"Hutmacher, Greg" wrote:
................~edited~.......
> . It looks like
> someone did a very bad attempt at an amateur restoration. It has a very BAD
> paint job. It looks like someone painted it at home with a can of Krylon.
>
> .................snip................
> someone put in some type of flimsy patch panels over the floors.
O.K. This car has poorly done work that you can see. What about the
poorly done work you can't see?
> There is
> rust bubbling through the left outer rocker panel towards the back. Based
> on this, I would assume that both sills have rust filled in with bondo under
> that bad paint.
Yes, that's a valid assumption. That is some hidden work acting up, and when
you sand those blisters down, it's like discovering an iceberg from the very
tip.
When a cars rusts out from the inside like this the paint is usually the last
thing
to go-- the real damage is undeneath.
> The interior looks pretty good, ironically. Looks like
> that's where the PO spent the money (new seats, carpet, wood dash, etc.)
And an easy weekend. An interior set on a bad paint job is like a band-aid
on a boken bone; it is an ineffective remedy.
> It
> has an ugly aftermarket steering wheel.
I will state that TR 250 wheels are hard to come by, but TR 6 wheels would
work,
and look closer to original. But they may have been too much effort to locate
for this
hacker.
> The car has wire wheels and red
> lines and they appear to be in decent shape.
The only way to tell the condition of wire wheels is to remove them and look at
the
inside splines.
> Biggest problem is the body. I
> have no experience with rust and am scared to death of it.
Then this will be easy...DO NOT BUY THIS CAR. From what you've described,
this car needs a complete, frame off restoration. New floors and rockers can
only
be replaced by removing the body from the frame, and there is quite a bit of
welding
to be done. The true extent of the rust-out on this car could only be acurately
estimated
by a bodyman, since it is painted and bondoed over. Figure on all you see and
then
about half again as much more. The real rust areas (the rear "fins", areas of
the frame,
and lower rear of the front fender) weren't even mentioned in your inspection
report.
And as for the engine,well, think about what this guy said the body was like
over the
phone, what it actually was like in real life, the use that ratio to apply it to
the mechanicals.
> Living in Texas
> all my life, I've been mercifully spared from it.
I wonder what this car was doing there then, it must have come from the rust
belt.
> Anybody want to take a
> stab at what a 250 is worth in the condition I've described? What is a 250
> worth in restored or excellent condition? Hemmings isn't much help.
Hemmings never is much help, except in locating things. Normally Hemmings
cars are way
overpriced. An excellent TR 250 is worth problably about 8-10 thousand. I give
a wide
range here because there is a wide range of "excellent". Working backwards from
excellent,
figure about three to five thousand to pay somebody for the body work, about two
thousand
for an engine rebuild (if you want to rebuild it, and that depends on what the
car has in it now),
a thousand for the tranny (same as before) and another thousand for any other
thing that crops
up (chrome, electrical, suspension, etc) and you can see that this car isn't
worth much.
The other way to look at is, if you buy this car real cheap, and fix it
yourself, or contract out
the jobs, it will be like buying on the installment plan-- pay as you go. This
way you don't
have to pay a lot up front, get the car done to the quality and style you want,
and can have more
pride in ownership. Just be advised, it usually costs more and takes lot longer
than buying an
already restored car.
I think this car may not be right for you. But buying a TR is usually an
emotional thing, so I'd
advise not spending more than $1,000 on the car-- that would be even a little
too high. A price
of $500 to $800 would be fair. If the seller starts to balk, just tell him that
the poor bodywork
he did to the car bought the value way down, since now it involves extra cost
and time to have
it removed (as well as that new interior having to be removed) to have the job
done right. It
would have been better if he left the car alone.
Sorry for the cranky, downer tone of this letter, but I just get so upset when
I see cheesy, hack
bodywork done to a car that deserves better.
JOE IV
TR 250
WALLINGFORD,
CT. USA
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