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$200 what would you buy?


Rusty Bomb

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Lets say you have $200 a rusty car in need of paint and body repair.

 

What would you spend it on?

 

Cheap paint and a booth rental and just paint it so it looks good from far

 

buy a welder and patch a couple panels

 

Buy a can of bondo fill the holes and spray paint the car

 

Go buy some fiberglass and carbon fiber and go try and make a cf hood

Edited by Rusty Bomb
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I bought my 280z for $400 so it had a lot of surface rust and didn't run. so I put most of my money into getting it to run well and getting it decent looking. i dont have the money for a full restoration or a good paint job so i'm patching a couple small holes and bondo/primering the whole car so it looks decent from afar. I want to drive it a little before i leave for a few months this summer so im just making it good enough so i dont get hassled about it on the road. if you only have $200 i'd say make it look good and prevent it from rusting out more until you save enough money to do it right.

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Some shiny wheels, or some sweet poly bushings, or, or an air dam! Then strip the car and have it sit on jackstands, indefinitely. :P:lol:

 

In all seriousness, my point is don't get caught up in appearances or "performance" parts. Figure out what it needs the most and get it done.

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Honestly, if $200 is all I had to work with I wouldnt bother spending it. If the car isnt too bad (and youre interested in keeping it) put the car away somewhere where it wont rust away and save money to do things properly. If the car is a rust bucket I'd sell it or scrap it and buy something that is worth saving.

Edited by h4nsm0l3m4n
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Get a cheap harbor freight grinder, a stack of "flap disks" and strip the car of all the paint. Then work on fixing all the rust and other body issues.

 

I'm currently doing this, just make sure you make a paint "booth" in your garage. Other wise all the old paint particals will be over everything.

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If the car is THAT rusty, consider your long term goals.

 

Now consider why you bought the car.

 

Now consider what you LIKE about the car.

 

 

If you bought the car for the looks, then maybe that's where you want to invest. You could at least get body panels down to bare metal and prime red for that money, but that's still a LONG way off from really "restoring" the body. Getting into FG or CF isn't cheap. Sure you "could" make a panel for $200, but consider the fact you're making a mold, curing that mold, making sure the mold didn't inherit any issues from the panel you pulled it from. Now you have to lay the piece out and then attach it, which can be a REAL process to get it to line up well, even as well as stock. This is a BIG project and to start to understand how big it is, buy a good book on composite body work.

 

If what you bought the car for, and like about it, is the way it drives and the driving experience is king, invest that direction. And better yet, make sure you spend money on something that can be transferred to a different S30 down the road if possible. But for $200, my money would go either into bushings or tires, whichever is in worse shape. With the spare change left over buy some basics that you don't own, maybe a grease gun, chemicals (pb blast, loctite, fast orange and the like go a long way to making your garage feel like a real garage), or maybe a breaker bar and torque wrench. I spent almost $200 this January just on tools (christmas gift cards mostly). Those tools making garage time much more efficient and profitable if I look at it through the reality of the work I get done better and faster.

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Post a pic or two of your cars condition. Without seeing the visual condition it's just a guessing game, but taking into consideration that you are surrounded by that glorious pacific ocean, I'd venture to guess that it is in need of alot of rust removal. I've had several "island beaters" on Oahu in the past that came close to falling apart. One was an early 80's Subaru gl that was owned by a researcher that parked on the research pier in Waimanalu facing rabbit island. You could almost reach into the car by the lower door panels. I didn't care as a highschool senior at the time, as long as it carried my boards and friends to the beach, it was all good.

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I would spend the $200 on sufficient quantities of intoxicating fluids, such that the paint job and condition of the body would begin to resemble that of a championship-winning hot rod.

 

If genuine reality is intractably out of reach, compensate through solipsistic surrogates. The keenest satisfaction is not in the production of a beautiful machine, but in the reorientation of one's sensibilities to obviate the need for great effort towards ultimately unsatisfying pursuits.

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Is it insured? Then invest in some gasoline, and a LONG piece of fuse cord, and light it up, collect the insurance and buy another vehicle..or a lawyer if you caught.

 

Seriously 200.00? does it run? bondo/rustoleum some tools, and some parts to get the car to run well. Used tires if need be etc. If your VERY resourceful and have some connections/contacts in the car world or better yet, the Z car world, you may just get the car running enough to drive it.

 

Goodluck, and make sure your brakes are working..Don't want to pollute the ocean with your car as you fly down a coastal road too fast around a curve!

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S**T, Shanghai is pricy... Shenzhen you'd get 5 whores plus the rest for that. I hope the Shangers ones are lookers.

 

Shenzhen KTV is around 500RMB, let's not kid ourselves here and try to pull the wool over anybody's eyes. Sure you can get the 300RMB variety but that's a few minutes in any bar for 'free' as well.

 

Truthfully, the Johnnie Walker is more expensive in the hotel than the girls are... But I can't drink three liters on my own in one night.

 

At least I don't think I can... :unsure:

 

hmmmmmmmmm...

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