Your right on the gfx, I should be looking at all years basically, hell I havent even completely ruled out a 4th gen lol. I would love to find a v6 chasis, with good floors, probably needing body work though for around 1500 with a good interior. but then I think about it and your rs forsale makes a ton of sense, since I could part out the drive train and have just over 1500 into then. with all the hard body work done. ask dirtybird, I change my damn mind 10 times a day what i should do:eek5:
this was the only reasoning i was talking to you about it. depending on your seats because they are the most expensive variable. great carpet if needed is $120 for the front and $63 for the rear through rock auto and that's shipped. don't tell anyone i told you that though.
the rest is all just tracking it down. you will never find a mint dash pad for less then $100. door pannels for $50, more even in black colors. 4thgen seats are really the only reasonable option as $100-150 in cloth is normal. the other is headliner. most shops charge $100+ to redo a headliner. so with this ideal figure on $500 for a newer looking interior on average plus your time to put it together.
now floors. to patch a floor it isn't necessarily difficult but it does take time. most shops will charge around $400+ unless you know them slightly less and this all depends on the floor. you can buy each side for $250 a piece but then you have to completely cut the floors out and it still looks patched when your done. why do that right? guess it all depends but i've found it much better to patch what's needed only rather then replace a whole side as there are many other things that have to be replaced structurally if you do a whole floor pan raising costs even more. again, like the interior you can do this yourself for $100 or so in sheet metal but then you have to account all the tools and your time.
quarters.. the first things to go on thirdgens. $1,200 according to most shops a side for gm. really only $800 a side through gm, they still have a few in stock yes. Or roughly $350 a side aftermarket. the quarters are two piece as i'm sure you know. this is for just the outer skins as the inner are no longer available. the aftermarket pieces are always rougly 1/16" too short... why is this important? because you have to cut the old one off and to make this gap work it takes alot, alot of time. i can show you many cars for sale that didn't take the time but again it depends on what your doing. hense the reason to fork over the $800 for new pannels on your own cherished car or pay a little extra for a clean used one. now, you can either replace the pannels or if it isn't too bad patch the quarters which is still better then buying aftermarket but again it costs money. the cheapest quote i ever received on any of my cars for quarter work was $550 for both sides. i let the shop do it only asking to please patch with metal. i just wanted to see knowing how much work it takes how they would do and sure enough it was bondo only.. so, i poked right through the quarters before i paid them for it as i asked specifically to metal patch them for that reason. had to strip it all down again and do it right.
so point being that wether someone thinks so or not a car with good quarters and good floors alone is definately worth $1,000 as that's much less then it costs to repair unless you can do it yourself at which point you have to figure out how much your time is worth to you. most body shops claim it's a 12 hour job to do it right per pannel. at least that's what they will charge your insurance. to find one less then that which hasn't been patched and is rust free is a gold mine in project car terms. i have heard of it... never seen it. also a main reason why most cars under 2k are driven to the ground or cut up for parts.
find one with even decent paint let alone runs/drives and rides decent then your really talking.
