Were there pics of the engine bay? Did they paint that too?

I used to be into washing and waxing a lot more before I got a house with a yard that I do most maintenance on and a kid.

I'm waiting on him to send me more pictures, I requested some of the bay. He hasn't started it in a while so he is going to put it on a battery tender and start it up to make sure it is able to drive.

He is an old dude from the sound of it so who knows how long it will take him.

Check for rusty or crushed frame rails!

Is that as important with aftermarket frame rail support as mine has? Which I plan on transferring.

It is important, but IMO not as important as long as they aren't flattened or extremely bad. Mine were pretty bad but i was able to massage the frame rails around them. Improved chassis feel a huge amount.

Edit: except for rust. If they are really rusty than the chassis is basically ruined.

Initial evaluation before receipts for the totaled car was quoted at $5,000. They estimated $11,000 to repair the car.

Once I can get them every scrap of receipts I can hopefully I can get a more fair payout on the car. I was planning on doing an independent appraisal of the car but seeing as the car is in pieces...my bad. oh well, my fault for jumping the gun on stripping the car I guess.

If the car is from GJT or vicinity, I doubt there will be any rust. That car for $800 was a smoking deal. Plus, you can sell off some parts, engine, tranny, etc. It might end up being a free car.

So they are talking about offering you $5,000 for your car? How much to buy it back (which you pretty much have to do to take all the old parts off)?

I had a similar thing happen to me years ago, only it was my own stupid fault. I had a 1966 Plymouth Belvedere II Convertible that got totaled in a trailer transport accident. I bought the car originally for $6,500. I put another thousand or two into parts and upgrades. After it was totaled and after about 30k miles and a lot of rust peaking through the paint they totaled it out at $7,500. I bought it back for $800 and parted it out for another $3,500.

All told, i'd rather have had repaired the car and kept it, but the damage was somewhere around $15,000 or so and I didn't have the money to throw at it to make it right.

It looked A LOT like this one: 1966 Plymouth Belvedere II for Sale | ClassicCars.com | CC-373824

Anyhow, I don't mean to derail your story, I just wanted to say I feel your pain. Good luck with everything.

Bummer about the Belvedere. I rock a 383 Sport Fury convertible of the same year. It was my first car -- bought it in 1983 (holy shit, that was 30 years ago!). My old friends always ask whether I still have it. It will go to my grandson eventually.

Check those pbr ultimate pads in the ziplock bsgs, they probably still have 80% life on them

I'm just lucky I caught it 6 hours after he posted the ad. That thing would have disappeared immediately. Hopefully I can sell enough to recoup expenses. We'll see how clean the engine/drivetrain etc etc is.


That is their estimate before they factor in aftermarket parts and labor. I got the letter from DJP with the car receipts today so once I fax the receipts and the parts list to them they will be able to raise the value of the car. State Farm is good about aftermarket parts, one of the few that doesn't have some shitty $1,000 limit on money back from mods.

No worries about derailment. Anyone who has been through this situation knows how shitty it is and how much time and energy it takes to make sure you don't get cheated/taken advantage of.

Buying it back will probably be ~$1,000. Who knows for sure, every company uses a different percentage to determine the buy-back amount.

I'll have to open the bags up and take a look, I didn't see any labels on the outside so I thought you were keeping the pads as trophies or something. :rofl:

Doing a little math on how I made out on this prospectively:

$500 deductible
$800 new shell
$600 in replacement parts/fluids/gaskets/machine work
$520 for Bronze Konig Flatout 15x8
$500 225/45/15 Hankook RS3's
$1,000 buy-back
=$3920 before loss estimate of original car is taken into place. Also before parting out the new shell as well.

So essentially I just got a $7,500 car for roughly $5,000. I win? I think? I feel like I loose, but math doesn't lie.
:party:

It's a win. The car will be more yours. That's what blood and sweat does.

The thing I'm terrified about is wiring. It is one area in car wrenching I have always been a little nervous about.

That and when I put the car back together I get to learn how to use Tunerstudio and Megalog, which opening up the program taught me was a steep hard learning curve.

I feel like I could strip the entire new shell in one night after learning where all the bolts hide and how things are assembled. I'm strangely happy that I was forced to tear the car down to nothing. You don't learn faster than getting your hands dirty, loosing a lot of blood and sweat, and many an annoyed neighbor at my swearing.

Plus these cars are so bloody easy to wrench on comparatively to my VW. You actually have space to inspect something and fit a wrench in the engine bay. You don't have to replace TTY bolts anytime you loosen something, everything is a 10/12/14/16mm bolt, and it doesn't have crazy German engineering in it.

All in all I'm just glad I have a fix it and worry about it later personality. Once initial shock wears off it evolves to lets get the problem fixed and get on with my life. I have had so much shit happen to me(I've broken over 20+ bones) from climbing, biking, and kyaking that there isn't a whole lot that can phase me these days. Granted I'm only 26 and I probably shouldn't say that in fear of a swift karma kick in the ass but...I have seen some shit man.

I'm picking up the car on Sunday. Managed to convince my employee that a crisp $100 bill has his name on it if he would drive out to CO with me and then drive my car back. Luckily the 5 hours won't be too painful since he is a funny Chris Farley look-a-like both in appearance and humor.

Any parts you guys recommend bringing with me in case the car decides it doesn't like the drive home? Going to bring a couple quarts of oil, some radiator fluid, some fuses, impact driver and bolts, spare crush washer for the oil drain bolt, couple hose clamps, and that is about all I can think of that could screw me.

If you have to use math to calculate how loose you are, I think you lose...

Hustler could probably help you decide how loose you actually are.

The double entendre was intended! Hustlers "caliper" of measurement isn't necessary or wanted.:nono:

Driving out to Grand Junction tomorrow at 7am, I hope to be driving back in the afternoon as long as there isn't obvious problems that are being covered up with the fresh paint job.

I just hope it is running decently. He says it runs but wasn't specific on just how well. Which I hope isn't a bad signifier, since the route back to Cedar City is 5 hours of canyons and hills.

... and you have 90 whp on a good day. Enjoy!

I also ordered the correct speedo gear for the 3.63 R&P. Just for anyone wondering what the part numbers are:

1011-17-442A
M502-17-441
9922-20-214
9958-60-8166
1011-17-443

Also a new Moroso catch can since the old one was leaking
949 Racing lug nuts & valve stems
Locking washers and new downpipe bolts

Ended up going with 225/45ZR-15 BFGoodrich g-Force Rival's instead of the RS-3's. Price was about $90 cheaper. From what I have read, they are great tires. Plus they have a $50 rebate on TR at the moment.

Damn it I can't sleep...

Aircraft paint stripper is the shit.

After sanding and then putting some rust converter on, followed by some etching primer.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1422893182

Then some enamel gloss black. It isn't perfect but that isn't the point. Just some added protection.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1422893246

Getting the door bars powder coated wrinkle black. Put some wd-40 on, to keep them from rusting before then.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...103_022247.png

Hopefully I'm high enough to sleep now. Don't get aircraft stripper on your skin....

Did my first track day on Rivals yesterday. They were awesome. Sticky when you want them to be. Very flat at the edge. Easy to rotate the car with throttle or trail braking. I was consuming Corvettes and Mustangs like nobody's business. It was just plain fun.

Hope you make it back OK. That's pretty country you're driving through (but remote).