How about making a list of what you need, and offering some money for those parts. Bring some wrenches and pull whatever you need.
Having a parts car sounds like a pita.
How about making a list of what you need, and offering some money for those parts. Bring some wrenches and pull whatever you need.
Having a parts car sounds like a pita.
I have done parts cars twice. Both cases were trailer the car, strip it of everything I wanted and had room to store, and scrap the rest. I agree that keeping a hulk long term has limited benefit.
In reply to Slippery :
There's probably more on it that I should keep than I can reasonably take off in a wrenching session. He's also moving and needs to get it off his property.
For instance, I know I should take the fenders, doors, hood, front and rear bumper covers, instrument cluster, interior bits, would be nice to have a spare engine/transmission, radiator, etc, etc, etc.
Do I need that stuff now? Nope. If the car gets into a light front end collision I'll need it all though and it's unobtanium...
I need to ask him if he has the title, that way I could maybe find storage for it, completely pillage it, sell off some stuff I don't want, then have a scrap metal place take the rest away...
It's on its way!! It got picked up this morning at 8am Boston time. If they stick with their time quoted delivery time that means I should have it next Friday-Sunday!!
I had Discount Tire take the tires off the RX2's and spin them for me. Didn't want to buy new tires for them if they're all bent. Good news, 3 of them are fine. Bad news, 1 of them is bent. Not unusably bent, but it should be put on the back of the car. I contacted a few places here that straighten wheels and they want ~$150 to straighten it and that doesn't include refinishing.
At that point I'm better off leaving it alone and running it, or selling this set of wheels and spending $350-400 on a set that's cosmetically in better shape and hopefully selling these for $200.
Just checked the tire availability in 205-45-16 and it's garbage! Like either a set of all seasons, Toyo R1R, closeout RE71R's (which I won't be able to get again), or Conti Sport Contacts, which are a 340 wear tire, so basically an all season too. Ugh, I might be better served just selling these wheels as it looks like I'll need to get 15" tires in a 205-50-15 because they're far more available.
Decision made to buy that parts car. It's got a bunch of good stuff on it that's worth way more than $300. The guy I bought my car from recommended I pull the transmission from it, which wasn't something I was thinking about doing. So I'm going to have it delivered to my house so I can put it on my lift and work on it with all my tools. Way more convenient than storing it at my friends cabin 45-60 minutes away, on dirt, with no tools.
I'll give myself 10-14 days to take everything I want, then I've offered the car to a friend of mine. They're going to haul it away I think. My other option is to call a junkyard at that point and sell it for scrap and have them haul it away...
In other news someone posted 6 (!!) BBS RX2's for sale. Not local and the wheels are *not* in good cosmetic shape. However all I really need is one straight wheel barrel. So I reached out to him, he doesn't really want to ship them but hopefully he'll agree to it. I'll ping him again about it today. Much cheaper for me to buy these than have my one barrel straightened. Plus I'll have another complete set as spares....
Update! The car is bouncing around the NY/Long Island area. I assume its on the truck and they're picking up other cars before heading West. I have a website that gives me the location of the car/truck, which is kinda cool.
The guy with the 6 RX2's is selling 4 to a local buyer but has agreed to sell me one complete wheel and one more wheel barrel. Unfortunately he broke 5 of the bolts off inside the barrel when he took the face off. He's in Michigan and these wheels were definitely run in the winter, so I assume those bolts were corroded in place.
Any ideas on how I can get them out and how I can remove the bolts holding the other wheel together without breaking them?
Turns out the tracker wasn't updating. (And it looks like it's not updating again...) The truck is in Missouri now and I should have the car this Friday/Saturday!
docwyte said:Just checked the tire availability in 205-45-16 and it's garbage! Like either a set of all seasons, Toyo R1R, closeout RE71R's (which I won't be able to get again), or Conti Sport Contacts, which are a 340 wear tire, so basically an all season too. Ugh, I might be better served just selling these wheels as it looks like I'll need to get 15" tires in a 205-50-15 because they're far more available.
Conti ExtremeContact Sport? Despite the 340TW, they're pretty far from all seasons. I have a set on my Miata and they're fun, I've run 3 track days and an autocross on them. You'll definitely find more selection in 205/50-15 though.
In reply to cmcgregor (Forum Supporter) :
That's likely what I'll go for. The RE71R just won't last very long...
I have run Conti ExtremeContact Sports on several of my last vehicles and I cannot recommend them highly enough. They are the best feeling "all-season" I've driven. It's my go-to tire whenever the stock tires need replacing.
According to the tracker the car is 220 miles away. Curious to see if I get it today, I haven't heard from the truck driver. If I don't, I'll have to cancel my auto-x tomorrow so I can be around to take delivery of the car
Did the car arrive?
My SE-R was supposed to get delivered today but I am now being told Monday. Hope you are having better luck.
In reply to pimpm3 (Forum Supporter) :
Yes! I went from zero corrado's in my garage to two. Here's the black one I picked up to part out, I've already torn off the front end and taken almost everything from the interior I want. Surprise bonuses were finding a glass Passat sunrooof and solo works coil overs, along with a muffler shop exhaust system.
Then later on that day, my real deal, green corrado showed up.
It's very nice! I need to finish pulling what I want off the parts car and get rid of it asap so I can get all the cars back into the garage and start working on the green car. Lots of people wanted to buy the black car from me whole, but it's worth far more to me in parts
Friendly tip, when you are parting it take literally every fastener off and put a little thought into how you sort amd store them. It makes life so much easier to have the right hardware right at hand when needed.
In reply to 84FSP :
Yeah, I didn't do a whole lot of that. I've got all the hardware on the good car already, although it would be nice to have extras. I've gotten most of the stuff I want off the parts car. In their infinite wisdom VW glued (!!) the back of the front fenders on, like the line where they meet the door. I'm still working on cutting through that so I can take off the fenders. Then it's the axles and transmission, shift tower and cables and the coilovers if a local guy brings me his stock stuff to throw on the car and some $$$.
In other news, yesterday while I was taking the parts car apart I had my phone sitting on the deck of the lift. Went to grab it, it slipped out of my hand and right into the huge tupperware full of coolant underneath the engine! MF'er!!! Grabbed it, washed it off with water and it seemed fine, which surprised me. However later that day people said they couldn't hear me talking. That cleared up but the phone wouldn't charge, the port was fubar'ed.
That meant I had to cancel the auto-x I was planning on going to today so I could get a new phone. Thankfully I'd gotten the apple care plan. That did give me a few more hours to pull stuff off the parts car while everyone was asleep this morning and I have a new phone now. Will be far more careful about where I put it in relation to vats of coolant!
Typical corrado day, I went out to drive it to get smogged and the vin verification done. Turn the key, click click click! You've GOT to be kidding me! Sigh. Pull the battery, take it to the parts store, try and test it. It's too dead to be tested, so they've got it on their charger and will test it again in an hour. Not the end of the world, worst case is a new battery but I won't be able to get it smogged/vin verified today. That means trying to get it done Thursday afternoon after work since my DMV appointment is Friday morning
Well battery was dead. I knew I should've just bought a new battery when I first went in, that would've let me get the car smogged at least. Oh well, I popped the new battery in this morning after I wire wheeled the hold down bracket to clean off the rust and she fired right to life!
The parts car has been good to me trim wise, I noticed that the black plastic covers that go over front, upper seat belt bolts were missing. Hmm, this good car has euro seatbelts, the parts car doesn't. I wonder if the rear seat belt trim piece covers are the same? Of course I hadn't pulled those from the parts car, I'd just popped them loose and let them fall into the rear hatch area. Which is now piled up with door panels and other stuff.
A little digging and I find both of them and they pop right into place on my good car. Sweet! I also installed the climatronic hvac trim surround I'd bought ages ago. All the trim is in place, so I decided it was time to do some arts and crafts.
The parts car donated it's "vr6" grill badge but it was in pretty sorry shape. I used it to make a template and then I found a piece of red vinyl left over from something else.
I placed the template onto the vinyl, taped it into place, cut it out, cleaned the badge with acetone and stuck it on. Looks practically new!
When you go to install it, look very closely at the grill, VW put some "stops" and a cut out in the one of the slats for the tabs to click into. That's how you know where to put it.
Inspired I did the same thing to the rear "SLC" badge. Started with this...
Ended with this...
The car is absolutely filthy, I plan on washing it after dinner tonight when the heat has come down some...
Had a chance to wash it, turned out pretty nice! Really need to detail/ceramic coat it, there's no wax on it at all. Also need to figure out what to do about the holes in the front bumper cover left by the license plate surround. Unfortunately they're from pretty good sized self tapping bolts. Any ideas?
Thought this was a good shot too...
The holes in the bumper: i usually use a Christmas tree fastner with a black head. Makes them virtually dissapear, and they dont fall out. Iff too big, a fender liner clip.
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
Good idea and I have a bunch of those. I'll try some when I get home after work today
Well, got home early enough to take the car to the emissions place. I was planning on doing it Thursday afternoon but since I have my DMV appointment Friday morning I figured it was better to give myself some time in case it doesn't pass. The car has the factory cat, so it should pass, but it's a 28 year old VW, so you never know. The place was basically empty and it's only 5 minutes from my house, so I was a little worried I didn't bring the car in hot enough. Coolant and water temps were in the normal range though.
They put it on the rollers and it fast passed!! Got my smog certificate and the VIN verification form (didn't realize they were going to charge me $20 to print out a piece of paper, the Sheriff will come and do it for free, grumble, grumble) so I've got everything I need to register the car now.
Then after the kids went to bed I went outside to work on the parts car. My goal for the evening was to unbolt the rest of the stuff from the motor/transmission so all I have to do Friday morning is hook up the cherry picker, unbolt the motor mounts and pluck it out of there. That meant I needed to unbolt the downpipe from the exhaust manifolds, the inner axle bolts and the drivers side ball joint.
The inner axle bolts were way the hell in there, I cobbled together this extension to get to them...
They were also totally coated in grime. They looked like 6mm allens and that did fit in there well, so I used it. Turns out I got really lucky as they're NOT 6mm allens, they're 8mm triple squares! That could've turned out really poorly for me, so I'm happy they all turned out of there. The passenger side was a PITA, I ended up pulling the rotor/caliper to get a straighter shot at the bolts
Then I went after the drivers side ball joint, my friend told me to pop it free as it'll give the drivers side axle room to move out of the way when I pull the motor/transmission out. That thing sucked! I was banging on the spindle with a hammer to break the taper on the ball joint and it just wouldn't let go. At that point I just unbolted the thing from the control arm.
Next up were the 6 17mm nuts on the downpipe, three per flange. I'd shot these with some PB Blaster a few days ago and hoped they'd break free. I was able to get at all of them from the top of the engine bay and they all came out. Had a picture but turns out it was all blurry. I debated taking off the fenders but decided I'd do that the next evening. Cleaned up and went inside
In other news the drive to the smog place was really the first drive in my good corrado. Initial thoughts were, it sounds great, it's comfortable, it feels very tight. Bad things are the shifter throws are incredibly long, it feels slow (especially in comparison to my other cars but they make 425-525hp) but I didn't really get on it too hard and the suspension needs some work. Luckily I've got a set of bilsteins and Shine Racing springs/rear swaybar I plan on installing.
It's definitely got that "vintage" feel and smell, you can tell it's not a modern car. Once I install the techtonics chip and the Schrick VGI I think that'll wake the motor up pretty nicely and doing the shocks/springs should make it handle better.
This must be a lot like the '96 GTI VR6 that I owned. It's even the same color. I loved the engine, but the stock suspension was a bit of a letdown. Congrats on getting past emissions testing.
It's hard to think of this car as vintage, but I suppose it is now.
In reply to JoeTR6 :
This has a set of H&R lowering springs with Boge shocks but the shocks don't seem to be well matched to the springs. I think the Bilstein/Shine Racing stuff will be much better.
Yeah, pretty soon all the New Wave/Grunge music I listened to in high school/college will be playing on the "Classic Rock" stations!
Forgot I still need to disconnect the slave cylinder. Although maybe not, as the master cylinder has been removed from the car....
Went out again after my son went to bed and worked on the parts car. Goal was to remove the rest of the items on my punch list, so all I have left is the transmission, which I'll do Friday morning. That meant removing the front fenders, the passenger door handle, the egr valve and the power window ECU.
First I went after the fenders. I had them completely unbolted already but VW used seam sealer to glue them on the back, basically down the A pillar line. I used a heat gun to warm up the seam sealer and a scraper and large flat head screw driver to get them free. There was a ton of seam sealer on the top and bottom of them, these were a PITA to remove, but I got em!
Next was the EGR valve. That was pretty simple, two bolts hold it onto the cylinder head, then there are two 17mm nuts that hold it onto the intake and exhaust. Popped it free, unplugged the wiring and it was mine. My schrick vgi is for an obd2 car and doesn't have an EGR port, so the EGR valve on my car is blocked off. I plan on cutting the pipe that would normally go to the intake and capping it, that'll make installing the VGI much easier. I wanted another stock EGR just in case I need it in the future.
Then I grabbed the power window ECU. This lives behind the drivers rear door card. That was already loose and I found that one of the screws that holds the ECU in place was missing and the other one was finger tight. Easy to pop it out, remove the three wiring harnesses from it and it was mine.
Last thing was the passenger door handle. This is held in place by a large phillips head screw that's on the back side of the door. I'd gotten it to turn some but then it stripped out. I cut increasingly larger slots in the head with a grinder but it still wouldn't budge. I had to go to my strengths, so I drilled it out. Wasn't much left when I was done!
Then I had to get the door handle off. VW annoyingly pinned the harness into place on the inside of the door, so that took me awhile to free up. Finally got it though and have all the parts off the car except the transmission and axles, which I'll get Friday morning. Then hopefully the remnants of the shell will get towed away that afternoon.
An ECU for power windows? Madness.
In reply to JeremyJ :
Before the time of CAN-BUS.
Forgot to mention I ordered tires from Discount Tire yesterday, got a set of the Conti Extreme Contact Sport in 205-45-16 for the BBS RX2's. Hopefully they arrive Friday, I'll drop the wheels off and get them on the car. I've made a list of to-do's for the car, it's quite long! Most of it is easy stuff, the most time consuming will be the suspension install and Schrick VGi install.
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