ConvertiblesDiscussed here are problems and solutions to convertible specific questions, including difficult to find part numbers and other convertible tech help.
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Is this '88 Vert worth fixing? It is all original with 59,661 miles, and fully optioned. Even has a power antenna that works. It was repainted at some point in it's life, that is probably why the door decals are in the wrong place. I don't know much about body repair, so I am not sure if it can be fixed, I removed all of the other bent up stuff that I could unbolt.
I CAN,T SEEM TO ATTACH THE PHOTO. Can someone help me out with that?
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__________________ 82 Z28- 383 roller w/Vortec heads Edelbrock Performer Vortec intake, Edelbrock Q jet, serpentine belt drive.TH700R4 w/B&M holeshot 2000 converter,& megashifter.1LE front brakes, 9bolt 3.27 w/1LE rear brakes.Aluminum driveshaft,boxed rear susp. poly everything, IROC swaybar+wonderbar and steering box. Spohn subframe connectors. 70mph@2200rpm ASE Master Tech plus L2
also Latest project car,'86 IROC stock 305TPI hit on left side,but not too bad ( now repaired and equipped with the 1LE brake system). Also 1990 IROCZ 5.0 TPI 5 speed (drive train has 150 miles since new), and another 1990 IROCZ 5.7 G-92 etc., and yet another 1990 IROC-Z, red w/flames, and 1988 IROC-Z convertible, red w/59,000 miles.
You can send me the pic and I can post it or you can edit it in paint until it reaches the right specs for the site. PM sent if you want to go the email route...
COncerning the car, the whole "worth it" discussion for me starts with how much you paid for it (or how much the seller is asking). From there, add costs to restore and if your total is under 6K (or so) it would be worth it. That's at least my perspective. I love these cars and am biased as a result. Still, demand for these cars is going up and parts are getting harder to find. So maybe that's the other side of this - Good parts car investment?
Lon, has my products, he lives in Southern California, and he can install them for you too.
I actually have the parts.
The problem is getting someone who knows how to do this on the car (Lon is about 6 hours from me.
2 grand for it? Yeah, you could get it back in shape for under another 4K, right? I'd call it worth it then. Is the subframe bent? Can you tell? What else is going to be a big deal to repair/replace?
can you take pictures of the door gaps between the end of the door and the rear quarter? on both sides, if the gap is fairly consistent top to bottom the subframe is most likely fine. i can't tell for sure but it looks like the rest of the car is pretty straight. you might want to get under the car and see if you can spot and stress marks. like crumpling or broken spot welds. if you can find another car that's perfectly straight but the body panels are shot and you could get it for a few hundred$ buy it and cut the whole front end off, then find a good shop to do the rest of the work. i dunno about california but here in ny shops usually charge between $60-$80 an hour for labor, i'd say that's less than 100 hours of work to fix that. hope this helped some
THe Best way to have it done would be to find a Straight junk car.
Have a frame shop straighten the car best as they can then cut off the front clip, and install the clip from the donor car. If done right no one would be able to tell...
Is it worth fixing? It has TPI, If it has the 5 speed then definately yes. Even without its worth it...
If the area where the a-pillar meats the fire wall on the driver sides is all pulled and warped then you may have more work on your hands than you've bargained for.
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I have sent some additional images to Cadillac who has been a BIG help in posting the images. I just cannot seem to get it worked out.
Here is my reasoning for starting this project;
1) I have been looking for a convertible IROC-Z for years. Everyone I have come across has been either way out of my price range, or trashed in some way. I did find one that met my criteria, but unfortunately it was over $18,000 and I simply don't have that kind of money to spend.
2) I do not want to travel to the southwest many times to look at several cars with no rust and low mileage.
3) This project is simple, straight forward, and fairly quick compared to my most recent completed project. That one was a 1990 IROC-Z factory 5 speed car which had been really trashed, and was on its' way to the crusher. I restored it back to zero miles new condition, and it is now a real joy to drive.
4) This '88 Vert appears to have spent its' entire life sitting in a garage even though the mileage shows it has been driven sparingly. Even after it was wrecked it sat in a garage for two years. It is in mint condition except for the obvious damage.
5) The only serious problem (to me) is that the drivers side cowl has been pushed back 5/16". I body shop told me this is a simple operation to correct on a convertible, much easier than on a hard top.
6) I found a front clip on eBay from a RED '91 RS, minus the hood and fenders. I bought it for $68.00 plus the drivers side fender for $50.00. The repair procedure goes something like this; remove all of the badly bent up stuff by drilling out the spot welds and remove the same items as an assembly from the clip. Remove the windshield, straighten the cowl, and reinstall (weld) the donor assembly with minor painting as required. I will then reassemble all of the bolt on stuff and return the car for hood and fender paint (if I can ever find a RED '88 IROC-Z hood w/o rust). I was told the minor areas on the door/door jam can be touched up. I was quoted $2,200 for this work including paint.
7) Once I am finished I will have a low mileage '88 IROC-Z convertible to drive which at my age = cool. I can put antique plates on it in 5 1/2 years when I retire. Yes the car will have a salvage/reconstructed title, but what do I care? I wanted a cool car, I have no plans to sell it, I will let my survivors worry about it and they don't make these anymore. The neighborhood kids all think my grey primered 1990 5.7 G92 IROC-Z is cool, I don't, but if they think it is, then maybe it is. Except for Lons' car, I have never even seen a 3rdgen convertible.
8) $2,025 purchase price
$361 shipping
$75 towing
$217 clip, fender, shipping
$2,200 body shop
$200 new radiator and battery
$231 new GM front fascia
$266 new GM lower fascia (ground effects)
$??? hood (I can get a new GM hood for aroung $600)
$5,575 total Is it worth it? To me it is.
But it is important to me to know what you guys think. the 3rdgen Vert community here is a bunch of pretty good guys. Thier is a vast amount of knolwlege here, and I want some of it to use on my first Vert (finally).
When you drive it down the road after it's been restored and feel that sense of accomplishment and then realize you are in a car not often seen on the road, then you'll know it was worth it.
Also, it looks like your cost estimate falls within my brown-thumbed range with 25 bucks to spare! Yer good!! (we all know there will be additional costs that will crop up.)
Tell us about the condition of the top, seals, and mechanisms on the top. Nothing to worry about there?
reason I say remove all the int. The pic's I just posted the car looked good enough to save also. was hit so hard it crinkled the complete floor back to the back seats. I ended up using this car for ALL of the vert parts.
I paid $500-600 bucks for it. Sold the leather seats for 1/2 that. sold some other parts off it I didnt need. and still had all the parts to convert a good T top chassis over to a vert.
I have inspected under the car and the cowl area very carefully, the only damage is what is obvious. I have driven the car around some to get it back here. The top and all of the linkage are like new.
The way it was explained to me, seems pretty straight forward. Once all of the bentup stuff has been removed, you then remove the same items from the doner car as an assembly, and install them as an assembly on the car. This alone saves a lot of time in repairs.
i love the iroc verts and all things considered, this one is in exceptionally good shape. i think it's a pretty good deal, and it'd be great to see your progress as the project goes on. good luck!
that sounds like a plan man! under 6k for a car like that. id take it. i saw a red iroc vert on ebay not too long ago sell for 4900 and the paint was absolutely terrible, it had a fair share of dents and the dash needed to be replaced really badly. not bad IMO. when im done with my rs it will have well over that much into it but i also like to upgrade w/e it is im replacing. hopefully my car will be painted soon too
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Hey man, I live in central FL., and a local junkyard here has a perfectly good red IROC hood.Car also has a 305 tpi engine in running cond. pm me if ur interested.
It'll be a good while before your going to be able to enjoy it. my car had basicly no signs of damage from the outside whatsoever, and i took it to get a quote to pull the pass side just a bit and they said they wanted to replace the pass front wheel well and rails and core support. said id be looking at 5,000 ish. ya right. they said they wouldnt do a 1/2 *** job, either perfect or nothing.
besides them, i havent been able to get a quote because they cant get the car on a lift with the rails that were put on the verts. so they dont know how much tweeking it needs. i was going to replace the k-member and a-arms and see if thats my problem. very wekk could be. cause all my body panels line up perfect on the car, but the rad support has been bondo'd.
I'm moving in a month and dont know what to do with the car. I paid $4,000 for it, and then started my project. i didnt know it had been wrecked and fixed b4 cause the carfax didnt show anything. and its only a 91 rs. but i liked it. ive put some money into it and i kinda wanna sell it but i still wanna fix it. just dont have the money to make it perfect. and i'd like to do a LT1 swap.
that car looks pretty clean tho, does it have a salvage title? i skipped most of the thread. just looked at the pics.
if you could keep the repairs under $4,000 then do it for sure.
The car is so nice that even the wheels look like they were just removed from a GM box, same for the dash pad. I may have it pulled slightly and replace the bent parts myself.
i would fix it my car looked just as bad i had to have the frame pulled and the k-member and a-arms replaced all the work only cost me $1500.00. good luck with it.
It'll be a good while before your going to be able to enjoy it. my car had basicly no signs of damage from the outside whatsoever, and i took it to get a quote to pull the pass side just a bit and they said they wanted to replace the pass front wheel well and rails and core support. said id be looking at 5,000 ish. ya right. they said they wouldnt do a 1/2 *** job, either perfect or nothing.
besides them, i havent been able to get a quote because they cant get the car on a lift with the rails that were put on the verts. so they dont know how much tweeking it needs. i was going to replace the k-member and a-arms and see if thats my problem. very wekk could be. cause all my body panels line up perfect on the car, but the rad support has been bondo'd.
I'm moving in a month and dont know what to do with the car. I paid $4,000 for it, and then started my project. i didnt know it had been wrecked and fixed b4 cause the carfax didnt show anything. and its only a 91 rs. but i liked it. ive put some money into it and i kinda wanna sell it but i still wanna fix it. just dont have the money to make it perfect. and i'd like to do a LT1 swap.
that car looks pretty clean tho, does it have a salvage title? i skipped most of the thread. just looked at the pics.
if you could keep the repairs under $4,000 then do it for sure.
Yes it has a salvage title
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 89Convertable
i would fix it my car looked just as bad i had to have the frame pulled and the k-member and a-arms replaced all the work only cost me $1500.00. good luck with it.
I am going to fix it.
Do you have any photos of your car before you repaired it?
Last edited by ANDYZ28; 04-10-2007 at 05:04 AM.
Reason: Automerged Doublepost
Is that pass. side fender shifted over too? if so...dang that thing must have taken a heck of a shot. Its ashame too because otherwise it looks like a really nice straight car.
Ive seen guys cut the whole front clip off, and weld a new one on. Actually..Ive even seen a 2nd gen guy cut off the front clip of a 4th gen and weld it on and use all 4th gen suspension.
Might look into that as everything else looks pretty crumpled. If you take your time, take 1000 measurements, and double check all of those before you weld, you can make it pretty nice. You can easily get a straight parts car for the inner structure stuff. Find an older one with a blown motor or rear end wreck or something...and start swapping.
Good luck man! Im gonna keep track of your progress!
The passenger side fender is pushed out at the back like that because it is dented in at the front. You can see it in the photo. I am planning on reusing the fender. I will keep every one up to date with the progress.
Just a reminder, DO NOT drill out the spot welds UNTIL you straghten the car, if you do nothing will line up, you have to straghten then replace parts... Otherwise you will work twice as hard...
Just a reminder, DO NOT drill out the spot welds UNTIL you straghten the car, if you do nothing will line up, you have to straghten then replace parts... Otherwise you will work twice as hard...
John
Thanks, I am going to do exactly as you suggest. I don't need any more work than I already have.
Thanks, Andy
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 89Convertable
here is one
That one doesn't look too bad at all.
Last edited by ANDYZ28; 04-13-2007 at 10:12 PM.
Reason: Automerged Doublepost
I have located nearly all of the parts and services required to do the repairs back to pre-damage condition. Some new parts, and mostly used in exellent condition. a non-rusted hood in red was a big find in my efforts.
But a rather significant issue has emerged. I am unable to get a title in Virginia which would allow me to EVER drive the car again. They consider the car as "non-repairable"! No discussion of their position is allowed. I have a PA title, and in PA the car is now considered a "classic/antique" worthy of preservation. I have been advised (by a non-governmental person) not to perform any work on the car until this is resolved. Furthermore to keep careful records of all the parts I have so far collected. I may need to get a lawyer to assist me in going to war with the VA DMV. The whole thing is silly, but I have a grim determination to prevail!
The problem is getting someone who knows how to do this on the car (Lon is about 6 hours from me.
2 grand for it? Yeah, you could get it back in shape for under another 4K, right? I'd call it worth it then. Is the subframe bent? Can you tell? What else is going to be a big deal to repair/replace?
I've had one customer drive down from a southern suburb or SF to get his hinges repaired. So it's doable. It's not really that hard, just time consuming.
Wow what a great project. I am a little concerned looking at the area where the A-pillar meets the firewall/cowl area, but if the shop says they can fix it then I guess they can. As far as your title problem goes get it fixed, insured and registered at a friends address in PA, since you already have a PA title. I'm sure VA wont give you a hassle buying a running registered vehicle.
Wow what a great project. I am a little concerned looking at the area where the A-pillar meets the firewall/cowl area, but if the shop says they can fix it then I guess they can. As far as your title problem goes get it fixed, insured and registered at a friends address in PA, since you already have a PA title. I'm sure VA wont give you a hassle buying a running registered vehicle.
cdartz I believe you are correct.Yes Andy,get her fixed.So, I guess ya found a hood?I was disapointed to see the damage to the one I mentioned to you.
cdartz I believe you are correct.Yes Andy,get her fixed.So, I guess ya found a hood?I was disapointed to see the damage to the one I mentioned to you.
Timmy, the hood I got was a 388 mile round trip. But worth it because the hood is factory red and totally rust free. I also got a front fascia (bumper) and lower fascia (spoiler) when I was up there.
I plan on renewing my struggle with DMV tomorrow, I will post my results.
Well................... I lost another round at DMV State Headquarters yesterday!
The lady was very nice about it, but firm, "sir this vehicle is non-repairable"! because the repairs are 90% of the value. Then with a wink-and-a-nod she told me that I am the one who fills in the block on the application stating the value (pre-damage). So I have a new form that I have entered the value and today I will try at a DMV office I have not yet visited.
Well................... I lost another round at DMV State Headquarters yesterday!
The lady was very nice about it, but firm, "sir this vehicle is non-repairable"! because the repairs are 90% of the value. Then with a wink-and-a-nod she told me that I am the one who fills in the block on the application stating the value (pre-damage). So I have a new form that I have entered the value and today I will try at a DMV office I have not yet visited.
Mmm, isnt that a "RARE SHOW CAR" or something your fixing up.
Mmm, You can't put a price on something that is "priceless" in your mind right.
Mmm, 1988- Almost 20years old. Classic plates....
Good Luck man. It can be done.
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UPDATE: I finally got the title (salvage certificate). I have also discovered that when the car is done It may be possible to get a title which says "REPAIRED" instead of "REBUILT". So that is some more good news.
I had the car taken to the frame shop, where a curious thing happened. I arrived at lunch time and the owner and several techs were eating lunch while lounging around the office. The owner asked me "whadayagot?". I said a 1988 IROC'Z convertible at which point they all looked up. Then we had a brief discussion concerning how rare these cars are. After he inspected the car he told me it was not too bad and no big deal to repair. He even said the can and will save the left front wheelwell. The only issue will be that about an 18" section of the right behind where the impact bar attaches will need to be replaced and he gave me instructions on removing the required parts from my doner clip. No estimate yet though.
I got the local dent removal guy to remove the few dents from the hood. I have a good condition left front fender, new GM upper front fascia (bumper), new GM (the last one) front fascia (spoiler), but I still cannot locate a good GM right front fender with NO rust. The aftermarket fenders SUCK.
try camaro heaven in NH for a gm fender. Last time i was there a couple years ago they had a few new GM replacemnt fenders. Pricey but you get what you pay for. Mostlikly have to call them
I might be buying a 91 vert...I didnt check the total damage of exterior but it looked decent. maybe youwould like some parts off of it. let me know because I dont want to buy it and then not be able to sell parts off of it.
try camaro heaven in NH for a gm fender. Last time i was there a couple years ago they had a few new GM replacemnt fenders. Pricey but you get what you pay for. Mostlikly have to call them
Thanks for the tip. They did not have one, GM has discontinued them and finding a decent one is proving difficult. I have two which both have some damage and the body shop told me that even if they fixed them, "the would never be right".
thats very good news indeed andy,i will be going to the local j/y tomorrow morning i haven't been there in a couple weeks but if its still avail. i will check out that right fender.i can't wait to see this thing brought back to its true glory,once again good luck man,and i'll let ya know how things look here.timmy
You know you can MAKE a vert fender outa a stock fender. That might help your search more.
I know, i am looking for a nice decent right front fender to modify to convertible use.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TIMMYS89GTA
thats very good news indeed andy,i will be going to the local j/y tomorrow morning i haven't been there in a couple weeks but if its still avail. i will check out that right fender.i can't wait to see this thing brought back to its true glory,once again good luck man,and i'll let ya know how things look here.timmy
Thanks again, Timmy you are the man!
Last edited by ANDYZ28; 05-18-2007 at 10:42 PM.
Reason: Automerged Doublepost
A "REPAIRED" title? In my eyes that would be the same as a salvage. I mean really, what would you think of if you saw that on a car you wanted to buy? If it means "ground up restoration" then I stand corrected.
You should be prepared to keep the car and deposit love into it forever.
i already did this before and my car is fixed now,but i have a salvage title. i think i might bring mine out of state for a while so i can switch it back to clear.
