Part 5 - Requiem for a project

The classic "50/50" car

There is a thin, thin line between a project and a money pit.  The point at which the scales tip and that feeling of "this (insert car here) is going to be the best (insert car here) ever once I get A done, and B done, and C..." becomes "Hmm, does it REALLY need that much time/effort/money?"

My tipping point, or, "moment of clarity" with Rattle Can Resto came after installing the struts and brakes, detailed in Part 4.  I was feeling pretty good about the truck; it was running and riding well.  Only problem was that the driver's seat was never mounted very solidly.  It would rock around a little bit, and I could never get new bushings installed.

There used to be a jack point here...

Call it selective blindness or over enthusiasm, but with all the mechanical work I'd done on the truck, I never really dug into the condition of the body.  Sure, I looked at the holes in the A-pillar, and picked up a new door and fender to replace those damaged and/or rotted, but I never really gave the truck a good long look underneath until after installing the new struts.

What I found when I really looked; really divorced myself from what I convinced myself of when I bought the truck, was that this truck was about as rusty as any 25 year old Volkswagen that has seen a Winter in the northeast.  The entire length of the inner rockers are beyond saving, including the parts I figured I'd attach any replacement floors to.  In fact, when I attempted to pull the carpet

...and here

And this is the GOOD side

out to assess the situation, I discovered that it has been glued onto the floorboard, and was providing a good amount of the structural integrity for the floor, and by extension, seats.

Finally facing the reality of the situation, I came to the difficult but obvious conclusion that this project, to clean up and restore this work vehicle on the cheap, was done.  With this truck's primary purpose in mind, running to the home improvement center or bulky waste on the weekend, embarking on an extensive, time and resource consuming restoration project was out of the question.  Time to cut my losses and run.

One last run...

Before I did, we went for one last run, to pick up my long awaited air compressor.  Considering the size and top-heaviness of the compressor, the ride home from the store was uneventful.  Slow, but uneventful.

After a couple fall calls, I finally sold the truck to a guy in Springfield, who came to look at it in a similar Rabbit truck, but in (believe it or not) much worse condition.  "One man's junk is another man's treasure."  Or so the saying goes.

Seeing how I'm 0-2 on project Volkswagens (0-4 if you include my original Jetta and the aborted Group 2 Golf rally car) I think I'm going to take a break for a while.  The Rabbit pickup has been replaced with a 1987 Dodge short bed pickup.  Two-wheel drive and a Slant 6 isn't much better than the Rabbit, but then again it is rust free.  I can fix the rest.  The Fastback continues to sit in the garage, waiting on warmer weather to prod me into getting back to work.

Looks good from a distance, doesn't it?

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