The first thing I do when I'm seeing if a new purchase is going to be salvagable is a thorough cleaning. With the amount of moss and leaves I started with a quick pressure wash.



At that point you can see, it's actually pretty damn good, especially for black paint. Of course it's gonna have wear and scratches, but that's no reason to count it out. Then I had to move onto the interior (kind of my specialty at this point.)

It was kind of just plain nasty, but even though the filth you can tell it's not too bad.



The front seats and console come out in short order and then you can get to pretty much everything with the vacuum, dog hair was throughout so I spent a solid hour with the shop vac. It all came out of the carpet and seats for the most part, I do need to figure out the headliner. It's stuck up there too, and a lot of it.





Back in with the seats and powerwashed floormats, nothing wrong with most of the interior so my list of things to get is actually pretty short. I need a driver's seat, center console (or maybe just a lid) and the front armrests for the door panels, other than that it's pretty good. There is a lot of wear on the driver's carpet in the usual spot, but not worth replacing IMO.



With the interior somewhat sorted, you can see the damage on the rear hatch. It's BAD. Rust, a gaping hole, stacks of bondo. I'm glad it's the hatch though, I can unbolt it and find a suitable replacement pretty easily.



While it still runs, I wanted to make sure the drivetrain was all still working. Only one way to do that. 4 Low works!



To finish off the day's work (A good 5 hours) I hit it with the pressure washer again and a quick handwash, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather. She shines pretty decent if I do say so. Also had to do the official unofficial T4R.org running board delete.



I'm on the lookout for a new heart for it now. Hoping to find just the motor, the majority of RZ motors around here are sold as full swaps. According to the previous owner there's a decent amount of new-ish parts here. The radiator is somewhat new,brakes are good, shocks are pretty new, the transmission was replaced with a used unit quite a few miles ago, and a few other odds and ends.