Complete and utter disassembly

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NoCar340

NoCar340

The Original Partstitute
Joined
Oct 23, 2022
Messages
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Location
Upper Peninsula MI
When I bought my '70 Swinger 340, it came with another nearly-complete, never-hot-rodded '70 Swinger with a Slant Six and AC. There's very little rust on the parts car: Excellent floors, trunk & extensions, rails, wheelhouses, etc. The driver's side quarter is already off, which I have. They removed it at the spotwelds except at the roof, where they sawzalled it. Grrrr... it was a perfect quarter panel.

Anyhow, I want to use anything from the Slant car that I need for the Swinger 340. I'm trying to avoid reproduction sheetmetal. I have no room to store the parts car for any length of time, so my plan is to dismantle it completely. That means cutting nearly every bloody spotweld on the car so that anything useful will remain so. What I need, I'll keep. What I don't need will be sold to save other cars. Yes, anything and everything will be posted in the classifieds at some point, including the underhood complete AC system minus the missing condenser.

Has anyone else ever done this? If so, have you any advice to pass along as to the procedure? Yes, I realize how much work this will be, but good original sheetmetal is well worth it for my car and others'. I'm guessing "start at the roof and work down" but if someone's already done this, I'll gladly listen to any advice or tips they might have.
 
mopar head said:
I`ve done it to a C barge, never again.
You`ve got your work cut out for you, have fun.
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Yeah, I'm aware. There were something like 200 just to get the roof and drip rails off my Challenger. But hey, winter's upon us, I've nothing (much) better to do, and I want to get the 340 car to the body shop as soon as I can. That means getting the parts I need off the car, so while I'm out there and in the mood, I may as well keep right on going. I'm sure this is something I'll never want to repeat, but nearly all of the sheetmetal is worth saving. Even the best reproductions are a far cry from OE.
 
I did it on a 75 Duster. I was amazed on what people were looking for parts wise. Didn't do much sheet metal, although one guy did want the roof, but it never came through. Parted it out to nothing and then had the wrecker haul what was left of the body away and got $250 for it. I really enjoyed it, tbh. I liked helping other members with parts.
 
plumkrazee70 said:
I did it on a 75 Duster. I was amazed on what people were looking for parts wise.
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I scrapped a '74 Challenger in September after parting it for everything it was worth. It was completely rotten, with the exception of the rear seat area--both the cross-braces and the package tray--and the rear-deck filler panel. A tree had fallen on it to boot. Every fastener worth taking was removed and stored. I cut the filler panel out and scrapped the husk. A few days later a FEBO member was looking for a package tray and cross-braces. I felt so bad that I'd crushed those parts, because he was having a devil of a time finding them. One man's trash, right? I don't want to repeat that mistake.
 
NoCar340 said:
I scrapped a '74 Challenger in September after parting it for everything it was worth. It was completely rotten, with the exception of the rear seat area--both the cross-braces and the package tray--and the rear-deck filler panel. A tree had fallen on it to boot. Every fastener worth taking was removed and stored. I cut the filler panel out and scrapped the husk. A few days later a FEBO member was looking for a package tray and cross-braces. I felt so bad that I'd crushed those parts, because he was having a devil of a time finding them. One man's trash, right? I don't want to repeat that mistake.
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I hear ya. I still have a front end of a 69 dart upstairs spindle to drum. I need to break it apart and list it
 
I did that several times. It took me about a week (a full 7 days) to do one car using a spot weld cutter (actually several of them). Start with all the unbolt parts. Then top to bottom as the car is on jack stands. Keep the drill speed low, drill bit sharp, and use plenty of cutting oil. I still found I needed to use an air chisel in a few spots to pop some panels loose. I used long sleeve leather welding gloves to keep the purple hearts to a minimum. Goggles of course, and if you use any other power tools, ear protection and sometimes a face mask/filter. Extra jack stands help a lot too when you get down to the floor pan and frame rails. Glad I don't have to do that anymore! It's tons of work. I found it more economical to just cut parts off with a Sawzall back when parts cars were easier to find. Today, it may make more sense to save everything rather than sacrifice some parts to save/sell others. Pretty labor intensive to do it that way though.
 
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