Car body weight

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

Hi all. A while back I ended up with a parts car for my '97 Escort. The parts car sits behind my garage and I’m just getting tired of that. (The next thing you know its an old refrigerator, a pile of dead roof shingles, the old sofa…)

Scrap prices are very good and I have a couple of places I could take it. My brother can borrow a dolly to tow it. But I could also get any number of scrap metal collectors to come get it & this would involve no work on my part. I just want to figure out whether or not I think its worth my trouble. (Its probably not).

In order to figure out whether or not its worth my trouble I have to figure out about how much weight I’ve got. By standard specs the curb weight is around 2500lb. Assume that everything about the car is complete - except that it has nothing under the hood. Engine, transmission, radiator, A/C, power steering, cat converter…all gone.

So, given a '97 Escort with a 2.0L SOHC engine and auto trans, if you gut it under the hood, about how much weight do you think I have left? Or, alternatively, about how much would this engine + transmission weigh?

Ball park guesses are plenty good enough for me.

2

I’m just spit-balling, but I would say if it was gutted under the hood, including the engine and transmission, about half the weight is gone, so about 1,250 lbs.

3

Your trans and engine together should weigh about 500 pounds.

4

Load it up with any scrap metal you can find. I would bet you get over $300 as is.

5

#1 shredded, delivered to the mill, $450/ton…Your escort body might bring $150 at a scrap yard…

6

A new V8 marine motor is about 900 lbs, so I’d guess and Escort 4 with the transaxle is about 500-600. Fluids also add lbs. so is the gas tank empty, brake lines etc. You are likely down about 900 lbs from normal “on the road” weight. Seats, rubber tires, glass, and plastic all have weight so if you only getting money for the “metal” in the car you’d have to take of another couple of hundred lbs.