Rebuilding a Tesla from Non-Working Cars: A Labor of Love and Pain

The rebuild phase of restoring a Tesla is a daunting task, unlike disassembling one of these cars which is quite straightforward. With the right tools and determination, anyone can disassemble a car, but rebuilding requires patience, persistence, and sometimes help from others.

I've been streaming along for four episodes now, showcasing my journey to rebuild this Tesla from two non-working cars. While it's easy to take apart one of these cars, it's a completely different story when it comes to putting them back together again. I've learned the hard way that where something goes is not always remembered easily. The countless hours spent researching and documenting every step of the process are crucial to avoid mistakes and lost parts.

Recently, I made a big push to put in serious work on the rebuild. I took a day off and spent four hours removing the stubborn front passenger seat that was causing me trouble earlier. Just as I was planning on putting in more hours by myself again on Saturday, an unexpected message arrived from someone who had been following our thread. A WPI student, who had expressed interest in helping out when needed, reached out to say he'd be happy to lend a hand if I ever ran out of my "tireless energy and wit." I took him up on the offer, and I'm glad I did.

The next day, this guy actually showed up at my location with a car rental in tow, drove an hour just to see my project, and offered his assistance. When I realized what he'd done, it blew my mind. Who does that? A moment of pure gratitude overcame me as I thanked him for his kindness. We got to work right away, and in a matter of hours, we had the drive unit out, the high voltage battery, and the driver side main harness. This was all done without access to a lift, using just jack stands, wood blocks, and basic hand tools.

The unexpected help from this kind student has been a breath of fresh air. I bought him Burger King as a small token of appreciation, which seemed to put a smile on his face. It's heartening to see that people like him exist, and I'm grateful for his willingness to lend a hand. As someone who will be graduating from school soon, I hope he'll remember my project when purchasing his own Tesla (if not just caving in on one).

With the help of my new friend, we made significant progress on the rebuild. The inside of the P85 donor car looks quite neat, with glass everywhere - a testament to the chaos that ensues when these cars are smashed together. The difficulty of working with shattered glass is undeniable; it wreaks havoc on even the most prepared. My truck has suffered the same fate, and I've had to deal with its aftermath.

As we continue this journey, I want to thank all those who have supported me so far. This project would not be possible without your kind words, donations, and subscriptions. If you haven't already, consider sharing this article with others who might find it interesting or inspiring. Your support means the world to me, and I'm grateful for each and every one of you.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyo yo yo what's up guys it's Rich the carguru again okay um by the way check out my Instagram it's uh Richie bid now my Ig is mostly a mixed bag of stuff it's like a deeper look into you know the personal life the vet the kids day-to-day stuff check it out but Su your expectations to low and then uh set them lower than that and then just turn them off just don't expect anything out of it really um most of the PCT on the Instagram have funny stories below them so read up on those check it out follow post racist comments whatever you guys want to do and again my Tesla Buy sell parts trade group on Facebook is there too in case you want to buy a salvage car or some parts I'll post a link up here um I'm going to be ranting a lot in this podcast because I have many emotions you know in my body that I need to release to Anonymous people on the internet so just be aware you know I have a lot in my brain I could spread this out to 10 parts easily but the only thing about multi-art series is that the first is most popular then people lose interest slowly and you know by the time I get to 10 I'll probably have eight views so let's start with the comment of the week and this is by far one of my favorite comments of all time I don't think I've ever been this entertained by a comment until now I laugh pretty hard at this I'm going to paraphrase it for you guys so the majority of the comments on uh a previous video of mine was you know love the channel man keep up the good work she's gorgeous can't wait to see what you do next it's fascinating and this is my favorite comment I'm going to paraphrase you're disgusting messy you're a slob don't blame on the truck you could have a bus and it would still be full of trash just like your entire existence this is the worst Channel I've ever come across you're reckless you're a waste sorry oh that was funny I I love that comment who hurt you man seriously who hurt you you know just know that I love you and everything in life will be okay okay it's all going to work out in the end don't worry about it man it's going to be cool so my brother-in-law he asked me you know that my page is getting a little bit more traction if I've received any death threats as yet and I laughed at him I'm just like why would anyone threaten to kill me I'm a good guy you know what I mean but now I get it it's I I know it's coming and and I'm embracing it you guys are going to kill me totally um hey why don't you change the format of your show so you could like do things better like they're hard to follow and stuff and what are you doing it's dangerous and you should follow my steps instead because I'm like an engineer and stuff and I took three CL okay buddy I get it okay yeah hey buddy guess what this is my hobby okay I'm not getting rich off of this I just want to tell as many people as I can that a guy like me with little to no comments cense can do cool stuff with Harbor Freight Tools in my basement anyways uh also as an update remember in episode 3 where uh one of my buddies got stranded at my house well here's his car cut in half in preparation for its repair so the car had to be back halfed so a new rare could be welded on from a donor vehicle and today that car is running and driving and looks great it is n no photos of it but close your eyes and imagine a black Tesla yes that's what it look looks like maybe the owner wants to chime in I know they watch this so hey feel free to jump in um now I left off opening the pack and me complaining about how I didn't listen uh and and I really didn't want to remove the wiring harnesses because it was really really hard this is what I realized that I really really got deep in here I mean deep uh I had to remove the wiring harnesses I know I had to do it and just look at the corrosion and all the all the Green in the connectors those all had to be thrown away this was the real scary part taking out the HVAC system and the associated wiring harnesses my word I mean look at this mess and I had to throw all of this away look this is what I was up against it it's just look at the salt you know and and this is the small shelf uh that the airbag and air suspension module sat on top of look at that salt buildup you know this is all under the uh HVAC system and it was it was a mess you know I don't you know I the thing is I don't know what this guy was thinking like how did you manage this okay you know what if you know a guy named Brian that lost his Tesla in a flood you judge him okay you scratch your chin and you judge him silently all right I saw the photos buddy something isn't adding up it didn't that didn't look like a parking space okay I don't think that car was just there okay I think that car may have been driven in that water on purpose you know not like fraud but they he may have misjudged the the the depth of the water when he was driving it it's got he had to have been driving it you know I'm just saying I'm not an accident scene specialist okay okay who cares all right so now all these things I had to throw away I knew that if I purchase this from Tesla these parts I needed it'd be1 billion in parts and no one has these harnesses for sale because when people strip these cars down they either throw the harnesses away or they just take you know the the important stuff they take the battery and the Drive Unit uh or any autopilot Hardware so I mean it looks like I have to go on Copart again to find a donor car so let me just inform you guys about Copart and you got to watch your back on Copart Copart is a scary place you got to know your stuff now copart's the place where you you look to buy you know previously uh salvage vehicles or vehicles that were previously in an accident that were purchased back from insurance companies and you look at six to 12 pictures of the car and decide whether or not you want to spend 20 grand on it now the motor arguably is the most expensive C of any car and Copart cars are sold as is so if by chance there's a picture of the car with the hood shut you know everyone assumes okay there's a motor under there oops guess what you pop the hood you just got the car no motor you've been had you lose you get nothing thing good day sir okay and that happens all the time people people are just are are shyy what they'll do is they'll they'll remove the batteries they'll take the cells out and then put the battery shell back in so it looks like there's a battery in it but all the modules are out that's a $220,000 screw up that's fraud and if you go to goart and say hey I didn't get a you know what's going on I I didn't get a a battery they say hey guess what I don't know what to tell you man the car sold as is you know so I spent a few weeks analyzing every car on co-art um and just another thing to keep in mind over the time the most of the air suspension equipped cars lose their air and they fall flat in the ground uh coil suspension cars generally sit the same level however if a pack is removed which is about 14400 lb they they could sometimes tend to sit a little bit higher so just note that if the car sits really high you got to scratch your chin on that one uh some cars have their rear Motors removed too so just make sure you see rear calipers in the cars um guys sometimes just drop the entire assembly out and they'll they'll just they'll just run with it I'll cover that in another vid I think I'm going to make a video of how to buy a salvage Model A might help a few people um but you know what even after knowing all those things could happen I bought another one you know I bought another car uh I found one it it was it was 14k for the first car another 14 Grand for the second car that's $28,000 all right 28,000 dollar Ros you dollar rinos dollar do you know who gets that reference throw it in the comments uh but that's okay you know what keep listening and I'll tell you why it's okay that I spent almost 30 grand on two non-working cars which was a captivating conversation I have with my wife by the way I don't think I have anything worth 30 grand and now all of a sudden I have two cars totaling 30 grand and neither one of them work all right so I'll be referencing two cars in this update you know Dolores the blackf footed car and the white P85 car uh that she got her parts from that I never got a name for um B Rich you know you could get a CPO car for under 40 Grand now right I know that okay I spent a lot less than 40 by the way so just to jump around a little bit because I have ADD uh so I'm super busy packaging and and shipping out parts from the flooded car uh Dolores since I have a a little downtime um because you know the car is mostly disassembled at this point so uh I got to start recouping the cost on this thing you know I just can't have the parts that I don't need sitting around you know not making money because you know the longer I wait the the less the uh the car the parts are worth so here's where everyone needs to listen up okay and I'll do a separate cost breakdown video about this because I know people rarely watch the entire video and and comment before watching the whole vid I'm going to rant again why is that why do people watch 90 random seconds of the video type a comment hit submit to that comment and then stop watching the video to see if their question was answered you know why okay anyways so uh here's where the vehicle parts stand right now um the Drive Unit boom sold I sold 12 good battery modules from that flooded car I sold the front driver's seat I sold miscellaneous interior trim panels so I recouped a decent amount of cash already I got $99,000 for those modules you hear me n Grand so I'm looking at only paying about five grand for the first car so total for two cars I made it for 19 Grand you know so 19 grand for two cars that's not so bad assuming I get one working you know uh I sold the Drive Unit the the broken Drive Unit for three grand uh as is so now I'm down to 16 grand for two Teslas you know and part of me kicking myself in the butt uh for not asking some more for more for that Drive Unit because now more than ever I really think that that drive unit was fine and not flooded but I'll rant about that later I'm sure um so to getting rid of the modules was easy I put them on a pallet shipped them out um the the Drive Unit was was uh pretty straightforward the the guy sent someone sent a tow truck driver to pick it up because they weigh about 800 lounds by themselves and the the dispatcher called me and said hey you know my guy is coming out to pick up that Drive Unit you know he'll be there around 900 p.m I'm like that's awesome because um I didn't take the axles out yet so it gives you enough time so they call me back at 6 and he's like hey I'm here I'm like dude you're literally three hours early he's likew just give me the axles too then I'm like no you're not getting the axles too so I just ended up ripping the axles out Al together um and actually one axle came out really easily the second one didn't uh and that some guy gave me 120 just for the axle broken like that which was great um so that was a quick recap of some of the costs that I recouped so far but I have to go see the car in person for the first time so it's uh it's about an hour away and it's at my my buddy's tow yard and the same guy delivered the black model last delivered this one as well but the the cars are so heavy and and due to the issues we had last time he actually left the car at his shop and I said I would pick parts off it as I go along just to make the car lighter for its eventual return to the house uh so I'd remove the goal was to remove the battery of the motor and on separate occasions so that the car be lighter and we had to you know uh lower it and and bring it back to uh to my house so getting as as much weight off the car as possible was was the goal um and and this is kind of a turning point because you know there's a lot of questions because quite frankly the the donor car isn't hurt that bad and as a matter of fact I don't think it should have been total at all so once I start moving the broken pieces to this car there's going to be one one big question do I repair the donor car with the with the flooded car parts or do I swap literally everything over from the donor car to the flood one which would be you know 10 times the the labor my own labor and you know as I started working on the car more uh these are the conditions that I have to work under um the it was at my friend's tow yard so I had to set my exposure super high on the camera this is pretty much in complete darkness you know that over head light makes it seem a lot brighter than it really is but it was not bright in the least bit uh the only electricity I have is the inverter built into the bed of my truck so I can run an LED flashlight and maybe a drill but nothing heavy like a shop vac to take out some glass that I've been stepping on so I started going over the car and you know there's there's mice that that chewed up the wiring harness you can see they built a little Nest but they chewed this up pretty bad and you know these just some of the things you have to look out for when you get something something like this you can't send anyone out to to to to look through the whole car this is what you have to expect um you know and and no one's going to tell you this so the the next day I decided you know what I'm gonna actually going to give the old owner a call and he was a uh he was a yacht salesman and left his business card in the car so I I end up calling the guy back and and we chatted for a bit and he said that the car saved his life he got into an accident uh with an SUV and the the SUV's frame rail was bent over about 12 Ines and and his car well you know it looks like it does there in the pictures but it's bad but not as bad as the SUV that he hit so I call him to see if he had the key which he did not and we talked for another 10 or 15 minutes or so and then he sent me packing on my way so um so back to the car again the the the one of the biggest problems with working on these is the the the hex screws for securing the passenger and driver seats they were they were completely different but someone explained to me as to why because they you need different it's in a Side Collision you need the uh proper Breakaway uh forces applied so that the the occupants could be saved um but they're completely different but it was a pain to take apart and they they stripped in 30 seconds I was only able to get one of them out successfully and the this is Tiny these are tiny and they're massively over torqued to add insult to injury so this is the passenger side right rear screw completely stripped and I I I didn't think this day could get any worse but I did get an interesting phone call from the previous owner uh he said his wife was doing some cleaning and she actually found the key which is great but for for some reason I don't know why I thought this I thought he would just kind of send it to me for free and you know throw a little cashes way and cover shipping but you know I was all kinds of wrong he said he wanted to send me this wall charger and key for $650 and the the thing that got me was that he wasn't using either one he hadn't had the car for a year but it's only when someone expressed interest in it he wanted to Jack the price up so you know the key was literally in his underwear draw and you know I I just ended up paying him the 650 but I was pretty upset about it so I'm going to trash me a little bit here so if you if you know a yacht salesman somewhere in the Carolinas just just punch him in the face for me because it's it's even if it's not the same guy they should all pay for this um so now this this coming weekend here it it marked a thread it marked a a huge turning moment in this threads history because this is we're coming up to the the the next stage of the the car rebuild so for the past you know few months you I've cover covered a ton of ground considering you know I can only work on it a few nights a week for a couple hours at a time but in the last 3 months you know I haven't installed a single part on the black footed car like none whatsoever so the this whole project hasn't really started the rebuild phases yet so you know I I've been streaming along for four episodes now but it's it's pretty easy to to disassemble one of these cars it doesn't take a rocking scientist to do it uh all you need of the right tools the and the guts to tear into one however rebuilding is a completely different game because this is where the pain and suffering actually begins because you tend to forget you know where something goes where's that screw this doesn't line up anymore and miscellaneous things like that um but I know where a lot of the things go but over time you just kind of forget you know you forget where a few screws go you might lose a few things and uh some of the times I've been noticing I've been forgetting to take photos In the Heat of the Moment and you know stopping to document takes a long time too that just adds to the time that that you need to to um disassemble the car just setting up camera angles and and knowing what to say and then just editing Parts out that you think might be relevant or irrelevant so um yeah I over the last few days I made a big push to put in serious work on the rebuild uh I took a day off and put in about four hours to remove uh that stubborn front passenger seat that was telling you guys about earlier and you know I was planning on putting a few other hours by myself again on Saturday uh it just so happens that this guy actually messaged me a guy that's been following the thread messaged me and said you know hey if you ever run out of your you know your tireless energy and wit and end up needing a hand this WPI student be happy to help so it it's good because I needed to help so I took him off in the offer and yeah I'm glad I did he he you know he and yeah sorry I gotta cut you guys off for a second um I took him up on the offer you know and I'm glad I did because the guy rented a car and drove an hour just to see my silly little project and lend a hand and when I realized what he' done it just blew my mind because I mean let's be real here the last time I drove an I rented a car and drove an hour for anything I was probably trying to get late or something and this guy just kind of did it because he was just interested in the project you know just just real um well needless to say you know we got to work right away and in a matter of a few hours we got the uh Drive Unit out the high voltage battery uh the driver side main harness that goes to the battery connectors just wow this is all in a tow yard with no access to a lift okay just jack stands wood blocks and basic hand tools you know and I and I couldn't thank him enough so I bought him Burger King and he seemed pretty happy about that you know Rich takes care of his people you know what can I say uh anyways thank you kind student I hope you learned a lot I hope you'll be thinking of me when you graduate from school and actually purchase the Tesla as opposed to cing one kind of working one from two non-working cars anyways so I'm going to stop it right here uh so send this podcast to your friends like share subscribe and oh and guess what you know we got some donations you know damn you know thank you guys it's very nice to you thanks a bunch you know it's it's always appreciated um you know just you know I'm going to go a little bit further a little bit more here uh here's some pictures before I end this uh this is what the inside of the P85 donor car looks like uh I'm mostly taking pictures at this point for documentation purposes but it looks kind of neat you know there's glass literally everywhere and the the kind of thing that stins about that is that uh I couldn't attached my shop back to my truck because it just pulled it pulled too much voltage from my truck I have a um a smaller inverter sorry that's built into the back of the truck and it can only push out so much and the shop fact wasn't having it to back up all that glass and this is something you don't think of when when these when these cars are smash when the glasses is smashed and there glass everywhere this is a tough call it wreaks havoc on like your wrists and arms it's it's a pain the butt to work with even on your knees if you have to squat in the car it's it does a number on on your knees and and your legs but um it's a mess you know it's a mess in this car just like my truck huh remember that I brought that one back you like that huh I brought that one back all right don't forget to like share and subscribeyo yo yo what's up guys it's Rich the carguru again okay um by the way check out my Instagram it's uh Richie bid now my Ig is mostly a mixed bag of stuff it's like a deeper look into you know the personal life the vet the kids day-to-day stuff check it out but Su your expectations to low and then uh set them lower than that and then just turn them off just don't expect anything out of it really um most of the PCT on the Instagram have funny stories below them so read up on those check it out follow post racist comments whatever you guys want to do and again my Tesla Buy sell parts trade group on Facebook is there too in case you want to buy a salvage car or some parts I'll post a link up here um I'm going to be ranting a lot in this podcast because I have many emotions you know in my body that I need to release to Anonymous people on the internet so just be aware you know I have a lot in my brain I could spread this out to 10 parts easily but the only thing about multi-art series is that the first is most popular then people lose interest slowly and you know by the time I get to 10 I'll probably have eight views so let's start with the comment of the week and this is by far one of my favorite comments of all time I don't think I've ever been this entertained by a comment until now I laugh pretty hard at this I'm going to paraphrase it for you guys so the majority of the comments on uh a previous video of mine was you know love the channel man keep up the good work she's gorgeous can't wait to see what you do next it's fascinating and this is my favorite comment I'm going to paraphrase you're disgusting messy you're a slob don't blame on the truck you could have a bus and it would still be full of trash just like your entire existence this is the worst Channel I've ever come across you're reckless you're a waste sorry oh that was funny I I love that comment who hurt you man seriously who hurt you you know just know that I love you and everything in life will be okay okay it's all going to work out in the end don't worry about it man it's going to be cool so my brother-in-law he asked me you know that my page is getting a little bit more traction if I've received any death threats as yet and I laughed at him I'm just like why would anyone threaten to kill me I'm a good guy you know what I mean but now I get it it's I I know it's coming and and I'm embracing it you guys are going to kill me totally um hey why don't you change the format of your show so you could like do things better like they're hard to follow and stuff and what are you doing it's dangerous and you should follow my steps instead because I'm like an engineer and stuff and I took three CL okay buddy I get it okay yeah hey buddy guess what this is my hobby okay I'm not getting rich off of this I just want to tell as many people as I can that a guy like me with little to no comments cense can do cool stuff with Harbor Freight Tools in my basement anyways uh also as an update remember in episode 3 where uh one of my buddies got stranded at my house well here's his car cut in half in preparation for its repair so the car had to be back halfed so a new rare could be welded on from a donor vehicle and today that car is running and driving and looks great it is n no photos of it but close your eyes and imagine a black Tesla yes that's what it look looks like maybe the owner wants to chime in I know they watch this so hey feel free to jump in um now I left off opening the pack and me complaining about how I didn't listen uh and and I really didn't want to remove the wiring harnesses because it was really really hard this is what I realized that I really really got deep in here I mean deep uh I had to remove the wiring harnesses I know I had to do it and just look at the corrosion and all the all the Green in the connectors those all had to be thrown away this was the real scary part taking out the HVAC system and the associated wiring harnesses my word I mean look at this mess and I had to throw all of this away look this is what I was up against it it's just look at the salt you know and and this is the small shelf uh that the airbag and air suspension module sat on top of look at that salt buildup you know this is all under the uh HVAC system and it was it was a mess you know I don't you know I the thing is I don't know what this guy was thinking like how did you manage this okay you know what if you know a guy named Brian that lost his Tesla in a flood you judge him okay you scratch your chin and you judge him silently all right I saw the photos buddy something isn't adding up it didn't that didn't look like a parking space okay I don't think that car was just there okay I think that car may have been driven in that water on purpose you know not like fraud but they he may have misjudged the the the depth of the water when he was driving it it's got he had to have been driving it you know I'm just saying I'm not an accident scene specialist okay okay who cares all right so now all these things I had to throw away I knew that if I purchase this from Tesla these parts I needed it'd be1 billion in parts and no one has these harnesses for sale because when people strip these cars down they either throw the harnesses away or they just take you know the the important stuff they take the battery and the Drive Unit uh or any autopilot Hardware so I mean it looks like I have to go on Copart again to find a donor car so let me just inform you guys about Copart and you got to watch your back on Copart Copart is a scary place you got to know your stuff now copart's the place where you you look to buy you know previously uh salvage vehicles or vehicles that were previously in an accident that were purchased back from insurance companies and you look at six to 12 pictures of the car and decide whether or not you want to spend 20 grand on it now the motor arguably is the most expensive C of any car and Copart cars are sold as is so if by chance there's a picture of the car with the hood shut you know everyone assumes okay there's a motor under there oops guess what you pop the hood you just got the car no motor you've been had you lose you get nothing thing good day sir okay and that happens all the time people people are just are are shyy what they'll do is they'll they'll remove the batteries they'll take the cells out and then put the battery shell back in so it looks like there's a battery in it but all the modules are out that's a $220,000 screw up that's fraud and if you go to goart and say hey I didn't get a you know what's going on I I didn't get a a battery they say hey guess what I don't know what to tell you man the car sold as is you know so I spent a few weeks analyzing every car on co-art um and just another thing to keep in mind over the time the most of the air suspension equipped cars lose their air and they fall flat in the ground uh coil suspension cars generally sit the same level however if a pack is removed which is about 14400 lb they they could sometimes tend to sit a little bit higher so just note that if the car sits really high you got to scratch your chin on that one uh some cars have their rear Motors removed too so just make sure you see rear calipers in the cars um guys sometimes just drop the entire assembly out and they'll they'll just they'll just run with it I'll cover that in another vid I think I'm going to make a video of how to buy a salvage Model A might help a few people um but you know what even after knowing all those things could happen I bought another one you know I bought another car uh I found one it it was it was 14k for the first car another 14 Grand for the second car that's $28,000 all right 28,000 dollar Ros you dollar rinos dollar do you know who gets that reference throw it in the comments uh but that's okay you know what keep listening and I'll tell you why it's okay that I spent almost 30 grand on two non-working cars which was a captivating conversation I have with my wife by the way I don't think I have anything worth 30 grand and now all of a sudden I have two cars totaling 30 grand and neither one of them work all right so I'll be referencing two cars in this update you know Dolores the blackf footed car and the white P85 car uh that she got her parts from that I never got a name for um B Rich you know you could get a CPO car for under 40 Grand now right I know that okay I spent a lot less than 40 by the way so just to jump around a little bit because I have ADD uh so I'm super busy packaging and and shipping out parts from the flooded car uh Dolores since I have a a little downtime um because you know the car is mostly disassembled at this point so uh I got to start recouping the cost on this thing you know I just can't have the parts that I don't need sitting around you know not making money because you know the longer I wait the the less the uh the car the parts are worth so here's where everyone needs to listen up okay and I'll do a separate cost breakdown video about this because I know people rarely watch the entire video and and comment before watching the whole vid I'm going to rant again why is that why do people watch 90 random seconds of the video type a comment hit submit to that comment and then stop watching the video to see if their question was answered you know why okay anyways so uh here's where the vehicle parts stand right now um the Drive Unit boom sold I sold 12 good battery modules from that flooded car I sold the front driver's seat I sold miscellaneous interior trim panels so I recouped a decent amount of cash already I got $99,000 for those modules you hear me n Grand so I'm looking at only paying about five grand for the first car so total for two cars I made it for 19 Grand you know so 19 grand for two cars that's not so bad assuming I get one working you know uh I sold the Drive Unit the the broken Drive Unit for three grand uh as is so now I'm down to 16 grand for two Teslas you know and part of me kicking myself in the butt uh for not asking some more for more for that Drive Unit because now more than ever I really think that that drive unit was fine and not flooded but I'll rant about that later I'm sure um so to getting rid of the modules was easy I put them on a pallet shipped them out um the the Drive Unit was was uh pretty straightforward the the guy sent someone sent a tow truck driver to pick it up because they weigh about 800 lounds by themselves and the the dispatcher called me and said hey you know my guy is coming out to pick up that Drive Unit you know he'll be there around 900 p.m I'm like that's awesome because um I didn't take the axles out yet so it gives you enough time so they call me back at 6 and he's like hey I'm here I'm like dude you're literally three hours early he's likew just give me the axles too then I'm like no you're not getting the axles too so I just ended up ripping the axles out Al together um and actually one axle came out really easily the second one didn't uh and that some guy gave me 120 just for the axle broken like that which was great um so that was a quick recap of some of the costs that I recouped so far but I have to go see the car in person for the first time so it's uh it's about an hour away and it's at my my buddy's tow yard and the same guy delivered the black model last delivered this one as well but the the cars are so heavy and and due to the issues we had last time he actually left the car at his shop and I said I would pick parts off it as I go along just to make the car lighter for its eventual return to the house uh so I'd remove the goal was to remove the battery of the motor and on separate occasions so that the car be lighter and we had to you know uh lower it and and bring it back to uh to my house so getting as as much weight off the car as possible was was the goal um and and this is kind of a turning point because you know there's a lot of questions because quite frankly the the donor car isn't hurt that bad and as a matter of fact I don't think it should have been total at all so once I start moving the broken pieces to this car there's going to be one one big question do I repair the donor car with the with the flooded car parts or do I swap literally everything over from the donor car to the flood one which would be you know 10 times the the labor my own labor and you know as I started working on the car more uh these are the conditions that I have to work under um the it was at my friend's tow yard so I had to set my exposure super high on the camera this is pretty much in complete darkness you know that over head light makes it seem a lot brighter than it really is but it was not bright in the least bit uh the only electricity I have is the inverter built into the bed of my truck so I can run an LED flashlight and maybe a drill but nothing heavy like a shop vac to take out some glass that I've been stepping on so I started going over the car and you know there's there's mice that that chewed up the wiring harness you can see they built a little Nest but they chewed this up pretty bad and you know these just some of the things you have to look out for when you get something something like this you can't send anyone out to to to to look through the whole car this is what you have to expect um you know and and no one's going to tell you this so the the next day I decided you know what I'm gonna actually going to give the old owner a call and he was a uh he was a yacht salesman and left his business card in the car so I I end up calling the guy back and and we chatted for a bit and he said that the car saved his life he got into an accident uh with an SUV and the the SUV's frame rail was bent over about 12 Ines and and his car well you know it looks like it does there in the pictures but it's bad but not as bad as the SUV that he hit so I call him to see if he had the key which he did not and we talked for another 10 or 15 minutes or so and then he sent me packing on my way so um so back to the car again the the the one of the biggest problems with working on these is the the the hex screws for securing the passenger and driver seats they were they were completely different but someone explained to me as to why because they you need different it's in a Side Collision you need the uh proper Breakaway uh forces applied so that the the occupants could be saved um but they're completely different but it was a pain to take apart and they they stripped in 30 seconds I was only able to get one of them out successfully and the this is Tiny these are tiny and they're massively over torqued to add insult to injury so this is the passenger side right rear screw completely stripped and I I I didn't think this day could get any worse but I did get an interesting phone call from the previous owner uh he said his wife was doing some cleaning and she actually found the key which is great but for for some reason I don't know why I thought this I thought he would just kind of send it to me for free and you know throw a little cashes way and cover shipping but you know I was all kinds of wrong he said he wanted to send me this wall charger and key for $650 and the the thing that got me was that he wasn't using either one he hadn't had the car for a year but it's only when someone expressed interest in it he wanted to Jack the price up so you know the key was literally in his underwear draw and you know I I just ended up paying him the 650 but I was pretty upset about it so I'm going to trash me a little bit here so if you if you know a yacht salesman somewhere in the Carolinas just just punch him in the face for me because it's it's even if it's not the same guy they should all pay for this um so now this this coming weekend here it it marked a thread it marked a a huge turning moment in this threads history because this is we're coming up to the the the next stage of the the car rebuild so for the past you know few months you I've cover covered a ton of ground considering you know I can only work on it a few nights a week for a couple hours at a time but in the last 3 months you know I haven't installed a single part on the black footed car like none whatsoever so the this whole project hasn't really started the rebuild phases yet so you know I I've been streaming along for four episodes now but it's it's pretty easy to to disassemble one of these cars it doesn't take a rocking scientist to do it uh all you need of the right tools the and the guts to tear into one however rebuilding is a completely different game because this is where the pain and suffering actually begins because you tend to forget you know where something goes where's that screw this doesn't line up anymore and miscellaneous things like that um but I know where a lot of the things go but over time you just kind of forget you know you forget where a few screws go you might lose a few things and uh some of the times I've been noticing I've been forgetting to take photos In the Heat of the Moment and you know stopping to document takes a long time too that just adds to the time that that you need to to um disassemble the car just setting up camera angles and and knowing what to say and then just editing Parts out that you think might be relevant or irrelevant so um yeah I over the last few days I made a big push to put in serious work on the rebuild uh I took a day off and put in about four hours to remove uh that stubborn front passenger seat that was telling you guys about earlier and you know I was planning on putting a few other hours by myself again on Saturday uh it just so happens that this guy actually messaged me a guy that's been following the thread messaged me and said you know hey if you ever run out of your you know your tireless energy and wit and end up needing a hand this WPI student be happy to help so it it's good because I needed to help so I took him off in the offer and yeah I'm glad I did he he you know he and yeah sorry I gotta cut you guys off for a second um I took him up on the offer you know and I'm glad I did because the guy rented a car and drove an hour just to see my silly little project and lend a hand and when I realized what he' done it just blew my mind because I mean let's be real here the last time I drove an I rented a car and drove an hour for anything I was probably trying to get late or something and this guy just kind of did it because he was just interested in the project you know just just real um well needless to say you know we got to work right away and in a matter of a few hours we got the uh Drive Unit out the high voltage battery uh the driver side main harness that goes to the battery connectors just wow this is all in a tow yard with no access to a lift okay just jack stands wood blocks and basic hand tools you know and I and I couldn't thank him enough so I bought him Burger King and he seemed pretty happy about that you know Rich takes care of his people you know what can I say uh anyways thank you kind student I hope you learned a lot I hope you'll be thinking of me when you graduate from school and actually purchase the Tesla as opposed to cing one kind of working one from two non-working cars anyways so I'm going to stop it right here uh so send this podcast to your friends like share subscribe and oh and guess what you know we got some donations you know damn you know thank you guys it's very nice to you thanks a bunch you know it's it's always appreciated um you know just you know I'm going to go a little bit further a little bit more here uh here's some pictures before I end this uh this is what the inside of the P85 donor car looks like uh I'm mostly taking pictures at this point for documentation purposes but it looks kind of neat you know there's glass literally everywhere and the the kind of thing that stins about that is that uh I couldn't attached my shop back to my truck because it just pulled it pulled too much voltage from my truck I have a um a smaller inverter sorry that's built into the back of the truck and it can only push out so much and the shop fact wasn't having it to back up all that glass and this is something you don't think of when when these when these cars are smash when the glasses is smashed and there glass everywhere this is a tough call it wreaks havoc on like your wrists and arms it's it's a pain the butt to work with even on your knees if you have to squat in the car it's it does a number on on your knees and and your legs but um it's a mess you know it's a mess in this car just like my truck huh remember that I brought that one back you like that huh I brought that one back all right don't forget to like share and subscribe\n"