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Dismantling a car.


messerschmitt owner

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Well, I have had this Citroen XM - dead and rusting - outside for over a year. The engine came out in the summer, and she was looking sorry for herself. I couldn't find a scrappy that would take it for nothing. In fact, with no wheels at the front and engine- and interior-less they wanted to charge me £80 to remove it. I'm Scottish and I went out and bought an angle grinder and twenty cutting discs instead. As I dismantled crudely i removed everything that could be salvaged and the wiring for recycling. So, we went from nearly a car, to a much reduced car in about nine hours over two weekends. Having bought a transit, I'm going to pop to the scrapyard now with the bulkhead and subframe without cutting them any more. In the meantime 1/2 a car has gone to the tip. A couple of parts of body went to a friend whose car needs some welding.

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I may be doing the same myself with a couple of donor cars, especially as one of them came without a v5.

It does go against the grain though, no matter how unloved, condemned and unlikely to return to the road again, to actually kill a car forever...

I'm massively procrastinating over final disassembly of my old panda, not too bothered about the engine donor for the 4x4 (an accident damaged Brava), but a car I had so much fun with and instantly loved is giving me a real hard time.

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Funny old bit of gravity you got there in your neck of the woods... you can be upside down and sideways... i'm right impressed!

 

I had to break up a couple of safranes over the last 6 years, it was hard work but i got a lot of parts i wanted to keep (and subsequently threw them in a skip when we moved - too much to take with me). I never cut up the chassis though - you're a brave man doing that. I did mull it over but then i got wimp and decided with me being somewhat accident prone, it wouldn't work out well and i'd be pretty buggered so i called the local scrap folks who were more than happy to take it.. though they did look a bit disappointed with the second one as it was literally just a shell and nothing else.

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You obviously got rid of the Safranes when steel was over £100 a ton. Cheapskates want to charge me! What was fascinating and the XM friend round today said so, was that, having cut it into pieces, you could see how it was constructed. There are a few parts with four sheets of metal making up things like the door pillars and roof.

 

have seven cutting discs left out of 22...

 

Tomorrow, I'm going to trya and get the remaining bits moved across the garden so I can move the UMM, then get the van on the driveway!

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I use the same approach with scrappers n parts cars, when everything useful has been 'harvested'; as I don't own a car transporter, and the local scrap collectors will literally hang up the phone, when you reveal  its been 'de'engined....

 

I have to say I hate the end 'cutting it to bits' process - time-consuming, exhausting messy and as you say, can actually cost you money - scrappies wont take the seats with a cut up shell', n the tip charge the same as a mattress to dump each seat, n its the carpets etc ontop.... Ive a 90s era audi a4 to 'process' this week after its relieved of its engine n box - I literally couldn't give parts away so seats etc will have to be brought to the tip; the rest will be trailored away in pieces to the scrap recyclers....

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I have a majorly chopped bulkhead and the back end left. Plus steering rack, which came out after my pal went home or it would have been in his car. It's an estate so the back end is different to the hatch. The back end is untouched underneath but will be chopped as soon as... The chassis rails were rusty at the front (from inner wing back for a bit), and one sill had gone totally (inner and outer - all the way to the passenger compartment. I don't know the condition of underneath of the back end.

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I have a majorly chopped bulkhead and the back end left. Plus steering rack, which came out after my pal went home or it would have been in his car. It's an estate so the back end is different to the hatch. The back end is untouched underneath but will be chopped as soon as... The chassis rails were rusty at the front (from inner wing back for a bit), and one sill had gone totally (inner and outer - all the way to the passenger compartment. I don't know the condition of underneath of the back end.

 

Well I need:

Section of floor under drivers right foot

Section of floor somehwere in the middle (between front seats I think)

Rear end of passanger sill

Drivers rear jacking point

Drivers inner wing towards the front

Front bumper support bracket

A good spare wheel carrier would be handy as there is hardly anything left of mine but that's low priority. Depends if the estate and hatch ones are different

 

I've got pics if you think you can help.

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replied to your club xm post before seeing this. 

 

no.1 Mine is an estate too.

 

I can check what is in the van to go to the tip tomorow for some of the front sections, I have spare wheel carrier, the two rear sills from the rear seat back (although cannot guarantee just how unrusty they may be) - and more importantly am in Perth in a month - driving up and down the M74...

 

I have the remains of the bulkhead to be cut up but the front inner wing area is shot on the driver's side!

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It seems like MattLikesXM may get the end of this but is there no chance a technical college would take the shell for welding practice?

 

On a similar note I once had to dispose of a couple of wind surfers I acquired for a party so I chopped them up an put them in the wheelie bin.

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replied to your club xm post before seeing this. 

 

no.1 Mine is an estate too.

 

I can check what is in the van to go to the tip tomorow for some of the front sections, I have spare wheel carrier, the two rear sills from the rear seat back (although cannot guarantee just how unrusty they may be) - and more importantly am in Perth in a month - driving up and down the M74...

 

I have the remains of the bulkhead to be cut up but the front inner wing area is shot on the driver's side!

 

Here are the pics I do have. I'm off work on Tuesday so can have another look if you still have anything left by then.

 

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I've given a few shells away to a couple of lads from facebook, they now pick up cars for me for free as long as they get to take away the remnants, I don't know what they do with the but it works for me. I do tend to leave the alloys on as the shell needs to roll so they will get a few quid out of it 

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Bare shell's can usually be given away on Facebook or something. Chopping up a shell is horrible work!

didn't work for me - I tried that and failed!  :-(

 

 

It is horrible work but not having done it before (well, I won't count the terminal Trojan bubble car I used a cold chisel and hammer on in a scrapyard to get the front axle out of about 25 years ago), it is interesting to see just how the car is put together.

 

Just been out to look at the rear sills on what's left - one side totally gone, the other crusty enough to put my fingers through at the bottom! I knew the passenger side was bad but the driver's side front was OK, but the back has been against a wall. I'll take some pics later.

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...Trojan bubble car I used a cold chisel and hammer

 

When I was at Uni the miserable old get who ran the garage I had a Saturday job at had me cut up a VW LT van with an axe and a lump hammer. He wouldn't let me use the grinder because, skinflint mingebag that he was, he reckoned I would have used too many discs.

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