I've just about completely stripped my 71 cutlass in prep for rust and paint removal and have been labeling and boxing the parts as I go. My car was originally green on green, with the exterior painted blue and the interior painted, dyed, or replaced with black parts. Well, most of the parts are either wrong, missing, damaged beyond repair, or I planned on replacing them anyway. I'm wondering if I am wasting my time keeping most of this stuff. I've been taking pics as I go and most of the parts were installed incorrectly, used the wrong hardware, or were loose and I dont know where they go anyway. I'm realizing that most of my pics are a waste of time as I'm taking pics of incorrectly installed parts. Realistically, I'm talking about almost every interior part. I was considering saving the parts to use as a reference for fitting the new parts or as templates to make new ones, but space is at a premium for me. I'm leaning on treating this car like a new Lego set and starting from scratch. What are your opinions on dealing with all these crappy parts?

 

I say save everything till you have the car fully assembled even a beat-up door panel should be saved you can re-use the metal strip on top or you can pay more for the complete door panel.

 

I saved every part removed from my car, even if it was rusted beyond use. When I started reassembling, I found that some of my notes and the pictures I took during the "bag & tag" disassembly process could have been more descriptive. Looking at the old part often cleared up any confusion. Once the car is fully reassembled you can toss the old parts or offer them for sale to others who may need them.

 

SAVE ALL YOUR PARTS!!!!!
I have just finished my 5 year restoration and have found numerous times where I have had to restore parts that I have taken off because..... repop sucks or is not made anymore. They are also good reference parts to transfer holes and such to a repop. I cannot count the times I have thank myself for saving the old stuff to get me to the finish line and beyond I still have parts and working my way thru them to make sure before they do make there way to the trash.

 

As each project is finished I go through all the removed parts and toss what I feel has no future use, then store the parts that I want to keep. I see no reason to keep stuff for posterity for a Cutlass.