Too many projects. What would PH do?
Too many projects. What would PH do?
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Discussion

Busted Rust

Original Poster:

1 posts

Yesterday (20:48)
quotequote all
Hi PH. I’m an addict.

Rusty? Broken? Cheap? Free?? I had to have it.
Since before I turned 17 I have bought cars that don’t work or need a ton of money spent to get them right. I hate to see these vehicles on deaths door sent off for scrap, so now I have a bit of a collection of rust.

And I need an intervention!

The current fleet of corrosion:

1982 Camaro - third gen, corrosion starting to set in, 4 layers of paint, wrong engine and gearbox, barely running now. Engine is a 350SBC crate engine, 9000 miles from new. Th350 gearbox the same situation. Have all the bodywork bits to make an IROC replica.

1993 MX5, 1.6 S Special - ruined sills, arches, had a small front end crash. Sort of runs, no clutch. Good hardtop.

1946 Lanchester LD10 - kind of? It’s a bad chassis, half the bodywork, and a V5.

2002 Discovery Td5 - once my pride and joy, now a corroded mess due to an unsolvable cutting out issue nearly 10 years ago which took it off the road. I have now fixed the issue but it is in a bad way. Full off-road underbody protection, big mud tyres, low mileage.

2005 Discovery 3- my current daily as the BMW is broken, but at 22mpg it’s a bit much. Replaced the D2, same deal with the off-road kit. Low miles, good spec. Not rusty yet. Will fall out of use soon as I don’t need the off road ability and it’s a crap daily commuter to be honest.

2005 BMW 325i E90 - cheap runabout, gets me to work and back, bit of fun on the twisty bits, busted shocks and front suspension, sump leaks. Will be the first to fix.

Space frame Discovery 1 off road project - forever a project, very sentimental attachment, but even if it was finished and running I don’t know what I’d do with it.

Defender 110 - again sentimental but I have actually got on and done 95% of it, and it will be solid when finished. Will fill the gap if I need a big car or off road occasionally but will be a garage queen the rest of the time. Endless galvanised and stainless repairs and upgrades to keep the damned rust off!

Wife has a good car because I value my existence, though the pile of rusty stuff doesn’t help that aspect!

I think that’s all of them? I have garage space for 2 and no spare money to do anything without selling things to raise funds. I’d quite like to do some light motorsport like Autosolo, but that’s just a thought at the moment.

This MX5 is my 6th, I daily drove one for years, and I often wonder about selling the lot and throwing it all at the MX5. However, big V8 make good noise. I also have acquired a LS1 and T56 over the years, which would be great and fairly correct in the Camaro, and hilarious/stupid in the MX5.

I have tried to discuss this question/dilemma many times, but it needs the eyes and questionable sanity of proper car people to actually get an answer.

What would PH do?

Metric Max

1,866 posts

248 months

Yesterday (20:54)
quotequote all
Go to the pub

Simon_GH

921 posts

106 months

Yesterday (20:56)
quotequote all
Finish the Defender. It’s nearly complete and it’s worth a few quid if you need to the other projects.

Sway

34,433 posts

220 months

Yesterday (20:57)
quotequote all
Quite simply, pick one.

Commit to it. Sell everything else, for whatever you can get - and be properly realistic about that too.

Pick one that you will then be able to realistically afford to both do and run properly - that'll actually give you satisfaction and 'purpose'. Just thinning the herd but nothing else really changing means, well, nothing will really change.

Resolutionary

1,499 posts

197 months

Yesterday (21:04)
quotequote all
I largely detest AI, but surely this kind of excess quandry would I assume be perfect fodder to feed the machine and see how it could aide you in deciding a cost / benefit or other semiotic worthiness rating.

Other than that, while a nice problem to have, it's very much a 'you' problem, in the sense that only you know deeply enough which, if pushed, you could push away. Most of our answers would essentially be either hyperbole or biased.

Krikkit

27,901 posts

207 months

Yesterday (21:14)
quotequote all
Finish the defender, sell it then take stock again.

Don't rush into selling things if you don't absolutely have to - unfinished projects go for a pittance and are rare to find again

Derry Rhumba

205 posts

17 months

Yesterday (21:26)
quotequote all
Finish the Defender, sell the BMW to me.

Mr Tidy

30,476 posts

153 months

Yesterday (23:08)
quotequote all
Busted Rust said:
Hi PH. I m an addict.

Rusty? Broken? Cheap? Free?? I had to have it.
Since before I turned 17 I have bought cars that don t work or need a ton of money spent to get them right. I hate to see these vehicles on deaths door sent off for scrap, so now I have a bit of a collection of rust.

And I need an intervention!

The current fleet of corrosion:

1982 Camaro - third gen, corrosion starting to set in, 4 layers of paint, wrong engine and gearbox, barely running now. Engine is a 350SBC crate engine, 9000 miles from new. Th350 gearbox the same situation. Have all the bodywork bits to make an IROC replica.

1993 MX5, 1.6 S Special - ruined sills, arches, had a small front end crash. Sort of runs, no clutch. Good hardtop.

1946 Lanchester LD10 - kind of? It s a bad chassis, half the bodywork, and a V5.

2002 Discovery Td5 - once my pride and joy, now a corroded mess due to an unsolvable cutting out issue nearly 10 years ago which took it off the road. I have now fixed the issue but it is in a bad way. Full off-road underbody protection, big mud tyres, low mileage.

2005 Discovery 3- my current daily as the BMW is broken, but at 22mpg it s a bit much. Replaced the D2, same deal with the off-road kit. Low miles, good spec. Not rusty yet. Will fall out of use soon as I don t need the off road ability and it s a crap daily commuter to be honest.

2005 BMW 325i E90 - cheap runabout, gets me to work and back, bit of fun on the twisty bits, busted shocks and front suspension, sump leaks. Will be the first to fix.

Space frame Discovery 1 off road project - forever a project, very sentimental attachment, but even if it was finished and running I don t know what I d do with it.

Defender 110 - again sentimental but I have actually got on and done 95% of it, and it will be solid when finished. Will fill the gap if I need a big car or off road occasionally but will be a garage queen the rest of the time. Endless galvanised and stainless repairs and upgrades to keep the damned rust off!

Wife has a good car because I value my existence, though the pile of rusty stuff doesn t help that aspect!

I think that s all of them? I have garage space for 2 and no spare money to do anything without selling things to raise funds. I d quite like to do some light motorsport like Autosolo, but that s just a thought at the moment.

This MX5 is my 6th, I daily drove one for years, and I often wonder about selling the lot and throwing it all at the MX5. However, big V8 make good noise. I also have acquired a LS1 and T56 over the years, which would be great and fairly correct in the Camaro, and hilarious/stupid in the MX5.

I have tried to discuss this question/dilemma many times, but it needs the eyes and questionable sanity of proper car people to actually get an answer.

What would PH do?
I'd keep the BMW as a daily and the space frame Discovery, then use the Disco for some off road events for that light motorsport experience.

brillomaster

1,785 posts

196 months

Yesterday (23:12)
quotequote all
Well, I like driving cars, not fixing cars. Also none of them appeal to me, so if someone gave that lot all to me, id be selling all of them and buying one car that actually worked.

But if you like working on cars, maybe keep one car to fix. Finish the defender, finish the bmw, then pick one other to actually have as a project, and sell the rest.

Nickp82

3,868 posts

119 months

Yesterday (23:13)
quotequote all
Buy a few more to make yourself feel better

Milkyway

13,204 posts

79 months

Yesterday (23:18)
quotequote all
Is that a REHAB For this type of addiction.

samoht

7,104 posts

172 months

Yesterday (23:48)
quotequote all
Busted Rust said:
Hi PH. I m an addict.

Rusty? Broken? Cheap? Free?? I had to have it.
Since before I turned 17 I have bought cars that don t work or need a ton of money spent to get them right. I hate to see these vehicles on deaths door sent off for scrap, so now I have a bit of a collection of rust.

And I need an intervention!
I understand the feeling, but as long as you hold this attitude, you're condemning yourself to being haunted by an ever larger collection of wrecks. Brand new cars pop off the production lines every 30 seconds, restoring a rusty one can easily take far more effort than it ever needed to build in the first place. Rusty projects are worthless because a good condition example is cheaper than the work needed to bring back a wreck.

You'll never fix most of these, they'll only take up time and sap your energy. You'll be better off clearing them all out.

Sell the Camaro engine and box separately if you can readily extract them.
BMW - fix and keep as a daily
Sell the Disco 3
Defender 110 - finish and sell
The rest, stick on eBay collection only with no reserve. If it sells for 99p at least it's off your hands.

Once you've got down to the BMW only, you can buy a not-rusty MX-5. Then you can enjoy driving it, autosolo, or perhaps have a solid base for an engine swap if you want. I'd also consider looking at the Rocketeer-style V6 swap in addition to the LS possibility. You could also LS-swap the E90 if you wanted to.


Whatever you do, the end goal would be two decent condition roadworthy cars that you can enjoy driving, both garaged.


Fessia fancier

1,513 posts

209 months

I would definitely sell a few of the projects to free up time to focus

underwhelmist

2,020 posts

160 months

Nickp82 said:
Buy a few more to make yourself feel better
OP needs to get into motorbikes.