The Un-Build Thread

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Neto

Well-known member
Joined
May 31, 2012
Messages
456
Location
Holmes Co, Ohio
I've thought about posting some of this for some years, and decided I'd go ahead & take a chance on it.

Our old family car was this 1993 Chrysler Town & Country. As it got older I didn't want to sell it to just anyone, because it held all of those memories of traveling when our kids were small, then it got so rusted out underneath, and developed serious mechanical problems, so I decided to scrap it. But I had an idea to build a trailer out of the rear section, so I couldn't just call a scrap guy to come get it.
This is how it looked when it was no longer drivable. Doesn't look that bad, but underneath all of that plastic trim is, well, very little.
 

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I started off stripping out the interior, and took very few pictures of that. Not interesting, anyway. It was still setting in the drive, and people started making strange comments, so I moved it into the garage to do some serious cutting. This was a learning process, because there is no better way to see how a car body is put together than to take one apart.

I had some notions of using one of these FWD units in either an old car as a FWD, or as a rear engine deal, so I took lots of pictures of the engine compartment & suspension.
 

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I also took a lot of measurements, but not sure where I put them, and should have also taken measurements with the body weight still on - I took all of the measurements with it pretty much unsprung weight.
 

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Rolling chassis. At this point it was so light in the rear that I could pick it up by myself - just briefly, but I could do it, and I only weigh around 130 or so.
 

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So, while I was cutting this up for a trailer, I started getting ideas about the front end. Problem was, it was so bad rusted along the bottom, and I also had too many ideas.

But here's the main one - Make it go back the way it came. As in, turn the front end into the rear end. By the time I took this picture I had already scrapped most of the car. I loaded it all by hand, and there was no piece too big or too heavy to haul in my S-10 PU. Several loads, but I hauled the whole car off in that little PU. (Sold some parts to a guy from Virginia as well.)

I had saved the front doors, hood, parts of the rear quarters, and the A & B pillars, as one piece cut around the bottom.

I sort of mocked it up before I hauled the last bit off - my wife was after me about "all my junk".

I figured on a roadster with suicide doors, using the two front doors. (You have to imagine the doors with the tops cut off.) I had also saved the rear section of the roof, thinking to use it for the top of the cowl. The upper part of the rear hatch was going to be cut down & narrowed as the grill shell. I was also going to narrow the whole body, which wasn't difficult, considering that I'd already cut it all up in separate halves. I had kept parts of the inner rear fender wells, thinking to weld them into the front wheel openings to form inner panels like on cars of the thirtys. The new rear section of the body (formerly the front clip) would set completely inside the rear track. Well, it still spites me a bit, but I let it go.

So here it all is, for your laughter & enjoyment. (I hope someone enjoys it, because i sure enjoyed cutting it up. And learned a lot, too, like that the outer body panels generally only attach to the inner panels at the top & bottom. I don't know if that makes sense what I'm saying.)

By the way, I didn't build the trailer. As I got to that point I noticed that the front eye on the leaf spring on the left side was rusted clear in two. The whole thing had just had too many salt baths here in the Salt Belt.
 

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I like the way you think. Keep us up to date with what ever comes out the other end. [;)
In the fire service we would go to the junk yard to learn how to cut people out of cars. Yes you learn a lot with reverse engineering.
Keep up the good work..
[cl
 

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