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Picked up this little '97 Camry for $61 dollars (cost of registration and title.)

178k miles, single family owned, working A/C. Will be doing a few things (valve cover gasket, mounts, tune-up, etc) but is in surprisingly great condition and runs like a champ. This way I can keep miles off the SHO and drive it, and save the Type-R for fun-runs.

Untitled by Paul Taylor, on Flickr

Untitled by Paul Taylor, on Flickr

Will be cleaning the carpet and mats.....

Untitled by Paul Taylor, on Flickr

Untitled by Paul Taylor, on Flickr

Smoking deal!! Can't beat the price!

Now that's one heck of a deal Paul! Today I bought myself a cheap daily driver as well, of the German variety, but nothing like that. Congratulations!

I had a 2000 Camry for several years. Really great car and easy to work on. That one looks great and cant beat the price.

Dale

SCORE!

For the past 3 years, my DD has been a $1000 '04 Corolla with dents, a missing bumper, a Ukrainian lift kit, and oversized tires.

Spectacularly durable... it's about to turn 300k, and Aaron Hernandez is now rocking it as a DD.

(BTW, I saved enough by driving that, so I just bought myself a new ND2... figured you'd approve of that purchase!)

I forgot I made a thread about this car.

Current progress :




I cleaned the engine bay, but still have more cleaning to do :



I bought this really cool steam cleaner (and a upholstery cleaning machine,) and I think it will remove all the stains from the valve cover by the results from just a quick blast :



The intake manifold came out really nice, need to do the valve cover next



Found some new old stock floor mats, it took quite some time to find a set that wasn't 300+ bucks :


The driver door panel had some glue the previous owner spilled on the arm rest. Steam cleaner did a pretty good job removing it :




I removed the front and back seats for cleaning, and have been fixing various interior things :

The carpet and seats were just dingy from 26 years of daily driver use :

Good thing I have all new brake stuff coming, this rear wheel cylinder said 188k and done.



I mounted an Alpine bluetooth headunit in the glovebox (designing a neat cover / organizer to fit in the glove box as well to 3d print.)

The stock speakers where done and deteriorate so I figured that is a good excuse to relive my high school years and install some new stereo stuff.

Order a whole bunch o' sound dampening material. Should be good to keep out rattles (I hate rattles) and provide some insulation from temp and road noise :


Did the inside of the doors. According to Dynamat people when I used their products on a bunch of magazine cars - you don't need 100% coverage. Dynamat's precut kits only cover certain areas - so I did the same. Did all the insides of the doors (backside of the door skin) and the larger / flatter areas under the door panel


Next up was the rear speakers. I had two sets of MTX 6.5" speakers laying around - and the fronts were a direct fit - however the rears were originally 6x9s. That would require an adapter. Also since I was going to put a lil' "bump in the trunk" I didn't want the rears to be subject to the harmonics of the subwoofer - so I bough some DEI Baffles. I downloaded a 3D model for an adapter, made some changes - and printed them. So the speaker bolts to the printed adapter, then that bolts to the factor speaker mounts, and sandwiches the baffle inbetween. Worked like a champ, and fit under the factory grills.





I then installed the two early 2000s MB Quart reference subs in the trunk, with an old kicker amp. I kept these subs around cause I like how they look. There aren't many reverse surround and no logo subs made these days.

After the brakes are done (parts are arriving this week) it will be suspension time. I have brand new "loaded" control arms, rear links, tie rods, etc. I have decided on Coilovers to replace the well worn springs/struts and found a couple sets that fit I am mulling over which set. Then it will be wheels, which currently in the running are 15" RPF1s or stock/oem Lexus ES300 wheels.

Paul, always love to see a well used older car brought back to life. I'm on my third carpet/upholstery machine, having worn out the first two. Amazing the difference they can make to freshen up things inside. The Camry will be a great daily when you get done bringing her back, and the tunes will be awesome. Nice job... as always.

I have the same McCullough steam machine. It's awesome, and I use it a lot for undercarriage detail, as well as other cleaning tasks, but I wish it had an extractor function.

As such, I'm in the market for a good steamer / cleaner / extractor for doing interiors. Paul & Randy, recommendations?