1stGenCelica.com

Hi guys, I just picked up a 1977 Celica Liftback today and am excited about getting to work on it....this is my 2nd project, the other one being a '66 mustang coupe, the liftback has moderate surface rust in places, but only 2 small rot holes...under the battery tray and under the spare tire...neither of which bother me since its only a couple hours of cutting and welding to fix them...the misc surface rust will actually take longer to fix....pretty solid body...oregon car originally, the bad news is that the interior is in shape....the seats need to be redone badly....the dash is cracked to hell, needs new carpet and headliner...not to mention its all a horrid brown color that I must change somehow...oh, and the drivers door sags a bit...is the a hinge rebuild kit available from anywhere? Mustangs have those kits....and while I know the finding parts for this car will be much harder I was hoping there would be at least somewhere i could look

Depending on how picky you are and how original you want it, you have some options. For the seats - you can replace them with something from a newer car and have a nice upgrade at the same time. If you don't mind a dash cap, you can pick those up for well under $100, I paid around $55 shipped for mine. There are a couple different options for new carpet. As for the headliner, I'd probably to go an upholstery shop and see what they can do, that's one I don't know the answer to. If the other "ugly brown" interior pieces are still in good shape you can dye them black. I've had pretty good luck with that, prep work is the key.

Do a bit of searching here and you should find references to options for the dash cap, carpet, and even examples of seats others have swapped in.

No idea on the sagging door, I don't think I've seen that subject come up before.

I couldnt care less about originality(not on this big of a project)...I'm one for updating where there is a reason for doing so...I do have a spare set of Fiero seats I could use I guess...they would probably work well, since they are narrow and the bottom cushion is thin...easy to get re-upholstered too, as for the dash, I would really prefer a new dash, but if a cap is all i can get, I guess it would have to do...the car evidently ran fine until the previous owner replaced the fuel pump due to a noise it was making...but that was 2 years ago...if it is a fuel issue I'm sure I will be able to fix it within a day or two....need to drop the tank to clean it out and repair the rust in the tire well anyway....easy enough to cut and patch with sheet metal....under the battery tray is a bigger issue since its stamped and has a lot of curves....any place I can get a new inner fender apron to replace it? or an old one without rust?

Try doing a search here for foxau2, he does a lot of fiberglass replacement stuff and I THINK he was working on a full dash replacement. I know he has some threads showing what he offers, but I haven't been following them lately.

well, thought I would finally post a few pictures of the car as it currently sits....







the usual "project" bunch of light surface rust and just a touch of real rot...though I should have that all fixed within a couple weeks...assuming I'm not lazy