What is a "Timely" restoration?
3 years? 1 year? a couple months?
For me it seems to be a few months.
Last year I took a rolling Bugeye Sprite and totally restored it in
under 60 days from the day I trailered it home to the day I rallyed it.
This year I picked up a basket case Austin Healey 3000. I bought it June
3rd and entered it in a show October 9th.
I hear of 12 year restoration projects. I re-restore my cars in 12
years! I also use them as they were intended and I don't worry about a
chip in the paint or a mechanical breakdown.
If nothing happens on the way to the event, what would you talk about
when you get there?
So how do you restore a car in a few months?
First, you need the enthusiasm to do the project. Then you have to
stumble on the car you want to restore. Next you have to have ambition,
time, tools, and of course money. Do not attempt a restoration with out
all of the above.
Ambition means you really want to do as much of the project as you can
with your own hands.
Time means giving up a few stupid TV shows that have no redeeming social
value. I would never give up the Sopranos but The Apprentice has nothing
to do with life as I know it.
Tools, you must have basic hand tools, an air compressor suitable for
body work, air opertated body working tools, hammers and dollys, a
welder, good drill with sharp bits, angle grinder with cut off disks and
grinding disks, punches, chisels, and a good vice.
If you have to buy all these to start your project, just spend the money
on a finished car, it will be cheaper.
And money $$. Yes, you will need money. Parts cost money, metal costs
money, nuts and bolts, new brakes, and paint and body supplies all cost
money. There is no getting around this part because you might borrow
some tools from your friends and neighbors, but they will not lend you
money for an old rusty car.
So you found that car of your childhood but it's just a bit rusty.
You make a deal with the seller for a few hundred bucks. You quickly
scrounge up a trailer and rush to get your dream car home. Your wife
sees it hooked to the back of your SUV and let's you know you are truely
nuts. She wants it hauled off to the junk yard while it's still on the
hitch. You explain that you will have it all patched up and better than
new in a couple months. But she knows you, it will sit next to the
broken lawnmower in the garage for at least a decade. And it will become
a large shelf for your other smaller household projects you never got to
fix.
So before she has a chance to complain anymore, you unhook your treasure
from the family truckster. You immediately start to disassemble some of
the really crappy looking stuff like the ripped up seats, broken
headlights, and smashed door. Now you have a real mess sitting in the
driveway. She yells out the window for you to come to dinner.
After dinner you calmly assess just exactly what you brought home.
You discover it has thin aluminum roof flashing pop riveted in a few
spots for floors. You find the wasp nest the hard way and the mouse nest
was in plain site inside the air cleaners.
You think to yourself that you made a major mistake. You admit your wife
was right. You clean up the mess, push the heap in the garage, wash up
and instead of TV, grab the parts catalog and look at each page, make a
note as to what you think your car is missing. Now fill in the order
page with what you know you will need to start the project.
Rocker panels, fender patches, floor pans. You notice that all the nuts
and bolts will cost you about a buck each.
You will need to make 3 parts orders. First order is for all the body
panels you need. But alot of them are simple sheet metal patches. Buy
what you don't think you can make at home from the catalog. Pick up some
sheet metal from the local sheetmetal shop so you can cut and fold your
own patch panels and or floor pans. Curved panels bent over a pipe will
work. You vice and a 2x4 make a fine metal brake.
Nuts and bolts can get expensive, check your local yellow pages for a
bolt or industrial supplier. You will have to buy boxes of 100 but it
sure saves time going to your bin of bolts and grabbing exactly what you
need, all new with nuts and washers. 100 bolts costs about $5 or $6.
Do something every night, even if it's wrong. Work on a sub assembly,
clean it, paint it, replace the nuts and bolts in it.
Make a lower fender patch, if it's wrong, do it again tomorrow night.
Before leaving for work in the morning, go out and second coat the spray
paint on the heater assemble so it's dry when you get home from work.
Measure that tinket because you thought you saw something that would
work in the store room at the office.
Pick your paint colors before you head to the paint supplier but be a
bit flexible. Do I want fire engine red or resale red? Does it really
matter? Unless you are doing a concours restoration, it doesn't really
matter. If the paint is 1 or 2 shades off from your magazine picture,
nobody will know.
As you are finishing up the body work but before the car is painted,
order up all those chrome doo-dads and rubber bits so it is in your
possesion when the paint is dry and ready to go on the car.
When you come in from the garage every night, double check the parts
catalog incase you are missing something. Check your internet car list
or forum for ideas, shortcuts, and parts venders. Ebay helps too.
Let's face it, if you wait on your parts, the price will surely go up.
Besides, you need the parts now, not next year.
With the paint job looking good and shiney new chrome all over the car,
start installing all those sub assemblys you have been working on while
the body putty was drying or the welding was cooling.
Don't waste time watching bondo dry. If friends stop over, hand them
something to fix or have them hold up the other end of the exhaust
system while they talk to you. If they bring beverages, toast your new
project but don't stop to drink, keep on working with their help and
grab a swig after the windshield wipers are operational.
On the weekends, plan on major undertakings like welding in new floors,
but only after you mow the lawn and fix the garbage disposal. This keeps
your wife happy, and the progress you are making on the heap you brought
home last month amazes her. As for the game, read the score in the
morning paper. This alone will give you 4 more quality hours with your
new project. The team doesn't even know you exist.
Look at stuff you have around the house in a new light. That rear
transmission mount that is no longer available can be made out of a long
bolt and a piece of that old bed frame up in the attic. The old
lawnmower throttle cable could make a perfect bonnet release cable, and
that short piece of 3/16 metal rod is exactly what they used on the hand
brake rod which was broken and not listed in the parts book.
You can do it. Ambition, time, tools, and money.
--
Frank Clarici
Toms River, NJ
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