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Don’t expect to see an automatic to manual swap anytime soon. I have several projects I’m working on now and won’t be able to do anything with this car for a while as a result. I couldn’t pass up the price or the car though. I’ll worry about what I’m going to do with it later.
So what do you think of the new Vigor?
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The dilemma when the parts car is too good just to tear it apart 🙂
It was so good to see she’s moving under her own power. But I have to say….I like the “old” one better. I’m sorry but I hope the new one is really gonna be just a parts car 🙂Another great video, Eric!
A “parts car” is a useful thing to have around. But – as you said – this one seems to bring up more questions than it answers.
Keeping a “parts car” comes at a cost. At the very least you need a place to park it. There may be costs involved with insuring and registering it. And if you want to keep it running, you’ll need to keep the battery charged and the tires inflated.
You’ve got some options with this vehicle.
1) You could clean it up. Repair the obvious cosmetic issues (the drooping front air deflector trim.) Pop a new muffler on the back. And sell it privately and pocket a decent profit. Whats the top end on a rough-looking, but running, Acura Vigor of that vintage? Maybe $1000 or so. Put a few hundred dollars in the Fairmont budget. Or make an extra payment on that nice van Mrs CarGuy is driving around in.
2) You could keep it as a donor vehicle for your existing Vigor. But this seems to have somewhat limited upside. You don’t want to swap the engine and transmission. Swapping body panels would be a lot of work, with limited payback. You prefer the leather interior of your existing car. At best – my suggestion would be to swap the nicer wheels on the new Vigor with the ones on your present car. A buyer of a $1000 runner isn’t going to notice the difference. It would also be a chance to show how to properly patch a leaking tire, and to put your tire-mounting machine to good work.
3) You could “part it out”: Advertising and selling various parts to owners of other Vigors who need inexpensive parts to keep their ride running. This has probably the greatest opportunity for profit. A working engine and transmission alone would be worth several hundred dollars to the right buyer.
But that’s also a lengthy process. It could potentially take years to get the last dollar out of the car. During which time you’ve got to inventory and store the slowly deteriorating carcass. And I’m not sure you want to turn into “Eric the PartsGuy” – that doesn’t seem like thats you business.
My recommendation would be to put a couple hours fixing the obvious defects on the new Vigor. And make a video showing you successfully selling it on for a modest profit.
$400 delivered is an awesome deal.
I’m just curious, when you do automatic-manual swap with two same cars, do you have to swap the engine too? or just the transmission?
I know your delema Eric.
I have two 99 Saturn SL1s. One has front end damage, a weakening auto transmission, but otherwise in great condition. It was obviously well taken care of.
I recently purchased the second one for $450. The engine has a tick, and the interior is shot, but it’s a five speed.
I’m thinking an engine and interior swap, but winter is coming.
An engine replacement is a lot easier than an auto to manual conversion, you know. Although Hondas are about the easiest auto to manual conversion I’ve ever seen. Like you said, it has a better body.
If you swap the sunroof over, you will have officially won YouTube.
Hi eric, just saw your vid on youtube, great find, if you were to take the auto engine out of the burgandy color car and put in to the dark blue one, you ll need to swap the cams from your auto engine with the manual one, manual has different cam lobes on it compared to the auto, if you dont do that it ll run like ass, since the manual transmission ecu has to run on a stock manual map, the rest is plug and play considering its the same vintage, it applies with most hondas/acuras that have manual or auto counter parts in the same trim, auto cam lobes are much more milder than manual :]
What a great find! Personally, I am in agreement with some of the other users when I say that I do like the red one better. We have more of a rapport with it.
But the 5 speed is a great find. It still has the rust in the rear quarter so in my eyes it’s not much better than the one you have in terms of the body work. (I’m just going to call them Red and Blue from now on.) I think Red would benefit from the trans swap. You know that car. You know Honda. So you can pretty much figure it out from there. I can’t imagine how much work that would be. But you have Brian and that makes filming a lot easier. You could do it after you are done with the Fairmont. Blue could be a great parts car. Take the auto out of Red, and sit it in Blues trunk. Just in Case. Blue’s engine is probably more tired than Red’s so I say keep Reds engine right where it is. I don’t know anything about the cam swap stuff, so I will leave that alone.
Put Blue on jack stands and tear into it. You will have two sets of wheels, one for winter and one for summer. You will have a parts car for pretty much anything you need. I don’t see the downside. You could even tear into Blue’s engine to see how it looks. Just for kicks.
Gotta love that 5 speed.
EDIT/Addition: You have me looking for 5 speed Vigors now. The only one I can find within 400 miles is a dark blue one like yours in Baltimore. It has leather interior though. Wish I had the extra $.
[quote=”plokiu” post=151752]$400 delivered is an awesome deal.
I’m just curious, when you do automatic-manual swap with two same cars, do you have to swap the engine too? or just the transmission?[/quote]
Not the engine, but the wiring harness and computer which can be more problematic than just the engine. Not to mention the brake and clutch pedals.
I’m not doing anything with the car for some time. It’s not registered or insured so it won’t see the road anytime soon. It runs and drives now which means I can move it around the shop easily.
I honestly don’t know if I’m going to do a transmission swap. It’s more involved than most people think as I also need to port over the wiring harness and computers. That means taking the dash out of both cars. I don’t know if you remember the blower motor videos?
I’m NOT going to attempt to put a sunroof in the blue car. That would defiantly be more trouble than it’s worth.
All that said, it was a $400 car and a deal I really couldn’t pass up, but the truth is, you’ll probably will have forgotten about it by the time I get around to doing anything with this car. I want to finish the Fairmont first and I have quite a bit of work I need to do to that one before I’m at that point.
One of the recent FIF videos included a test drive to assess the likelihood of repairing vs. replacing the car. In that spirit, would it make sense to possibly turn one of the cars into a FIF replacement car project? With the low initial investment and your familiarity with these cars, this might be a good opportunity to try it out on if this was something you were considering. Granted there is the issue of age and condition, but the stuff you work on is mechanically sound when you finish with it and someone with a dead car might be grateful to get on the road again. Plus breathing life into these cars again kind-of fits in with the spirit of fixing it forward.
I like the new Vigor personally, a lot more than your burgundy one. Myself, I would take the motor from the burgundy one, put it in the blue one, swap over the tires and any upgrades you want from the burgundy car ( yes, besides the sunroof ) and take the lack of a sun roof as a minor drawback. I had a 1995 BMW 530i with one. it was a great car, and the sunroof is nice, but I burn easily and developed an allergy to most sunscreen, so I was happy to give it up as for 3 out of the 4 years I owned the Bimmer, the sunroof went unused. So for me, the tradeoff of the sunroof is a given.
The questions I have are:
Does the blue vigor have working R12 A/C? If so, I’d say that one is a keeper personally. Next pre-134a car I get, I’ll probably retain the R12 A/C. I can get a big can of R12 for $200 from a friend I know ( yes, I have the EPA certification to use it ) and borrow another friends R12 equipment and keep it running you know? R12 is soo much nicer for cooling in the cars designed for it.
Is there any other drawbacks than the lack of a sunroof on your blue vigor?
Personally, with some touch up paint and a new clearcoat, I think the blue vigor would look very sharp. Whatever you do, I look forward to seeing the inevitable videos relating to the vigors in the near future.
Also, as an aside unrelated to the video, I do hope to see a video detailing the teardown of that Mustang V8… care to share anything on that thus far??
Glad to see the recent vids, very nice indeed.
[quote=”J-Aus95″ post=151853]One of the recent FIF videos included a test drive to assess the likelihood of repairing vs. replacing the car. In that spirit, would it make sense to possibly turn one of the cars into a FIF replacement car project? With the low initial investment and your familiarity with these cars, this might be a good opportunity to try it out on if this was something you were considering. Granted there is the issue of age and condition, but the stuff you work on is mechanically sound when you finish with it and someone with a dead car might be grateful to get on the road again. Plus breathing life into these cars again kind-of fits in with the spirit of fixing it forward.[/quote]
I’d entertained the idea of using the Vigor as an FiF loaner car while I worked on their vehicles but I don’t think the new Vigor would be a good fit for that. Not everyone can drive a manual and if you have difficulty getting in and out of a low car like that it can be an issue. I’d like to find an old Odyssey like I used to have to use as a loner for FiF participants while I have their vehicles.
At this time I have no intention of registering or insuring the new Vigor. At least not until I decide it’s fate sometime next year.
[quote=”Kazuo” post=151903]I like the new Vigor personally, a lot more than your burgundy one. Myself, I would take the motor from the burgundy one, put it in the blue one, swap over the tires and any upgrades you want from the burgundy car ( yes, besides the sunroof ) and take the lack of a sun roof as a minor drawback. I had a 1995 BMW 530i with one. it was a great car, and the sunroof is nice, but I burn easily and developed an allergy to most sunscreen, so I was happy to give it up as for 3 out of the 4 years I owned the Bimmer, the sunroof went unused. So for me, the tradeoff of the sunroof is a given.
The questions I have are:
Does the blue vigor have working R12 A/C? If so, I’d say that one is a keeper personally. Next pre-134a car I get, I’ll probably retain the R12 A/C. I can get a big can of R12 for $200 from a friend I know ( yes, I have the EPA certification to use it ) and borrow another friends R12 equipment and keep it running you know? R12 is soo much nicer for cooling in the cars designed for it.
Is there any other drawbacks than the lack of a sunroof on your blue vigor?
Personally, with some touch up paint and a new clearcoat, I think the blue vigor would look very sharp. Whatever you do, I look forward to seeing the inevitable videos relating to the vigors in the near future.
Also, as an aside unrelated to the video, I do hope to see a video detailing the teardown of that Mustang V8… care to share anything on that thus far??
Glad to see the recent vids, very nice indeed.[/quote]
I never checked the AC on the new Vigor. I doubt it works.
I have no intentions of putting the new Vigor on the road at this time. It’s just not necessary and the expense wouldn’t be worth it. Also the time and effort I would need to make it road worthy. For now it’s a rolling parts car.
As for the Fairmont Project. I’m actually rebuilding the transmission with Paul Cangialosi today (Yes I’m shooting video of that). I’ll then be doing rebuild videos of the rear end, then the rest of the car. I’m hoping to have it on the road by spring. That way I can just focus on FiF projects for a while.
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