Meh.... Crappy AE95

apparently $300 will get you:


1988 AE95 Corolla/Carib wagon 5 speed manual
311k miles
broken shifter cable
interior smelling of cigarettes and dog
front end smashed up a bit

Since I'm a cheap bastard and don't care what this thing looks like... I took to just getting it good enough to be driveable.... and I think I did better than I expected (considering the low amount I spent)

That's about as much as the hood closed because if you fully latched it, it wouldn't retract:

Although it came with the headlight, all of the mounting bolts were broken so it was pretty much useless anyways. Tough to see in the photo but the bumper was torn about 5 different ways on just the 1 corner.

Interior mid cleaning, which had to come mostly apart anyways to replace the shifter cable (although it was cheap, at $20, it was a pain to replace


Used the explorer as an anchor, used straps and basically the power of the corolla to pull the inner bumper back into place, then welded it, and painted:


Some hood bending.... the bumper has been "stitched" back up with zip ties (probably took at least 50) and a bunch of inner metal bending here and there... along with the original mount for the corner lamp cut off and a new fabricated mount welded in:




Headlight and corner light from a Virgina wrecking yard ($60, $15 and shipping) installed, the grille bolted/zip tied into place, and after some more bending of the fender and hood:


I've also since replaced:

Timing belt & tensioner
Valve cover gaskets
Cam seal gasket

There was a starting issue (still somewhat prevalent - I think it has a bad fuel pressure regulator and the rail is draining back when the car is turned off - what's interesting is since this is a 1988 it uses a bigport 4age fuel rail rather than the smaller/round latter 4afe rail) that caused me to pull 1/2 the harness apart, injectors out and rewire/reroute a large portion of the wiring

I have about $500 give or take into it..... runs and drives really well, actually....

Been driving it around, unsure of how many miles as the speedometer/odo don't work (a little more than 1/2 a tank). It's a definite turd, very slow.... but seems to get good gas mileage. Seats are surprisingly comfortable (short of the leather/heated seats... probably more comfortable than the IS300 seats).

been driving it for a while around town and it seems there's a few issues...

Starting can take a bit of time - and I'm 99% sure there's an issue with the FPR and it's not holding the fuel when off (fuel drains back to the tank). Once it's running it runs great... however it seems to lack power about 4800 rpm's... and I'm again wondering if the FPR isn't holding the right pressure and at higher rpm's is leaning out, maybe. The rail looks like a 4age rail so I'm going to poke around and see if I still have a spare (I had a bunch but I got rid of a lot of my extra parts...)

I also am on the verge of being done with the receiver hitch... there's very little room in the back behind the bumper so I wasn't thinking that a universal import one would work/fit.... I bought a cheapo bumper bolt on receiver and started the modifying.

I cut out part of the bumper itself.... along with part of the ridge where the inner bumper is put together (it's a ridge that sticks up and is welded).... I welded back across where the ridge had been and then placed the receiver on that.... welded it to the inner bumper, and then reinforced the backside of the inner bumper / backsection of the receiver using square tubing.

The inner bumper isn't flat - so I had some notching/welding to do on the square tubing and you can also see that I angled the ends.... I also added a second smaller piece of square tubing above and against the bumper to reinforce, well, everything.



Although it isn't pictured here - I wanted to reinforce where it bolts to the car but there just isn't room to add metal.... so I went through and added welding to where the brackets that come off the inner bumper - although Toyota had most of it welded, some areas (like corners) were not welded.

The only other things I may do are:
Weld across the seams where the brackets have overlap but aren't welded (basically - on each side where the "circles" are - the ridges above them)
Cut the chasis just a bit so I can add some reinforcing steel plating to the backside of the bolt itself
Possibly get longer grade 8 bolts