"cletus44 aka Clayton Seams" (cletus44)
06/23/2015 at 10:52 • Filed to: None
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"cletus44 aka Clayton Seams" (cletus44)
06/23/2015 at 10:52 • Filed to: None | 0
| 6 |
I was making plans to check out this blue beauty located 450 kms away from me in Ottawa when the seller casually mentions that it has rust in the “Lower rocker panels, driver floor pan , front fenders, chome.” Now I don’t know if I really want it.
It’s a fairly rare 1971 Fiat 124 Spider with bizarre minivan-spec hubcaps that runs and drives for $2,500. I usually see these trade for $5-8k and I wondered what the catch was. Now I know. What does oppo think? I really want an early (pre-75) Fiat 124 but they’re so hard to find. Anyone got a welder they’d reccomend?
505Turbeaux
> cletus44 aka Clayton Seams
06/23/2015 at 10:53 |
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you dont, easy as that. Move on
Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
> cletus44 aka Clayton Seams
06/23/2015 at 10:54 |
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Either get a lot of money off or walk away. If you can’t weld it’s a crappy project to take on. I hate rust.
G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3
> cletus44 aka Clayton Seams
06/23/2015 at 10:57 |
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Ask if you can be sent pictures of the rust. If it’s not too bad, I’d go for it.
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> cletus44 aka Clayton Seams
06/23/2015 at 10:59 |
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It comes down to whether you can get a welder, steel, wire, gas, paint, and at least partly cover your time for <$2500. If you have future welder projects in mind, you can abstract the welder cost out to more entries (/2, /3 the price), but still. You can get an okay MIG welder for a little over a grand, gas bottle, wire and gas for several hundred more, so it comes down to the scale of rust nightmare.
64Mali
> cletus44 aka Clayton Seams
06/23/2015 at 12:19 |
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How many rust projects do you need?
BlurpleToyotaDishwasher
> cletus44 aka Clayton Seams
06/24/2015 at 13:52 |
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The problem with it is that it’s very hard to judge without being able to get at the car in question and poke around (and model-specific knowledge of where the problem areas are likely to be) to see just how much it really needs. It’s likely to be a big job.
Can you get the gear for fixing it up for less than the cost difference between $2.5k for this and $5k for a less rusty one, sure, a decent-but-entry-level setup with associated tools and consumables would cost about $1k-ish*, but it’s not the gear that’s the killer, it’s the time. It’s not a quick job. I’m just getting started so I’m not really in the best place to give advice but
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk
has been super helpful for me.
* the cost of consumables can drive this up. Steel sheet is pretty cheap, but wire and gas can drive this up quite a lot depending on just how much there is to be done.
If you want to get it done by a pro, then you’re looking at thousands at best & it’s not worth it.