Well, I recently purchaced a canadian 86.5 Gt. and well, it has visable rust. The trunk sides are rusted out about 8" x 8" on either side, and the upper rail thingys beside the air box and by the battery are rusted fairly badly. The car sits square, but I haven't had it up on a hoist to see the cradle damage.
The price was right, so I assumed there was some work to be done, and I bought it for a first car-project anyway. It does run well, but leaks oil.(engine swap??hmm...) body-paint quite good for a black car, and the interior is almost perfect.

Anyway, I am trying to decide that since I am not putting this car on the road until atleast next summer(2003), about how long does it take to strip the car down completely, to a driveable spaceframe? because I really like this car, and want to have it for a long time so I am considering stripping it and repairing any bad frame pieces before I start fixing suspension, engine, brakes, exhaust, and putting it on the road.
Any suggestions or info on time it took you would be greatly appreciated.

In the long run I would like a practically new/safe car, but its so tempting to just fix what it need to cert. and then drive. Oh well, atleast I have one, now I can make some decisions.

-Brandon

It should only take a half day to remove all the body panels. A day at the most.

The hardest is the roof/pillars piece. It is stuck on with some sticky rubber stuff, and will crack if you pry too hard.

There are some studs on both roof pices that stick down through the steel frame, you will have to remove the headliner to get at them. That is about the only parts that are hard to get off.

There are screws and rivets that hold a lot of the panels together underneath the mold strips and side marker lights.

At the rear, you can take out the big weird screws from above the tail lights, to remove them, then you will find the rest of the screws that hold on the top.

The door panels have screws and/or rivets down the front and back and bottom, and some rubber glue blobs that hold it to the door frame along the top, these can be popped off if you pry gently and gradually along the top edge. You obviously have to remove the mirrors first though.

Hope this helps ya

------------------
Gerald Storvik

http://www.8shark.com/

Thanks!
I am seriously considering doing this, this spring. Any other tips/ suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

-Brandon

Make sure that you take a good look at the upper frame rails by the strut towers. I found that mine had almost rusted through (was able to put finger through the metal) that surface rust is sometimes deceptive. If you need to replace the rails check out BubbaJoe's site (http://members.fortunecity.com/bubbajoexx/index.htm) he posted some pics on frame rail replacement.