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Hey everyone, First thread here figured id start off with a big one. To start I've currently got three FCs lying around. I got my first one in December of 2021 it's a 1987 Turbo2 A little bit about that car, I'm the third owner first gave it back to the dealer in 88 with 1300 miles on it and the second owner picked it up shortly thereafter. He drove it around the salt lake valley and to Hill AFB until the winter of 92 when it was parked indefinitely in his garage seemingly for a blown motor. He passed away sometime between 2011-2019. His wife held onto it for a little bit until I stumbled upon it. (ill make a full post on that build at another time) Then I purchased my second FC on august 19th of last year. A pristine 40k Mile 88 GXL Sunrise red with a Grey interior, I was the fourth owner of this one. I picked it up a couple of states away and while traveling back I was going for a canyon cruise when an S chassis began to ride my bumper and cut the double yellow to cut me off, unfortunately, I locked up the brakes and the car slid into the side of the mountain and I and my then girlfriend was taken in for some pretty bad breaks and bruises. I picked up the car later that week from the tow yard and took it back home where it's sat since mid august. The car (as seen in the photos) is bent pretty well. And insurance totaled it out. The car still started and drove but was in no condition for road travel. I've since recovered from my injuries and have decided to not let this one go out in vain. FC #3 a Tornado Grey 86 GXL an Arizona car its entire life beaten down by the sun the interior was thrashed and the body is not the straightest. But the clean title is all I cared about. I know absolutely nothing about the past of the car. In this thread I will be tackling the entirety of the shell swap in detail, I hope this will help others with their first restorations on these cars. I began with removing the sun-beat interior that was left withering in the Grey car. Every single clip and or plastic piece shattered upon contact, the car had gotten so hot that the rear carpet melted to the metal. The front carpet is not in terrible condition ill save this in case I ever need an extra carpet.
After pulling the rest of the carpet and the seat belts I'm left with a super clean non rusty shell.
will be continuing tomorrow when I'm back at the cars.
Sorry for the delay, this project has a short deadline that needs to be met by the end of the month so I've been putting in 12-16 hour days. Let's catch back up. Sunday evening I shattered an axle on the daily driver so Monday I hastily repaired that and made my way down to Arizona to begin working with the swap.
To start I finished pulling the Door cards. Followed by the headliner. We started up old Red and sent her for one last time through the dirt and rocks and into the garage where we would lay her to rest. I pretty quickly began pulling apart the doors on Red to disassemble the insides to transfer over to Grey. Didnt have the car long enough to notice I've been blessed with power locks that miraculously still work. Due to the axle problem, I ran out of light pretty quickly. And began working on my game plan for this week.
TUESDAY Today was big on cleaning. Cleaned up the mess made throughout the Grey car. Lots of washing and vacuuming. Managed to get all 4 doors off without much struggle. The passenger door on red looks like we can reuse the door card and all of the hardware and electronics inside spite the major hit it took. Took off the taillights from both cars and put on the newer ones. Today felts pretty lackluster but I think I'm just a little overwhelmed by the scope of this project (I've only been working on my own cars now for two years)
going to make two or three posts to submit more images, will also make an album on Flickr.
Wednesday, Today was going to be a weird stretch. I'm fortunate enough to use my old man's garage and backyard to do this swap. Only I need to share space with his current projects. Luckily a customer was coming to pick up the big space hog today. I was able to pull the rear carpet, bins, seats, sail panels, and dash today. Little stuck on getting everything ready to pull the hatch struts so I can pull the headliner and begin removing the body harness. But we can leave that for tomorrow. That's everything on Red. grey got more cleaning and we pulled the antennae and firewall mat. Thursday. With the seats out and the dash sitting outside the car next on the list was the heater and ac box and then the carpet got an early start this morning and began to pull everything. To get the carpet out. Took me about an hour (admittedly procrastinated a bit grabbed lunch and played with the cats.) but was able to remove the carpet after the other components were removed. Spent an hour deeply vacuuming it. Still not happy with how it turned out. Looks like the seats left rust stains on the carpet. I'll rent an extractor and try and lift out these nasty stains. Got the harness pulled up to the doors last night when everyone went to bed. Now that the carpet is out I can continue to pull the harness within the cabin. I’ve labeled every connector (male and female) with a number to line them up as they were to go back in. Got the Ecu and kick plate out and put in Grey. Seemed like a turning point in the project. A bad windstorm brought us into the garage for the rest of the night. After dinner, we cut off the passenger fender and then the bumper. Removing the electronics from the smashed headlight housing is proving difficult. But got a lot of the driver's side connectors undone and ready to go back through the firewall. Am aiming to have the harness out and back into grey by the end of tomorrow. (If all goes well this will include the interior going back into grey as well.)
Friday, today we finished pulling the harnesses from the car and moved the grey car into the garage to start swapping things a little bit quicker. Pulled the sun-faded hatch off the grey car and installed the body harness, cleaned some more grime out of the sound deadening, and installed the rear carpet and the bins, looks like the passenger seat belt locked in the accident so I'm working on getting some 10ae black seat belts to accent the grey interior. Again sorry for the lack of posting it ended up being more labor-intensive than I expected for some reason so I was eating sleeping and breathing sevens for the week. I return on Monday to continue and hopefully complete the swap over the next week.
Just wondering if you had made any progress. Swapping everything iver into the gray car's shell is an excellent idea and it will be an amazing car once you're finished!
In this thread I will be tackling the entirety of the shell swap in detail, I hope this will help others with their first restorations on these cars. 
