1968 Toyota Corona Project Ride: Resurrection

September 30, 2013
Story By
Evan Griffey

Resurrecting an old car is all about contradiction… It’s fun but frustrating, there are rules but no rulebook, the closer you get to a goal the farther away from it you end up, it takes a patient hand but a quick mind… I bought the 1968 Toyota Corona to learn and get that all-important hand’s on experience. I knew very early that I needed to employ a point of inspiration...a rally cry if you may. Mine is a quote from the great basketball coach John Wooden, “Don’t let what you can’t do keep you from doing what you can do.” I saw this in the hallway of my son’s middle school and took it to mean I was going to do as much of the work by myself as possible. I would learn by doing, and always do what’s best by the car.

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Some quick tips for the beginning resurrection-ist…

A big chunk of change will be spent on tools.
Perserverence is needed, you may well work a day or two on removing a single bolt.
A rare car also means rare replacement parts.
Finishing one task may require completing one or two other tasks.

For instance, removing a brake line may require dropping the oil filter. Yep, Resurrection, even in biblical terms, is hard work - bringing a car back from the brink takes one down a different road for every car and its unique circumstance. What follows are the highlights and lowlights of my own story.

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I had been eyeing the Craigslist ad for this old school import for months, but $2,200 for a car that hadn’t seen the road in nine years was steep and proved the seller knew the rarity that is a Corona Hardtop Coupe. The late ‘60s Toyota Coronas are highly sought after old school imports, but a vast majority are four-door sedans. As time went on I watched the ad disappear and reappear like a lighthouse beacon in the night. Each time it went dark I thought someone out there came to their senses and bought it. I sold the wheels off my Evo IX as well as my Pentax 67II medium format camera in preparation for a harsh tax season - but things went my way and the day I did my taxes the Corona flashed back on my screen with a lowered $1,300 price tag. Cosmic tumblers fell into alignment and I went to check it out. Somewhere during our conversation the seller mentioned he would consider $1,000. I kept on talking and later, to my amazement, made an offer of $800, which he countered at $900. Then my hand inexplicably reached out and a shake later I was the owner of a 1968 Toyota Corona hardtop coupe. To get an old car running takes the skill sets of Sherlock Holmes and Smokey Yunick combined. You need to deduce what ails the car and figure out sometimes ‘creative’ ways to cure it. The first thing to do is quiz the seller and get all the info as possible about what is right and what is wrong with the car. This will get you going in the right direction...and the car will let you know what it needs from there. Process of elimination is a key component when it comes to waking the dead… automotively speaking.

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The 1.9-liter four cylinder 3R-C engine would run with urging, as long as there was gas can connected to the fuel pump. The reason the car had been taken off the road was due to a failing brake master cylinder. Also the battery tray was obliterated, the gas tank had a distinct Swiss cheese aura about it and the Toyota’s ‘bubbly’ personality extended to the rocker panels and fender lips.

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So the road back to the road meant a master brake cylinder, a relocated battery and repairs to the gas tank. I started my project in the trunk. I hauled out the old tank and found a local welder to fashion a new top for it. I sanded the trunk, coated it with bed liner and installed a battery relocation kit. I then made a ‘custom’ trunk liner to finish the job off.

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If you're doing a rebuild on a time schedule, plan in plenty of downtime waiting for parts when working on rare cars like the RT52 Corona coupe...chances are your local O’Reilly’s autoparts store won't have squat. Luckily it seems every car has a gur,u and Carlyn Dinkler of Mint Hill, NC “specializes in 1965 to 1970 Coronas”… talk about a niche market… but I am glad to know the man. In the time that it took me to do most of the trunk work, I found Carlyn and he landed me an elusive master cylinder.

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Epic battles await the enthusiast daring enough to tangle with a 40-plus year old car. My ultimate showdown was with the clevis pin. The clevis pin looks like a bolt but has no threads on it. A hole on the end is home to a cotter pin and the clevis serves as a pivot point that allows the brake pedal to properly pump the master cylinder. Mine would not budge… for a week and a half I hammered at it, froze it and conjured a C-clamp/PVC pipe concoction in an attempt to remove it - to no avail. The only thing I accomplished was expanding my dirty word vocabulary.

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After my muscles and creativity were getting me nowhere, I unleashed the Internet on that sucker and came up with the Clevis Pin Remover Tool. The tool is similar to the idea I had in mind, except it's powered by an air wrench. The tool was substantial in stature and price ($140,) and I also had to buy an air wrench, but I howled victory screams as that pin was bullied out of its hole!

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After replacing the master cylinder, rebending the brake line to the unit, clearing the brake lines front-to-rear, replacing an axle bearing (with the help of my nephew David Perkins, a Toyota technician) and bleeding the brakes...the car stopped. It was barely a step up from Fred Flintstone, but it stopped! The gas tank was dropped in and I found out I had some fuel quality issues. Note: invest in a reusable, see-through fuel filter. My Mr. Gasket piece was a godsend, alerting me to poor gas quality and floating gasket sealant in the tank. I also learned that the carburetor’s idle mixture screw does not react favorably to full-lean or full-rich settings, but the goal is to find the sweet spot in the screw’s travel.

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Having attained a horrendously poor, sputtering idle I was elated and ready to make the mad dash 3.5 miles to the local repair shop, Hansville Repair, to have the brakes blessed and car checked out. It was hot in the car but I was already sweating profusely. The 3R-C fired to life and I pounced on the gearshift lever the moment I heard a hesitation that hinted at an idle. The car swung wide out of my driveway and I again took full advantage of another momentary hesitation and we were in Drive and toiling down the road. The engine was loud and deliberate, the transmission unsure, adding to the howling-wind sound effect. For the first time in nine years the Corona was motoring down the road under its own power! Despite any shortcomings I may have with wrench or socket, the hard fact was it was me who made this all possible…and for that fleeting moment I was a king. The car pulled hard right on my first brake test but the binders worked and I triumphantly pulled, coasted actually, into the Hansville Repair parking lot - making sure to take the a parking spot in the side yard so I'd have an additional runoff area just in case. The shop replaced the wheel bearings and swapped out some contaminated pads and related that the steering components were ‘critically worn.’

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A quick call to Carlyn and my nephew and we have since swapped out all the steering gear and sent the carb to Carlyn for a rebuild. Now that I've got the car on the road, it's revealed a tranny issue. The two-speed A-10 Toyoglide shifts to second then seems to make a slipping sound and ’downshift.’ So Carlyn says the rear bands may need to be tightened or a rebuild is in the works. There is also a mean oil leak where the flex-plate separates the tranny and engine, most likely a failing rear main seal (which is a bear to replace). If I had the funds I would seriously consider an engine swap, a Toyota 22R, 22RE, 4A-GE, Nissan KA or ??? Resurrection is merely the first chapter, my exploits with this classic Toyota are a never-ending story. In an endeavor such as this, the journey is more important than the destination...but I sure would love to cruise in this old Coronoa on a regular basis one day. Problem is, I spied a classic Bronco with a cab stuffed full of parts and two flat tires down the road…yikes... -Evan Griffey

1968 Toyota Corona Project Ride: Resurrection

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