Greetings from portugal again, for AE86 sake!!!

[Mux213]

NoHachi Wrote:I never knew that I would once say this, but I would seriously consider looking for an other body to start with. Before you'll have this body in a reasonable condition its going to cost you a lot more then the 3000 euro's that a reasonable one costs.
When this is only the rust you can see from the outside, then I'm affraid of what lies beneath..The rust holes let water in and start the corrosion process from within. Those who have seen " a car is reborn" know what I mean. And in that show they had the luxury of endless replacement parts. For the ae86 there are almost none..

For 500E you got a real bargain on a engine, diff, perhaps some body work at least, and other parts. But for your own safety and wallet, start with a slightly better shell..

Hey NoHachi,

In general I agree with you, I would normally suggest to start of with another shell with less work on it.

That said, I've seen cars in worse condition being restored back to health. There are 2 main issues that define cost:
1) the amount of new body parts you order, but if the person doing the restore work is an experienced panel worker he can make panels from sheets of steel (or cut them out of a wrecker)
2) but the biggest issue is labour. Labour is what makes these projects expensive. If you look at the E-type rebuild the panels were only a small part of the price, all the labour that went into it, thats where you pay big time. This means that if you have the skills to do the labour yourself, or you have a friend willing to help you out with little cost. Rebuilding a shell can be dead cheap.

I've seen this with Kims RX7. I've seen the pictures of his car before he started doing the work on it and I swear that car was in worse condition then filipe's car from the looks of the photos. He welded the whole thing up himself. Only cost him some new body parts he cut out of another RX7 on the scrapyard or something.

I've seen this with the work being done at the place I work on my Hachi and my RX7. There is a guy there who's been doing plate and welding work for many years, retired now he does it as a hobby. He has fixed up some pretty bad shaped cars and is actually doing an E-type right now. Given that the guy doesn't do this for free so for that E-type, $$$

And I see this with Martijn who fixes up my Hachi body work (luckely minor work) as a favor to me and has rebuild his own car from a wreck (for sale in a couple of months I think, he wants to fix up a Seat Leon Turbo, so if someone wants a perfect condition Golf TDI....)

But you are right. If you need to have a body shop do this kinda work, and pay them normal prices for this, prepare to pay alot more for the work then the car will ever be worth. If you have a friend who's willing to help you cheaply, or if you can do the work yourself, all it really costs you is alot of time..