I'M SORRY, GRANDMA: 1986 Cressida moneypit (I mean, project...)

[kibur]

Sorry that the updates on this have been few and far between.



(photos by scott hastings)

The car went to the driveshaft shop, who made me a new driveshaft and fixed my exhaust. After about a month, it was back in my hands. The first drive was exhilarating, to say the least, but it died about a mile down the road from the shop. After giving it a jump, she made it back to my buddy's house. I replaced the battery, had the alternator rebuilt, and it seems to be doing fine for now. Also was able to use an SC300 coolant temp sensor, so now I have a working gas gauge and a working coolant gauge! It has an issue where it will shut off coming to a stop, but I think this is due to something with the neutral safety switch.


As far as the AR-5 goes, it feels amazing. Definitely like it a lot more than the w58, especially with the lightweight flywheel mated to the AR-5. Can't wait to break this transmission in and let the fun truly begin.

[Fudge]

your grandparents are cool as fuck !! i love this car nice work so far, you are absolutely not messing around my man

[theseeker411]

Hell yes, it lives!

[kibur]

Gonna have some more updates regarding this old project shortly.

I daily drove it for about a month, but 1jz's have a shitty rubber oil return line that is very failure prone, and when that failed, it led to my turbo's demise. oops.

located a new turbo, should be installing this weekend. been spending this month preparing the car for its first drift event.

[d0wse]

Awesome!

[kibur]

end of 2017 update

Finally getting a chance to give this thread a nice and lengthy update.


I guess I last left off with the AR-5 finally wrestled into the car, and it going off to a new driveshaft shop. It took a month or two to get everything situated, and quite frankly, there were a handful of things that I needed to go over once the car left the shop. Some of these unraveled themselves quickly, others took a bit, but I'm going to remain hum on the shop and the matter due to having friends who work there. My friends were also not the ones who handled the repairs surrounding and including my driveshaft, but it was disappointing nevertheless.


Once things were sorted though, I drove the car fairly regularly. And it felt really, really great. There wasn't a single moment where I wasn't blown away by the fact that this was really my car, this motor was really in there, and I was able to make this happen with the help of friends. There was a bit where I was daily driving it, due to the fact my BMW had a cracked oil pan and the Honda had purchased to daily drive blew its headgasket on its first drive. To be fair, the Honda had been sitting next to someone's house, what should I have expected?



There were lots of interesting moments daily driving this, such as when it shut off and wouldn't want to turn back over, in the rain, in traffic, on the highway. That was a really fun one, but I got it sorted.


All was mostly good with the Cressida, until a drive over to a friend's house after a long day's of work. He had never seen the car, so we took it out for a nice pull. Car felt great, he's hootin' and hollerin' about it. But the problem is - I'm losing boost. Like a dummy, I didn't have a boost gauge wired up, because I wasn't usually beating on the car. We coasted downhill in neutral until I arrived at a gas station, where I see the engine bay is covered in oil on the turbo side. Great.



We get the car over to the parking of my buddy's work, and it stays there for a few days until I get it towed home. Start to take things apart, and I find the culprit. The rubber return line on the turbo had failed, likely due to the fact the oil return j pipe was sandwiched between the mount and the turbo. Gotta love engine swaps. My turbo was probably shot, but I had friends telling me it might not be. I tried to get it back together, and though the hose was a strange size, I eventually found what I needed.


I get the car towed up to my buddy Justin's after he offers to help because despite what this thread may lead one to believe, I am completely inept when it comes to cars. And this is also my first turbo car. And the first car I've swapped. And folks, I have been in way, way, waaaaaaaay over my head for a while now.


Here's my Honda wagon, and my friend Johnny's 4Runner (which he has since sold). The Honda is a little trooper, and it was great to me while I hauled parts back and forth with it.


Got everything back together, confirmed my turbo was blown, and found another one. Got the new turbo in, had a friend wire up a few important gauges, and the car felt absolutely amazing. However, Justin had one stipulation of sorts for helping me with everything - I had to take the car drifting. And I sure did.


(photo by jacob frey)
Unsurprisingly, using a powerful engine in a platform totally not accommodated for it makes for an interesting drifting experience. What I'm trying to say is I spun out - a lot. And I also banged the car up in a little incident that wasn't necessarily my fault, but probably could have been avoided if I were a better driver. But towards the end of the day, I had linked a few turns and really enjoyed drifting a lot and I was able to drive the Cressida back to a friend's house when it was all said and.


I had planned to go drifting at one last event, but a combination of cold weather, being slightly unprepared, and a bunch of shit hitting the fan led me to sit that one out. I let a friend drive the Cressida to work and of course, the rear driver's side axle breaks. He picks me up, we fix it, and the next day, I get towards driving it back towards my home. There was a Cressida at the yard that I planned to pull axles from... and of course it'd been crushed. I ended up getting the Cressida home just fine that day.




The following night, I'm sitting at my house, rather bored because its the night before thanksgiving. I tell myself, if the Cressida starts, I'll drive it. And of course, it starts on the first crank - something which feels like a blessing in a project like this. I take it for a drive, and I get just out of my neighborhood before I hear a loud pop, and the car feels like shit. It's all over the place and it feels like an axle is toasted. I'm not sure if it was the same one, but it turns out the axle and the stub axle on the passenger side had went.


(photo by jacob frey)
So this is where I sit now, trying to locate stub axles, because Toyota doesn't make them and I need to rely on someone who hoarded these parts. First thing I want to do is get my driveshaft re-balanced and checked out, I have an odd feeling about it. I want to crack my differential open and inspect it, but I think it likely is time to ditch the welded 4.11 rear and rebuild my back up open differential with KAAZ 2-way parts. I love the welded differential, but when parts are this hard to come by, I think it's not wise to risk breaking stuff with it. The rear end on these cars is an achilles heel to say the least, but I don't want to have to re-do the entire rear end of the vehicle... which is what a lot of people end up doing. This has been an interesting year with this car. I've gotten to enjoy it the most I ever have, yet it still has been a massive pain. I'm hoping that after sorting out the rear end and driveshaft issues, this car can be solid.


Also picked up some sweet wheels for it, a pair of SSR Formula Mesh, 15x8 +28. Hoping to pick up more as time goes on, but only once the car is more mechanically solid.


I'm going to conclude this update by saying this - I love this car, and have a lot of sentimental value attached to it, which caused me to dive in so deeply on this build. But if I were to do it all over again, I'd probably stick to either another 5m, or a 2JZ-GE. This platform is quirky, hard to find parts for, hard to adapt things to, and then once everything is together, certain components cant handle the power. THE X7 CRESSIDA CHASSIS IS RATED FOR THE POWER OF A W58: 250-300 HP. There's no denying it. Even with a stock 1jz that may be around 300, I'm breaking stuff. Sure, the welded differential doesn't help, and this is all a learning process, but find myself frustrated with this car and this chassis more often than I find myself enjoying it. I genuinely hope that changes soon.

[Oanerma]

You live SCARY close to me, haha. I've been following this thread forever and somehow I never realized this. I've also somehow never seen your car around anywhere. I used to see that weird looking black and yellow supra parked on the side of 191 every day when I was in high school though. Good times.

Anywho, this thing is awesome. Your dedication to this thing after the whole driveshaft fiasco and the myriad of other issues really impresses me. I get frustrated and want to give up on my projects when dumb crap breaks, but you're all in on this, and I envy that.

[meech]

man your dedication to this is awesome. I would have given up long ago. on topic of the diff, i recommend that LSD asap so many people are welded advocates because they've never had a good lsd. you wont regret it in terms of drivability, parking, reliability, its better in every way except for cost.

[kibur]

You live SCARY close to me, haha. I've been following this thread forever and somehow I never realized this. I've also somehow never seen your car around anywhere. I used to see that weird looking black and yellow supra parked on the side of 191 every day when I was in high school though. Good times.

Anywho, this thing is awesome. Your dedication to this thing after the whole driveshaft fiasco and the myriad of other issues really impresses me. I get frustrated and want to give up on my projects when dumb crap breaks, but you're all in on this, and I envy that.

assuming you're in the Lehigh Valley area? I actually live further south in PA, but I get around the state a lot. I have friends all over, but a handful of close ones live in the LV, such as my friend Justin who was very instrumental in getting the turbo fixed up. fun fact about that supra: apparently it has a supercharged Tundra V6 engine in it.

a big part of the reason you've probably never seen this is because it never works, lol. I definitely feel like I've went a little bit too hard on it, part of me wants to keep going but if things aren't solid after the rear end upgrades and some other upgrades, I think it may be time to cut my losses and move on. I'll never get back the money or time I have into this thing, but the ratio of enjoyment to repairs is way skewed towards the latter, and that sucks. at least its been an interesting learning experience.

man your dedication to this is awesome. I would have given up long ago. on topic of the diff, i recommend that LSD asap so many people are welded advocates because they've never had a good lsd. you wont regret it in terms of drivability, parking, reliability, its better in every way except for cost.

thanks for the kind words. I'm actually looking forward to building something else that isn't miserable in every single way, but unfortunately it's looking like real life is going to make me stick to the cressida for now. I don't know when in the near future I'll be able to build anything else, so I may as well continue to stick it out with this.

I've driven cars with both welded and lsd's, and I have to say I enjoy both. However, it's a bit different with the X7. I've spoken to multiple owners and they've said they feel a welded in the x7 makes the car incredibly choppy (like moreso than another chassis with a welded in it) and I completely agree. I'm trying to get this thing to be as driveable as possible, and I think the rebuilt rear will be helpful in that regard. At this point I've been so fucked on money with this car that I don't mind coughing up for the 2-way.

[kibur]

Shortly before making my last post, the engine on my daily driver Honda failed. Disappointing timing, considering I bought the thing almost exclusively to be a winter beater, and it died in the middle of the winter. As stated before, the stub axle for the Toyota was discontinued, and finding another one was proving to be hard. I located another Cressida in a junkyard local to me and set my sights on the stub axle from it.


First trip, I end up removing most of the rear end components, snag the CV axles, rear calipers and a few other parts. Second trip, I try to remove the stub using a hammer and punch, since there is an indent for a punch. No luck. Come back a third time with a slide hammer to pull the stub, in ten degree weather. Still nothing, and my arms were mashed potatoes from the slide hammer.

On the fourth and final try, in 8 degree weather with snow on the ground, my friend Johnny and I ended up pulling the whole trailing arm, just to get the stub.
JUST SO YOU KNOW - I'M RATHER POSITIVE THE ONLY WAY TO GET THE STUB AXLE OUT OF THE X7 CRESSIDA IS TO PRESS IT OUT. YOU'LL NEED TO REMOVE THE WHOLE TRAILING ARM, AND IT IS UNAVOIDABLE. DID I MENTION THAT THIS CHASSIS BLOWS AND YOU SHOULD AVOID IT? IT'S FUN LEARNING THESE LESSONS IN THE MIDDLE OF A FRIGID NORTHEAST WINTER.


Oh, and while all this is happening - a friend offered me space and help with fixing the Civic and Cressida at a shop he shares with his family. He helped me pull the stub axle out over thanksgiving weekend, and told me we'd get a rear end situation sorted on the car to figure out my axle issues. He insisted on me bringing my car down. And then when the Civic's engine went, the weekend before christmas - "tow it down, it should be an easy swap." After both times, communication faded out, but I had no reason to see why things would go south, since he had been helpful and knowledgeable before.

On JANUARY FUCKING SECOND, he hits me up and tells me the gist of "I'm too busy with working to help you on your cars. I can help with the Cressida because its one part and should be easy, but can't help with the Honda. you've got a week to get the cars out, or you've got to begin paying storage on them." Frustrating, but whatever. It's not my space and I was grateful for his willingness to help in the first place.

Also, my friend employed another local guy who I knew. Local guy was friends with the character that stole my money and screwed me on the valve seal job that ruined my 5MGE - in fact, he'd indirectly recommended me to the kid who screwed me on my engine. When the ordeal happened with the engine, the scumbag mechanic tried to lowball me for the Cressida after you know, he took my money, lied to me, and blew my fucking engine up. Needless to say, I stopped associating myself with this dude, and I wasn't super stoked that my friend had decided to employ him.

So what does this dude do, when I'm trying to sell my cars, out of absolute frustration and being at my wits end? He hits me with an offer that I pay him $600 to fix the civic, and give him the Cressida for free. He also talks about how the car is worthless, and mentions various issues its having... on the for sale post. He lowballed me when I had the car apart, just like his scumbag buddy did. I couldn't help but feel that once again, I was being sabotaged.

And not to mention - someone messaged me on Instagram describing issues his 1JZ MX73 with an AR-5 swap was having, and they went away by switching to R154. of course, these were issues similar to the ones I had been experiencing. I'm in no position to go out and buy another R154, re-swap everything over (bellhousing, flywheel, master/slave cylinders, etc.), have another driveshaft made... and that's before I even address the weak ass rear end, because finding these parts has been near impossible. And did I mention, I may have damaged the stub axle trying to hit it with the hammer and punch, because I didn't know any better. Really lovely trying to learn new things on a car out of necessity, only to end up fucking yourself over.

$220 and two tows later, both of my vehicles are removed from that shop. Yet, I can't help but feel like this was the final straw in the camel's back. I've been taken advantage of countless times and I don't know where to turn anymore. I think I've got no choice but to put this project on hold for the foreseeable future, and I would potentially be open to offers to sell it.

[nishy]

I'm so sorry about those guys.. sound like real scum bags.

If you care and if it helps, the cv axle part number for both sides is 60-5142 from Cardone. I know some places online still sell them

[kibur]

I'm so sorry about those guys.. sound like real scum bags.

If you care and if it helps, the cv axle part number for both sides is 60-5142 from Cardone. I know some places online still sell them

thanks for the heads up on the part number. I've been thinking about sending my old axles back to cardone as cores for some re-manufactured units, but unfortunately its seeming like most places online are either out of stock or absurdly expensive.

[hinrichs]

Damn dude that sucks all of this has happened. I wish I had more space to help you out and knew a little more about these cars.

[kibur]

Damn dude that sucks all of this has happened. I wish I had more space to help you out and knew a little more about these cars.

it sucks, but it's how it goes when you don't have space and learn as you go. this was a terrible car to learn on, and I think it's definitely time to take a break from it.

shit, I'm almost half tempted to throw a 5m back in it.

[Darkyoshi154]

So. I just read all of this thread. Ho-lee-sh*t.

I commend you for your patience with this project, and ability to adapt. If you decide to part ways with the car, it's understandable, but I almost feel that it should end with you.
As someone who is graduating in 3 short months, and has project cars, I know the struggle. And I am slowly realizing that graduating most likely will not mean freedom and time for cars haha.
I gave you a follow on IG and hope to see some more progress in whatever car you decide to pick up next(or this one!).