Gary Dunnes Toyota Corolla AE86 Restoration.

The following pages follow the restoration and respray of Gary Dunnes 1984 Toyota Corolla AE86.
Having owned a number of these much sought after cars before, Gary had managed to track down this extremely solid UK example, with full Toyota service history and one lady owner from new.
Sadly, as with all classic cars, age was beginning to catch up with it!

The car was suffering from rot in what is known as the rear pockets, this is the area behind the rear bumper. This is a very common problem on AE86's as by design, it is an area that collects water. The flat panel with the pressings is available to buy, everything else had to be fabricated.

You may have noticed the wheel arch repair in the above second to last photo. The problem with this project is that panel availability is scarce, and the panels that are available are pressed poorly. We fitted outer rear wheel arches to both sides, and had to repair sections of the outer and inner sills at the same time. Sections of the inner wheel arch had been poorly repaired at some point, so we removed the unsightly 'patches' and repaired them with new metal.

Another area that caused problems was the thin strip of metal that can be seen below, again this had to be fabricated. Also, the lip that runs around the boot compartment and holds the 'boot seal' had corroded. Again, repair sections had to be fabricated.

The car then had further repairs to the edges of the boot floor, spare wheel well and damper/suspension turrets.

Page Two

Page Two

The following page shows the car being prepared for paint, and in primer.