the dimmer switch for my dash lights and hite gauges:



The red wire goes to the positive connection on the battery:



The black wire goes to the negative connection on the battery:



Drill a hole in the A-pillar to mount it:



All installed:



I'll have more pictures and some night shots too.

Ok I was looking under my hood not too long ago and I didn't like the way things were loking. So I decided to do something about that. Here's how it looked when I started. (also my intake no longer looks like that



I took off that little plastic piece thing:



It was really dirty under there, I'll take care of that:



Something else I noticed is that my spark plug wires were really dry looking and cracked:



Took the wires and all the hoses off:



Take the bolts off, and the valve cover comes right off:



All exposed like a pervert on Dateline:



Just a close up:



Look how dirty that was:


Looks like I have my work cut out for me here:



I took the first layer off junk off:



Still some work to do though:



Much better, just took some work:



Looks way better than how it started out:



Covered up all the holes with tape:



One layer of white paint to make the next color brighter:



Second coat:



First layer of red:



Second coat, looks nice:



Put it back on, and painted the bolts white, to give a little contrast:



New NGK spark plug wires installed:



I think it brightened up the engine bay quite nicely:

I think I might change the color every now and then, it's not that hard and it's kinda fun to do it. Maybe yellow or lime green who knows. I use Gunk brand Engine Brite. Just spray it on, let it sit for 20 minutes or so, then get a big wire brush, and scrub for a little bit.

Finally have some rims on my car... I got these Rota's for dirt cheap, you can probably guess how. They're two different colors. Oh well.



They were originally red with a chrome lip:



The previous guy painted two of them white to see what it looked like:



I don't know what any of this means, anyone read Japanese?:



There's the tire size:



These tires have way better grip than the all-seasons that were on the steelies. Plus they look pretty cool:



Got a free set of lug nuts because the ones that come on the car were too big, couldn't get the lug wrench in there to put the wheels on:



Here's the white side from the back:



And from the front:



The red ones don't look that good with the purple of the car:



Although it looks way different in person:



Finally I can see the nicer brakes I have on there:



I will have some better pictures next time, from better angles (I was in a hurry when I took these). Also the rims are now all white, even the lip. It looks much better, pics soon. What do you think? And I need help figuring out what kind of rims they are. All the guy knew was they are Rota wheels.

OK so these pictures are really old but there was a member on here that requested a DIY on this mod that I did. I know it's of questionable taste to most people on here, but oh well hahah. I decided to vent the rear of my hood, here's how:

Buy 4 long bolts, make sure they are the correct diameter and threading, they need to match the stock hood bolts exactly:


And a handful of washers, evenly distributed ...you don't want a lopsided hood now do you:


Before picture, left side:


Before picture, right side:


Undo the two bolts on one side of the hood at a time:


I was alone for this so you gotta hold the hood up once you take them off:


Put the washers in between the hood and the bracket (is that what that's called? I don't know lol


Tighten it all down:


I wrapped it in electrical tape because it was way too shiny for my taste:


On the right side of the car be sure to put the line for the washer fluid back on:


And there you go:


These are old pics, before I put my rims on, but there it is:

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck I got a bunch of water in my intake, lost all the power to my car... That's what I get for running the intake down in the bumper without a fender liner, in the rain.

Washed the car (finally) pictures of the rear visor tomorrow.

Well I've heard that it doesn't let cold air in, it lets the hot air out. And if I sit in the car for a minute, you can see the heat waves coming out and going up the windshield. I have also noticed (judging by the needle) that when I turn off the car, it cools down much faster, so when I restart it after just 15 minutes or so of non-operation, the needle is only about 1/4 up. Before I did this, the car stayed hot for much longer, almost half an hour to 45 minutes. So as far as bringing in cold air, I say it's a bunch of crap. But it does let the hot air out, I know that for a fact. Whether you believe it or want to do more research is entirely up to you, just putting up my personal experiences with it. And when I'm running around here in the summer (which it was when I first did this), the needle stays just a tad lower than it used to when fully warmed up. So it seems obvious to me that it is definitely keeping the engine bay cooler, but by exactly how much I do not know. But I also like the way it looks, not sure why lol

Anyway, pictures of the visor as promised. In the last one, you can see it's kinda bulged up in one spot highter than in the others, that's because it didn't get on straight, so it kinda got twisted, and bubbled up. Just gonna buy more 3M tape and redo it when I have the time. But as you can see it's much smaller than those of you (4 that I know of) that have them already. I prefer the look of mine thankfully, it's smaller, and a little more subtle:

I think I'm gonna get some s.tech's and tokico blues with my tax money. I'm not ready to track my car, and I don't want to invest in full coilovers yet, and I've heard good things about that combo. But thanks for the comments (even exdream lol)

Ok well I'm sure we couuld work out a deal, that sounds nice
Oh and here's something that happened a while ago, totally forgot to show you guys:

Yeah... I have no idea how it got there... I was down visiting my mom, (I washed my car right before I went down, dent wasn't there) and we got out somewhere, and she pointed it out. I don't even know when it got there, because I didn't crash on the way down, and never got out of the car until I got to her house. And she has a single carport, so nobody could have come and hit my car. My car didn't move until her and I both got it in and went to the store, where she got out and saw it. No idea how it happened, but I'm wondering if it can be popped out or not.

So as you can see, my headliner needs to be replaced. This is a common problem in these Corollas:


Take off the clip on the rear view mirror:


Undo the screws and take it off, as well as the clips for the visors:


Take off the left one:


Take off the right one:


Remove the plastic on the inside of the A-pillar:


Same on the passenger side:


Remove the plastic on the inside of the C-pillar:


Same for the driver side:


Remove the cover from the dome light and undo the screws:


Pull the assembly out and remove that connector clip:


End result:


Take off the passenger OH-SHIT handle:


And the one on the back-right side:


And the one on the back-left side:


All that's left is the clips near the back window, pop those off and wedge the headliner out the front passenger door opening (trust me it's the easiest one


Here's the headliner waiting to go under the knife:


The old fabric peels off very easily:


Here's the new stuff that I'm gonna be working with:


Spray it with fabric glue spray in little sections as you go along, careful about wrinkles:


I wrapped it around all edges to prevent it from falling off once it got worn by the weather (something Toyota did not do, which is a simple step and includes only a few inches of fabric, how hard could that have been?


Ready to be wedged back in the opening of the door. The back openings are too small, and the steering wheel gets in the way up front, so go in through the front right door as stated earlier:


Put all mirrors, handles, lights, et cetera back on:


And that's that:

Here's a quick pic of my new hood. Better quality and more pictures to come.

New rim color and pics of the hood, now that the car is finally clean (mostly

Hey man I'm saving up for having a kid and stuff lol
The car is going on the backburner more than I wanted. Plus I gotta fix this CEL to pass smog. I keep getting P0441 and P0446, but they are "pending" so I can clear them. But once I start the car again, the light pops back up.

Got the lowering springs as most of you know by now, finally got around to installing them. Here's the last two pictures of the SUV Corolla. 1st:


2nd:


Here's the front spring, ready to be put on:


Undo the nuts on the shock tower (I learned the hard way to first brake loose the center nut on the strut, makes the job A LOT easier


Undo the brake line from the strut:


Next up is the two bolts on the bottom. Had to let some WD-40 creep into it, these did not want to come off. Granted, I didn't have a breaker bar (I do now), so I ended up breaking 2 CRAFTSMAN ratchets. My only ones:


The spring/strut assembly slides right out:


Here it is, the original suspension from when the car was manufactured. It's only THIRTEEN years old:


Finish undoing the top nut, and watch out, because it explodes open. See how I did it near a curb:


New (for me) springs on the old strut. Will replace these soon:


Camber bolt replaces the stock top one, old one goes back into the bottom:


Put the brake line back in:


Tighten it all back down:


And top 4 as well:


Here's the front (not quite settled in yet


Finally nice and low:


Had to drive around for a couple days with the rear high up like that:


Rear spring, ready to go:


The rear brake line, however, is more securely attached to the strut, meaning either open the line to get it out (meaning you need to bleed the brakes after... not an option for me), or cut open that bracket. I chose door number 2:


Here it is, slides right out:


I have folding rear seats, so I have easy access to the rear strut tower:


You need an allen wrench and a regular wrench to get the endlink off the strut:


Same process as the front, undo the bolts, et cetera... Here's the new spring on there:


I think I'll wait a few days to put up pictures of the final product just to bug CorollaGT...

Didn't get a chance to wash the car, but here's 5 quick shots. I'll try to get more tomorrow from better angles so Hummer can stop complaining. Enjoy the moment we've waited about a year and a half for:

Well I got my next thing in the mail already, just got to prepare it for being put on my car... Maybe a little sanding, perhaps a little painting, hmm? haha corollagt seems to think he knows what it is, but he could be extremely wrong hahahah

Got a set of totally tyte yo JDM lug nuts a few days ago, here's some pictures now that the car is clean(er