1986 MX72 Cressida Wagon Build: "Joby"

Oppo Sticker!


Techno Toy Tuning custom panhard bar came in and it's gorgeous! Also it fits perfectly!


Here it is installed (set to factory length at the moment, given that it's still stock height)


Now I can lower it all I want and still have a centered axle. Also drove the car for the first time with the P-Type wheels on it. I'm running the stock 195/70/14's, which, when on the stock 5.5" wide snowflakes had lots of mushroom in the side wall, but now on the 7" wide P-Types it has a bit of stretch to it. It seriously feels like it has stiffer suspension on it. It rides firmer, is much more responsive to steering, and seems like it handles way better.
Pics of the car on P-Types will come tomorrow

It's off the jack stands and on the P-Types!

Looking very nice sir! Mine has not seen any advance from its last state is some time. Been way too busy. Hopefully, it will look like yours before thanksgiving time!

10/21/13
Belts re-tightened. New hood struts installed so now it actually stays open without the rebar ghetto prop. Also it's leaking fuel from around the pulsation dampener, so I need to figure out what to do about that.

I was actually looking for a 7M bolt, but they are discontinued, and there aren't any 7M-powered cars in any local junk yards.


10/29/13
Got some banjo bolts from Mitchell's box of spare hardware. Harbor freight is out of their copper crush washer multi-packs till they get their shipment on Thursday, so I'll pick that up then. I also posted on CelicaSupra asking how to adapt A6 Supra seats to the X7 Cressi, and I got this super helpful response:

TransAmBandit wrote:I had another photo I took somewhere.

First off lets paint this photo in your head. If you're sitting in the seat, The front left bolt hole closest to the driver's side lines up no problem. The other front bolt, near the shifter needs to have a bracket with a hole welded to the seat rail. So you can bolt in that side.

The two rears are easy. You get a piece of steel, run it straight across the factory bolt holes, mark where the holes are. Drill it out. Then bolt that to the floor, tack weld the two seat brackets onto the piece of steel. Then finalize the welding.

I did mine pretty quick. cause it was cold. And I eye balled the bracket closest to the shifter console. It's very easy. A lot of people made this too difficult when they would plan it. However, this didnt hit me until a member here with a white X7 posted his photos. So I give him credit for enlightening me. lol

So hopefully I can grab some steel this week and if Ju has the time to weld maybe get some new fancy seats put in this weekend.


10/30/13
Made my first order in piecing together suspension: MR2 rear shock inserts and Camaro rear shocks (both KYB AGX). My goal is to have this car lowered by 200DoD. Things left to order in the coming weeks:
T3 weld-on front coilovers
T3 camber plate bearing upper spring hats
T3 front camber plates
T3 front RCA's

Still not 100% sure on a rear spring solution. I really just need to get under the car and start measuring stuff. I have a couple options for adjustable spring perches, but I may end up going with just universal springs in a rate I want.


10/31/13
Leaky leaky leaky!


Hefty hefty hefty!


As you can see I replaced the FPD with a banjo bolt (thanks Mitchell). Hopefully this gets rid of the fuel leak.
I also bought some steel to make seat brackets to mount the Supra seats and some welding wire for Mitchell in exchange for using his welder

Oh yeah and I forgot to mention that Gearbox Magazine, a small online digital car mag, liked my build and decided to feature this thing.
Check it out!
http://gearboxmagazine.com/jordan-robinson-boxy-roxy-cressida/

Hey man, I love how the build is coming along and I peeped your interview (good stuff!) I'm glad to see someone in this area make a mark somewhere in the "auto world".

Anyway, i'm actually located in the Richmond area as well and I found this forum out of my new found love for cressidas. The strange thing is that i've never had a project car and my auto knowledge is LACKING for the things I want to accomplish in the future. When i found this place I searched the for sale section and saw the X8 you were selling and I kinda got sad that it was sold already lol. As of now, I don't have any family or friends that share my (or any) interests in auto/driving so i've really had no guidance to starting modding/tuning. Currently I'm saving to buy myself a new daily and/or project car and as i've said, I have a new love for cressidas and want it to be my 1st real car.

I'm wondering if you would be able to help me somehow, be it letting me know if you come across any cressidas, or with my automotive knowledge. I'm also looking to get a part-time position [along side my full time] somewhere around cars.

if you could help in any way it would be much appreciated, thanks.

http://norfolk.craigslist.org/cto/4146132706.html
^that's what you want right there^

Also since you're in the RVA area, check out our weekly meet:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/100293333394755/

thx for pointing me in the right direction, and i've requested to join the group (xaivion) hopefully I can catch up to you guys next week.

that does look like a steal (especiaslly if everything is replaced as stated) hopefully it'll be around when I have the funds for it.

Shocks came in!


Today I spent a solid 5 hours over at Mitchell's house figuring out how to fab up a bracket to let me use the Celica-Supra seats. We ended up getting the driver's seat in and its sah-weet!


It's weird that the wagon has a better drivers' seat than the MR2. I still need to sort out the seatbelt situation, since I don't like how it's currently mounted (probably going to use an MR2 part if I can get one), and I also need to get the little pump-bulb thing hooked up so I can have functional lumbar support. ALSO I need to look into brown aerosol fabric paint/dye so I can brown-ify the red seat to sorta match the rest of the interior.

T3 front suspension components are on the way. Camber plates, bearing upper hats, weld-on coilovers (with 400lb/in springs), and RCA's.

I also thought I'd make an official mod list for the car so far:
Engine/drivetrain -
MA70 W58 transmission swap
-MA60 clutch MC
-MA70 clutch SC
-MX73 flywheel
-Custom one-piece driveshaft
-DriftMotion braided steel clutch line
-ARP flywheel bolts
-AE86 clutch pedal
-MA70 speedo cable
-MA70 shifter/shift boot
ARP 7M-GTE head studs
Rabid Chimp intake w/ K&N filter
EGR delete
Mocal thermostatic oil filter sandwich plate
AE86 GTS oil cooler
Fuel pulse damper delete

Suspension/chassis:
TechoToyTuning heim joint adjustable panhard rod
Celica-Supra P-type wheels (14x7, - with 195/70R14 tires

Interior:
MA60 Celica-Supra P-Type driver's seat
Cheap-o water temp gauge

Soon to come:
T3 front suspension overhaul
-weld-on coilovers with 400lb/in springs
-RCA's
-camber plates
-bearing upper hats
Short stroke front strut conversion
-cut/shorten/reweld front housings
-SW20 rear KYB AGX shocks
Camaro KYB AGX shocks in the rear
Cut rear springs until I can find something better

In the future:
MA60 P-type passenger seat
Aftermarket steering wheel
Better rear spring solution
Complete exhaust overhaul
-RabidChimp header into 2.5" piping
-Magnaflow high-flow cat
-Magnaflow resonator
-Magnaflow muffler
195/60R14 tires
Fender roll + more low
Rear wheel spacers
Tint
T3 steering knuckles

Badge from a 70's Celica.

Friday night I picked up this thing.

It's a 7M-GE OBX header for an MA70 Supra. The header itself should bolt on after a little grinding at the notch on the flange, but I think the downpipe will require some custom work, including adding the proper O2 sensor bung. No biggie, since the car will eventually be getting a custom exhaust anyway. I plan on cleaning up this piece, painting it, and wrapping it.
And before everybody get all "merr OBX is teh suxxorz merr", for the 5MGE you can pretty much do OBX or Pacesetter since that's all that's available. And this was $75. No complaints here.

Today I got under the rear and took some measurements to start figuring out a rear spring solution
This is with weight on the axle, just up on ramps.
9" spring height
5" diameter at the top where it meets the chassis
4" diameter at the bottom where it meets the axle
Want to lower around 2" - 2.5" and be MUCH much stiffer
Shock absorber length 16"

I also fixed the little squeeze ball thing for the inflatable lumbar support on the Supra seat. The bulb came from a friend who works for a company that sells used medical parts. He found it sitting in a warehouse somewhere and just gave it to me (free.99 for the win), and I happened to have a proper-sized hose laying around.


It even stows under the seat for a pretty clean install. And it works great!

11/11/13
Took a spring out, measured it for real, and took it over to a friend's house to see if the bottom would fit on his spare AE86 axle. It doesn't. AE86 parts are out. I'm probably gonna grab some Volvo 5" diameter adjustable perches that should bolt up to the bumpstop mount on the chassis and work from there with some universal springs. Inexpensive and effective.


11/12/13
It's so beautiful.......should have....sent.....a poet......

So the stock Cressida seatbelt receiver is attached to the seat, whereas the Celica-Supra receiver is not. When I put the Supra seat in, I had to use an elongated bolt and sort of ghetto mount the Cressida receiver on a less-than-ideal spot on the Supra seat that was using a smaller bolt on an un-reinforced part of the seat frame. This also put the receiver at a very awkward angle that made it difficult to use.


Luckily, there is a large 14mm bolt that holds the seat slide guide rail to the transmission tunnel that would be perfect for mounting a receiver to. And AW11 MR2's use a chassis mounted receiver that's pretty long. So I posted a WTB ad on MR2OC and got a hold of a guy parting out a rare tan interior AW11 and got one of the receivers for like $12 or something. It works flawlessly and looks like it came from the factory that way


The only real mod I had to do was jumper the seatbelt warning light plug since the MR2 doesn't have one.


Now to get another receiver for when I do the other side......

Scored some finds at the junk yard
Less-cracked fan shroud


Door molding in halfway decent shape


My starter relay had at some point been replaced with a straight jumper wire (probably because they are retardedly expensive from Toyota), so I replaced that with a relay from the junk yard and have had zero starting issues ever since.


Suspension work will begin later this month in all likelyhood, so stay tuned.

Yesterday I picked up a Volvo electric fan (same great fan motor as the Taurus that everybody and their brother uses, but thinner and with a easy-to-grab relay box) and the front struts off a junked Cressida. Tonight I began the process of tearing them down and getting them ready for the coilover conversion.

First I set up some heat in the garage so I didn't freeze


Complete stock strut:


Spring removed


Here's the stock-sized Sensatrac shock that came out next to the SW20 MR2's KYB AGX (for the MR2 rear) that will be going in.
The stock shock has a body length of 15.5", whereas the MR2 shock is 14 3/8" long, so the housings will need to be shortened 1 1/8". Also, the gland nuts that come with the MR2 shocks are a much coarser thread than the Cressida ones, so I'm going to have to reuse those.


Here's the housings with the stock spring seats removed. I didn't bother grinding the weld flat since I'll probably be removing that section of the tube to shorten it, so as to keep the brake line tabs in the same place.

love your build thread, excellent job!

Push wrote:love your build thread, excellent job!

Thank you. Coming from the MR2 community where the community is large and information is plentiful, trying to work on the suspension in this wagon is like I'm completely on my own. Nobody does anything with these cars and the big forum that had all the info is gone. I hope my build can provide helpful information to others looking to have some fun with these cars.

Now on with the build!

Ground off the welds from the stock spring seats. Currently looking for somebody with a miter saw to cut a section out of the housings.


I'm also currently emailing back and forth with a representative from CoilSprings.com about getting custom springs made. This will be roughly comparable in price with my previous idea of using Volvo parts. However, due to the fact that Rsport International has not been responding to my emails in over a month while most of my emails to CoilSprings.com are replied to within a matter of hours, I think CoilSprings.com may be the way to go. The only issue with the custom route is that I have to send in one of my stock springs, so downtime and shipping cost are a factor. However since I was planning on making my own urethane bushings for the four axle links, I suppose the timing could work out.

Oh and I forgot to mention that I picked up a fan controller, though I'm still unsure as to how the wiring is going to work. It's a Flex-a-lite model #31147.


Here's a link to the instructions pdf with the wiring diagram
http://www.4wheelparts.com/aux_incl/pdf.ashx?pdf=FLX_31147_INS_1.pdf&line=FLX

My issue is the way the Volvo fan is wired. It has one large + wire going into the relay block, one chassis ground, and two wires activate the fan when they are grounded. One is high speed (probably for when the AC is activated on the Volvo) and one is low speed. I will only be using low speed right now. This controller, as with pretty much every controller I've seen, switches hot wires, not grounds, so I'm just not clear on how I'm supposed to wire this.

12/21/13
Fan is installed and wired and works perfectly as I planned, comes on and turns off appropriately all by itself. Except for one tiny detail. I forgot that I should be pulling power from a switched source, because when I turn the car off and the radiator stays hot for a little while, the fans still turn on and off while the car is off, which will probably end up draining my battery.

12/23/13
Now the car won't start. I think I either blew my starter relay or my wiring for my neutral safety bypass is messed up because I don't even get a click even though the battery is fine. And I don't think it has anything to do with the fan, the only wiring on the car I had to touch was just connecting the power wire to the battery, and it started fine multiple times with the fan working, but yesterday morning it wouldn't and I had to push start it.

12/29/13
It wasn't the neutral safety wiring, it was the starter relay going bad (the one I pulled out of the junk yard) so I replaced it with a jumper wire like it was before. Less than ideal, but whatever.

Today I finally got the front coilovers built. Lots of pics below, so slow connections or mobile users beware...

Started by making a cut in the housings


This end contains the threads for the gland nut


The housings needed to be shortened about 1 1/4". Measure twice, cut once.






A little de-burring


Test fitting


Needed a little extra trimming


That'll do


Getting prepped for welding


Mitchell getting it ready to tack


Mitchell did a great job welding them up. Note: the shocks were not in the housings for the welding. It's a good way to ruin your brand new KYB's.


Primered


Painted and assembled!


Now for a non-rainy day to put them on!

1/9/13
The intermittent starting problem reared its ugly head again today. It started up great this morning, but when I tried to go to lunch it just gave me the "click" and wouldn't turn over. I was so pissed I may or may not have punched the rear quarter, and then subsequently had to push the dent back out lol. Anyways, when it came time to go home after work it fired up fine first try. So tonight I went through and cleaned the - cable end and battery terminal as well as the existing chassis ground and added an extra ground to the intake manifold. I also cleaned the + terminal and cable end at the battery and at the starter. Hopefully this will fix my issue. Hopefully.
Either way, reving that big old 2.8L six up to 6500rpm on the way home TOTALLY makes up for any electrical frustrations. Good lord, dat noise.....


1/10/13
The other night when I was under the car cleaning up the wiring, I also added a heat shield sleeve to the speedo cable, since it's sorta touching the exhaust. I used a spark plug heat sleeve like these

I think it must have already been brittle from the heat, because last night my speedo stopped working. I put it up on a lift after work today and found that there was a break somewhere in the short cable. (The speedo cable is two pieces, a short section about a foot long connects the transmission to the long cable that goes up to the dash)
So I ordered a new short section for like $12 and it will be here on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Also, I got my urethane from McMaster-Carr in today. Pretty much ready to take this thing down for suspension overhaul as soon as I get the MR2 fixed.


1/12/13
I got the car up in hover mode today, all 4 corners on jackstands. My awesome girlfriend was nice enough to take some pics while she helped me out.

I held the brake caliper up out of the way with a bungie cord and removed the hub


Removing the upper strut mount bolts


Ready to come out


Gone!


Adios, POS.


So pretty!!!!


Mmmmm T3 goodness


Also removed the control arms


Old rubber bushings out, new urethane bushings in


Turns out it's way easier to put the bushing in and THEN the metal sleeve


Bushings in, taking the arms with me to work tomorrow to get the old ball joints pressed out


And have new Moog ball joints to press in


On to the rear end


Access panels for the top of the rear shocks


Not a whole lot of luck with the screwdriver holding the shock still.......


........so I had to improvise..


I got the Camaro KYB AGX's in but I didn't take any pics. Here's one of the four axle links getting its bushings removed WITH FIRE


When all else fails, fire and a BFH should get the job done


Aluminum tape on one side to hold the urethane


And here's the urethane poured into the arms. I'm only doing two at a time and poured the rest of the urethane into a solo cup. I'll probably use sections of the remaining cylinder as side pieces to keep the arms from sliding laterally on the metal sleeves. Holes will be drilled in the bushings for the sleeves to fit through, obviously.

I took my control arms to work with me yesterday and used the press in the shop to pop out the old ball joints.


Old vs. new


So after work I got home, reinstalled the control arms (now with urethane bushings and new ball joints), and now the front end is done.
I also removed the upper rear axle arms, burned/chiseled, and otherwise removed the old rotten squishy bushings and filled them with urethane as well.


Today, I took the lower rear arms I did two days ago and finished them up so they are ready to go on the car. According to the literature that came with the urethane, it reaches 90% of it's final physical properties in 2 days assuming 70-something degree temperatures, so I just left them inside for two days to cure.


I used a 3/4" auger drill bit. It worked beautifully.




Then the metal sleeve from the original bushing goes in. Here it is next to one of the old bushings. Some I could just push out with my bare hands. Others stuck to the bushings and had to be cut out and cleaned up.


The sleeves were like 1mm over 3/4" so I purposefully used the 3/4 bit so as to make it a tight fit. I just hammered them down into the holes and they are in there nice and snug


And there you have it. Custom home-made poly bushings ready to go back on the car.


Oh, and I sent out one of my rear springs to CoilSprings.com today, so hopefully in a few weeks I'll have some sick nasty custom lowering springs for the rear!

Borrowed a friend's spare AE86 sway bar to see if it would work on this. The answer is "sort of". It bolts to the axle ok, but the ends don't extend forward enough by about an inch. This is good and bad. I can probably get a huge aftermarket AE86 rear bar, but I will have to make custom end links and/or brackets on the chassis. Not impossible or particularly difficult, just another thing to have to do. Good to know though. A Godspeed AE86 bar can be had for like $100 on ebay, I can hit up McMaster for hardware to make my own adjustable links, and chassis bracketry can be modified/reinforced or replaced with a custom piece pretty easily.

Very nice post, now I feel bad for letting my wagon sit!

Pretty pretty snow pics





And one of the MR2