Another lost cause that needed addressing was the dead Grand Prix. This was a car that we had hopes of resurrecting but later on found out the engine was seized, apparently from a blown head gasket that caused water to get into places where water doesn't belong inside the engine, eventually causing it to rust together internally. Part of me wanted to just hitch the thing up and haul it to the junkyard and write it off but another part of me wanted to try and part it out to try and see if I can recoup the initial $200 I spent on the car.
Now for all intents I did get a few things from this car that I can at least say added to the recovering of my money. One was an aftermarket car radio which I will definitely put to use, probably in the Dodge since it needs a radio. I found a Samsung 2 amp phone charger, one of the better charging heads. I pulled a shitload of ATM fuses and some of the larger high amp fuses from both fuse boxes along with the different relays that were in the fuse boxes. I pulled the radiator hoses and a couple of other hoses and clamps as well, which can be used for patching cooling systems in other cars where a custom rad hose may need to be made. Now fast forwarding a little bit, if I really wanted to, I could actually use the front seats in the car for another car. It wouldn't take much to weld mounts to the frame if needed to secure it to a car floor and even after giving the seat a scrub down I can either spray them down with fabric paint or just get a set of seat covers that have any number of designs to simulate certain materials. Of course I would have to include the wire harness plug in order to wire the seat up in order to move it forward and backward. This would save me $200 by itself if I was trying to put a pair of seats in a car project due to the fact that even some simple generic racing seats off Ebay cost $200 minimum. Anyway, I stripped the car down over the course of a few hours, pulling the doors, seats, gauge cluster and interior molding/body pieces, several engine compartment parts (ABS module, master cyl, AC hoses, starter, alternator). I photographed all of these parts along with the other parts I already pulled off a while back so I can list all this shit online. I ended up storing everything inside the portable garage since there's no other suitable spot to store the parts, even for the long term, can't really just leave shit outside to get damaged by the rain. Now what I'm left with is a stripped shell that still has the powertrain, steering, and wheels. I obviously left these components in place because the body can't be moved without wheels (duh) or steered without a steering column. The engine is useless and if I did manage to pull the transmission, the missing CV axles would possibly compromise the integrity of the wheel bearing hubs, which could cause them to disassemble, don't need that happening when trying to tow the car on a dolly. At least I can say I left a little meat on the bones for the junkyard. The next phase in this project will be to pull the body into a staging position where I can then stage the dolly in front of it, back the truck up to the dolly and hook the dolly up then winch the car body onto the dolly, really with the intent of immediately pulling the car to the junkyard. I will need to requisition the use of our neighbor's tractor to pull the body into a spot where I can get things hooked up without the truck being in the way of the main driveway. It's not a super rush but I do wanna get this thing outta here since there are other things we need to get ready to do with the area.
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