When is it time to call it quits?

Ok, when is it time to give up on a vehicle? I mean when do you count your losses in parts and say enough is enough and just get rid of the vehicle for whatever amount you can get out of it or for scrap price?

Is there any guidance out there as to determining this? I'm kind of starting to get a feeling I'm at that point with my Bronco 2. I'm not sure how to handle it because it does run and drive, just the body and interior are just far beyond my financial ability to work with anymore. I don't feel comfortable selling it to anyone as there's plenty of rust issues to deal with and other issues too long to list on here.

define "rust issues". what is the condition of the running gear. you may just have a beater. beaters are good to have.

I gauge it by how much I can afford to borrow/pay to buy a new(er) vehicle...

Had my Tempo for 14 years...floorboards were shot and I figured I could fix that...then the clutch went on it after 400,000 kms...the cost would have been $600 to replace it (plus, plus, plus as it goes) and it also needed a few other things...I let it sit for about 6 months because I happened to have the Ranger ready to go...

Then I couldn't keep it at the place where it was stored and had it scrapped...

So if you've got another vehicle and a place to store the BII...hang onto it...you never know, you just might win a lottery or inherit a whack of cash...

Unless your B2 has frame rust issues, I think your overreacting.unless your a perfectionist and can't stand looking at a few holes .I've saw dents I've made on my 99 and I was like wtf is this lol so I understand. I have seen your pictures and the rust doesn't look too bad. If I knew how to upload pictures off of my phone, i could put up a chebby s10, minivan and at least 20 or 30 other cars at my schools parking lot that look 10 times worse. Like seriously this s10 has 3/4 of the bedside eaten up.

Driving an imperfect car hurts way less than paying for a new one. The devil you know is the better devil-you know what's not right or may be close to failure.

You want an acceptable:
Frame
Suspension
Seat belt

If the engine runs but isn't 100%, who cares? unless it's getting close to death.

My DD has just enough heat to defrost the dash, no AC, slow, a little rattley, etc. etc. but it doesn't eat too much oil and it gets me where I need to go. The once a month repair session is 100x nicer than a $500 payment + higher insurance + worrying about people backing into it, etc.

Yep, what was said above.

If the frame is good, start working on the rest of it as you can afford it. I would do the floorboards first. get the sheetmetal (lmc truck maybe?) and have it welded in. To save bucks you can strip out the interior yourself and drive the truck over with just the driver seat. put new body mounts and hardware on at that time as well.

Then do the rear quarter panels and fender arches. make sure to primer and undercoat it really well.

The rest of the truck can be replaced with bolt on parts (for themost part) with a little help from another friend.

Then when you are rolling in the money, have it painted

Or, just patch weld the bad spots and drive it as is until it dies, or wheel it until it dies

AJ

Has anyone actually paid to have a restoration done? I've been told its extremely expensive. Since I don't have a shop to work in, nor the tools, time and money that's what i'd have to do is have a shop do the repairs. My thought was to get rid of this B2 to get another one in better condition. Well, at least it sounds better than trying to spend $15k+ on restoring a truck that will still not be worth anything in the end. I could spend the money and have it restored but you could never get out of it what you put into it.

The interior is already stripped due to water leaking in from I'm guessing the firewall somewhere as it leaks in on both the passenger and driver side. The driver's side floorboard is separating so I need to find someone with a welder to weld that back together.

I'm not sure if there's any frame rust, its been covered in grease and oil since I got it. Had the majority of the oil leaks in the engine fixed, however it still leaks somewhere as there't still fresh oil spots on the carport where I parked it. I think its just a never ending battle. At least the oil leaks are manageable now in I have been driving it for about 2 weeks now and haven't had to put any oil in it, where before it was drive it 3 days add a quart of oil LOL.

The rust is on the passenger side mainly and panels would need completely replaced I would assume you couldn't just go in and cut out and weld stuff in and have it look good given all the formed parts where the rust is. I'm sure the frame is rusted to crap as well since from what I gather the truck spent many years in Utah in the salt.

Is there anything I could do myself with simple tools to help fight the rust so it won't keep eating up body panels?

I don't mind driving it as it is really, especially the way people drive around where I live. Figure if they run into the Bronco 2 no huge loss LOL. Except maybe I should think about better insurance on it, so I'd at least get some of my money back out of it if its wrecked, which I would assume if it was wrecked though it would be a total by the insurance company considering it would cost more to fix than total it.

Its just hard to look at it and know what it needs and not have money to do what I would love to do with it. I'd really love to be able to have it taken in and do a completely frame off restoration type thing. Get it back to show-room condition, but that's very expensive.

Drive it till I wear out the new tires at least LOL.

You could buy at least three very similar rigs in acceptable to top-notch shape for what it would cost to totally restore yours....sentimental value not factored in of course.

if the running gear is in good shape, a cheap option is to find a clunker that has a good body bad running gear and make the body change. Would be able to do outside if you have a place to work and easy if you find the right model to replace yours. You can find these in the southwest pretty much needing engines etc. Look at craigs lists and search AZ, NM,etc.

Also look for a small independent shop that does auto body and ask them how much for the body switch or even just swap the eng trans into the receiver and go from there. You have a bunch of options depending on what you want to do. I would not sink big bucks into one of these as like you said there is no return value.

http://tucson.craigslist.org/search/cto?zoomToPosting=&catAbb=cto&query=bronco+II&minAsk=&maxAsk=&autoMinYear=&autoMaxYear=&autoMakeModel=&excats=

The crappy thing about a restoration is it doesn't cost much more to restore something everybody wants like a Mustang than it does an RBV. And it is hard to come out ahead on restoring even musclecars let alone 30 year old compact trucks.

It sounds like your cowl is rotted out, leaves go down the huge slots at the base of the windshield and plug the drains, collects water and rots out the steel. There are two silver covers you can pull off of the engine side of the firewall to clean it out, I try to do mine once a year. Pull the blower motor too, stuff collects down there as well. Delicate surgery to fix.

If you want to stay with a RBV you may be better off to get one with a better body and keep your old one for parts or a beater.

I know you have a newer Tundra so you don't really depend on it, I bet it is probably more of a toy than anything. Mine is too, if things get tight it doesn't cost me much to leave it sit until things open up a little. I have no plans of selling it so the "return on investment" thing doesn't count so much. Hopefully if god-forbid something happened to it I could salvage a lot of the $$ back out of it.

I am poor so I drive beaters...every time I tried to make something nice it got broke into,vandalized or stolen(73 datsun 620-never recovered)..... so my motto on rigs now is , built to go-not for show

85_Ranger4x4 said:

It sounds like your cowl is rotted out, leaves go down the huge slots at the base of the windshield and plug the drains, collects water and rots out the steel. There are two silver covers you can pull off of the engine side of the firewall to clean it out, I try to do mine once a year. Pull the blower motor too, stuff collects down there as well. Delicate surgery to fix..

Click to expand...

mine leaks on both sides too.... I was thinking windshield....hope its not the cowl....I looked in there and it looked clean, just some surface rust

90longbed said:

I am poor so I drive beaters...every time I tried to make something nice it got broke into,vandalized or stolen(73 datsun 620-never recovered)..... so my motto on rigs now is , built to go-not for show

Click to expand...

I've purchased 2 new vehicles and they were trashed within 5 years (as far as looking new or otherwise undamaged)...and my Suzuki Sidekick was in mint condition when I got it...people would slam their doors into it, run shopping carts at it, and generally disrespectful...one guy even left me two slices of baloney on the hood one night...not enough for a sandwich but enough to make you say "hmmmmm..."

Now, with my mighty 88 Ranger...people actually move out of my way and walk a fair distance from it instead of passing by in case something falls off on them or they get caught up on some of the rust hanging on the rear wheel wells...

Combined with the trail of oil smoke behind me I don't usually have to worry about idiots getting too close to my back end...

Ahhhhh....

Well, I had an 88 F-150, rusted out, dying slowly, but it was my transportation to point A to B, it ran fine, it's up to you if you want to keep it, if it's costing you more to keep it running and driving than it would be to buy something different. Appearance is really a last thing you should worry about, if you can get it mechanically sound, then you can slowly work on making look the part.