Shibby's back from the dead DB8 teardown and rebuild

[shibbykins]

Thanks for tuning in. so first a little back story on this car and her... troubled past but bright future.

I picked up this car roughly sometime early May '14. Sold as a shell with a REEEEAAALLLYY messed up title. Like the guy whos name was on it sold it to some gal and it changed hand about 6 times in 2 years without anyone titling it.... yeah scary stuff. So the DB8 as she was presented was a clean title according to the DMV and all that so I took a chance and got it for $300 which she is worth scrap value plus whatever I pull from the car so no big whoop as it isn't stolen (cop friend ran vin) So Picture 1 will be the day I brought her home and offloaded her from the trailer.

Fast forward about 2 months I finally have some extra cash to truly devote to the DB8 instead of my daily driver DC and the wife's Escalade. So I do the whole name lookup for the guy on the title and come up with like 6 guys. So I just whitebook the address and call the number and wadda ya know I get the guy first try. So I explain the situation with the car and how its all in shambles and ask if he would be willing to meet me at the DMV to get a replacement title of which I will pay for and to my surprise he say hell yeah let go tomorrow. SWEET. Long story short we met up, he was a cool dude who had title issues with another car previously and he was more than happy to help me with it. 30 min later and $27.00 paid to the DMV title is in my name wham bam thank you maam clean title wahoo. I flipped the dude a $20 for gas and his time afterwards.

So at this point the deconstruction of the car begins. With the help of my daughter we stripped out the interior and some body stuff. I mean seats, carpets, headliner. Dash currently remains as I am sourcing a black one. I am a patient man.

So we already know by this point the doors and trunk are trashed along with windshield. Well I happen to have 4 mint doors from a wrecked sedan that my buddy and I parted out along with new tails and a trunk plus a fresh windshield. Sweet no money thus far invested in those parts. I need to go put them on when I can

I need to source a new sun/moonroof as the entire assembly is trash :evil: this kinda hold up and progress on the interior stuff for now. No biggie lets sort the mechanical stuff first.

Being how I am taking my time on this I have some stuff on hand and I will still have to order stuff when finances allow. Like on hand I have ITR rear sway, Function and form type 2 suspension, spare GSR front blue seats, a set of polish and a set of OEM Fat fives, 3 different dash clusters and several totes of misc stuff.

So some of you are wondering what I will be doing for a motor. WELL... remember that daily driver DC I mentioned? It is a LS with a GSR full swap. Motor and trans will be going into the DB8 and the DD will be converted back to a boring LS unless the wife decides she wants to have Vtec kick in....then ill have to find another motor and trans. No biggie plans can change.

So without further adieu I present the pictures of the car.


Unloaded from the trailer

Started pulling stuff off

yes someone scratched Acura and integra into the paint....

sorting stuff out

Damage to doors and trunk

 

[shibbykins]

today's progress was replacing the trunk and the worst door being the drivers rear door to see how bad the damage is to the quarter panel.

 

[JeremyB]

I wish I could find something like this. Every one I've seen around here they won't take less than $500, even if its totalled

 

[shibbykins]

Ive been pretty lucky with my teg finds. The black car you see in the background cost me $700 and it had a fresh off the boat from japan B20 in it with papers for it but the down side was the salvage title and messed up front so we are just parting it out.
The red doors and trunk are from a DB shell my bud and I got for $400 complete minus motor and trans. but with a smashed front end that wasnt THAT bad but it was still a salvage title. The Black leather interior from it went into his DB8. He just got for $400 a complete LS shell with clean title. Sometimes you just have to look.

 

[JeremyB]

Nice finds, yeah I need to get something like this that I can make into whatever I want. My current teg I'm limited because I drive it everyday.

 

[shibbykins]

Been a minute since I posted so here is a slight update about sourced parts.

So I sourced a complete sunroof with good glass, rails and motor for $30 locally. I had initially asked about the glass only and he told me 30 but when I went to pick up he gave me the whole assembly so fantastic. I had already repaired the existing rails with parts from another busted assembly so atleast I have a spare I guess. It been raining here so I installed it to help keep water out of the car.

Ordered some hardrace trailing arm bushings as the existing ones are shot. Figured might as well spend a little bit more since I plan to take the car out to the local ASR events every once in a while.

Scored a set of ITR DB8 rear seats for $150 gonna do a lil clean up on em and set em aside for when the interior gets put back in.

A buddy and I went halfsies on a DC shell for $400 so I now have a mint black dash with consoles. We parted out the rest of the car and made all our money back which is nice. So chock the interior pieces off as free in the grand scheme of things. Snagged some LCA's off that shell and they are blox ebay reps so I dont plan to use them.

Picked up one of these carbon fiber hoods at a swap meet for $40. Has a nice white paint job but I am taking it down to check the gelcoat and all that and if its good hit it with some clear. I dont know if I want to even use it for my DC or this car. Might just flip it since I plan to do the JDM front as I don't like the 94 front much.

A friend who does really good body and paint work quoted me $150 for the repair of the crushed area by the driver rear door. Hes pretty excited about the car and is going to respray the whole care for essentially cost. I want to stick with the green but I really like the euro CR-Z dark pewter metallic (NH773M) color. I fell in love with that color when I found a thread by a gent in Sweden with it on his DC2. We shall see what I decide I guess.

Thats all for now thanks for tuning in.

 

[shibbykins]

Fedex man just dropped these off. Need to do a little cleanup on them then stuff em away for later. IMG quality sux... sorry I still use an Ipotato4s

Been raining again so I havnt had an option to work on the car. I have a slight window this evening so I might get the rear suspension back on and move it into the garage to work on it.

 

[SoundEfx]

That's some heavy work right there man.
Keep it up.

Also, where the hell do you live?
Am I the only one who can't find a decent hook up on parts?

 

[shibbykins]

Im in NM literally in a bedroom community outside El Paso TX. Local parts scene is aight when you get past the egos and the people who want to pay nothing for quality.

The good parts I obviously source outside this area but I make due with what I can,. Dindt get any work done yesterday as it decided to flood half of EP in about a half hour and a hose decided to burst on my DC when I was at my friends house so imagine trying to replace a hose and put coolant in a car and burp it as its pissing rain. Its still raining right now so my plans of working on the car today are shot unless it clears up.