Hello Car Lovers, I am currently having an 84 Monte Carlo Coupe reworked from bumper to bumper. I know it’s not even a Super Sport so why go to all the trouble. I bought it from a friend and I promised I would have it restored someday, so I am. What I will be talking about today are the benefits that after market and salvage parts can make during the process of repairing and/or fixing up an automobile. This is the first restoration process that I have been a part of. So I had no idea what I was getting into when it came to finding what you might think would be an easy to obtain part. Well I found out very little is easy to say the least. First thing you need to do is survey the vehicle and see what you do or do not have to work with. This Monte was in really good shape my mechanic/body man was pleased there were no rust holes and only a small dent on each fender although there is some work that needs to be done on the two side windows.

 So we got started, the mechanical parts were really no problem just choose good parts from a good store because a part is cheaper doesn’t mean its better. There are some mechanical parts because of safety reasons you should buy new versus using a salvaged part anyway. In order to stay ahead of the game we started looking for both front and rear bumpers, the header panel, and the left hand quarter panel extension. I said okay no problem how hard can it be to find a bumper the answer is VERY hard. I found the header panel at a large salvage yard in the area and they only had one match. But they had no bumpers I could use. Most all the other salvage yards had already crushed their inventory or I found something that was worse shape that what I already had. But I noticed the salvage yard business is booming not so much people fixing up classics but repairing wrecks. Someone else’s loss is your gain you can find a nice set of wheels, a factory stereo, a bucket seat, an engine it’s practically endless what you can find at a price that will turn your head compared to a retail price. And I would say business is even better now with today’s unstable economy being worse than when I was looking for these parts. So okay they had a lot of stuff but they didn’t have what I needed.

 So I started doing these searches on aftermarket parts and here we go again a booming business these places have everything from radiators to gas tanks and anything in between. People fixing up every wreck they can find and then selling it for a nice profit, hey why not. I did find the quarter panel extension it was used and still costed $99.99 but as hard as it was to find I was glad to get it. Finding a bumper for a super sport would have really been easy if that’s what I wanted. But a lot harder to find one for a coupe and when I finally did it was almost four hundred dollars and over a hundred for shipping. So I go to EBay and of course used auto parts were booming it’s all about people saving money they had to at that time gas was almost four dollars a gallon. Both sides gain from the deal the seller sells stuff he can do without the buyer saves money by not having to buy it retail. I found some items from private sellers that were close but not a match. As you probably already know some businesses post on EBay and one of them had something that was close so I contacted them, they checked their inventory and sure enough they had what I needed. I got both bumpers at once so they gave me a deal on shipping for a total of $515.00.

 So I found my parts now everything will be fine right, wrong. This goes back to what I said about seeing what you do or do not have to work with. The original motor in this car was a 305 and I assumed it was a good motor but after it was painted installed with polished aluminum parts and symmetric coated headers then we find out something was wrong. Before the motor was ever installed we should have done a compression check but we didn’t and when we finally did only one out of four cylinders read what it was supposed to. We knew there was no need in going any further. Everything had to come back off motor pulled and off to the salvage yard. I found a 350 out of a Z71 Chevy pickup for $550.00. If I had of bought a crate engine from GM it would have been fifteen hundred on the low side probably more and I certainly didn’t want to spend that on this type of car.

First thing we did was a compression check and all cylinders checked well. Motor was painted and installed, now those fancy polished aluminum valve pan covers wouldn’t work because this motor needs center bolted covers. So now off to the parts store to make an embarrassing exchange, a good relationship with the parts store makes this go a lot smoother. Salvage and after market parts have saved me a considerable amount of money in the fixing up of this car. I could have saved myself some time, money and a headache if there had of been a simple compression check done on the original motor. I will say it again always survey the vehicle to see what you do or do not have to work with and check with after market suppliers and salvage yards to see how hard the parts are to find for the make and model in question. The salvage yards and after market dealers certainly do come in handy in a pinch. Without them there is no way I could have restored this vehicle for the amount I have. AS long as there are cars these guys will be in business.