In my excursions on Craigslist searching for interesting and comical ads, sometimes I stumble across something which grabs hold of my check book and won’t let go no matter how much my sensible side pleads.  I recently had one of these experiences when I found two separate ads for 1977 Toyota Celica GT Liftbacks nearby. These RA29 Celicas were the last models of the first generation before the ugly 1978-1981 redesign.  From some angles they strongly resemble classical 60’s American muscle cars, most notably the Fastback Mustang.  Rather than being powered by small block V8s, however, the first generation Celicas bore various incarnations of the venerable 4 cylinder Toyota R engine, the 1977 model receiving the 20R.

1977 Celica GT Liftback Ad on Craigslist

One of the Celicas being advertised was in (barely) running condition, albeit with poor cosmetics, a leaky cooling system, and carburetion issues.  However, the seller was willing to part with it for almost nothing.  The second was in much better cosmetic shape, but did not run due to a half-completed swap of a 22R-TE motor (a somewhat rare turbocharged variant of Toyota’s fuel-injected 22R-E).  After some negotiating, I bought both of them for pretty reasonable prices.

Ryan securing the rustier of the two Celicas

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As most people probably have at some point in their lives, I had to reassemble one of my motorcycles’ steering stem.  This requires a particular torquing/tightening procedure for seating the bearings which must be followed to avoid improper steering tension and long term damage to the steering stem components.  Unfortunately it also requires a special tool for turning the very non-standard steering stem nuts.  The service manual helpfully identifies the tool part numbers.

Steering stem tightening procedure from the SV1000 service manual

Not so helpfully, the tools mentioned cost about $140 + shipping from the cheapest supplier.  Finding this preposterous, I went to the local Suzuki dealer in hopes of borrowing the tool for a day.  Oddly, they couldn’t find the exact tool to fit the nuts and suggested I might use a spanner wrench instead (um… no).  So it was time to get creative.

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It’s been some time since I’ve posted, but I have been busy with life and such.  However, here I am again with some cool site updates!  First off, I’ve finally finished my series on the GT Theremin with the remaining circuit details, lots of information and photos about construction, and some results and final comments.  This series of pages basically represents how I would have written the final reports for the project if I had the time and were granted total creative discretion.  Please let me know if I have made any errors or omissions or if any of my explanations are unclear.  Or you may just contact me to say hello; that’s fine too.

In the process of writing all these pages on the GT Theremin, I realized that my site layout afforded horizontal insufficient space for text given my penchant for verbosity.  Therefore I’ve updated the style sheets to give me some breathing room and hopefully make longer pages less tedious for you to read.

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Guess what I did this weekend? For a hint, take a look at the picture immediately after the cut.

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As promised, another page on the GT Theremin.  This time I’ve discussed the operation principles of Theremins in general, as well as overviewed some of the design goals and choices at play for our particular project.  Hopefully this will provide useful background information for future posts on the GT Theremin.  My next post on the Theremin will contain some more detailed information on the circuitry design and operation.  I will be in Seattle for ten days starting Monday, so another update will come sometime after I get back.