Well, as far as I’m concerned, the Rollover Explorer has outlived it’s usefulness and will soon be dragged off of my property, to be ground down into tiny bits, never to hurt another soul. I’d say I’d miss the truck, but I won’t. It was all but dead on arrival, but a push of the button on the fuel pump relay and the truck fired to life and settled into an idle. Even after the “mild”, frame-tweaking, body mangling rollover, the check-engine light was clear, and ignoring the very torqued rear axle’s binding on the passenger side, even drove pretty well up and down the street. But all things come to an end, and last month the 302 and 4R70W automatic trans, the main trophies from the wreck, were recovered and are in the middle of being cleaned up and checked out. But there was still a lot of mangled SUV left over…so why not try to make a little cash on the side?
Here’s how this works: we purchased the Explorer, whole, for $400. As far as I’m concerned, the powertrain alone was worth more than that, so anything we made after the fact is profit. So what did we manage to find within this pile that made us money? Here’s the breakdown:
The front differential, front drive shaft, axle shafts, front hubs, console lid and driver/rear outer door handle went to an older gentleman from Tennessee who probably got the deal of a lifetime at $102 for the whole kit, delivered to him in Nashville. I had absolutely no use for them, while he had a truck that badly needed them. Hope they serve him well. Nice guy…offered to buy me lunch on top of the deal.
The short length axle from the 8.8 rear is sitting in my garage…it was the only recoverable item from the rear axle. The 3.73 gears, specifically the pinion gear, refused to exit under any accord whatsoever. We are cutting losses and will score a different unit for a rear axle instead. The one Goodyear Wrangler RTS tire on the truck went to the owner of the Ford Super Duty we featured as The Revival free of charge…he’s helped us out plenty.
The same guy got the head unit and the mirror movement switch for the Super Duty while he was at it for his own needs, and scored the front seats for a friend of his at work who will be fitting them into a Jeep. We didn’t make money on this deal, but for that gentleman, it’s worth it…he’s helped us out over the years and I’m happy to help him out whenever I can.
So far, that is $100 up on a $400 wreck…not bad. Scrap is fetching $80/ton at press time, but I might hae to shell out $45 in order to get the wreck hauled off of the property. All in all, buying and dealing with the Rollover Explorer went far better than expected. I’ll be happy to see it go, the wife will be happy to see it go, and the neighbors will finally quit leaving me notes on my front door, which will be great! Rest in peace, you beautiful parts donor…
My neighbors don’t leave notes. They just call the city. Not just me, but anyone in the neighborhood gets called on.
Reminds me of one of my better deals – I’ve got a 73 Falcon coupe which was a 6 cyl 4 speed car and 4 or 5 years ago the engine was getting very tired. I bought a 77 Fairlane (Aussie ZH model) for $500 for its engine, a 351 Cleveland. The car itself was really rusty bur ran and drove, hence the cheapo price. Going thru the glovebox I found the warranty for the rebuilt engine – bargain!- turns out it was a 1971 block , even better. So, like you, I thought well 500 for that engines great, whatever else I get is profit.. so.. $350 for the wheels and tyres off it, 400 I was able to sell my old 6 for, remote mirrors / stereo / same as GT courtesy lights and factory cassette played netted 200 from a guy restoring one, and the rest of the car, which had a 9″ diff, I got 500 for so $1450 in other bits – take away the original purchase of 500 is what $950 profit and a free recond 351! how can you go wrong??
I bought a 1973 elcamino ss. It was all original but rusty and did not run. It had the floorshifter and swivel seats plus gauge cluster instead of idiot lights. I took all of it and the sport mirrors plus other stuff i needed for my base malibu. I bought the elco for 500 dollars. I put all my malibu parts back in and resold it for 1500 dollars to a guy that just had to have it. Love it when a plan comes together
When I did the LS swap in my truck, I bought a wrecked 2002 Avalanche. The truck was $750, I kept engine, trans, wiring, pcm, and exhaust. Over time I sold the rest for $805. At the time I lived in a rental, however my land lord gave me a green light to keep the Avi until it was parted.