Hiro

Gone but not forgotten (well it's only been 5 hours, but still.....)

Considered doing it yourself? Lowering springs can be bought from a multitude of places including most auto parts stores, eBay etc etc, and if you've got a mate with spring compressors then the job can easily be done at home with only basic tools (jack/chassis stands, socket set, maybe a breaker bar). If you aren't capable or able to do it at home then any mechanic can do it, it's not a specialised job.

Do you have manual locking hubs? Are they locked? Older 4WDs with part-time 4WD generally don't like being put in 4WD when on dry sealed roads as there isn't enough slip when going around corners (like driving a car with a locked diff) with the hubs locked, so the axles binds up causing a jumping/skipping. Check your owners manual in regards to what conditions you can and can't use 4WD in.

So picked these up for a steal last weekend, for those not in the know the top-spec AE101 Levins/Truenos came with a Superstrut suspension option and twin-pot 275mm front discs, which are a sizeable improvement over the factory non-superstrut 255mm single-pots. A common upgrade for AE92s in the past, common practice required the discs to be turned down to ~260mm through as the caliper mounting points on the MacPherson struts were closer in to the hub compared to the Superstrut. In my mind the whole point of buying big brakes is to have big brakes, so going back down to a disc only 5mm bigger than factory seemed like a backwards step. Fortunately, other trailblazers out there have found out that you can the pad-carriers from the big-brake ST20x Celicas with a tiny bit of grinding for clearance, so I'm currently hunting down a set of ST204 front pad carriers (fortunately Toyota Aus spec'd the big front single-pots for the ADM models, otherwise I'd be trying to find an SSII/III 3SGE ST202 import with the big brakes but WITHOUT Superstrut).Should be looking at getting the exhaust fitted soon too, just need to go over the joins to make sure the welds are still good (it's 10 years old now) and get a fresh set of gaskets front to rear.

100% normal for an A-series Corolla

I don't think there's anything different in regards to mounting, just different spring/shock rates etc

Except the last Australian-built Corolla was in 1999...

Almost certainly, and different states have different definitions too (NSW is pretty strict for instance)

You need to be a member of an actual car club that is registered with your relevant state/territory motoring authority for the historic vehicle scheme. TOCAU is just an online forum, not a registered car club. You need to get a list of the registered clubs from the motor authority and approach one of them for membership

And later-model Camrys ran coilpacks instead of a distributor too

According to Redbook it's 1500kg braked

Centre vents do just pull straight out, you can see the nub on the surround and the pocket on the vent which holds them in place

If it's the centre HVAC vents then you can pull the entire front panel out easily (just take the knobs off the heater controls and unplug the wiring for the hazards/rear demister). The centre vents pivot on little nubs cast in to the plastic, they _should_ just pop out if you give them a firm tug towards the rear of the car but it can be hard getting a good grasp on them (which is why removing the panel would be a good idea, gives it a chance to flex a little too). I've got a spare set of vents that I'll have a look at when I get home

It's this - JDM cars have a 108kph limit on their cruise control by design. I know in the case of the Soarer you could short out some pins in the cruise control ECU to bypass the limit but I don't know if this is universal for all Toyotas

I've been told it's actually the swaybar

Anyone know what this big long metal tube thingy is called? I undid a couple of random bolts under the car and it fell off...

The AE101/102 series Corolla was one of the best selling cars in the country, spares are plentiful and you can still buy a lot of stuff new/NOS from Toyota. They are near bullet-proof too (one of the last Corollas to be modern yet simple) so rarely need much to fix. There's little out there in terms of aftermarket performance gear too, although you should be fairly familiar with that situation from the Camry.

If it's road-legal chuck it up on Gumtree so someone can buy it as a cheap first car for their kid to learn in or whatever. If it's not running, then it'll probably only be worth something to a wrecker/scrap-metal-merchant, unless you keep it lying around for when you buy a new car during one of those guaranteed minimum $2k trade-in deals.

No, because the system is working the way it is designed to. The only way to disable the immobiliser before starting the car is to use the remote button, insert the remote in to the receptacle in the glovebox (I think, not 100% sure) or wait half an hour with the key in the ON position in the ignition. There's no point using the key to unlock the doors if you have a remote that works just as well.

215/55/16 is only 1.5% off a 205/60/16, not enough to be an issue.

No, a '96 has a plain key and a chipped remote/immobiliser (there will be two little metal strips on the nose of the remote, this is the way to tell), the fact that the car won't start even after you remote unlock the doors is because the immobiliser isn't disengaging, which is why you have to press the button again inside the car before it will start. In short, always use the remote to unlock the car if you intend on driving it.

Not sure what it's is like on the Hilux, but have you bled the cooling system to make sure there aren't any air bubbles? Classic issue for Toyotas where air in the coolant hoses cause the cold-idle system to not function properly

Does the idle drop down eventually once the engine gets warm? A lot of people owning a Toyota for the first time seem to be put-off by the cold idle speed...

All A-series engines burn oil eventually, and the 7A is no exemption. Culprits are either warm valve-stem seals or stuck oil-control piston rings. 1L every 2000k is pretty excessive though, even at my worst it was taking closer to 5000k for the oil-pressure light to come on in corners - I'd be double-checking for leaks just in case. Does it smoke at all? By the way, your compression results aren't showing up

One thing to remember is that plenty of older autos won't shift in to top/overdrive whilst the engine is cold - perfectly normal and actually a design feature to stop a cold engine being loaded up at low rpm. I fail to see how you can be burning copious amounts of fuel being in 3rd instead of 4th in the meantime, unless you're pulling out of your driveway and going straight on to the freeway at 110k.