Foxau2's 77 TE51 EFI - Last couple posts before scrapping

[Foxau2]

I have my other thread chronicling the Megasquirt installation in my car, but I don't have a thread just for my car. I'll give a brief history. I grew up with a 77 TE51 in my backyard as a kid and fixed it up and drove it in high school. My dad had beaten the crap out of it using it to go deer hunting when he was younger and it was completely rusted to bits. I found this yellow car parked under some bushes in Wyoming in 2001. I recognized the taillights but the rest was covered. covered. The bushes had scratched through the paint and it was really rusty. Most of it was just surface rust. Though there was some pretty bad rust through in places.

It took 3 years before I finally found out who owned the field and offered him $50 for it. He said I was lucky because he was going to tow it to the junk yard after the snow melted that spring. The guy said it was parked in 1985. It still has the high school parking sticker in the back window for 85-86. We poured gas in the carb and it surprisingly started up. We disconnected the gas tank and ran the lines into a 1 gallon gas can and drove it onto the trailer.

I had to replace the gas tank using the tank from my dads original car. After a carb rebuild it ran quite well. The AC still works and it is still on the factory original charge. The interior was in really good shape and the dash had cracks but nothing as bad as it is now. I've done a lot of damage to the dash since I've had it just by leaving it in the sun.

I painted it in 2008. I used a grinder to grind off all the paint and surface rust. Looking back that was obviously a bad idea, but I had a week to paint it and that was the fastest way. I used Rustoleum paint from Home Depot because it was cheap. All in all I only spent about $150 to paint it. But I stayed at the shop night and day working through the night to get it done in a week. It turned out pretty good. Five years though it's rusting through in a bunch of spots, and the paint is so oxidized it looks almost white in spots.

in 2011 I converted it to EFI with Megasquirt and a GM TBI unit. It worked well for a couple years. I purchased 2TG EFI intake manifold and stuff to make it work, but then decided I would rather spend the money getting my 77 Celica with 18RGEU running so I decided to sell the 2TG stuff. A guy approached my wanting the 2TG EFI stuff asked if I could build and tune the entire system for him using my car, then send it to him when I was done. So that's what I've been doing. He paid for the system and I installed it on my car and I've been driving it for 8 months or so now on the 2TG EFI. I've been averaging around 35 MPG on the freeway with it which is phenomenal considering the engine is old and tired with really low compression and. If I were to rebuild it I could probably get into the 40's MPG with it. But once I take off the manifold and send it to him I'm going to be parking this for many years while I focus on my Celica.

Here are some pictures.

[UtahSleeper]

Good summary of the build. Looking forward to the Celica stuff.

[Foxau2]

Couple more pictures in no particular order.

[Foxau2]

I still plan to do some more work on it before I put it to sleep for many years.

I have an undamaged dash I pulled from a junkyard 5 years ago. I'm going to dye/paint it black and install it.





I'm going to paint the black dash front silver (where the gauges are). That's the way it was before I installed the CD player. I had a black dash that was already cut so I used that to make sure it would work, then planned to paint it silver later. I'm also going to paint the center part of the center console silver so they are the same color. While the console is out I'm going to get rid of the short shifter I've had in there for 6 years and put a standard shifter back in. So I'm going to have a short shifter for sale if anybody is interested...

[Foxau2]

I started taking my dash apart to replace with the painted pad, and also to paint the center console and dash face.

I prepared the dash by first wiping it with acetone. Then I scrubbed it in the bath with straight hot water and dissolved TSP. (trisodium phosphate, found at hardware stores) I let it dry for a couple days then set it up and painted it. I used satin interior/exterior black rustoleum from Home Depot. Like with painting anything you start with light coats and never glob it on. I don't have a picture of it copmletely painted, but it looks amazing!

I'm going to repair the broken one with fiberglass then paint it black as well. I could use it on my other car, or maybe I'll sell it. We'll see.

[Foxau2]

I'm going to order a 12V water solenoid valve to turn the water to the heater on and off. The factory valve is really crusty and I don't dare try to move it to close off the water for fear it would break. So I'm going to install a switch behind the heater controls so when the temperature knob is all the way to the hot side it it flips the switch and opens the valve. In the past I've just used a "C" clamp and two quarters and pinched off the hose under the hood.

Something like this is what I'm going to order: (probably not that exact one though). I need to contact the seller to find out the operating temperatures.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/N-C-12V-DC-1-2- ... 4abac4f6d4

[Foxau2]

I had a little time waiting between classes at school today so I decided to get the dash pad off. I got some funny looks from other people walking by in the parking lot. I also changed out my short shifter for a regular sized shifter. It feels weird now but I like it better.





And here is the comparison between the original and newly painted dashes.

[UtahSleeper]

That will definately look alot better. Good score on that.

[Foxau2]

That will definately look alot better. Good score on that.

Thanks! I've had it for nearly five years now and finally decided I should pull it out and enjoy before I put my car to sleep for many years.

[3trolla79]

man i had the chance to get a te51 just sittin in my bosses yard for 150 bucks he didn know what he was dealing with and by the time i got a trailer found to haul the car he calls and says he sold it to the junk yard for scrap metal......