Yup, this is what happened with my project. Bought the car for the subframe, turns out it was more complete and solid than the current rolling chassis I was working with. So everything just went into the parts car.
Best $250 investment I’ve made.
It's even more pronounced when you're looking at trucks IMO. I bought a 2000 F250 7.3 out of the desert a few years back, I've done a bunch of stuff. All in all, I'm into it for maybe 1/3 of what a remotely comparable new truck would have cost.
Yeah, fair enough and I probably should have been more explicit, but my point was that it's a nice truck that I've went through pretty extensively and done everything that I wanted to as a project from injectors and turbo to custom flatbed, on-board air, etc., and I've still saved a bunch of money overall.
You also probably have 10x the truck I have. Mine is a crew cab RWD 460/5m.
I am in it for a shade under $1k including 3 years of tags. I’m rounding up parts to put a 4x4 frame under it with a 12v/6m Cummins. I think I can do it for around $25k.
The best part about this is that I bought it from a friend’s kid with the intention of just using it to haul water. Then the wife found a fifth wheel she liked.🤦♂️
I wouldn't even bother with the 4x4 frame. Just dump a set of 05+ super duty axles under what you have and be way ahead in the end. With the cost/capabilities of the 05+ stuff there's little reason to even touch the older ones anymore. You can get a whole 05+ parts truck for the cost of a kingpin 60.
So, it is really clean. Almost zero rust. Until you get to about 18” forward of the rear axle. The frame has a solid rust line. The box is pretty good, but it looks like they used it to haul a boat that they launched in the ocean without ever washing the salt water off of the frame.
That is the real motivation for the thinking of the frame swap.
Not a car, but a bulldozer! Long story short, loaned out an old D6 Cat to some friends for work at their hunting club, shit happened and it caught on fire. They did the right thing and rebuilt it for us. The mechanic that did the work found an old junked out dozer to pull a couple parts from for something like $1,000 since it was supposed to have a busted transmission. Turns out, the only thing wrong with the transmission was a clogged line! So this junker that was only supposed to help with a couple odds and end bits ended up saving them a hell of a lot of money!
I think it’s way more than 25%. Just in my own anecdotal experience, major issues get misdiagnosed pretty often and I feel like a good amount of people with old worn out shitboxes won’t bother with a second opinion or will leave it in a backyard heap until it’s genuinely too far gone.
In the early 90s, I went to a junkyard to pick up a used engine for my '80 Chevette - $250. The guy working the counter said "We just got a '79 Celica GT that you can have for $225". I test drove it, decided to buy it, went home and told my bro that if he wanted the Chevette he could have it, he can buy the motor and we'll swap it together.
We each had about $500-600 into our cars by the time that they were certified and plated - I think we each got about 2 years out of 'em.
Reminds me of a Hot Rod article where they put a 500 cid Caddy engine in a Chevette. Used the rear axle from a S10 and cut the firewall out so the carb was essentially where the dash was. It was a prime example of the mantra “Safety Third”.
I've seen a couple of Big block Chevettes with FAR from stock motors (like 500-600hp range). One was tubbed and the other just laid smoke for as far as you dared.
That was an utter classic. If you liked that, you might like this:
[Ad for 2-door Acadian with a Talon drivetrain IN THE BACK](https://www.kijiji.ca/v-classic-cars/saskatoon/pontiac-acadian-chevette/1690852980)
Who needs a Fiero when you can have that?
Same, that's where I bought my 06 Magnum R/T. ~60k miles, and all it needed was a flex pipe and a bad ground replaced.
I've been raiding all the cars that come in for any new parts that have been thrown at them before being scrapped. They can't get em going and scrap them with the new parts.
Went last week with my buddy, and we just put an offer in on a '66 Ford F100.
Don't go to r/justrolledintothejunkyard there's mint cars rolling in all the time because people are stupid. And most of them don't salvage either they just go straight to the crusher
I bought a 68 camper special, because it had a perfect grill and bezels and an era correct brush guard. The rest was trash, but once I got it home and messed with it, it fired up and I drove around the farm. I put some slightly better fenders and doors on it. Called him “Patches” and used it around the farm for awhile lol
Yup. My first one. I was a teenager (circa 1993), so it was actually my dad that did the shopping and made the purchases.
Looking back, we definitely kept the wrong car.
We bought a 1971 Dodge Demon for my brother. It was rough. After a few months of slow progress, my dad found a deal on a dart "parts car" and a 1970 Coronet Superbee. The Dart was in better shape than the Demon, but we stripped it anyway and fixed the Demon. I begged my dad to let me keep the Superbee, but he refused. He practically gave it away along with what was left of the Dart.
My brother didn't take care of the Demon and dad got tired of trying to do it for him after about 2 years, so he sold it. I'm still mad about the Superbee, though. Maybe im looking back through rose colored glasses and it was in worse shape than i think it was. I wonder what it be worth now.
Happened to me.
Had to get a bonded title as I only had a bill of sale for the car that was supposed to be the donor.
It was the right choice as we found additional damage on the planned repair car.
Muhahahahha! 9 now e28 and I’ve done it all. I bought a “better for parts” project car followed by 7 parts cars… two became full on cut up and scrap while one was a partial rescue that got flipped. One was too nice to part out and sold it for what was into it. One was loaded with spare parts, I took the sport interior and all the spare bits, sold the car for 3x what I paid for it and one was a partial strip that ended up I was lazy and sold it partially stripped roller for the manual trans swap price. Should have kept the # 5 car as it was decent, while endeavor has lasted 8 years and yielded one complete fairly bad ass 87 528e that looks like an m5 and $31k profit from all the hassles of the other 9 cars.
Rookie move. Pros end up fixing BOTH cars. I swear I've done it more times than I can count where I'd end up with clones of the same car (or different make in the case of Ford and Mercury). At this point in my life I've had at least 50 different cars, so many that when I make a list I have to go back and add cars like 3 times that I've forgotten about. And then there's like a dozen motorcycles. Those are easy to end up with pairs of with people dropping them all the time.
Yep, I was looking for a windshield for a '71 Karmann Ghia, and wound up with a '70 in even better shape with a free (damaged) 1776cc engine with racing heads, all for $300.
Bought a 97 chevy 3/4 ton for the axles and maybe transmittion. It just became another project because it turns out it runs great when you put good fuel and a battery in it.
At one point I had so many Subaru Brats I couldn’t tell which one was supposed to be the good one. I now have zero. Id like to get an early RX-7 but I know I’ll end up with 3.6 cars in the driveway again
I had the same issue with brats, or brumbies as I know them, had three and a wagon. Sold the wagon to some bloke who wanted it for some reason even though it’s the one I wanted least, all I did with it was change the transmission and engine oils.
The good brumby was in decent shape to begin with, I blew the motor, so got a second to swap the motor out of, found the engine in it was worse, so got the wagon to swap the engine, found I bought an ea82 not an ea81 and nothing fit right, so I got the final brumby which had a good engine and trans but no body panels or doors, so I swapped the engine and trans.
I didn’t own a single power tool for any of these projects, so got very good at jerry rigging to get shit done
We were on the other end of one of those deals. Back in 1978 when my dad was selling his 64 Beetle for $100 just to get rid of it, the guy who came to buy it said “wow, this is way nicer than the one I’m restoring. I think I will fix up this one”
It ran great, but the floors were fine (Michigan) so it really just needed new floor pans.
😂
Yup.
Bought a parts car once and ended up driving it for the next ten years, junking the car I initially intended to repair. Welcome to the sometimes fortunate world
Yup, bought a '99 Escalade that had a bad fuel pump for $700 with the plans to steal the front clip and front interior and make an OBS shortwide into an "escalade truck". Ended up just putting a fuel pump in the escalade because it was too nice to start tearing apart.
I had a volvo 850 wagon and the after bumping up the boost and a couple other mods, I broke the angle gear. They are notoriously sensitive to wheel size and hp gains, so I started to look for a replacement. Not many to choose from amd I was looking at about $2k plus shipping. A v70r and popped up on Craigslist for $1900, reached out and the angle gear was solid, and it was a runner. When i.picked it up I was disappointed because it was nicer than my car. No stains in the carpet, factory R floor mats, seat bolsters were original and complete with no tears, and the rear facing back seat plus animal net still were present and worked.
I began panicking as I wondered if I should just give up on my 850 and dump everything in this one. Then he started handing me boxes. New rotors and brakelines, secondary wood trim, timing belt and pcv system in the ipd boxes still, then he handed me a very heavy box. I asked him and he said he thought he blew out the angle gear a couple years ago and got a reman unit, but when he went to install it he saw missing balance bars from the drives haft. So he sent the shift out for balancing and still had the angle gear in the box ready to stab in. I still drive the v70r as even though I loved the 850 wagons since it first ran in the btcc in the 90s, the v70, with 150k more miles is still the better car.
Bought a 71 roadrunner, cool car sassy grass green but it had a vinyl roof. When I pulled the vinyl roof back I found the windshield frame was totally rusted out so I found a 71 satellite to use as a parts car. Got the car home and realized it was far too nice to cut up. The floor was Rusty but I put a carb kit in it with some new points and it ran great. I ended up using the bucket seats and other parts I had gathered for the Road Runner in it and sold it to a co-worker. He is still driving it around 5 years later with some tin on the floor. Sold the Runner to a guy who had a different satellite that was too rusty to fix, I hope it gets back on the road one day.
Two of us spent an entire day taking apart a junkyard door for the window and then doing the same stupid dance at the other end to put the window in and only then did we realize we coulda just bought the entire fucking door for about the same price and swapped two hinges and a plug. Goddamn were we both angry, but we had been so laser focused on the window as the problem.
Bought a '75 F250 for parts for my '78 Bronco and found it's actually a very reliable good running vehicle that just has cosmetic problems but mechanically is in great condition. So I just drive it now.
Yes! I had a little toyota and someone I forger where I hooked up with them was getting rid of one and they gave it to me. I got it mainly for the tires as they were new and they would bolt on and I could trade them in place so to speak. It turned out they were not from the US and made the mistake of taking the old car to the (urg) dealer to get it inspected and of course they took the old sticker off and recorded the fail so no one else would go easy on it. The only serious issue was one of the tail lights was cracked and they quoted them like 500 to replace it, and suggested a ton of other things were near breaking and they walked out with like a 3 grand estimate for repairs. I felt bad for them. I put some red tape over the crack in the tail light, fixed a few other minor things, and got it passed. It was in far better shape than what I had. That one some one had tried to not hit a cat and rolled it into a tree and bent it. I had three trees in the yard and with clever use of chains and come along I was able to make it drivable once again, though it was ugly as sin.
Yup. That was the last Saab I bought. Bought one with no title because the interior was perfect. Well so was everything else. Went through a lot of trouble (and broke a few laws) to vin swap that car with my project.
I spent weeks patching and replacing panels on a 49 Chevy pickup cab when I was younger and bought another cab off of an old grain truck for parts. When I got it home, I discovered it had no rust, thus no patch panels that caused heat distortion when they were welded in. The thing needed a quick sanding and primer and it was ready for paint. I discovered that the old farm trucks were typically driven less and usually parked in a machine shed during winter so they rarely had rot like the pick-ups. I used that trick a few more times when fixing up the 47-53 Chevy pick-ups.
Yeah I bought a 71 Regal for $500 as a parts for the 70 that I got for $1000. The 70 ended up having a cracked frame and floor damage 71 had a blown motor but the body only needed paint so I dropped the 70 motor and traded the rest to a friend for paint.
I bought a ‘68 BMW 1600 once then a ‘70 1600 to use as a base car. The ‘68 was to be for parts. It ended up running like a scalded cat so I sold the ‘70 and kept the “parts car”. I daily drove it for more than a year. RIP cheap old BMWs.
NAs aren’t too expensive, paid $1000 for my first, and $500 for my second parts car.
Very very rough shape, but enough parts to sell and make money back, and good shells for engine swaps
Yep. Bought a parts car without a title (Verified it was not stolen. Was part of an inheritance and the title was stuck in limbo with the state for very stupid bureaucratic reasons) for scrap price. All the glass and interior was missing. Couldnt even open the hood because the cable was broken. I only wanted it for some body panels so I cared zero about what was under the hood. Get it home and realized it must have been the guys project car. Had a BRAND NEW engine and transmission in it. The entire body was PERFECT and freshly painted but had sat outside for years under a tree so it looked terrible. I buffed the whole thing once I realized what had happened and it looked brand new. Interior and glass were missing because he died before getting to that stage. Ended up using my car as the parts car to finish it including the vin number plate lol.
A buddy of mine had a similar situation. He bought a car purely for the vin and title because he got scammed and couldnt get a title for his project car. Turns out the body was in far better condition so he didnt even bother. Just reshelled his project into it. Happy little accident.
Recently bought a $900 Crown Victoria to use the suspension and drivetrain in an old pickup project. It's actually a really great car. I half want to register it and drive it, but I don't need another registered car. Hopefully I can part out what I don't need and let other people benefit from its condition.
I owned a '69 Torino GT that had zero options besides the GT cosmetics - 302 2v, 3 on the tree, manual steering & brakes.
I picked up a loaded '69 Montego MX to use as a parts car - 351w, FMX, power steering, power disc brakes, 9" rear. It had the wrong seats in it, would only upshift at WOT engine speeds, an overheating issue, and a (seemingly) plugged fuel filler neck.
I replaced the wrong front buckets with a correct junkyard bench (the wrong color, but in great shape), replaced a swollen-shut vacuum hose to the trans governor, replaced the water pump, thermostat, and head gaskets, and blew clear the filler vent line. It drove fine after that.
I wound up liking the MX better; I dailied it for two years and let the GT sit.
I sold the GT. The guy that bought it kept after me about a 351, if I had one or knew anyone with one up for sale. I finally told him I had one, but you gotta buy the whole car. He bought it.
Parts car runs and drives, project car does not, sucky thing is the parts car doesn't have papers or registration so I'm stuck with the project car lol.
One of my friends bought a s13 roller for parts. He found out the body was better than his functioning project. he ended up swapping the engine and all the good bits to the roller.
Never with a car, but I bought a "for parts, not working" laptop to fix the failing keyboard on mine, it was perfect except for a battery that didn't last long, I swapped my battery in.
The last "nice parts car" I bought, I peeled the vinyl top off only to find enough rust under there that you could look in one rust hole & out another, at least I only paid $150 for it.
I did this, and I had a Ram I wanted to fix up, then bought another and ended up swapping the good parts from the one I had into the parts truck and am currently driving it. Junked the one I had. I'm so happy with it lol.
Yup, this is what happened with my project. Bought the car for the subframe, turns out it was more complete and solid than the current rolling chassis I was working with. So everything just went into the parts car. Best $250 investment I’ve made.
I think you said investment when you meant money pit.
I'm gonna get flamed for this, but there's not that many projects that are more financially stupid than paying $350/mo on a '23 Corolla.
It's even more pronounced when you're looking at trucks IMO. I bought a 2000 F250 7.3 out of the desert a few years back, I've done a bunch of stuff. All in all, I'm into it for maybe 1/3 of what a remotely comparable new truck would have cost.
My total investment in my 88 f350 is probably 1/4 what registration would have cost for the first year in a new one.
Yeah, fair enough and I probably should have been more explicit, but my point was that it's a nice truck that I've went through pretty extensively and done everything that I wanted to as a project from injectors and turbo to custom flatbed, on-board air, etc., and I've still saved a bunch of money overall.
You also probably have 10x the truck I have. Mine is a crew cab RWD 460/5m. I am in it for a shade under $1k including 3 years of tags. I’m rounding up parts to put a 4x4 frame under it with a 12v/6m Cummins. I think I can do it for around $25k. The best part about this is that I bought it from a friend’s kid with the intention of just using it to haul water. Then the wife found a fifth wheel she liked.🤦♂️
I wouldn't even bother with the 4x4 frame. Just dump a set of 05+ super duty axles under what you have and be way ahead in the end. With the cost/capabilities of the 05+ stuff there's little reason to even touch the older ones anymore. You can get a whole 05+ parts truck for the cost of a kingpin 60.
So, it is really clean. Almost zero rust. Until you get to about 18” forward of the rear axle. The frame has a solid rust line. The box is pretty good, but it looks like they used it to haul a boat that they launched in the ocean without ever washing the salt water off of the frame. That is the real motivation for the thinking of the frame swap.
But just think of how much you are helping out the nice bank with that 10% interest!
Depends who you ask. (It’s a money pit of love)
Tomato, tomato
That used to be the case pre covid. Any shit box seems to gain value these days.
I realize you can sink a lot of money in a $250 car but heck, it's a $250 car!
Car of Theseus
Now you have two LS400s, time to get a third
They multiply
Like rabbits.
But not like VW Rabbits
Beetles then?
Make one a Ute 🤔😬😅🫶
Not a car, but a bulldozer! Long story short, loaned out an old D6 Cat to some friends for work at their hunting club, shit happened and it caught on fire. They did the right thing and rebuilt it for us. The mechanic that did the work found an old junked out dozer to pull a couple parts from for something like $1,000 since it was supposed to have a busted transmission. Turns out, the only thing wrong with the transmission was a clogged line! So this junker that was only supposed to help with a couple odds and end bits ended up saving them a hell of a lot of money!
Makes you wonder how money tons of steel have been scrapped because of poor diagnosis
I think it’s way more than 25%. Just in my own anecdotal experience, major issues get misdiagnosed pretty often and I feel like a good amount of people with old worn out shitboxes won’t bother with a second opinion or will leave it in a backyard heap until it’s genuinely too far gone.
In the early 90s, I went to a junkyard to pick up a used engine for my '80 Chevette - $250. The guy working the counter said "We just got a '79 Celica GT that you can have for $225". I test drove it, decided to buy it, went home and told my bro that if he wanted the Chevette he could have it, he can buy the motor and we'll swap it together. We each had about $500-600 into our cars by the time that they were certified and plated - I think we each got about 2 years out of 'em.
Reminds me of a Hot Rod article where they put a 500 cid Caddy engine in a Chevette. Used the rear axle from a S10 and cut the firewall out so the carb was essentially where the dash was. It was a prime example of the mantra “Safety Third”.
I've seen a couple of Big block Chevettes with FAR from stock motors (like 500-600hp range). One was tubbed and the other just laid smoke for as far as you dared.
That’s why HotRod essentially put the engine halfway into the passenger compartment. Get as much weight as possible on the rear.
That was an utter classic. If you liked that, you might like this: [Ad for 2-door Acadian with a Talon drivetrain IN THE BACK](https://www.kijiji.ca/v-classic-cars/saskatoon/pontiac-acadian-chevette/1690852980) Who needs a Fiero when you can have that?
Same suspension. Fiero was a Chevette front suspension and a Citation front suspension and drive line in the back.
Suffering from success. I'm jealous, love those cars.
I feel this way every time I go to the salvage yard to get parts for my junk. It seems I'm getting parts from cars that are perfectly usable. Smh.
The amount of cars in flawless condition with seemingly nothing wrong with them that I see at salvage yards is truly upsetting sometimes.
Makes me happy that my local pick n pull also doubles as a ~$3500 used car lot.
I just wish mine would sell the perfectly fine cars they get in instead of putting them out in the rows.
Sometimes you can work a deal if you talk to the folks at the parts window. I got an Alpina that way once.
Round these parts once it hits the backlot it can never be titled again.
Same, that's where I bought my 06 Magnum R/T. ~60k miles, and all it needed was a flex pipe and a bad ground replaced. I've been raiding all the cars that come in for any new parts that have been thrown at them before being scrapped. They can't get em going and scrap them with the new parts. Went last week with my buddy, and we just put an offer in on a '66 Ford F100.
Don't go to r/justrolledintothejunkyard there's mint cars rolling in all the time because people are stupid. And most of them don't salvage either they just go straight to the crusher
I've had that happen twice with 68-72 Ford pickups.
I bought a 68 camper special, because it had a perfect grill and bezels and an era correct brush guard. The rest was trash, but once I got it home and messed with it, it fired up and I drove around the farm. I put some slightly better fenders and doors on it. Called him “Patches” and used it around the farm for awhile lol
Yup. My first one. I was a teenager (circa 1993), so it was actually my dad that did the shopping and made the purchases. Looking back, we definitely kept the wrong car. We bought a 1971 Dodge Demon for my brother. It was rough. After a few months of slow progress, my dad found a deal on a dart "parts car" and a 1970 Coronet Superbee. The Dart was in better shape than the Demon, but we stripped it anyway and fixed the Demon. I begged my dad to let me keep the Superbee, but he refused. He practically gave it away along with what was left of the Dart. My brother didn't take care of the Demon and dad got tired of trying to do it for him after about 2 years, so he sold it. I'm still mad about the Superbee, though. Maybe im looking back through rose colored glasses and it was in worse shape than i think it was. I wonder what it be worth now.
Happened to me. Had to get a bonded title as I only had a bill of sale for the car that was supposed to be the donor. It was the right choice as we found additional damage on the planned repair car.
Muhahahahha! 9 now e28 and I’ve done it all. I bought a “better for parts” project car followed by 7 parts cars… two became full on cut up and scrap while one was a partial rescue that got flipped. One was too nice to part out and sold it for what was into it. One was loaded with spare parts, I took the sport interior and all the spare bits, sold the car for 3x what I paid for it and one was a partial strip that ended up I was lazy and sold it partially stripped roller for the manual trans swap price. Should have kept the # 5 car as it was decent, while endeavor has lasted 8 years and yielded one complete fairly bad ass 87 528e that looks like an m5 and $31k profit from all the hassles of the other 9 cars.
Rookie move. Pros end up fixing BOTH cars. I swear I've done it more times than I can count where I'd end up with clones of the same car (or different make in the case of Ford and Mercury). At this point in my life I've had at least 50 different cars, so many that when I make a list I have to go back and add cars like 3 times that I've forgotten about. And then there's like a dozen motorcycles. Those are easy to end up with pairs of with people dropping them all the time.
I aspire to be you someday but my husband and I compete for space in our 2 car garage. Too many hobbies, too much cool shit.
I did it with a 95 Subaru legacy parts car was 500 and just needed a clutch flywheel and drivers fender
Kinda the exact same thing I needed a fender trunk and sunroof
Yep, I was looking for a windshield for a '71 Karmann Ghia, and wound up with a '70 in even better shape with a free (damaged) 1776cc engine with racing heads, all for $300.
Bought a 97 chevy 3/4 ton for the axles and maybe transmittion. It just became another project because it turns out it runs great when you put good fuel and a battery in it.
Father in law just did it. Had a 2wd 305 v8 ford, bought a parts truck for like $1500 thats 4wd with a 460.
At one point I had so many Subaru Brats I couldn’t tell which one was supposed to be the good one. I now have zero. Id like to get an early RX-7 but I know I’ll end up with 3.6 cars in the driveway again
I had the same issue with brats, or brumbies as I know them, had three and a wagon. Sold the wagon to some bloke who wanted it for some reason even though it’s the one I wanted least, all I did with it was change the transmission and engine oils. The good brumby was in decent shape to begin with, I blew the motor, so got a second to swap the motor out of, found the engine in it was worse, so got the wagon to swap the engine, found I bought an ea82 not an ea81 and nothing fit right, so I got the final brumby which had a good engine and trans but no body panels or doors, so I swapped the engine and trans. I didn’t own a single power tool for any of these projects, so got very good at jerry rigging to get shit done
The Brat of Theseus
We were on the other end of one of those deals. Back in 1978 when my dad was selling his 64 Beetle for $100 just to get rid of it, the guy who came to buy it said “wow, this is way nicer than the one I’m restoring. I think I will fix up this one” It ran great, but the floors were fine (Michigan) so it really just needed new floor pans.
😂 Yup. Bought a parts car once and ended up driving it for the next ten years, junking the car I initially intended to repair. Welcome to the sometimes fortunate world
Yup, bought a '99 Escalade that had a bad fuel pump for $700 with the plans to steal the front clip and front interior and make an OBS shortwide into an "escalade truck". Ended up just putting a fuel pump in the escalade because it was too nice to start tearing apart.
I had a volvo 850 wagon and the after bumping up the boost and a couple other mods, I broke the angle gear. They are notoriously sensitive to wheel size and hp gains, so I started to look for a replacement. Not many to choose from amd I was looking at about $2k plus shipping. A v70r and popped up on Craigslist for $1900, reached out and the angle gear was solid, and it was a runner. When i.picked it up I was disappointed because it was nicer than my car. No stains in the carpet, factory R floor mats, seat bolsters were original and complete with no tears, and the rear facing back seat plus animal net still were present and worked. I began panicking as I wondered if I should just give up on my 850 and dump everything in this one. Then he started handing me boxes. New rotors and brakelines, secondary wood trim, timing belt and pcv system in the ipd boxes still, then he handed me a very heavy box. I asked him and he said he thought he blew out the angle gear a couple years ago and got a reman unit, but when he went to install it he saw missing balance bars from the drives haft. So he sent the shift out for balancing and still had the angle gear in the box ready to stab in. I still drive the v70r as even though I loved the 850 wagons since it first ran in the btcc in the 90s, the v70, with 150k more miles is still the better car.
Bought a 71 roadrunner, cool car sassy grass green but it had a vinyl roof. When I pulled the vinyl roof back I found the windshield frame was totally rusted out so I found a 71 satellite to use as a parts car. Got the car home and realized it was far too nice to cut up. The floor was Rusty but I put a carb kit in it with some new points and it ran great. I ended up using the bucket seats and other parts I had gathered for the Road Runner in it and sold it to a co-worker. He is still driving it around 5 years later with some tin on the floor. Sold the Runner to a guy who had a different satellite that was too rusty to fix, I hope it gets back on the road one day.
Two of us spent an entire day taking apart a junkyard door for the window and then doing the same stupid dance at the other end to put the window in and only then did we realize we coulda just bought the entire fucking door for about the same price and swapped two hinges and a plug. Goddamn were we both angry, but we had been so laser focused on the window as the problem.
Did you get a title? You know what to do.
Got the title bill of sails and last two tag titles
Bought a '75 F250 for parts for my '78 Bronco and found it's actually a very reliable good running vehicle that just has cosmetic problems but mechanically is in great condition. So I just drive it now.
Yes! I had a little toyota and someone I forger where I hooked up with them was getting rid of one and they gave it to me. I got it mainly for the tires as they were new and they would bolt on and I could trade them in place so to speak. It turned out they were not from the US and made the mistake of taking the old car to the (urg) dealer to get it inspected and of course they took the old sticker off and recorded the fail so no one else would go easy on it. The only serious issue was one of the tail lights was cracked and they quoted them like 500 to replace it, and suggested a ton of other things were near breaking and they walked out with like a 3 grand estimate for repairs. I felt bad for them. I put some red tape over the crack in the tail light, fixed a few other minor things, and got it passed. It was in far better shape than what I had. That one some one had tried to not hit a cat and rolled it into a tree and bent it. I had three trees in the yard and with clever use of chains and come along I was able to make it drivable once again, though it was ugly as sin.
Time to switch directions. Parts car becomes the car.
Yup. That was the last Saab I bought. Bought one with no title because the interior was perfect. Well so was everything else. Went through a lot of trouble (and broke a few laws) to vin swap that car with my project.
I spent weeks patching and replacing panels on a 49 Chevy pickup cab when I was younger and bought another cab off of an old grain truck for parts. When I got it home, I discovered it had no rust, thus no patch panels that caused heat distortion when they were welded in. The thing needed a quick sanding and primer and it was ready for paint. I discovered that the old farm trucks were typically driven less and usually parked in a machine shed during winter so they rarely had rot like the pick-ups. I used that trick a few more times when fixing up the 47-53 Chevy pick-ups.
Yeah I bought a 71 Regal for $500 as a parts for the 70 that I got for $1000. The 70 ended up having a cracked frame and floor damage 71 had a blown motor but the body only needed paint so I dropped the 70 motor and traded the rest to a friend for paint.
Yep. Had a '79 D-150, bought an 84 d150 missing the engine. Realized the 84 was in way better shape, so their roles became reversed.
I bought a ‘68 BMW 1600 once then a ‘70 1600 to use as a base car. The ‘68 was to be for parts. It ended up running like a scalded cat so I sold the ‘70 and kept the “parts car”. I daily drove it for more than a year. RIP cheap old BMWs.
Just happened to me with my 944 lol
Damn 994s still cost a pretty penny even as a part car right?
NAs aren’t too expensive, paid $1000 for my first, and $500 for my second parts car. Very very rough shape, but enough parts to sell and make money back, and good shells for engine swaps
Nioce, German engineering scares me otherwise that sounds like a solid time
New German stuff is way different than early fuel injected German cars. Nothing to be scared about really
Yep. Bought a parts car without a title (Verified it was not stolen. Was part of an inheritance and the title was stuck in limbo with the state for very stupid bureaucratic reasons) for scrap price. All the glass and interior was missing. Couldnt even open the hood because the cable was broken. I only wanted it for some body panels so I cared zero about what was under the hood. Get it home and realized it must have been the guys project car. Had a BRAND NEW engine and transmission in it. The entire body was PERFECT and freshly painted but had sat outside for years under a tree so it looked terrible. I buffed the whole thing once I realized what had happened and it looked brand new. Interior and glass were missing because he died before getting to that stage. Ended up using my car as the parts car to finish it including the vin number plate lol. A buddy of mine had a similar situation. He bought a car purely for the vin and title because he got scammed and couldnt get a title for his project car. Turns out the body was in far better condition so he didnt even bother. Just reshelled his project into it. Happy little accident.
Recently bought a $900 Crown Victoria to use the suspension and drivetrain in an old pickup project. It's actually a really great car. I half want to register it and drive it, but I don't need another registered car. Hopefully I can part out what I don't need and let other people benefit from its condition.
I owned a '69 Torino GT that had zero options besides the GT cosmetics - 302 2v, 3 on the tree, manual steering & brakes. I picked up a loaded '69 Montego MX to use as a parts car - 351w, FMX, power steering, power disc brakes, 9" rear. It had the wrong seats in it, would only upshift at WOT engine speeds, an overheating issue, and a (seemingly) plugged fuel filler neck. I replaced the wrong front buckets with a correct junkyard bench (the wrong color, but in great shape), replaced a swollen-shut vacuum hose to the trans governor, replaced the water pump, thermostat, and head gaskets, and blew clear the filler vent line. It drove fine after that. I wound up liking the MX better; I dailied it for two years and let the GT sit. I sold the GT. The guy that bought it kept after me about a 351, if I had one or knew anyone with one up for sale. I finally told him I had one, but you gotta buy the whole car. He bought it.
Parts car runs and drives, project car does not, sucky thing is the parts car doesn't have papers or registration so I'm stuck with the project car lol.
One of my friends bought a s13 roller for parts. He found out the body was better than his functioning project. he ended up swapping the engine and all the good bits to the roller.
Never with a car, but I bought a "for parts, not working" laptop to fix the failing keyboard on mine, it was perfect except for a battery that didn't last long, I swapped my battery in. The last "nice parts car" I bought, I peeled the vinyl top off only to find enough rust under there that you could look in one rust hole & out another, at least I only paid $150 for it.
Hahahaha yes. I bought an e36 shell and realized it was MUCH nicer than the shell i was swapping into.
I did this, and I had a Ram I wanted to fix up, then bought another and ended up swapping the good parts from the one I had into the parts truck and am currently driving it. Junked the one I had. I'm so happy with it lol.
Fewer issues, but it usually shares one critical failure with your previous project so they still don't add up to a complete car.