Brightons Build Thread

[Brighton]

Hello All!

First off, I'm not sure if this is the right place for this so mods feel free to move it!
To summarize: I picked up an 07 Yaris Hatch Auto with 93k on it as my new commuter (250miles a week stop-and-go traffic) :/
I plan to do a decent amount of cosmetic mods as well as a few mechanical mods to make the car exactly what I want. I prefer mods that let a car use all the power it has to offer as well as be as responsive as it can, so not looking for a ton of power or building for a specific purpose.

I won't list maintenance items as a mod but everything will be factory spec stuff

Mods Done
-K&N Panel filter
-Rear De-badge
-Painted 15x5.5 Steelies on generic cheap all-season tires
-Wagner ceramic front pads and rotors
-M5-0.80 stubby antenna (Search for an antenna for an R56 Mini Cooper)
-4300k LED interior lights and exterior marker lights
-Rust treated and then bedlined entire under chassis
-Clay barred, polished and ceramic coated paint
-Gloss black vinyl roof wrap
-Optima red top battery
-License Plate tow hook mount
-JBL Full Stereo
-Subaru Horns
-Sound Deadening
-35% ceramic tint all the way around

To Do Mods
-Aluminum wheels with street tires (16/17in tbd)
-Joying (or equivalent) double din head unit
-Better bucket seats
-Matching door cards to go with the seats

Here is the car the day after I got it, totally stock
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How it sits currently
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[myfirstyota]

Minty! Nice ride!
2 door too!

[Leegamer]

Looks really clean and you have good plans for it!

[ern-diz]

Looking forward to following along!

[johnwk]

Would you mind telling us more about the rust-treating and bedlining, such as how much money, labor, and reasoning you put into it?

[Brighton]

Would you mind telling us more about the rust-treating and bedlining, such as how much money, labor, and reasoning you put into it?

Sure! Answering them out of order, the reasoning is that the car came out of PA and although it doesn't show much rust yet, I don't want to take any chances. I've had a fair share of cars develop rust and it's a pain to deal with down the line.
To start off, I spent 30 minutes or so wiring brushing all the questionable or rusted areas, which was only spot welds and a few seam welds. Then I wiped down all the rusted areas with brake clean to remove the loose rust/dirt. After that I sprayed all the areas in question the rust reformer paint ($7 per can and used 1.5 cans)
Once that had cured, I started coating the underside with bed armor ($14 per can and used 2 cans)The reason I did bed liner instead of undercoating is the rubberized undercoating holds dirt and is porous and I've seen it become cancerous before. So I opted for something that would cure much more solid and durable and I prefer smooth finish instead of the normal textured bed liner.

So estimate cost $42 and I'd say 3-4 hours of time. (I got it all done in the same day)

[06YarisRS]

Nice! It does look pristine underneath. I would still oil spray it with a thin creeping product after your bedliner has cured. It is virtually impossible to ensure that water won't make it through the bedliner and sit there doing its nasty work. I love the bedliner and use it in my wheel wells if the factory undercoating is gone. But, I still make sure to oil spray it. It will creep in and displace moisture in tiny cracks and fissures. Also, IMO, most of the corrosion that occurs at the body seams happens from water that comes from inside the car - moist mats from footwear etc. Carpets get damp and stay that way for a long time. I sometimes pull the carpets up, spray an oil-based rust-proofing compound, cover it in plastic, then lay the carpet back down.

The vast majority of rust-induced structural damage comes from within. I concentrate 90% of my efforts pertaining to rust-proofing on deliverying product to interior panels. I rarely have to add any thicker material underneath.

That's an awesome little car you have there!

[Brighton]

Weekend Update

Nothing too terribly exciting done this weekend but I figured I'd write about it anyway.
I shampooed the interior and although the seats looked fine, I got a lot of nasty brown stuff out of them, I can only assume it was many spilt caramel mocha lattes (I got the car from a college chick)
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I found the exhaust leak and welded it and opted to install a new less restrictive muffler and also painted it with exhaust paint to limit premature corrosion
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I pulled off the rear drums to inspect them since they have an unknown service history. I flushed and bled the brake system. All of the original brake components were in good order too, which is surprising but saves me money so can't complain.
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I don't have any pictures to go along with it but I also hardwired a dash cam and still no luck on finding hybrid emblems that are the right size. The dealer didn't have many in stock for me to test fit so I'll have to keep looking.

[06YarisRS]

Weekend Update

Nothing too terribly exciting done this weekend but I figured I'd write about it anyway.
I shampooed the interior and although the seats looked fine, I got a lot of nasty brown stuff out of them, I can only assume it was many spilt caramel mocha lattes (I got the car from a college chick)


I found the exhaust leak and welded it and opted to install a new less restrictive muffler and also painted it with exhaust paint to limit premature corrosion


I pulled off the rear drums to inspect them since they have an unknown service history. I flushed and bled the brake system. All of the original brake components were in good order too, which is surprising but saves me money so can't complain.


I don't have any pictures to go along with it but I also hardwired a dash cam and still no luck on finding hybrid emblems that are the right size. The dealer didn't have many in stock for me to test fit so I'll have to keep looking.

That car appears to be in fantastic shape. Other than it being a two-door, the shifter and it's pristene condition, it's almost identical to my 2008. Subscribed to your thread.

[Brighton]

Weekend Update

Again, not super exciting since the car doesn't need any work currently aside from non urgent 100k stuff. But I did wash the car and fill in all the rock chips and stuff I could find. The previous owner never waxed the car so the roofs paint is at a point I can't save it, so it's either ignore it, sand and reclear it, or (my fave choice) get black vinyl and wrap the roof. I ordered the material to do the roof so I'll probably get that done next weekend.

Before
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After
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[Brighton]

Weekend Update

Sorry for the dark photos, I was eager to get pictures after finishing it. I got the roof wrapped, not nearly a perfect job but I'm happy with it. Also I'm 2 for 2 on aftermarket front tow hook license plate mounts that say they fit and don't. So now the plan is to find an OEM tow hook in the junkyard and custom make a mount out of it.

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I also got my spare optima installed, it's a little shorter than a normal size 35 battery but with a little spacer under the mount, it's now secure.

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[Brighton]

Weekend Update

Things actually got done! I picked up a roll of adhesive foam insulation (aka cheap dynamat) and I lined the doors and hatch with it to cut down on the cheap car sound when you close the doors as well as help with a bit of sound deadening once I get speakers (I also did this so I can figure out what size speakers to order)

This is the stuff, you can get it at Lowes for $18 a roll. It's in the plumbing section
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Hatch and Door lined about 40% of the surface area

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After two failed attempts to find an aftermarket license plate mount, I ended up making my own. I started with a standard toyota tow hook, cut it in half, cut a square into it so I can use a wrench to thread it into the car, and then I drilled and tapped the center so I can bolt one of the aftermarket mounts to it. Pretty happy with the results.

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[SirDigby]

i bet it gets stolen. HA! j/k

[Leegamer]

I've been thinking of plastidipping or vinyl wrapping my roof, hood, and side mirrors because the paint is so bad on them. That vinyl looks great.

any suggestions on brand?

[Brighton]

I've been thinking of plastidipping or vinyl wrapping my roof, hood, and side mirrors because the paint is so bad on them. That vinyl looks great.

any suggestions on brand?

Don't do plastidip, it'll only look good for a short period and will be a nightmare to remove down the line. As far as wraps go, stick with Avery or 3M. Also have at least one other person help you, order way too much material, prep the surface repeatedly with alcohol and order plastic prep (vinyl doesn't like to stick to plastic)

[Leegamer]

Don't do plastidip, it'll only look good for a short period and will be a nightmare to remove down the line. As far as wraps go, stick with Avery or 3M. Also have at least one other person help you, order way too much material, prep the surface repeatedly with alcohol and order plastic prep (vinyl doesn't like to stick to plastic)

Cool, thanks for the tip. Yours looks great.

[Brighton]

Another Weekend Update

Again not super exciting, but the cars been serving me well and is serving the purpose I bought it for so thats all good. (My old Mini S would have needed something expensive in the same amount of time by now)

BUT I digress, I got around to pulling the center console to replace the shifter light which has been burnt out since I got the car, the bulb that came out was labeled as a 74 and I put in a new 74 and it didn't fit. It fit in with a decent amount of force but it would not touch the contacts so it wouldn't light up. So I took the LED bulb out of the unit linked below (Had one left over from another job) and then put the little green condom thing on it so it'd match the dash. It also seemed loose in the bulb housing so I bent the contacts outward to fit tighter.

https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/instrument-cluster-gauge/pc74-led-bulb-high-power-instrument-panel-led/709/973/

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[bairjo]

Wow! You are ambitious. One thing i would like to comment on. I had to have my muffler replaced and the shop put one on that looks just like the one you put on. It is is not the same shape or dimensions as the OEM. As a result, the edge of the muffler kept bumping the inside wall of the body causing an annoying noise. I took it back and they put in a different one one with a shape resembling a coffee can. It fit better but was not quiet like it should be. It was noisy and sounded cheap. I'm sure there are those on here that would like that, but I didn't. So here is my point. I ended up purchasing a genuine Toyota muffler that looks and sounds like the one that came with the car. My car sounds like new. When it comes to mufflers, I will now always recommend OEM.

Keep up the nice mods!

[Brighton]

Wow! You are ambitious. One thing i would like to comment on. I had to have my muffler replaced and the shop put one on that looks just like the one you put on. It is is not the same shape or dimensions as the OEM. As a result, the edge of the muffler kept bumping the inside wall of the body causing an annoying noise. I took it back and they put in a different one one with a shape resembling a coffee can. It fit better but was not quiet like it should be. It was noisy and sounded cheap. I'm sure there are those on here that would like that, but I didn't. So here is my point. I ended up purchasing a genuine Toyota muffler that looks and sounds like the one that came with the car. My car sounds like new. When it comes to mufflers, I will now always recommend OEM.

Keep up the nice mods!

Thanks! Sticking with OEM is always safe, I noticed there were two styles of mufflers when I ordered mine too. I wanted it a little louder than stock so I ordered the aftermarket style. It fit well but I went with a brand I know, I'm sure there are other ones out there that would have worse fitment.

[zoidberg444]

Great work mate. I've got to do something about the rust on my car. I'd be interested to see how the paint you used holds up. I have heard some horror stories of people using paint where the rust either comes through the paint or its still rusting away underneath the paint.

[Brighton]

Great work mate. I've got to do something about the rust on my car. I'd be interested to see how the paint you used holds up. I have heard some horror stories of people using paint where the rust either comes through the paint or its still rusting away underneath the paint.

Thanks! Only time will tell. I've worked on a bunch of Toyotas and Subarus so I've seen a fair share of rust. It's to the point I refuse to use heavy coatings like POR-15 and rubberized undercoating because I've seen it become cancerous underneath the coating.

[Brighton]

Small Update

Nothing too terribly exciting since the cars been drama free. I did some maintenance this weekend as well as stopped by the local junkyard and got a 1.8L throttle body and a neat shift knob from a scion TC.

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The throttle body came off an 04 Matrix and isn't even remotely close to working. I can adapt the cooling lines to work but not much else so that idea is out the window (unless I find a newer 1.8 to steal a TB from)

But the shift knob is on and looks good, better than the ebay special one I had on previously.

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[Brighton]

Updates

I'm slowly chipping away at my to-do list over the past couple weekends. Firstly let me explain my reasoning behind most these mods. I hate cars that feel cheap, and although yaris' are cheap global platform cars, they don't need to feel cheap.

Boring Maintenance Done:
New serpentine belt, new rear lift supports, bilstein rear shocks (matching fronts will come later), weathertech floor mats, fixed the roof wrap, and cleaned all the ground wires I could find.

The center armrest is just hollow plastic, so I put some junk hardware in it and then filled it with expanding foam, to give it some weight and an overall better feel.
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I swapped all the speakers in the car and replaced them with JBLs. Took me a while to figure out how to mount them and to get them all in phase with each other but they bump now, so really happy about that. Also added more sound deadening while I'm at it. (mostly to help remove the cheapness sound when you close the doors and road noise.)

Before
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After
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Another cheapness thing I dislike is the horn, it sounds like a bumper car. I robbed a set of horns and bracket off a subaru (from 2009+ models) at the junkard and installed them. (they also happened to be the same brand and one was even the same model number as the yaris one.) They bolted right in and I only had to trim a little of the air dam and solder in two plugs (they SHOULD have a relay and a power source but I can't be bothered.) Also I will probably modify the front bumper before reinstalling but I haven't gotten to it yet.

Before
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After
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[myfirstyota]

You gotta go air if you want a real horn
https://i.imgur.com/xveWdrel.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/xW8F3AIl.jpg

If you get the chance, try 2003-2008 dodge ram horns they're pretty loud and have a good angry tone

[Brighton]

You gotta go air if you want a real horn
https://i.imgur.com/xveWdrel.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/xW8F3AIl.jpg

If you get the chance, try 2003-2008 dodge ram horns they're pretty loud and have a good angry tone

Hahaha that's so excessive, I love it! So far they sound fine, we'll see how they are in use. I have caddy horns on my other car and they're nice, but those definitely need another power source.

[myfirstyota]

The thing I like about the air horns is that the big rigs can hear you just before they kill you lol

[Brighton]

Quarantine Updates

This was all done over the past few weeks during this lock in period.

Maintenance:
Trans flush with new pan gasket and filter
Engine oil flush and new oil pan gasket
First wash, wax, and seal in like 10 months

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Mods:
Started restoring the junkyard Konig 15x7 rims I got a while back, no tires yet so won't be installed right away.
35% tint all the way around

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[06YarisRS]

Looking really nice. What do you use for a paint sealer?

[Brighton]

Looking really nice. What do you use for a paint sealer?

I use Meguiars paint protect, they brand it as a lazy person wax though.

[Brighton]

More Quarantine Updates

Not particularly exciting but I got the front strut assemblies swapped as well as the sway bar links. Ended up cutting the old sway bar links off because the hold it with an Allen key while loosening with a ratchet process was too tedious.

Also, got to love working on sub-compacts where you have to remove the entire cowl unit just to access 2 bolts.
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[Brighton]

Update

Might as well try to make the best of this quarantine by getting caught up on maintenance. To start off, the first issue/reason for doing work is the trans drain plug gasket was seeping a bit of fluid, so I bought 2 magnetic drain plugs to replace the awful OEM hex head bolt. I already replaced the engine oil one with a magnetic Mishimoto plug, but the one I got for the trans (MMODP-1815B) didn't really fit, I wasn't happy with the slight resistance to threading in, so I opted to use the Dorman (090-114CD) one instead.

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I also took the opportunity to replace all the coolant hoses, thermostat, and rad cap with the ones shown below. The 22556 was a cut-to-fit and didn't fit worth a crap so don't buy it. The coolant also didn't look terrible for having 109k on it but still worth doing it since I'm past the service interval.
ALSO: Do yourself a favor and DO NOT try to re-use the OEM clamps, just buy new ones. I fought with them for over an hour trying to get them to lock in the open position but ended up cutting off the little ears that was stopping them from opening all the way.

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[Brighton]

End of the World Update

Unfortunately I've been unmotivated to do more with the car during this whole end of the world thing but I finally got around to trying to get rid of the stale food smell that came with the car from the previous owner. I already shampooed the interior but the next step was to remove the seats and do a more thorough job.
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It might have been a mistake to use a 700+ ft lb impact gun to remove small E10 seat bolts. Ended up snapping off two of the rear seat bolts so I had to unbolt the seat from the rail to get the seats out.
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[06YarisRS]

End of the World Update

Unfortunately I've been unmotivated to do more with the car during this whole end of the world thing but I finally got around to trying to get rid of the stale food smell that came with the car from the previous owner. I already shampooed the interior but the next step was to remove the seats and do a more thorough job.
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It might have been a mistake to use a 700+ ft lb impact gun to remove small E10 seat bolts. Ended up snapping off two of the rear seat bolts so I had to unbolt the seat from the rail to get the seats out.
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The interior looks absolutely great! Too bad about the bolts. My best friend in the shop is a penetrant spray product called ReleasAll. Normally, a couple of days before I remove any bolt that's on the outside of the cabin, or prodrudes through the cabin to the atmosphere, I soak many times a day. I have been very lucky and have yet to break a fastener. Actually, I did break one, the retaining bolt for the transmission speed sensor.

[Brighton]

Gotta Pass Inspection Update

Good New; The stale food smell is pretty much gone and I may have found Subaru seats that will fit the car (more info on this as I find it)

Being that my inspection is due this month, I worked up the motivation to fix the exhaust leak. Which is located in a really common place for exhausts to blow out, right where the hanger weld is in front of the muffler.
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I bought the aftermarket "exhaust repair pipe" which was clearly copied from a blurry fax of the original design because it doesn't really fit
Aftermarket PITA #1
The bolt holes in the flange don't allow the spring bolt to go through it, so I had to drill them out to work.
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Aftermarket PITA#2
The section of the stock exhaust that the repair pipe is supposed to attach to is oval, so now I have to squish the original part of the exhaust into a circle so I can weld it nicely (we'll see how that goes later today)
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[Brighton]

I'm not going to show the weld because it was hideous. However, I got it sealed and I was able to bend the existing pipe into a circular shape by tightening down a standard exhaust clamp on the "peaks" of the pipe every 1/2in or so, which allowed the old pipe to slip in into the new pipe. Not a pretty fix but functional so good enough.

[Brighton]

Update

To start off, my car decided it didn't want to have trans fluid in it anymore and in the time it was sitting, most of the fluid drained out so I went to run errands and it wouldn't even drop into gear. Thanks in part to me using a trans pan gasket instead of RTV. The gasket broke around most of the bolt holes and blew out entirely in the rear of the pan. So I installed a new pan (old one had a big dent) and also put in the factory drain plug back in, the longer magnetic plug was interfering with some part in the trans which also made it so I couldn't accurately torque the pan bolts down last time.

So in summary, don't replace the trans drain plug and don't use a gasket for the trans pan, just rtv it with something rated for trans fluid.

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