Mclaren Wanted $14,000 For A New Frame So I Bought A Cheap One On Ebay (And It's BROKEN)

**Replacing My McLaren 675LT’s Frame: A Budget Restoration Journey**

Hello everyone! My name is Tavaresh, and today we’re tackling a major project: replacing the extremely damaged frame of my McLaren 675LT with a less broken one. As you can tell, this isn’t just any ordinary car restoration—it’s a significant undertaking. If you’re new to my channel, welcome! I hope you’ll enjoy this episode and consider subscribing if you find this kind of content interesting.

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### A Word About Our Sponsor: AutoTempest

Before diving into the details of this project, I want to give a shoutout to our sponsor, **AutoTempest**. This platform has been invaluable for all my car purchases. It aggregates listings from major car sites into one convenient search, making it easier than ever to find great deals on vehicles. Whether you’re looking for a budget-friendly ride or something truly special, AutoTempest is the go-to resource. If you haven’t checked them out yet, I highly recommend giving them a try by clicking the link in the video description below.

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### Introducing the Series: *Found on AutoTempest*

Another quick mention before we get started: I also have a series called *Found on AutoTempest*. In this show, I take the top 10 listings that viewers send my way and turn them into something entertaining—whether it’s pointing out absurdities or even attempting to purchase them. If you’ve got any interesting car listings in mind, feel free to send them my way at **foundonautotempest@gmail.com**. The crazier the listing, the better! Whether it’s a $5k sleeper, a luxury car you can buy for $500, or something as wild as this McLaren project, I want to hear from you.

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### The Frame Replacement Journey

Alright, now that we’ve covered the sponsorships, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of today’s project. As many of you know, my McLaren 675LT has sustained significant damage over time, particularly to its frame. This isn’t just a minor scratch or dent; it’s a level of damage that makes driving unsafe and impractical. The original frame was hit hard and bent in multiple places, with cracks and dents that make it unsalvageable.

To tackle this problem on a budget, I decided to replace the entire subframe. A new one would have cost $14,000—a price tag that’s simply out of reach for most of us. Instead, I opted for a used frame from a 2016 McLaren 650S. While the two frames (675LT and 650S) are extremely similar, there are a few key differences we’ll need to address during this project.

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### Key Differences Between the Frames

One of the first things I noticed when comparing the two frames is the condition of their rib nuts—those small, specialized fasteners used in automotive applications. On the old frame, the rib nuts for the air brake and active wing are dirty and appear unused. This suggests they were either part of an optional feature or never properly utilized on this particular car.

In contrast, the new frame has slightly different rear brackets. The 650S frame includes a larger bumper brace due to its design, while the 675LT’s lighter construction means a smaller and less robust bumper mount. While this might not make a significant difference in terms of crash protection (since neither is particularly sturdy), it does mean we’ll need to modify the new frame slightly to match the original car’s specifications.

Another critical difference is the condition of the aluminum components. The old frame has been bent and damaged in multiple places, but the new one remains straight and intact. This makes it a much better candidate for repair and reuse.

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### Welding Challenges: A First-Timer’s Perspective

Welding is no small task, especially when you’re dealing with aluminum—a material that requires a very different approach than steel. As someone who has always been scared of welding, I decided this project was the perfect opportunity to give it a try. After all, there’s no better way to practice than on a beautiful (albeit damaged) McLaren frame.

We started by practicing on scrap aluminum, learning how to control the heat and feed the metal properly. Aluminum doesn’t turn cherry red like steel; instead, it becomes slightly shinier before melting away. This subtle visual cue was both fascinating and challenging to master. Welding aluminum also requires careful handling due to its conductivity—it’s essential to avoid touching the material with bare skin, especially if you’re sweating.

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### The Fabrication Process

With some practice under my belt, we moved on to welding the actual frame. The first step was attaching a slightly oversized nut over the broken bolts and using a mig welder to fuse them together. This technique not only strengthens the joint but also helps loosen any rust or debris that’s preventing the bolts from coming out cleanly.

Once the frame was ready, we lined it up with the underbody panel to ensure everything aligned perfectly. The holes matched up seamlessly on both sides, which gave me confidence that the new frame would fit as intended.

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### Final Assembly and Future Plans

Now that the frame is in place, the next step is to tackle the suspension system. I’ll be offering it up to make sure it bolts on correctly and isn’t bent or misaligned. This attention to detail is crucial for maintaining the car’s handling and overall performance.

In the coming episodes, I’ll be working on buttoning up the engine bay—a task that has me a bit nervous, as I’ll need to drill and tap holes precisely to ensure everything holds together securely. Fingers crossed I don’t end up needing another engine any time soon!

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### Closing Thoughts

This project wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible help of my friend Jared, who did an amazing job cleaning up and welding parts of the new frame. His expertise was invaluable, especially when it came to addressing the small but critical differences between the two frames.

If you’re watching this, I encourage you to wrench every day—whether it’s on a project as ambitious as this McLaren or something smaller. There’s always room for improvement, and even if you make mistakes along the way, that’s how you learn and grow as a mechanic.

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Thank you all for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please don’t forget to subscribe, like, and share. And if you have any suggestions for future *Found on AutoTempest* themes—whether it’s 5k sleepers, luxury cars on a budget, or something even crazier—drop them in the comments below.

Until next time, this is Tavaresh reminding you that even cars that don’t look like cars right now can be transformed into something truly special with enough effort and passion. Keep wrenching!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhow's it going guys my name is tavaresh and today we are replacing my mclaren 675 lt's really broken frame with a frame that is less broken because a new one costs 14 000 if you couldn't tell by now we're trying to do this on a budget so if you guys are new to my channel thank you so much for watching i really hope you enjoy it and consider subscribing if you like this kind of stuff i am scared of all of this because this is the most i've ever taken apart a car there is a a car back there i i assure you this used to be a 2016 mclaren 675 lt and no it is not parts i'm putting it together i swear so today we are going to be taking apart the old really really broken subframe the part which took all of the impact from the back and we're replacing it with one that took no impact from the back but it does have some impacts on the side now the reason why we're even doing this is because this entire series is sponsored by autotempest.com you guys know that i use auto tempest for everything for all my car purchases they are amazing they take all the major car listing sites and put it into one search if you want to be smart about your car purchases definitely hit them up in the link in the video description below in addition i also have a series called found on autotempest where i take the top 10 listings that you guys send me and i put them into a format where i can make fun of them or buy them because yeah that's uh it's apparently a thing that i do so if you find any interesting listings just send them my way at found on autotempest gmail.com i'm gonna have a lot of different themes over the next few weeks and maybe i'll find a theme that you guys suggest to me if you have an interesting idea for a found on auto tempest series maybe it's 5 000 sleepers maybe it's luxury cars you can buy for 500 bucks maybe it's super cars that are like this you're probably not going to find anything like this in any case send me those listings found on autotempest gmail.com now this is gonna be an interesting one because well i've never done this before but it shouldn't be that hard this is the old frame and as far as i can tell it is identical to the new frame which i got used now this frame is from a 2016 650s mclaren this is from the 675lt they are very very similar other than a few small details and we're gonna go over them right now so joining me as always is my friend jared how you doing very good how are you doing uh uh so this is the old frame and you guys have seen this before there's a lot of damage just got hit real hard and it bent a bunch of stuff and it cracked a bunch of stuff take a look at that damage that was when the axle came forward and shot through the cast section of the frame so that's nice and fun the important bit is that these two are identical but they're sort of identical in everything we need like the big stuff but the little stuff is not really the same is it now they're just a couple really small tweaks that are relatively easy for us to fix and if you're rebuilding one in your garage and you had a welder if you're rebuilding a 675 lt if you get to the point where a car is like this then just stop get some help what are we changing on these frames so aside from transferring everything over to the new frame there are a couple these are what are called rib nuts they're rivet nuts where you're able to drill a hole and insert a thread cert is sometimes what they're also called so we have the one rib nut on the side that is for the air brake and active wing these two are dirty threads and we have no evidence of anything ever being bolted into them when the threads are dirty just to kind of put a finer point on that when you see that a hole has some dirt in it or some corrosion usually it hasn't had a bolt in it for a while if it did you'll see that it's more like this where the threads are a little cleaner so these might be kind of vestiges of some other option that this car had or maybe another car i don't know but these aren't exactly used at least not for my car we may put them in so it is 100 accurate or we may not it depends the other small change on these rear brackets this is torn off but it would only have a lower reinforcement bumper mount where you compare the other one that has four holes yeah so the this is like a bigger mount the reason why is because the 650s actually has a bigger bumper brace and since the 675lt is a lightweight version the bumper brace is only like about half of the size and half of the weight now i'm not sure if that translates into better crash protection i don't think it does but i don't think our cri we needed the big bar back there i think the big bar could have made a difference i think that we will just cut this kind of make a template from that one cut this right here make the necessary holes and then everything should line up now i have done some measurements as far as length and the length matches up perfectly with this and everything else all the other holes line up fine other than right here and it's not that they don't line up it's just that they're sort of missing so right here you can see that riv nuts that were supposed to be there were ripped out and that's because this car or whatever car this frame came out of suffered a bit of a side swipe uh some side accident damage now this entire piece is not bent it is aluminum it is a bit of a trapezoid so if you guys think it's bent you're wrong it's not right here is another area of concern because the control arms just ripped out and they left behind these vestiges of of bolts now there are some easier ways to uh take this out i'm told by jared yep and that's what we're going to do so you take a slightly oversized nut hold it over the broken bolt and we'll come in with a mig welder with a fair fairly high heat and burn that so that remnant of bolt will weld to that nut and the heat will actually help loosen it as well works on rusty bolts broken bolts so okay and then we'll take this off this is the uh tie rod end this does it doesn't have any sort of steering in the back but it does have some adjustment in the back so after that i am going to uh just offer up all the suspension to see that it bolts on exactly as it would and it's not bent it's not uh off kilter and then hopefully we will have an assembled rear section ready to go on to that tub and then i will worry about gluing the entire car back together what you've been doing uh practicing some welding so i've never actually welded aluminum before and i've always been very scared of doing it but apparently it's really not that hard it just uh takes a little bit of patience and also uh technique so this is my first kind of foray into welding not the best obviously but i can probably do a structural thing where i'm just welding on a ground so i think that's admirable you want to weld on your mclaren which is a good thing but i didn't want them to immediately start on that especially when we have this beautiful aluminum piece to practice so if you want to practice at home get scrap aluminum the first thing you want to start on is what he was doing in this section which is just learning what aluminum looks like when it starts to melt because with steel it turns cherry red aluminum kind of goes from silver to slightly shinier silver and then just blowing out through the bottom so we had a couple practice runs of just learning how to control the pedal and then learning how to feed the metal and then the moment we set the actual butt uh overlapping joint on he he hit it kind of out of the park so this is a ground that the 675 lt had that didn't exist on the 650 so we just are transferring that bung quick and easy what i've learned is that it's very important to be comfortable and go over what you're welding so i mean i'm not giving anybody welding tips this is literally my first time doing this we found a stand to get a slightly better welding position grounds are ready when you're welding aluminum or any ac welding thing be careful touching your skin to the material especially if you sweat it gets a little shocking that is when the tip goes in yeah but even without that that is burn through it a little bit on the end but i can i can fix that so you that's uh extra credit there what do you grade yourself a d minus d minus yeah i uh i went a little fast here yeah a little little too much heat where it burned in but it is connected yeah this should be fine a ground is going to connect i mean that is more substantial than the mclaren well let's see where's another one of so there's what mclaren makes it look like yep which not super not super different to be honest with you um but you know for a first timer i think i think it's good enough now you do agree that your initial plan have just grabbed the torch and start on this probably i would have figured it out all right so i think i think that's it for uh the fabrication part like the the rest is just like installing roof nuts and stuff right yeah all right now that we have the old frame completely stripped well not exactly completely i still have to take out the tie rods it didn't have the correct wrench for that i'll have to wait a day to get the right tool everything else is taken off of that old frame and it's ready to be scrapped and the new frame is looking really really good jared did an amazing job with cleaning everything up as far as some welding there was some slight imperfections and we made sure that everything is as good as new i made sure that all the bolts were in their correct holes and we even got some bonus bolts these were actually just vestiges of the old frame and the new frame and we had some overlap and we got some bonus bolts which is always always a good thing it's not a good thing if you have bonus bolts when you didn't have extra parts if you take a look down here you'll see that these frame rails they should line up with this underbody panel and when i put it up like this hole lines up there and hole lines up there which means that this frame at least side to side is good and it's going to be straight now i think i will put this on a jig just to make sure that it is within millimeters of where it should be i want to make sure that this is as good as when it left the mclaren factory in the first place so when you look over here let's take that same panel try to put it over here yeah so one bolt lines up there and then the other bolt yeah that's uh that's that's a little off but of course we knew that already and here just in case people don't realize how badly this is bent i'm looking straight down and you can see this is just completely caved in and right here the same angle this is just straight straight straight i can't wait until this goes back in the car so that's gonna be it for this episode i'd like to thank jared he actually did have to leave but he did a lot of work in this episode he is the mvp after all so in the next episode i am going to be buttoning up that engine over there i'm a little bit scared because i have to drill a hole i have to tap it i have to make sure that it's as good as new and it holds the engine up that is gonna be a big big big deal but hopefully we get everything done and hopefully i don't have to buy another engine because those are really really expensive but until next time this is me reminding you guys that on cars like these that don't look like cars right now but they now have awesome new frames you guys need to build it better and to do that you need to wrench every day youhow's it going guys my name is tavaresh and today we are replacing my mclaren 675 lt's really broken frame with a frame that is less broken because a new one costs 14 000 if you couldn't tell by now we're trying to do this on a budget so if you guys are new to my channel thank you so much for watching i really hope you enjoy it and consider subscribing if you like this kind of stuff i am scared of all of this because this is the most i've ever taken apart a car there is a a car back there i i assure you this used to be a 2016 mclaren 675 lt and no it is not parts i'm putting it together i swear so today we are going to be taking apart the old really really broken subframe the part which took all of the impact from the back and we're replacing it with one that took no impact from the back but it does have some impacts on the side now the reason why we're even doing this is because this entire series is sponsored by autotempest.com you guys know that i use auto tempest for everything for all my car purchases they are amazing they take all the major car listing sites and put it into one search if you want to be smart about your car purchases definitely hit them up in the link in the video description below in addition i also have a series called found on autotempest where i take the top 10 listings that you guys send me and i put them into a format where i can make fun of them or buy them because yeah that's uh it's apparently a thing that i do so if you find any interesting listings just send them my way at found on autotempest gmail.com i'm gonna have a lot of different themes over the next few weeks and maybe i'll find a theme that you guys suggest to me if you have an interesting idea for a found on auto tempest series maybe it's 5 000 sleepers maybe it's luxury cars you can buy for 500 bucks maybe it's super cars that are like this you're probably not going to find anything like this in any case send me those listings found on autotempest gmail.com now this is gonna be an interesting one because well i've never done this before but it shouldn't be that hard this is the old frame and as far as i can tell it is identical to the new frame which i got used now this frame is from a 2016 650s mclaren this is from the 675lt they are very very similar other than a few small details and we're gonna go over them right now so joining me as always is my friend jared how you doing very good how are you doing uh uh so this is the old frame and you guys have seen this before there's a lot of damage just got hit real hard and it bent a bunch of stuff and it cracked a bunch of stuff take a look at that damage that was when the axle came forward and shot through the cast section of the frame so that's nice and fun the important bit is that these two are identical but they're sort of identical in everything we need like the big stuff but the little stuff is not really the same is it now they're just a couple really small tweaks that are relatively easy for us to fix and if you're rebuilding one in your garage and you had a welder if you're rebuilding a 675 lt if you get to the point where a car is like this then just stop get some help what are we changing on these frames so aside from transferring everything over to the new frame there are a couple these are what are called rib nuts they're rivet nuts where you're able to drill a hole and insert a thread cert is sometimes what they're also called so we have the one rib nut on the side that is for the air brake and active wing these two are dirty threads and we have no evidence of anything ever being bolted into them when the threads are dirty just to kind of put a finer point on that when you see that a hole has some dirt in it or some corrosion usually it hasn't had a bolt in it for a while if it did you'll see that it's more like this where the threads are a little cleaner so these might be kind of vestiges of some other option that this car had or maybe another car i don't know but these aren't exactly used at least not for my car we may put them in so it is 100 accurate or we may not it depends the other small change on these rear brackets this is torn off but it would only have a lower reinforcement bumper mount where you compare the other one that has four holes yeah so the this is like a bigger mount the reason why is because the 650s actually has a bigger bumper brace and since the 675lt is a lightweight version the bumper brace is only like about half of the size and half of the weight now i'm not sure if that translates into better crash protection i don't think it does but i don't think our cri we needed the big bar back there i think the big bar could have made a difference i think that we will just cut this kind of make a template from that one cut this right here make the necessary holes and then everything should line up now i have done some measurements as far as length and the length matches up perfectly with this and everything else all the other holes line up fine other than right here and it's not that they don't line up it's just that they're sort of missing so right here you can see that riv nuts that were supposed to be there were ripped out and that's because this car or whatever car this frame came out of suffered a bit of a side swipe uh some side accident damage now this entire piece is not bent it is aluminum it is a bit of a trapezoid so if you guys think it's bent you're wrong it's not right here is another area of concern because the control arms just ripped out and they left behind these vestiges of of bolts now there are some easier ways to uh take this out i'm told by jared yep and that's what we're going to do so you take a slightly oversized nut hold it over the broken bolt and we'll come in with a mig welder with a fair fairly high heat and burn that so that remnant of bolt will weld to that nut and the heat will actually help loosen it as well works on rusty bolts broken bolts so okay and then we'll take this off this is the uh tie rod end this does it doesn't have any sort of steering in the back but it does have some adjustment in the back so after that i am going to uh just offer up all the suspension to see that it bolts on exactly as it would and it's not bent it's not uh off kilter and then hopefully we will have an assembled rear section ready to go on to that tub and then i will worry about gluing the entire car back together what you've been doing uh practicing some welding so i've never actually welded aluminum before and i've always been very scared of doing it but apparently it's really not that hard it just uh takes a little bit of patience and also uh technique so this is my first kind of foray into welding not the best obviously but i can probably do a structural thing where i'm just welding on a ground so i think that's admirable you want to weld on your mclaren which is a good thing but i didn't want them to immediately start on that especially when we have this beautiful aluminum piece to practice so if you want to practice at home get scrap aluminum the first thing you want to start on is what he was doing in this section which is just learning what aluminum looks like when it starts to melt because with steel it turns cherry red aluminum kind of goes from silver to slightly shinier silver and then just blowing out through the bottom so we had a couple practice runs of just learning how to control the pedal and then learning how to feed the metal and then the moment we set the actual butt uh overlapping joint on he he hit it kind of out of the park so this is a ground that the 675 lt had that didn't exist on the 650 so we just are transferring that bung quick and easy what i've learned is that it's very important to be comfortable and go over what you're welding so i mean i'm not giving anybody welding tips this is literally my first time doing this we found a stand to get a slightly better welding position grounds are ready when you're welding aluminum or any ac welding thing be careful touching your skin to the material especially if you sweat it gets a little shocking that is when the tip goes in yeah but even without that that is burn through it a little bit on the end but i can i can fix that so you that's uh extra credit there what do you grade yourself a d minus d minus yeah i uh i went a little fast here yeah a little little too much heat where it burned in but it is connected yeah this should be fine a ground is going to connect i mean that is more substantial than the mclaren well let's see where's another one of so there's what mclaren makes it look like yep which not super not super different to be honest with you um but you know for a first timer i think i think it's good enough now you do agree that your initial plan have just grabbed the torch and start on this probably i would have figured it out all right so i think i think that's it for uh the fabrication part like the the rest is just like installing roof nuts and stuff right yeah all right now that we have the old frame completely stripped well not exactly completely i still have to take out the tie rods it didn't have the correct wrench for that i'll have to wait a day to get the right tool everything else is taken off of that old frame and it's ready to be scrapped and the new frame is looking really really good jared did an amazing job with cleaning everything up as far as some welding there was some slight imperfections and we made sure that everything is as good as new i made sure that all the bolts were in their correct holes and we even got some bonus bolts these were actually just vestiges of the old frame and the new frame and we had some overlap and we got some bonus bolts which is always always a good thing it's not a good thing if you have bonus bolts when you didn't have extra parts if you take a look down here you'll see that these frame rails they should line up with this underbody panel and when i put it up like this hole lines up there and hole lines up there which means that this frame at least side to side is good and it's going to be straight now i think i will put this on a jig just to make sure that it is within millimeters of where it should be i want to make sure that this is as good as when it left the mclaren factory in the first place so when you look over here let's take that same panel try to put it over here yeah so one bolt lines up there and then the other bolt yeah that's uh that's that's a little off but of course we knew that already and here just in case people don't realize how badly this is bent i'm looking straight down and you can see this is just completely caved in and right here the same angle this is just straight straight straight i can't wait until this goes back in the car so that's gonna be it for this episode i'd like to thank jared he actually did have to leave but he did a lot of work in this episode he is the mvp after all so in the next episode i am going to be buttoning up that engine over there i'm a little bit scared because i have to drill a hole i have to tap it i have to make sure that it's as good as new and it holds the engine up that is gonna be a big big big deal but hopefully we get everything done and hopefully i don't have to buy another engine because those are really really expensive but until next time this is me reminding you guys that on cars like these that don't look like cars right now but they now have awesome new frames you guys need to build it better and to do that you need to wrench every day you\n"