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What should I look for; Buying an alpine from a co-worker?

Series6

Past President
Gold Level Sponsor
Ghoul,

You're not planning to offer those jeweled dashes for sale by chance, are you? (I had to ask:eek:)
 

Mikeflbmer

Bronze Level Sponsor
Nice job BUT.....

Nice job on dash and booster, but please cover that ugly face of nancy Pelosi (newspaer) Hurts to look at it! Mike
 

wipeout

Donation Time
Nice job on dash and booster, but please cover that ugly face of nancy Pelosi (newspaer) Hurts to look at it! Mike

Actually, thats a good place for her pic. The only other place I can think to put that paper is in a bird cage.

:p
 

the ghoul

Donation Time
been slackin!
I dropped by the parents place yesterday and saw the horrible conditions the alpine has been living in :(

here is the long and short of it:
as some of you may recall i didnt have the $ to get the body professionally stripped so i was in the middle of sand blasting, por-15, and priming the body little by little. that is now sitting half done. with the majority of the minor patch metal fabrication done (inner wheel wells, trunk corners ect..)
I have successfully gotten the two cars worth of parts and patch metal assembled into a semi-soild underbody/chassis (body skins are still off of it). Im trying to find the budget to place one big patch-metal order.

Here has been the stalling point on this project; though ive been able to successfully dodge the issue for 26 years life finally caught up with me, since the last time ive posited ive gotten married, bought a house, turned 27, wrecked my daily driver, bought a 92 civic hatch back, did alot of custom body work to it (Taking my tinkering aggression out on it), traded that for my current daily driver 94 honda delsol. Im currently working as much OT here at work as possible to make the bills a little easier to deal with, been working on the house as much as possible (still don’t have the trim work done inside!). I wanted to get the garage in my new place setup before i moved the alpine out there, but im just so sick of going by the parents place just to see it sitting in the garage neglected.

hopefully before November i will move the alpine and all the bits to the new place, and start turning these two car dollies i have into a rotisserie for her. Ill work some more patch metal, but im dead sure i dont want to sandblast it by hand any more! too messy and too time consuming.. i will be pinching pennies and just get it all professionally stripped.

so thats the game plan and thats where it sits for the moment...
at this rate it will be done and ready for enjoyment upon my retirement :(
 

howard

Donation Time
I could never have afforded (time and monetarily) to keep and work on an Alpine when I was in my 20's. Had to wait for the kids to leave home. I think it's all a matter of timing.
 

the ghoul

Donation Time
I could never have afforded (time and monetarily) to keep and work on an Alpine when I was in my 20's. Had to wait for the kids to leave home. I think it's all a matter of timing.

I think you may be right...
other than the 1/4 skins and second set of suspension thats sitting out side, the rest of the car is nesseled safely in ma and dads garage for the time being. It will be safe there untill i can get things sorted...
 

the ghoul

Donation Time
I think you may be right...
other than the 1/4 skins and second set of suspension thats sitting out side, the rest of the car is nesseled safely in ma and dads garage for the time being. It will be safe there untill i can get things sorted...

I said this on december 7th 2009 and havent touched her since....
time to put her up for sale and move her on to some one that will do something with her.... (listed in the classified section)
 

the ghoul

Donation Time
I said this on december 7th 2009 and havent touched her since....
time to put her up for sale and move her on to some one that will do something with her.... (listed in the classified section)

I really need to stop making plans... I change my mind far to frquently.
while in the process of cleaning every thing out of my parents garage, bringing it to my house and organizing it all, I decided Im still in love with her. Come friday while most of yall will be enjoying the Invasion, I will be picking up a uhaul trailer and bringing her to her new home (my house) and hopefully will start making some progress on her.
I natrually will keep this up to date!
 

the ghoul

Donation Time
It was a long hard days work but I got the remains of the alpine project out of my parents and into my drive!
Now where did I put that assembly manual.....
BFC85323-568B-4545-BD69-9E5D168F0739-1709-0000038DD45BF5D2_zps8eedf903.jpg
 

the ghoul

Donation Time
got her tucked into her new home... had to get a bit creative with where to stow every thing (picture of the peak line above the garage door)
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at leaset I have extras
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started looking every thing over with 'fresh' eyes....
I realized I'm insane
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the ghoul

Donation Time
(continued, as I have more than 4 pics)
at least the drivers side is better
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and the floor is good
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so good bad or other, Im still in this thing...
at least every thing is co-existing nicely in the garage
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the ghoul

Donation Time
Ok,
I'm two days into adapting two matco 1,000 lb engine stands into a body rotisserie. Basically what I did was took the short legs of the engine stands and cut the caster mount pads off of them then tossed them asside, bought two 5' sticks of 1.5"x3" tubing with 1/8" side wall (closest they had to the steel used to make the stands origionally) then I welded the pads to the sticks and mounted them as replacements for the long legs. I then took the origional long legs of the stands and swapped positions and mounted them to where the short legs used to be (this required cutting off a few tabs but no biggie).
I snagged an extra set of swivel casters from my engine, this then gave me one set of fixed casters (I mounted them to one of the inside legs) and 3 sets of swivel casters. I made the center section with 7'11" of 1.5"x3" tubing (again 1/8" wall) and some 1/8" steel plate for the bracing.
Next is the part I wasn't too confident in, I split the "back bone" of the engine stands and welded in 11" of pipe I scavinged from the short legs I set asside earlier. I'm a professionally trained and certified welder but its not something I do every day so I wasn't initially confident in my welds. They seem to have burned in nicely however... That asside, I still may go back and brace them later..
I really hope I don't have to weld the folding mechanisms or the bolted joints once I have the body mounted as it currently folds and stores very nicely!
So far it's only been a $150 investment ( as I already had the engine stands, extra set of casters and the 1/8" plate. Hopefully by the end of the weekend the body will be mounted....
4EEF6286-4C32-46FD-A06C-4DB7788683E7-3748-000006BFA803DD97_zpsd86cba21.jpg

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the ghoul

Donation Time
Just about ready,
Got the front and rear spreader bars done and mounted to the stand heads, did some side bracing on the uprights ( was able to mount them using bolts so they still can fold) just need to add some more gussets then all I need is to fab the body mounts....
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the ghoul

Donation Time
Ok so, that was one of the most terrifying things I have ever done!
Using a cherry picker attached to steel bars you welded to the car 3 years ago (before you knew how to weld!) attached with a chain of un-known load capasidy to lift a car with rear end and front suspension still attached onto a home made rotisserie.*
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but *I'm happy to announce, after extensive load testing, she appears to be solid!
DSC02111_zps0a68baf1.jpg
 

the ghoul

Donation Time
After I got her tucked away in the garage, I got my first really good look at the underbody... For a Michigan car I don't think we're starting off too badly..*
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