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Diamond in the (very) rough. Saving a Spyder

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IHeartMyHonda

15+ Year Contributor
625
169
Jul 12, 2006
murfreesboro, Tennessee
So this is the journey of my newest DSM, a 98 GST Spyder.
As I was browsing copart.com, this car caught my eye.
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It's pretty much a dead ringer for the 97 Spyder I bought nearly a decade ago. The exception being that it's a year newer, and auto. Oh, and it's been wrecked.
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So, this would be enough to shy most people away, since this damage earned this car a salvage title, and it was listed as non-running. But not me. I was ready for a challenge. I set a budget for myself for this car. I would not pay more than $500 for the car, and everything had to be fixed with extra parts I have in the garage. I watched for weeks as no one bid on the car. Finally, it was the morning of the auction. I put in a max bid for $500, but it wasn't really necessary. I won the auction for $150.
A few days and another $150 for shipping, and it showed up.
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First things first. Figure out why they listed it as non-running. After 0 minutes of troubleshooting, I determined that was missing the ignition key, and that is a pretty good reason for it not to start.

So the next step was to pull the ignition lock cylinder out so I start it with a screwdriver.
Nope.
No power to anything. So I put a booster box on the battery and try again.
Still no. This car has an aftermarket immobilizer wired in series with the ignition harness.
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I made quick work of that, and tried again.
Success! It runs and drives.
Now, it was time to pull it inside and assess the damage and clean out the interior of all the trash the previous owner left behind.

Here is what I found.
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Looks pretty daunting, but I'm determined.
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The frame rail is straight, and that was a huge relief.
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As I was disassembling, I noticed that the front bumper was aftermarket, so I decided to run a Carfax on it. I found out that it had a few fender (or bumper) benders it's history, but better than that, had a fantastic maintenance history. The timing belt was just recently changed for the first time about 10k miles ago as well as all of the other 60k stuff. Yes, that's right. I said 60k.
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Yep. I was pretty stoked about that.
Anyway, more clean up stuff.

Aftermarket amp in place of the factory unit. Ugh. Also, lots of trash.
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Cleaned and vacuumed. Airbags were deployed on this car, hence the passenger side sitting crooked. I already replaced the driver's side.
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These were in the car, too.
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Anyway, that was it for today. Still not 100% sure what I want to do with the car (keep, sell, part out), but whatever I do, I will document and share.
 
Made some progress on the body repair. My first attempt has been to pull the fender rails straight with a combination of ratchet straps, chains, and a 2 post lift.

This is after a few different angles.
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I ended up getting it to the point where I needed to bolt on a fender to see exactly where it needs to go.
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So, I went to the house, and pulled a fender off my other car. I also grabbed an old (very cheap) carbon hood I had sitting around, as well. Side note, it's really hard to straighten body lines when you're using a $50 aftermarket hood as a reference point.
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For now, it's close enough to put a headlight in and not be able to tell from the outside that anything has ever happened. If I decide to keep this car long-term, I will harvest that corner from a donor car and weld in all new pieces.
I ordered a $75 bumper from Keystone and threw it on there so it didn't look too awful to drive around town.
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I was very impressed with the fit for the price. The fender liner doesn't quite line up, but it's hard to complain about such a cheap option.
 
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