am I flogging a dead horse?, time for a dispassionate assessment Options

[swl]

I've been stripping down the beast to get her ready to send down to Mike G to do a professional assessment of the longs. I'm having a real crisis of faith though as to whether or not this is all worth while.

I spent hours last weekend just trying to get the bloody pedal cluster out. The MC and nuts in the area were covered in surface rust. When I wirebrushed them the 13mm nuts had shrunk down to 1/2inch (12.7mm). I was able to get the drivers side cracked with a very small socket, extension and breaker bar. The passenger side completely defeated me. The only thing I could get on the nut with any purchase was a six point flare wrench. It felt like it cracked but the metal failed before I could get a quarter turn on it. So now I'm looking at having to dremel the nut off, remove the stud and have someone weld a new one on. One stinking nut is gonna cost me hours and hours of work!

So I got out my crying chair and just sat for half an hour just staring at the car and wondering if it was all worth while. My son has lost interest (damn the seseme street generation!) so I can't even write off the time and money to 'bonding'. The car will never be a CW candiate - best I'm going to get is a nice summer fun car that might me worth $5-6K on the canadian market.

So here is the known work list:
Longs - both sides inner and outter. Typical heater tube rust from the inside out. Driver side is worse with the damage on 3 sides: bottom, 1-2" of the inners down 70% of the length. Outers will have to be completely replaced or clammed.

Floor - big hole drivers side just forward of the cross brace. Other failure at the passenger front jack point. Rest is pretty good. Might get away with just localized repair.

Cross brace is intact but shows a lot of surface rust - may need to be reinforced.

firewall is intact with minor damage around the handbrake holes. Heavy surface rust on the engine side from the sound pad.

Hell hole has no perfs - well at least a little good news.

left rear quarter. Previous body work around the rear light was poorly done and has rusted through.

rear trunk has some small rust perfs. Front trunk is solid.

Some rust perf around the front and rear bumper mounts.

small rust throughs above both door handles and a few of the other common areas.

The engine is still reasonably tight. Low milage on new P&Cs 'just under 2 liters with slightly higher compression and a little head work'

Vacuum advance shot.

One injector stuck or shot.

Another injector with a broken electrical tab that may need to be replaced (don't ask)

Pressure regulator is suspect. Still works but doesn't seem to have any adjustment.

Need to replace coil and maybe wires.

Need to replace strut cartridges all round - still has originals.

Need a rebuild on front calipers. We've done the rears.

Master Cylinder in unknown condition.

Interior in good (not great) shape. Drivers side recaro. Passenger side original in great shape.

Cracked dash. Cracked targa pad

and so on, and so on, and so on.

My original budget of $5K is looking like a bit of a joke. I'll be spending that and more just in rustoration and paint.

I'm really enjoying the learning involve in the project but I'm overwhelmed by the effort and money it is going to take.

So what do you think?
Parts car?
Sell it off as a project to someone with more energy?
Give it to the local AX club for their young driver program?
Free to a good home?
Junk yard (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

Sorry about the long post but I needed to vent.

I think I'm going to call her Moby Dick