Banpei's new TA60 family cruiser

[The Doctor]

you're always welcome to drop by the Sportklassiek Beunhoeve with the Carina if you get stuck

[banpei]

Still nothing done with the springs, bushes and the camberplates but that has something to do with a certain Celica AA63.

But I did make some progress on the double headlight conversion:

This is only the right side assembly and unfortunately the left side has to wait a bit. And yes I know: it is definitely not the most beautiful glassfibre repair, but it will be hidden behind the grille anyway.

After placing an order for the headlight adjusters (replacement part from a late 80s Land Cruiser) and springs (from an early 80s Lite Ace) at Amayama Trading Co. Ltd I found a new old stock Toyota Corona T120 headlight assembly for sale in our local classfieds.

I was very lucky as it features the exact same parts as the Carina assembly so I’v scavenged the surroundings to replace the lesser ones from the Carina AA63.

During fitting I ran into some unexpected issues:

When removing one of the headlights I noticed the holes in the (zenki) fender do not match the one necessary for the (kouki) headlight frame. Sine I lacked the necessary tools (drill and such) I went back and tried once again.


Then I ran into the issue of a bracket that was welded in place by Toyota. It is right in the way of where I should mount the headlights so I'll probably fix it by convincing the bracket it should face the other way tapping it with a small mallet.

I'll also use this chance to properly wire the foglights as I did that half blind as the headlights were in the way.

[banpei]

I started with installing/modifying the Carina to fit the double headlights and I stopped because I need to make a custom bracket to support the headlights on the outer side. Normally this is done with a JDM bracket which I obviously don't have...
I did adjust the wiring, so that is done now.

What I did do today was install this:

I was lucky to find a full set of Toyota Celica Supra seats in black including the rear seat as well and they are still in an incredible state! Not entirely new but not shabby at all and only a few minor scratches. As you can see the seats are a bit lower.

So now the Carina looks like this:


I can now sit in the car somewhere between 5 to 10 cm lower than before and that should fix the headroom issue I normally have when taking speedbumps. The seats are very very comfortable so for longer distances this should improve things a lot!

There are a few issues though: as I’m colorblind I did not realize my interior is a deep-dark brown color and I always interpreted it as black. However when installing the seat I realized I made an error but to me it doesn’t look too bad though. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Also the rear seat is shaped differently between the Carina and the Celica even though they are installed on the exact same spot. The Celica has some sort of moulding that stretches over the inner rear fender while the Carina seat is way higher and sits over the inner fender. So this is something I need to resolve with the spare parts from the Celica I’m breaking.

And the last issue is that the top part of the rear seat is discolored. It looks more or less blueish now so I need to find a way to dye this to black.

[The Doctor]

Dennis has bought a brown set of Celica-Supra seats?

[banpei]

Yes, but according to him they are bumping kangaroo brown and not almost-black-pete-dark-brown... So I would expect it to look a bit like this:


But if it is similar to black-pete-brown I'm willing to consider a trade as his Starlet interior is black after all.

[DarkSupra]

Ah nice you found a set of seats!
They don't look that bad in the car, imo better then the stock seats.

[The Doctor]

yeah, you might be right, they even might be a lighter shade then that.

[banpei]

(11-13-2014 11:43 PM)DarkSupra Wrote:  Ah nice you found a set of seats!
They don't look that bad in the car, imo better then the stock seats.

Thanks!
Yes they are way better than the stock seats. It really is somewhere between 5 and 10 cm lower!

[zenki]

Those seats look so good.

[banpei]

@zenki: Thanks!

My handiwork for today:

Splits the standard H4 into a high-beam and low-beam loom that will connect to the separate double headlights.
Still need to tidy up the loose wires, but I didn't want to cut them off untill I've tested them.