Posted by leo | Posted in Car Development | Posted on 04-12-2009
A deal popped up on rx7club that seemed good for the team. One of the forum members up in Seattle had a White 1987 GXL RX7 (same year and model!) that they were parting out. I was originally just shopping for an alternator but it looked like he was getting rid of a whole car. For the right price, we really needed spare parts of everything. Lots of things can and do break during a 24 hour race. While racing with FreeRange we have been lucky enough not to need them (knocks on wood) but we have saved the race of more than one FX16/MR2 team who needed parts. This is high on my list of “good things I learned from other teams”. With the intent of keeping nearly everything off this car I was able to negociate a price of $400 for the car and all the parts. This included an aftermarket strut tower bar, exhaust, wheel, and short throw shifter. Upgrades!
The car had been in a collision with a semi (side swiped, hit and run too. Everyone was ok). Nearly every body panel on the car was bad. The good news was that it was driving fine less than a year ago and had spent that entire time wrapped up in a giant tarp under a car port.
I joined forces with a friend of mine who just happened to be taking an Audi up to Seattle to sell (the same weekend too). Towed the Audi up and brought the RX7 back.
On 11/15/09 we started work dismantling the car. This was our first major work day for the team. All hands were on deck! Max, Ben, Rob, and Nick all came down to get it torn down. No real major drama here. We managed to get nearly everything off in one day. The pictures will speak for them selves.
We found a complete set of these sockets hidden away in the back storage bins. Bonus!
Day 1 finished with a short list of things left to do. Front subframe, gas tank, rest of the carpets, heater core, head lights, and engine accessories. Less than 2 weeks later Gabe came over and we finished it up.
Rob works with a couple guys who offered to take the shell off our hands for the scrap metal money. Not wanting to deal with it we got them involved. I’m not sure they have done this much. A late night a couple days later, they came equipped with a saws-all and a toyota pickup. They eventually gave up cutting it in half and found a way to get it out… Apparently he even drove to work with it like this a couple days later.
Now we have a large pile of parts to sell and parts to keep. We should now have every part we need (and plus some!) to get our car running.
