sell the 4 door and use the money to fix some of the things on the 2 door. I say since you love the car fix it the 4 parts should work with a bit of trimming. it doesnt cost much to fix the rust if you can do it yourself. it takes MORE TIME than much else. if you still have the 4 door you already have a parts car. OR: option 2 since its rusty just make everything functional and watch for a solid body to come around. search day and night ebay craigslist etc etc youll come across a deal if you look hard enough. rebuild the engine and trans. since youre a mechanic you can do this yourself in the garage. maybe fix a few cars after work or on the weekends for some cash for parts for the cars. spend ALL YOU CAN NOW while the kids are babies...theyre cheaper believe it or not while theyre little. when they get older theyll be growing out of clothes eating mcd's and whatever else then comes day care and when theyre out of school summer camp. I know first hand I JUST paid $320 today for my kids to go to summer camp and swimming lessons. the summer camp is $115 a WEEK EACH KID! so spend spend spend now while you still have a little money lol
i don't have a lot of experience welding, and didn't have to worry about tourque boxes. But after alot of blood sweat and cussing, I have it back together. hopefully back on the road this week.
Thanks. Not quite as good as I had hoped. But it is a father son project. He did alot of wrench turning and hopefully learned a liitle bit. It's his as soon as I get the kinks worked out.
I have fixed worse, but was lucky enough to have had a 2dr parts car with a surprisingly good floor pan! I also had to build torque boxes... This was back in 2002 when I did all of the work. This was the donor car's floor:
Wow that was bad. You did a good job! I should be counting my blessings. But mine just might be that bad after I pull the carpet up. I'm interested on how you rebuilt the tourque boxes, that's the main part im not sure how to handle. Ik it has a lot to do with the structure of the car and I'm scared of messing it up. I will definitely be taking pics as I go along and asking you all if I'm doing it right.
Thanks! It was my first car, so I learned as I went. Lots of drilling of spot welds to be able to get the donor floor free and clear. As far as the torque boxes go, I used 16ga metal. These are (were) available reproduced from 3PG (Period Perfect Parts Group). Not sure if they are still up and running. The torque boxes laterally join the front sub-frame to the rocker panel structure.
I also remember backing the car out of the driveway after I was done these repairs, and let me tell you, I could not believe how soft the car had gotten before the repairs! It was like a brand new car after the floor and torque boxes were repaired.
The owner of the company used to be on here. There was talk a few months ago as to whether or not he was still in business. Craig Selvey had mentioned that the owner (Joe) was still around, but I cannot find any web-site hits either. Here is a link to a thread that had some pictures... http://mmb.maverick.to/threads/maverick-and-comet-torque-boxes-are-available.79676/#post-804445
