Here are a few photos from the night we installed the cam cover and the pulleys, a vision I had for this for a long time I was curious to see if it would work out.
I could watch Barry forever working on this car and others, working with metal has always fascinated me and it’s been an absolute blast watching him figure things out with this car and slowly remove all the misery. It’s mad to think it’s over a year since I shot these photos, the last few weeks before the car went for paint, Barry devoted his weekends to calling down and wrapping up the flared arch work on the Trueno. I divided that work into four episodes one for each arch as I loved having Barry on the videos chatting shit and showing us how he does it. I’ll leave these photos to speak for themselves, someone might appreciate how he does it, a dying craft, very much on a dying platform, a blog post!
Barry finishes the right side on the AE86. We can finally see how the Trueno will sit. The metalwork is almost finished!
Here are a few photos from the first finished arch. Barry worked his magic here. I mentioned a few posts ago just how nervous I was about the overall shape of the arch and how it would come together, but Im very pleased with these. The profile follows the original form from Toyota and loses the flat piece on the front, which nods to the original design.
Here is the photoset from the day we nailed the very first arch. The rest were based on this shape and made for a balanced look. I’d be lost without Barry and his talents on this.
We take my brother’s first car, A Toyota Vitz (Yaris), and overhaul it with rare parts he has collected over the last year.
As Barry finished the right arch, progress is back on the menu for the AE86.
This was a special Saturday for the 86; Barry and I had been away from the car since September, things didn’t line up, and I was keen to get him back down to finish the arches; this was all that was left on his end before the car 86 gets shipped off for paint. We figured out a few weekends, and he promised he would make it down and try to wrap this up.
Here are a few up-close photos from the feature we did a few weeks back on Jacks RunX. I’ll keep the text to a minimum on these as most of you will be coming from watching our in-depth video on this car to see more. We got the good weather for these a few weeks before the actual video on the car and ran out of time to make the Youtube video, so the lads called down another day for that shoot.
We find a Holden Commodore outside the shed, and Josh gets his s15 running.
The coolest K11 Micra answers the call of duty for a special late-night delivery.
In the recent videos, Barry tackled the last absolute misery on the list for the 86, and it was none other than the arch work. Initially, the plan was to go in one direction, but as they progressed, it evolved into something entirely different. We ended up using shopping trolley pieces to rebuild the shape of the arch, which was an unexpected twist.
The right arch had some unsightly damage due to rolling, a common issue for AE86s, which causes the sealer to aggravate and moisture to get trapped between the panels, ultimately leading to rust. Meanwhile, the left side looked much better but had a nasty surprise hidden behind the stock arch’s pleasing shape. It turns out that the quarter panel had received mig welding many years ago, and the rust had rotted through on the inside.
This car is near and dear to the heart of its owner, Reuben. The last time we saw the Reuben mobile in this guise, he had just returned from a track day and, unfortunately, cracked a piston. But that didn’t stop him from bringing it out for a sun-kissed photoshoot. We shot these photos towards the tail end of our extended summer in Ireland, which stretched to late September. We took advantage of the evening and did our “final shoot” of the car in this livery and look.
Check out this photo set from our recent video featuring a rare AE70 Sprinter, a variation of the popular Corolla chassis commonly referred to as the ke70 in most parts of the world. This car is so rare that the owner wasn’t even aware of its uniqueness, with its redesigned B and C pillar, different rear end, and different front end.
On a lovely, rare sunny evening, we met up with Liam after work to get a closer look at this car, which Liam had just finished. The modifications made to this rare example of the E70 platform are spot-on. The simple SSR MK 2 wheels require no arch flair, and the tire and ride height combination is perfect. The interior has been left mostly stock, with a few choice modifications such as a steering wheel, an Omori rev gauge, and a shift knob. The Sprinter blue with optional mats are fantastic, and the eighties interior is in excellent condition, especially considering this car has less than 70k on the clock, which is remarkable for a car from 1982.
A close look at a rare 4A-GE KE70/AE70 Corolla Sprinter Sedan