CamryOnBronze

I sold my first car yesterday- my 94 Toyota Camry- for $550. The car that started it all if you will, haha. My mom bought it for me back in May 2003 with 109,600 miles on it and it has been my daily (mostly in the winter months) ever since. Eight and a half years and 135,000 of my own miles later, I finally said goodbye yesterday. Kind of a weird feeling selling a car! The only car I had sold before this was an S13 rolling chassis that a friend gave me as partial payment for my Work wheels that I owned for less than a month.

Here are some shots through the years- pretty lame, but she was my baby for a while haha.

It wasn’t fast, and I got made fun of a lot for it, but it was an amazing car. I couldn’t really have asked for more- learned to drive, turn a wrench, and had a lot of fun times in this thing. Hopefully the new owner gets some use out of it before it finally gives up the ghost, haha. Here are a couple shots of how it looked before the new owner picked it up:

Thanks for the memories, Camzilla!

My wife’s 99 Solara V6 Auto will serve as my daily driver for now. On the hunt for a Honda Element for her- then maybe something new for me to replace the Solara. We’ll see what happens!

More 240 action soon- thanks for allowing me the trip down memory lane, haha.

Damon

I’m back from vacation- time to get to work on the car again. I have the day off for my birthday next week, so I’m planning to get a lot of the wiring done that day. I’ll probably focus on that for the whole day, then see where I end up. After that it will be time to pull the engine.

Since I haven’t touched the car in a week, here is a little something I made in Florida. My mother-in-law brought some clay for us to mess around with, so this is what I made… lol.

This is what I came home to in the yard- we got about 4 or 5″ of snow on Tuesday night. I guess winter is officially here…

Actual car updates soon- should make some progress on the car itself and with ordering some parts late next week.

Damon

Chassis harness is all removed from the bay, along with the fuse boxes. I’m going to try to remove the dash tonight or tomorrow and start connecting it all back together.

Plan of attack is to pull the dash and reconnect this stuff, extend wiring for headlights/motors, pull the motor, place Chase Bays order, and then get this bad nasty painted up. It’s going to be a somewhat slow process through the winter, but hopefully it is worth it and comes out looking nice.

Damon

Friday…

Hoping to spend a good chunk of time on the chassis harness this weekend if I get the time. Really getting excited for the engine bay and I am feeling super motivated right now, so I am trying to harness that. (ZING! lol)

In other news, we got our first snow flakes here yesterday. Major bummer- it is starting earlier than it did last year. Time to spend some quality time in the garage and get to work! Have a great weekend and thanks for checking in.

Damon

It has been three years today since I bought the car- pretty wild how fast time goes by. I can’t believe how much fun I have had with this project and how much I have learned. Truly an awesome platform to build and learn on. I think I have put about 30,000 miles on the car since I bought it- almost 14,000 of those coming from this summer. Thankfully, it seems to be getting a bit more reliable every season, haha.

I thought it might be fun to take some current pics of the car as it sits today and compare them with the photos from the day I bought the car. Since I have already started tearing it down for the engine bay rebuild this winter, I took these shots on Tuesday of this week. You’ll also notice that the Ganadors, door panels, and DMax mats are missing from the shots. Sadly, I was in between mirrors (got S13 specific blue-tint Ganadors now), door panels (switching to red Bride fabric), and mats (switching to black/red DMAX) at the time I took the shots. I still thought it would be cool to look at though. Enjoy!

Happy three years! I really tore into the car last night, so I’ll post an update about that as well shortly! Huge thanks to my wonderful wife Alicia for putting up with all that has come along with my car habit over the years- and all of the friends I have made along the way.

Here’s to RATRIDE 2012! Thanks for reading.

Damon

Alicia and I carved some pumpkins this weekend…

lol

Alicia carved one in honor of Tomei-san:

Pretty stoked- we had almost 300 trick-or-treaters last year. #oldpeoplelife lol Happy Halloween!

Damon

Just some snaps I took with my cell phone while Kyle was taking dope pics. These have a more period-correct vibe, haha.

I removed my Ganador mirrors and door panels last night- but don’t worry! A set of blue tint S13 specific Ganadors are on the way to my door today. Looks like they are already black in the pics too, so hopefully I don’t need to paint them. I think I am going to try to wire them up over the winter as well- would love to have them actually work.

Blue Tint! Photo from the importer.

As for the door panels, I think I am going to try to sell my set of black logo panels. If they don’t sell, I will just rip off the black fabric and install the red fabric the next time I am in Illinois over the winter. Should be pretty cool! I’ll probably snap some final pictures next week before I really start tearing into the car. I don’t want to just yet, but with the alternator down for the count and this going on, I think the time is just about here:

Yep, that's in Fahrenheit.

Have a good weekend and thanks for reading!

Damon

So I’m sure everyone has seen the FT86 brochure images that leaked today. I decided to take a crack at the car with my mediocre Photoshop skills…

Pretty cool! I think it will have potential for sure. I am nowhere near baller enough to be in the market for a brand new car, but this gives me faith. I am super bummed it will be sold as a Scion in the states though- I’ve always been a Toyota guy, but the Scion brand can be pretty lame sometimes. Would much rather see this thing rocking the Toyota badge in the states!

Damon

Such a bummer seeing this thing just chillin’ when I roll out in the morning. 😦

The battery light came on while I was driving to a friend’s place last Thursday night. I was able to make it home on just battery power, but it was too dead to start the car when I made it into the garage. I checked the fuses and whatnot after reading some threads about the subject, but everything was good. I tested the big plug going into the alternator with the car running and it is getting power, so I am thinking the alternator is toast.

A friend has one for me that I can toss in for the mean time, but he lives two hours away. With high temps falling into the low 50s and the season coming to a close, I’m probably just going to take my time getting it from him and let the car chill for now.

It’s going to be a long winter!

Here are some snaps Kyle took last weekend…

I’ve got Bride tuning pads, GANADORS, and D-MAX mats for sale- come at me bros!

My alternator stopped charging last night after a rain burnout. I’m going to try to diagnose it tonight to see if it is wiring or the alternator itself. Car is probably in the garage for the season either way though. Bummer.

Have a great weekend!

Damon