successful junkyard visit
3336
6
Got a call from Dad this morning that a friend of his had found a '77 Cordoba in a self-service yard. So, despite the high being predicted to 110°F today, my wife and I met him at the yard and we started stripping. Found the odometer reading 20XXX, and based on the condition of the car it may well be unrolled. The body was a little beat up from being in the yard, and they aren't willing to sell cars from the yard. It's a 400 car, but I needed interior parts, as the upholsterer made off with my stuff and never returned it.
We pulled the front seats, door panels, factory-tinted door glass, A-pillars, kick panels, sills, dash cluster surround, lower dash bezel, sun visors, opera window surrounds, sail panels, headlight/wiper controller, sport mirrors, and trunk carpet kit in about two hours. Funny enough, someone had already worked on this car, the sail panels were both painted, quality job, from their different original colors. The '77 has different seabelts than my '78, and the headliner is actually different on account of that, so I didn't pull it even though it was perfect. Technically the sail panels are a little different too as there are slits for the belt retractors, but I'll just glue something inside to close off those holes.
Dad may check up on it as it sits in the yard. If someone pulls the 400 then he may go back for the front subframe for his Charger, he has a disassembled 440 high performance motor to possibly put together and install in place of the current 318. The '77 has a 9¼" axle with open differential, but I expect was not a tow-package car because of the rear antisway bar. It did have some good-shape albeit pedestrian tires on it, but I don't need 'em. My current wheels will need new tires once the car is closer to being registered again, but I think that I can break-in the engine with the current rubber.
So, now that I have a friggin' front seat again maybe I'll be motivated to start putting the car together. I'll still need an upholsterer to reupholster the front seats and the door panels, and I'll have to figure out how to prime and paint the plastics, but it's at least possible now to drive the car once the drivetrain and other mechanical bits are reinstalled.
It turns out that the friend that told Dad about the car ended up at the doctor because of heatstroke while out in the yard when he found the car in the first place. I guess that I'm lucky that I found out about it at all. Pasty white as all of us that went are, we brought our 10'x10' easy-up canopy to reduce sun exposure and make it less miserable working, and I have to say, basically any time I go to the junkyard to strip a specific car, that canopy is coming along. Even as much of a pain as it was to bring it into the yard, it made it a lot easier while in there.
I also highly recommend having a battery-operated impact-bit-driver if one is doing a lot of interior disassembly. My Craftsman 19.2V tool with #2 bits of various lengths worked on every #2 Philips screw that I needed to remove, I didn't need a regular screwdriver at all. Dad wanted the sport mirrors so he needed a bit driven by a 1/4" ratchet to remove the glove compartment liner, but I think that was the only place where the impact tool wouldn't have reached.
We pulled the front seats, door panels, factory-tinted door glass, A-pillars, kick panels, sills, dash cluster surround, lower dash bezel, sun visors, opera window surrounds, sail panels, headlight/wiper controller, sport mirrors, and trunk carpet kit in about two hours. Funny enough, someone had already worked on this car, the sail panels were both painted, quality job, from their different original colors. The '77 has different seabelts than my '78, and the headliner is actually different on account of that, so I didn't pull it even though it was perfect. Technically the sail panels are a little different too as there are slits for the belt retractors, but I'll just glue something inside to close off those holes.
Dad may check up on it as it sits in the yard. If someone pulls the 400 then he may go back for the front subframe for his Charger, he has a disassembled 440 high performance motor to possibly put together and install in place of the current 318. The '77 has a 9¼" axle with open differential, but I expect was not a tow-package car because of the rear antisway bar. It did have some good-shape albeit pedestrian tires on it, but I don't need 'em. My current wheels will need new tires once the car is closer to being registered again, but I think that I can break-in the engine with the current rubber.
So, now that I have a friggin' front seat again maybe I'll be motivated to start putting the car together. I'll still need an upholsterer to reupholster the front seats and the door panels, and I'll have to figure out how to prime and paint the plastics, but it's at least possible now to drive the car once the drivetrain and other mechanical bits are reinstalled.
It turns out that the friend that told Dad about the car ended up at the doctor because of heatstroke while out in the yard when he found the car in the first place. I guess that I'm lucky that I found out about it at all. Pasty white as all of us that went are, we brought our 10'x10' easy-up canopy to reduce sun exposure and make it less miserable working, and I have to say, basically any time I go to the junkyard to strip a specific car, that canopy is coming along. Even as much of a pain as it was to bring it into the yard, it made it a lot easier while in there.
I also highly recommend having a battery-operated impact-bit-driver if one is doing a lot of interior disassembly. My Craftsman 19.2V tool with #2 bits of various lengths worked on every #2 Philips screw that I needed to remove, I didn't need a regular screwdriver at all. Dad wanted the sport mirrors so he needed a bit driven by a 1/4" ratchet to remove the glove compartment liner, but I think that was the only place where the impact tool wouldn't have reached.
