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DarkMonohue
DarkMonohue GRM+ Memberand Dork
5/19/23 7:37 p.m.

At what point is it a sin to cut up a body shell that could theoretically be put back on the road?

I have an '85 MR2 (1985 is the first model year for the AW11 platform). For a long time these were sort of the trailer park Testarossa, the white trash Countach. The 911 of the 7/11, if you will. But values seem to be coming up.

I've owned this car for ~20 years. It has a factory sunroof that I've always hated. Hardtop examples exist, but they're few and far between. A few years ago, I found a cheap hardtop being sold as a parts car without title, and I bought it with the intention of swapping the roof skin over to my car. That hasn't happened yet. The parts car sits in the backyard acting as a hantavirus collector. And now I'm wondering whether it's wrong to cut this parts car up. The shell is really pretty good. No rust, because that doesn't really happen here. But, again, no title. Also no powertrain, no seats, no fuel tank, no steering rack, et cetera, et cetera.

To convert my car to a hardtop would entail patching my roof with a piece of sheetmetal and then welding in a stamped brace that runs down the center from the header rail to the rear of the roof. Alternatively, I could have the glass removed, cut the pillars, and swap the entire roof over. Either method renders the parts car fairly useless.

Anybody have any thoughts on the matter?

Peabody
Peabody MegaDork
5/19/23 7:44 p.m.

It's your car, do whatever you want with it.

From my perspective it's purely dollars and cents. If you can afford it, and that's what you want to do, then you have every right to.

 

John Welsh
John Welsh Mod Squad
5/19/23 7:45 p.m.

The lack of vin makes the car not "good" and pretty much seals its fate to a parts car.  From there using its "good-ness" to make anything else good is the path to winning.  

It sounds like what you need is a VIN-etomy but this thread stated with questions of ethics.  Probably don't want to add questions of illegality on top of that. 

Steve_Jones
Steve_Jones SuperDork
5/19/23 8:06 p.m.

It's only a sin if it's someone else's car. If you own it, you can use it for whatever you want/need with no guilt. 

Pete. (l33t FS)
Pete. (l33t FS) GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
5/19/23 8:07 p.m.

There is a lot of "it depends".

 

On the MAT.fi website, before they removed those certain images, in one of their Toyota Celica restorations they needed to replace major bodyshell components.  They showed a series of photos where they rolled in a street Celica that looked like it had just been pulled out of a museum... then lopped the roof off of it.

 

Same for the Audi restoration.  They rolled in a beautiful, perfect looking Audi Coupe... then lopped off the roof, and major portions of the rockers/floor.

 

Restoring a Very Important VIN car?  Sure.  Cutting it up for patch panels for an unimportant, completely replaceable car?   Not really so much. 

 

It sounds like you have a parts shell and not anything that can ever be a car.

GameboyRMH
GameboyRMH GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
5/19/23 8:15 p.m.

I'm not a fan of cutting up a good-condition shell of a good car, especially if not much of it is used to fix another car...I'd recommend doing the sunroof to hardtop conversion with a piece of sheet metal and trying to sell off the hardtop shell. Someone could turn it into a dedicated track car or at least use more of it to fix a badly damaged street car.

93gsxturbo
93gsxturbo UltraDork
5/19/23 8:18 p.m.

If i had a nickle for every clean 90-91 AWD DSM I cut up 20 years ago I would have enough money for a cup of coffee.  

At the time they were $500 cars and I needed to pay for college.  I regret not much.  Sure that gold on gold one owner 90 TSi AWD was just another parts car back in the day, today it would be worth dozens of dollars.  

stuart in mn
stuart in mn MegaDork
5/19/23 8:25 p.m.

In reply to John Welsh :

He said no title, which doesn't mean the VIN tag is missing.  However, point taken - getting a title for the body shell may be difficult depending on where he lives.

Another point to consider is how easy (or difficult) it will be to swap the roof.  If you're thinking of cutting the roof posts and then splicing the new roof on, those posts have multiple layers of metal so you don't just zap them on with the welder.  If you're thinking of just cutting out a square from the roof panel and swapping that on, it will require good welding skills to avoid warping things beyond repair.

Dusterbd13-michael
Dusterbd13-michael MegaDork
5/19/23 8:38 p.m.
John Welsh said:

The lack of vin makes the car not "good" and pretty much seals its fate to a parts car.  From there using its "good-ness" to make anything else good is the path to winning.  

It sounds like what you need is a VIN-etomy but this thread stated with questions of ethics.  Probably don't want to add questions of illegality on top of that. 

This. Save everything you can to keep others alive, but it sounds too far gone to be a worthwhile restoration candidate. Also, the no title or vin kills it. 

Make it an organ donor for as many others as you can, like the semisolid 74 duster i chopped up to skin the MoCAR with. 

SV reX
SV reX MegaDork
5/19/23 8:55 p.m.

This is a complicated and/or expensive job to a car with limited financial value. 
 

If doing this will bring you joy, go ahead. It may have emotional value to you, but it won't have financial value to anyone else. 
 

This project doesn't make logical sense.  Only do it for your own pleasure.

There is no ethical question here.  You own 2 old cars. One of them is a parts car. Chop it if you want to. 

Nathan JansenvanDoorn
Nathan JansenvanDoorn Dork
5/19/23 8:56 p.m.

I bought a cheap e34 m5 that was missing a gearbox. Pulled the s38 for an e30 swap that someone else ended up doing. No one wanted the shell, so I sold what I could and scrapped it. Totally ethical, but kicking myself a bit: would do it differently today.

Pete. (l33t FS)
Pete. (l33t FS) GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
5/19/23 8:57 p.m.
93gsxturbo said:

If i had a nickle for every clean 90-91 AWD DSM I cut up 20 years ago I would have enough money for a cup of coffee.  

At the time they were $500 cars and I needed to pay for college.  I regret not much.  Sure that gold on gold one owner 90 TSi AWD was just another parts car back in the day, today it would be worth dozens of dollars.  

I live near Buschur Racing.... when these cars were "cheap", drivetrainless rollers were going for $1000, running cars were $3-5k needing work.   I think they were vacuuming up all of the cheap cars for parts.  I never once saw one of those mythical cheap DSMs sad

DarkMonohue
DarkMonohue GRM+ Memberand Dork
5/19/23 8:57 p.m.

Thanks for the input.

The car has a VIN. Nothing has been cut up or obscured.  It just didn't come with a title. All indications are that this is a genuine "can't find the title" situation. The seller I bought it from was in the same town as the previous owner, whose name was on an invoice for a windshield replacement and on several shipping boxes full of parts that were sitting in the car. It sat on FB Marketplace for several weeks before I bought it, and if it had been stolen, the seller would likely have seen it. I could file for lost title if re-shelling my road car made sense. It really doesn't. Mine is complete and this one isn't.

Aside from paperwork, and the missing parts listed above, other factors in getting the parts car back on the road include sourcing a new front fender and headlamp assemblies, shift cables, and a mess of other incidentals that could nickel and dime a guy to death. And the wiring has been cut into here and there. This parts car needs a parts car.

The thing owes me nothing. It came with lots of spare parts, some of which have already been sold. I have recouped my outlay and then some.

Assuming it gets cannibalized, I will use the roof and the LR quarter skin and keep a few parts. The rest of the shell will be cut up and the remaining pieces sold off to whomever needs them for rust or collision repair on their own cars. It won't be discarded.

If I were to patch the roof with sheetmetal I would need an English wheel to shape it, and that still leaves me without the center support rib that the hardtop car has. OEM sheetmetal is NLA so both pieces would either have to come from this car or another shell.

I have considered where and how to cut and weld the pillars. If there are layers under the skin, then I would of course cut access patches and weld those up as well. At first I thought I should just swap the skin, but cutting pillars sounds safer. Or maybe flange the hole and glue the patch on with panel bonding adhesive, then weld the new brace on underneath. And I was planning on starting a different thread about how best to do the roof swap, but we can discuss it here if you like.

Thanks for the guidance. 

 

johndej
johndej SuperDork
5/19/23 8:59 p.m.

I mean from my perspective either you use it or could list it for $1k as it sits and let someone pay whatever you choose to haul it off and do what they choose. Sounds like an open slate track car build.

SV reX
SV reX MegaDork
5/19/23 9:01 p.m.

In reply to DarkMonohue :

I've cut the pillars on an AW11.  There are definitely several layers. I was a little surprised at how complex those pillars were.

itsarebuild
itsarebuild GRM+ Memberand Dork
5/19/23 9:19 p.m.

I'd cut a sunroof patch panel out of the donor roof and weld it in. Unless you pull the pillars apart at the factory

welds and rebuild it in layers like factory did your creation will never be as sound or likely star sight as it should be plus you are now investing in glass and seals.

DarkMonohue
DarkMonohue GRM+ Memberand Dork
5/19/23 9:31 p.m.
SV reX said:

I've cut the pillars on an AW11.  There are definitely several layers. I was a little surprised at how complex those pillars were.

Very interesting. Was that a T-top car or a hardtop/sunroof version? I know (correction: suspect) the T-top has extra metal in the pillars but it's been years since Iooked at them in the EPC.

No, that's a stupid thing to say. I have internet access. Let me go check the EPC right now...okay, part numbers are different on the pillars (and several other structural body parts) between T-top and hardtop, but again, no indication that hardtop cars don't have multiple layers of steel in the pillars.

I'm starting to think that the least problematic approach is to cut out the bracing on my car, open the sunroof hole up, flange it, bond in a patch panel from the parts car, and then weld in the new brace. Glass could stay in place and there should (!) be no danger of warping the skin.

Jesse Ransom
Jesse Ransom GRM+ Memberand UltimaDork
5/19/23 11:43 p.m.

Pull a mold from the donor and make a composite fill panel?

I mean, a heck of a project. But non-destructive.

Javelin
Javelin GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
5/20/23 12:00 a.m.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I remember that site! They were gorgeous cars when they were done at least. 

DarkMonohue
DarkMonohue GRM+ Memberand Dork
5/20/23 12:17 a.m.
Jesse Ransom said:

Pull a mold from the donor and make a composite fill panel?

I mean, a heck of a project. But non-destructive.

The thought crossed my mind. I have never worked with composites of any kind, not even fiberglass. This seems like a great skill to learn but possibly not the right project to learn on.

I have also considered making a mold off of the sunroof insert (minus the trim), then building a fiberglass panel from that mold and using that to fill the hole, but again, probably not the right time to take that on, and probably not the best way to fill the hole.

Since I have to steal the brace from the parts car, I may as well take the skin at the same time.

Unless you're thinking of making a composite replica of the roof brace, which is just too far over the edge, I think 

 

tr8todd
tr8todd SuperDork
5/20/23 6:27 a.m.

A couple of years ago I payed $400 for a clean title brown TR7 with under 50,000 miles, that had an absolutely mint body.  Needed paint, convertible top, interior, tires, windshield, exhaust, several broken things like steering column switches, door mirror, tail lens, no keys.  $10,000 later it could be a $4,000 car, but it would still be brown.  Sold doors for $350, hood for $800, one front fender for $250, and who knows what else because all of the other parts were assimilated into my vast collection of spare wedge parts.  I think I made the world a better place by cutting that thing up.

LanEvo
LanEvo GRM+ Memberand Dork
5/20/23 8:10 a.m.

I do understand the dilemma. About 15 years ago I started planning my Mercedes 190E 2.3-16 build. At the time, these were $10-15 cars with rougher examples going for $5-7k and parts cars under $3k. I found a few clean, low-mileage examples, but they were so nice I couldn't bring myself to gut them and turn them into a racecar.

Finally found one from southern California that had zero rust and had never been in an accident. All factory body panels with stickers. But the interior was rough after spending 25 years in the hot sun. All the leather was hard and cracked, door panels peeling, etc. For me, this was perfect because I didn't feel guilty ripping all that stuff out and tossing it.

Pete. (l33t FS)
Pete. (l33t FS) GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
5/20/23 8:43 a.m.

In reply to LanEvo :

One of the few nice things about Spec RX-7 was the surge in good interior parts that came up for sale...

GIRTHQUAKE
GIRTHQUAKE SuperDork
5/20/23 9:41 a.m.

What you do, is you sell it to me for scrap value so I can have a second MR2 laugh 

John Welsh said:

The lack of vin makes the car not "good" and pretty much seals its fate to a parts car.  From there using its "good-ness" to make anything else good is the path to winning.  

It sounds like what you need is a VIN-etomy but this thread stated with questions of ethics.  Probably don't want to add questions of illegality on top of that. 

Otherwise, this. The lack of a good VIN or ability to ever get a title sadly places a vehicle into the region of "parts car" forevermore, unless you have some method in your state to return it to legality. 

porschenut
porschenut HalfDork
5/20/23 9:44 a.m.

MR2s are getting tough to find, this tub should be given a new life.  There are so many rusty ones out there yours could be an opportunity for swapping parts to make one good car.  VIN really doesn't mean much anymore, as long as the plate under the windshield and the title match all is good.  Stamped numbers on the shell can vary, accident or rust repairs do happen.  I still have 2 VIN plates and titles for junked 914s, someday I may get lucky and find a decent one without a title.

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