It's so damn annoying! Well, I finally had to move it from it's
resting place due to losing my storage, and so I did try to sell it on the bay of E, this was a pointless excercise really but
there you go. So I listed it once, and got a couple of bidders, I listed
it saying it was probably best used as a source of spares as it's very rusty! Started the bidding at just 99p with no reserve, and we
were off. So the auction ends at £203.00! Great, so I contact the guy,
and get no response, I try to contact him again several times over the
next couple of days or so, and still nothing!! IDIOT!! Oh well, I guess I'll
report this W+Anchor, and relist the thing, which I did, this time as often seems to be the case
there's even less interest, but
eventually it sells for just £167.00... Great, so I contact the winning
bidder, and he responds, and says he'll be down for it by the end of the
week. I thought that'll be cool, but then towards the end of the week I
send him another email asking when he was hoping to collect it, no
response! Eventually after a couple more emails asking when he was
coming I get an email back from him saying he's can't come as he lives
in Ireland and can't get over to collect it, and can't find anyone to
deliver it, so on and so fourth!! He suggests that I offer it to the
next guy down the list. But by this point I'm well and truly cheesed off, and really need it gone as soon as possible! So I decide to call a scrap metal man thinking I'll just scrap it and thats the end
of it. This is something that I hate doing, but the fact of the matter
was it needed to go. So I called up a scrap collector who told me that
it wasn't worth his while picking it up as it was only worth about £30 to £40
in scrap!! I did eventually find one that would collect it for me, but
it was going to cost ME £50 for him to come out and collect it!! Is
scrap Iron and Steel really worth so little? Anyway with nothing to take
it to the scrapyard in myself, there was just no other option... (If
you happen to have a particular loving for Opel Monzas, might I suggest scrolling past
the next images, or better still, just stop reading this post right now!)
Right then... No time to lose, Interior out and then time to get busy with the disc cutter! It was really REALLY rusty, far worse than the Carlton, and that's bad! I really thought that this could be saved, and asked all my friends but
they all said no, even the ones who do this kind of stuff for a living.
One of them summed it up best like this:- "If the engine and running
gear were good, but the bodywork was knackered I'd say, ok, let's fix it
up... If the bodywork was good, but the engine and running gear was
knackered I'd say, ok, let's fix it up... But the bodywork is knackered
and the engine and running gear is knackered so best not get too
involved in it! Nice seats though!" Not happy at all!! But every silver lining has its cloud, and the
destruction of my Monza yielded me a very good condition green interior.
Which
hopefully will go someway to appease the car gods as I salvaged it from
the sacrifice of the Monza in order to possibly use it on the Carlton. I
now actually have three interiors for the Carlton, a brown one which is
original, a grey one, and this green one. But out of the three the
green one is in the best condition, the grey one is good, but it must
have been a real poverty spec car as it's got a lot of vinyl and the
front seats don't even have the holes for headrests, let alone headrests
themselves. The original brown interior is very tired, so I'm fairly
sure it won't be that one that gets used! Once the interior was salvaged time had run out for the old thing and it had to go, and so in a day it went from the pictures above to...
See... It really was pretty rotten, but that still doesn't make me feel better about chopping it up!
Chop chop...
It
still had a full tank of go-go juice! When I flipped it over it all ran
out and collected in the wheel arches... That was the end of cutting
with the angle grinder for the day!
I
HATE doing stuff like this, it feels so counter-productive. I feel like I've violated some sort of code amoungst car lovers, and the car gods
are now looking down at me frowning, and they're not happy... Not happy
at all!! But At this point I really had no option, I couldn't even give it away! I
have however managed to save anything that was worth saving which will
all end up on ebay over the next couple of weeks/months! Of course if
after I've listed it and it doesn't sell, sadly that will be taken to
the scrapyard in the end too... Stupidy, after I had spent a couple of days cutting it all up some fella came by in a Transhit pick up full
of scrap and asked me if he could take it away! Typical! So I gave it to
him, and gave him the documents as he said he'd need them at the
scrapyard...
There is a bright side to all this however, and that is that the engine, gearbox, and back axle did manage to find a new home, and are going to be rebuilt for a Monza that is currently being restored. I've always loved the Opel Monza, or Vauxhall Royale, and
this little episode has made me even more determined to get a good one,
in good working order... Someday!
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