not quite a yaris, almost

[sh0rtlife]

so a lil backstory first

wife always wanted an XB, earlier this year i found and lost the deal on several...but i was looking for clean interior first, idealy something cheep with major mechanical needed

happened across an 08 xb2 for 600, and while waiting or the owner to have time for me to come get it...an 06 xb1 deal was struck but it was going to be months before snow melt would allow pickup

so lets start with the xb2
guy was parting it out as he had bought another 08 that had been hit but had 50k miles on it..cant say i blame him, this ones got 210k on the clock, and had some issues, specificaly clock spring both o2's a rear brake caliper and hub as well as that stupid TPMS setup that i still havnt fixed

used the yaris to track down and bring home EVERY part he had removed ie both front and rear bumpers, hatch, fender and some misc interior

now i say almost a yaris cause so much of it is compatible, but its more about the xb1

drove up 3hours in the yaris, looked at it paid for it drove another hour north to a friends place to pickup his truck and MY DOLLEY then turned n burned back to pick it up, wife drove home in the yaris

[sh0rtlife]

after a few weeks of hunting bits, pieces etc all was well, honestly it was driveable as was

mind you i had to seriously earn those parts the front bumper and hatch was a 11hour day of which 90% was drive time, the fender was a second 8 hour day of driving...thankfully the fender was local

never underestimate the yaris for packing in the parts tho...thats the front bumper, rear hatch AND a xb1 core support all stuffed in the back

[sh0rtlife]

so far my wifes thrown about 6000 miles on it and loving it but really wants her xb1

waiting to paint it, going to do it something vibrant and loud, but not "wild"...or atleast if we dont keep it, 1 XB will be kept and painted wild and loud, the other will be painted and sold

still need to get some new rubber for it, but ive got a set of nice 17s waiting to go on

[sh0rtlife]

so basicly the xb2 is "done" untill further notice

onto the xb1

now keep this in mind i had a deal in place, a verbal handshake if you will, so i started hunting down and buying parts MONTHS before even seeing the xb1 in person...xb's are such cult cars that parts vanish QUICK..as in anything you need from a wrecker you better be there within the first couple days of it hitting the yard or you wasted a trip to even look at it

first up i KNEW the core support was SHOT as it had been hit by a deer, as well as the hood, driver fender, grills, bumper, so i knew "if" i could find any of it withing a 5 hour 1 way trip to just chase that shit down, so i did...most of what i snatched up was 3-4 hours 1 way north

the core came home with xb stuff, ditto for the hood, took me alot longer to find and snatch the rest

the deal that was struck was a straight up swap for one of my "spare" bikes a 1980 xl500s
this was going to be a 7 hour 1 way trip, again using a freinds truck, specificaly because i was trying to get all the obd codes to fully reset....i eneded up coming down with one of my worst migrains so my wife made the return trip ....yes..i rented a uhaul trailer, this was actualy strategic, OREGON does NOT require trailers to be plated, washington does...so every time i use my car trailer in washington i get stopped once every hour or 2 it seems like so a 14hour turn n burn..yeah i didnt want the hassle

[sh0rtlife]

so heres where we start

a poor lil 06 xb taken out by a deer....the more i dig into these the more i see that they are a lil bit yaris but mostly ECHO..like everything is echo in the chassis, engine, brakes..alll of it

once home and rested i unwrapped it and started taking inventory...shes rough n ugly...but i was assuered it ran, honestly tho i had less than 500 into the bike from buying it and restoring it..so im not out anything...and its an 06 xb thats got a spotless interior, hidden hitch, trd intake, aftermarket exhaust brand new tires, and was fully loaded from the factory a 1inch thick stack of service reciepts all the way down to 3 sets of keys and fobs even for the roof rack, recently had o2's, tune, filter, all of the charcol emissions stuff replaced...this thing was SERIOUSLY maintained

so heres where it truely goes ugly

[sh0rtlife]

time to rip it apart and take stock...before pulling it into the shop i wanted ALL the busted glass out...i also wanted it running....however the intake manifold was broken in the hit, HOWVER the AC was still functional and sealed, ditto for the cooling..even found reciepts for a full transmission rebuild...5spd baby!..even brand new brakes in toyota boxes in the back seat!!!....i am however missing the hitch ball which is a funny U shape

chased down a intake manifold off an echo localy and it ran like it had been run the day before..so ..i had a solid platform

while going thru it and ripping it apart as well as testing function of everything i ran into an issue..driver window wouldnt go all the way down...the crash bar was bent..so a new door was now on the list

in the end the full list became
both upper rails, core support, headlights, intake manifold, bumper, door, hood, 1 fog light, driver door, driver fender, grill, windshield

the heater box has to come out as its FULL of glass, running the heater you can hear it blowing around in there...ugh...but after having the xb2 for a while i know that road noise in xb's make a yaris seem quiet..so a full gut and sound deadend

broken intake manifold, smashed TRD air filter, twisted rad and ac condensor, mangled inner fender/rail, and a shattered fuse box....this is the one thing i was genuinely NOT looking forward to fixing....

[sh0rtlife]

drove it down the driveway and back into my shop, did a few hard launches, thing feels GOOD..not as good as the yaris does with the bigger TB but good none the less

so it was time to get serious

knowing i was replacing the driver upper rail and inner, as well as the core ment pulling everything i could off the front end, only to find out hey its been hit on the passenger side too and the body shop reciepts show a "quality shop" doing it "right"...and yet i found filler on the upper rail, wrinkles rips and other stuff fillered over and hidden....i was pissed and now on a hunt for a passenger rail as well

so the thing is, working with vintage iron has taught me that the "right" way to fix shit like this is 1 of 2 ways, a cut n graft(not always ideal) or a part for part swap IE drilling all the spot welds and replacing "chunks" and rebuilding it the same way the factory would do it if the factory had to fix em...

with the way it was damaged and what i did need to tweak, as well as having the "factory crash spec sheet" in front of me, i knew a few things, the core support i got is dead nuts in spec, the main frame rails are dead nuts straight, ditto for the firewall, and the strut towers had not moved!!!!!...so all said its square just ugly

i had hopes of saving the door but with the crash bar bent..screw it..and needing to find a upper rail and inner..i had a notification of a fresh kill 3 hours north..had a morning job(3am) and busted ass to the yard straight from my last delivery..only to find a semi clean xb, took the door, ECU(for an auto swap if i wanted) cut out the driver rail, took the fender, found a fan/shroud/coolant bottle assy from an xa, found the driver mirror also in the xa's back seat also grabbed the xb's fuse box, im kicking myself for not grabbing the cruis control...it looked like a cheep POS aftermarket unit..come to find out it was the ONLY unit the dealers installed.........

the wrecker was running a sale, got everything for less than 100$...but i paniced in the parkinglot...there is a VERY specific angle and rotation to get an XB driver door into a yaris and its NOT easy....it fits fine but clearing the gate opening is HELL especialy by yourself

[sh0rtlife]

time to attack it...mind you all this work is short 1-2 hour dabbles every couple days

this was the results of my hauls so far..a rather large pile of most everything

note the seatbelts..not all yards have ways of carrying stuff..so i make shoulder straps out of seatbelts and just sling everything over my shoulders neck n back and hoof it...big pices can be akward as all hell tho while carrying a 75lb bag of tools to boot..which is also on long seatbelt starps for multiple points

[sh0rtlife]

my first LOCAL donar..got to it the same day it hit the yard..bumper, grill, headlight(temporary) as well as a pile of misc..

note that fusebox....thats gunna be "fun"
did a test fit to see how bad everything was and it all looked good..
note the "new" rail above the old rail...yeah that things F'ed

[sh0rtlife]

so after the test fit of everything and seeing i basicly had everything except, windshield, and new headlights(both broke but needed for test fitting) i was ready to start carving

at this point i dissasembled everything again and got a solid look at the way the rails are attched, where all the spot welds are, whats got to be drilled how where what order etc...but i also pulled the passenger fender only to find the fuckery they called "repaired"

first couple shots are the deer hit drivers side the others are of the "repaired" passenger side

[sh0rtlife]

as this point im straight up pissed, and know i need to find a passenger rail...had i known from the get go..id have carved off the core, and both rails as 1 big single unit!!!!!

at this point i took my time marking every spot id have to drill, grind or cut, so i could make a plan of attack, so i knew NOTHING would hold me up or snag me..i even went so far as to "scribe" the outlines of the old attachment points so i had more "positioning" points to make it virtualy impossible to do it wrong

[sh0rtlife]

the fuse box....having the rails out and the core out gave me the most access i was going to get so it would have been stupid to not just attack this thing..swapping every wire 1 by 1..not fun...but the end results is its as good as new, no damaged wires, as the factory intended...hard to belive this things been mangled twice and theres not a single spliced wire on it

[sh0rtlife]

the passenger side rail i meticulously dissected so i could see not o nly how it was assembled but so i knew what i could leave for spot welds on the new rails, what i had to remove and what directions id have to re-weld from...as theres a tricky inner wall to strut tower, which i determined had to be welded from inside the strut tower...outside of that there 2 "tabs" that have to be bent out and folded sightly away for panel placement a tabe at the back of the tower on the rail and a 3 layer deep at the front of the tower that 1 side goes behind and 1 side goes over the tower...wouldnt have caught taht without a dissection

also you rfirst shots of "naked" towere

[sh0rtlife]

enter new rail
a rail door and fender from a black xb, a rail from a red xb, core support and hood from a white xb, bumper and grill from a black metalic xb

i figured out in the yards how to cut the rails off with enough leftover material to have to cut more off at home slowly and carefully, spent the better part of 2 days removing the excess and prepping each rail, then another re-prepping the xb itself

lots of in out test fitting, deburring etc as well as clamping and checking alignments..i kept doing it till i was in spec...not close to spec, but dead nuts on the original scribe lines and to the mm of toyotas assembly spec

[sh0rtlife]

couple finaly test fits to verify i was staying in spec, alot of spot welding and general welding in weird angles thru the holes in the trut towers to the backsides of the old spot welds, i also added a couple of stitches around the towers just to be sure everything stayed put

as of right now everything is square to perfection..not to the +/- of a body shop but to how it was built

i still need to finish filling the spot welds on the passenger side as well as weld the core support to the actual main frame but its otherwise repaired...

once thats done ill be doing some clean up, epoxy priming, seam sealing and then assembling as is.....so my wife can drive it for a month or so and figure out if she likes it more or less than the xb2....the "keeper will likely end up a bright pink metalic or a bright purple metalic, tho im thinking some color shift too

[bronsin]

Did you ever make a Yaris into a snowplow? There was a guy here a long time ago who did. You remind me of him!

[sh0rtlife]

Originally Posted by bronsin

Did you ever make a Yaris into a snowplow? There was a guy here a long time ago who did. You remind me of him!

nope but that picture of his plow yaris is what made me find this site