Restoration Tip…

[Guest Dyna]

Following along with our restorations I come to understand quite a few things. Hubby constantly talk and you know learn some points and I thought I compile a list of tip or what I would say we could recommend. I mean it should be all fun in the end and it should not let you be a victim of starvation since you love eats all your food (read love = Buick). All tips are very subjective so it’s up for critizism, hints and so forth and maybe just maybe it can evolve to something more later on when people leave feedback… Anyways here we go ,

1: Never ever buy a project car if the cost of parts and outsourced work will not cover the price when sold. Instead wait and buy one in nice condition, maybe in nice original condition that you can enjoy and keep in its original condition. It will give you plenty of tinkering fun and still keep you some what safe economically. There is exceptions as always, maybe it’s the family car that been with the family since good knows when and is in dire need of restoration. So the sentimental value might be very high, but maybe you don’t need to do a frame off instead do what is needed as a rolling restoration it will let you have fun while the car gets better and better and you will also save the patina and all the memories that comes with that patina. Note, that you will most of the time never ever get any money back for your labor of love but that is not what this is about since it’s our hobby and addiction .

2: Never buy an incomplete car, especially if the parts missing is the once that just that rare model has. It’s easy to fall for but things such as e.g. a door panel missing especially from a top of the line model might end up costing a bundle. Buy a car that has all the options you want. Options are very expensive and very hard to find for the right price so unless you have a good cheap source it’s better to buy it with the options you want. This comes especially to extensive options such as AC, which affect a large amount of parts. There are exceptions naturally if the car is very low production one it can be very hard to find one with the right options. A good thing can be to buy a spare car of something much more common but with the options you want. (Hehe we got the Caballero without AC but then it’s not to many of them around and our Caballero had more or less all options beside AC and Autronic Eye – anyone having an eye for a 58 Buick please contact us )…

3: Never restore more than one step above than you done previously. It’s not a wise idea to do a nut and bolt frame off restoration if you not done any restoration work at all before. As with the above there are better ways to go around that will also allow you to enjoy and drive the car.

4: Never tear a car a part without first buying all parts needed for the restoration and with a the money set aside or thoroughly budgeted for in terms of outsourced work such as e.g. paint, chrome. Allow a good budget or set aside money for parts that can’t be bought until the car been taken a part (e.g. engine and transmission parts). Sounds painful but it will safe you later. EBay is drowning with project cars which just been torn a part and then to discover seller can’t afford to finish it. A car not pulled a part is worth more and also easier to move around if you need to. If you need to store the car for a long period before you start restoring you should take out the carpet, prep the engine and other mechanical parts for long term storage and foremost especially if it’s a project stored in a humid environment oil and wax it everywhere. Use a cavity type wax on exterior chrome. Use light oil on interior chrome, spray oil everywhere underneath (beside it will help you later on when bolts are easier to remove). You might consider taking out door panels and seats if they are in a good condition and store those inside to avoid moisture damage.

5: Stay away from NOS. I know its nice fits perfectly and so on but it’s so easy to get caught and buy NOS parts you really don’t need. Beside a NOS wheel cylinder repair kit from the fifties is probably not a good idea, those things are better off with a brand new kit where the rubber is not dried out.

Don’t buy anything unless is 100% necessary. Well it’s easy to get carried away and then you don’t have resources for the parts you really need. So please don’t buy everything you see on eBay or pick up the parts book and order odd things from A-Z. Instead carefully examine your project make a list of parts that absolutely need replacement, parts that can be mended, etc.. For example if the fuel line is not extensively rusted it can easily be tinned again for a fraction of the cost of buying a new one. You don’t need to buy that expensive restored carb, you can buy a restoration kit and you can have it plated to the correct “gold” shade for a much lower cost.

What you will most likely end up with is a list with interior fabrics, rubber/weather stripping, brake, tires, suspension, plastic emblems, engine, exhaust, and drive train related parts as well as maybe a few repair panels and some parts that are either missing or broken. What you should not end up with is list with a whole lot of SS trim, and other big non wear items or you find that every single part needs to be replaced because they are in such bad state well then if it’s an rare care buy a less rare parts car or you might want to reconsider and maybe sell it, since after just the parts are bought you would end up with a cost that is much higher than a nice car that is already fully restored (that is not a repaint but a restoration).

If you talk about the drive train it will most likely be things such as gaskets, seals, friction plates etc but most likely not the main bearings since they most of the time are ok. When it comes brakes it will most likely be shoes/pads, hoses, hardware, wheel/master repair kit, etc but most likely not drums. Why well you might go over factory spec, but factory spec has plenty or margin and unless it’s excessive it will not be unsafe, that unless you will use the car a lot. But then you probably don’t care if the drums are original or not and can buy after market once.

It’s also not likely that all bushing holding the rear axel is bust (that unless the car been standing for year up on years and the rubber is pulverized). However all ways check if there is a kit. You might pay just small sum to get all the bushings instead of just one. A good example is often the front suspension where there are kits often available. In a sense the more of a driver it is the more you will spend on driving bits while if it’s a trailer queen as long as it looks like new and works ok it will be ok and I highly doubt that a judge will see if a drum is 0.10” over factory spec .

6: Plate don’t paint , since I do a lot of the sourcing I’m surprised to see how people paint e.g. hood hinges to look like cad/zinc plated. The price of paint and the labor to prep it is very high compared to the $1 cost of having it plated (that cost is not if you just have to plate the hinges at one time go but if you plate all your things in one go). Beside I don’t get why you would fake it when you can have the real thing and better rust protection at much lower cost.

7: Don’t buy all new fasteners, brackets etc. Firstly it’s hard to get them 100% correct unless you have a very popular car secondly it’s expensive, thirdly unless the fastener is damaged it’s not necessary. Instead plate them, if you have a good plating company you can even ask them to mimic the different shades of the “gold/silver” passivating, if you look close fasteners/brackets etc are sometimes for example light “gold” and sometimes very heavy (dark) “gold” – mimicking will give you an authentic and correct look instead of having all bolts new in the same shade or plating everything in the same shade.

8: Buy a good digital camera with lots of storage, buy some stocks in Johnson & Johnson, get a big hard drive, a DVD burner, and download OpenOffice . There is no such thing as taking too many pictures. Hence take a picture of every bolt or item you remove pic by pic - bolt by bolt, during the whole process. You will soon get the rhythm in holding the camera in one hand and the tool in the other . Buy a big load of ZipLock HD Freezer Bags (i.e. why you buy stocks in JJ since they will get a lot more sales due to your restoration ). Please make sure it’s the heavy duty type with large white marking areas – buy several different sizes. Bag everything single in different a bag, label the bag with both the name of the item and a description of location. When a subassembly is fully taken apart bag all the bag for the subassembly in one big bag (easier to not get things mixed up and easier later on when you catalog things) .

Make sure you take backup of your pictures (i.e. why you need that DVD’s forget CD’s they are too small). Next step is when you are all done (depending on how extensive your restoration is), is to catalog everything. Good method is to use a tripod where you have the camera mounted over a table with a white surface, put down the part along with a index number and take as many pictures as you need of the part.

In OpenOffice (which is free and open source) create a spreadsheet, make columns describing item, size, plating etc. (I will upload a empty spreadsheet later on). Now put that index number into a spreadsheet, along with all the information of the parts e.g. for a bolt it would be: Index #, Item name, Item location and description of function, Bolt head type (i.e. Hex Flange Washer) Bolt head size, Bolt head marking, Thread size, Length of Bolt, Length of thread, Plating type, etc.. When done put the e.g. the bolt in the pile for parts to be plated “dark gold”, mark the bag with the Index number and move along to the next part to be cataloged.

Yes, this will take a lot of time, but the end result is well worth it… All this cataloging will make it possible to sort the items and put parts back to its bags and then to its correct place on the car. It will also be of historical value since a fellow restorer can look at your catalog and compare it to his or her findings.

One thing when you catalog painted parts. Make notes about the shade, which can be very hard for rusty undercarriage parts. What is important to remember is that they where not all painted at the same station hence they will not have the same shade. The rear axel was painted at its station; the fender bracket was dipped at its station and so forth.

9: Forget powder coating .. Unless you going to use the car all year around on salty or dirt(y) roads. I mean it’s expensive (especially large parts which you can’t do your self) and it was not used back in the sixties and earlier, instead make sure you get the right shades of colors, the right type of paint etc.. and you end up saving a bundle and it will be correct.

10: Make sure you are on a good footing with the Chrome guy, if you are in luck he can strip all the chrome parts for you, then let you do the polishing, repairs etc then to hand them back to him for chrome plating. Remember chrome is not expensive the polishing and prep is! You should be able to save at least 50%, you will never get the price you would get if you chromed large quantities of new parts all looking the same.

Tip: You might want to practice on smaller parts first so you get a hang how crucial proper polishing is and how to make repairs be invisible.

11: Do as much of the paintwork as you can and/or become a good friend with the body shop guys. While it take a long term to learn how to do the top/finish coat most people can mange to do all the prep work and all paint work on the frame/chassis, brackets and other components. Even if you end up buying a smaller compressor, spray gun (good one), mask etc you will still save and you will save more and more the more cars you restore. There are plenty of good sites, for example the Imperial club has a very good section of how to deal with paintwork.

12: Do as much welding/body work as you can your self. It’s a lot harder to weld well than to do the paint work! It takes good skills to change a floorboard or qpanel in such way that nobody can see that you changed or repaired it.. So please practice a lot on some POS car before you start with your loved one. Key is to buy a good welder forget the cheapo one it will just make it even harder (well don’t go industrial but good semi pro) . Some work might be too hard to do for you and you might need to let the body shop do some while you tackle the easier once.

13: Upholstery it’s the very same as for the above. It’s not easy and if you never have used a sewing machine before you will definitely need lot of training. You can buy interior kits that don’t cost an arm and a leg for some of our beloved Buicks, but for the vast majority of classic cars there isn’t. Hence it’s one off and it will cost a lot, both for the fabric and for the labor. If this is your first it might be a good idea to practice on some cheap fabric, maybe your daily driver start to look tired (hopefully it’s an old car) and you can buy some cheap but still somewhat original looking fabric. Test and learn. Please don’t start off with the expensive repo vinyl or fabric. Ah yes you will need a HD industrial type sawing machine, they are quite often on Ebay. You will save a lot of money if you learn this skill; a good thing can be to join some local sewing club. Since they might be able to guide you show you the ropes etc ..

NOTE: There are upholstery work that is close to impossible to fix your self. Things that are vacuum formed, embossed or heat pressed. You can’t well of course you can but it will cost too much to get the tools to do it. Hence you are left out to have that done by someone else and it’s not cheap so watch out.

14: Don’t underestimate the cost of paint, body work, chrome, and interior if you can’t do major parts of it your self it can be very costly. If you looking at a car needing all of it and you are new to the hobby it might be a lot better to look elsewhere beside if you follow our tip of not doing more than one step above what you done before you will know it’s time to look for something better.

-- Well well that is my little list – lots from hubby naturally , I’m for sure not a master of welding, painting or upholstery work. Sure lots of it are subjective and it just reflects our view but I think it’s a good thing to share it and also get feedback …

Cheers

Dyna

[Mark Shaw]

All good tips....

The problem is that some of us just get caught up in the moment and don't take time to consider these tips...

[42crazy]

I've been known to do that, but, usually get out of the situation somehow, as a matter of fact, I once sold a '54 Buick RM with factory air to a guy in Athens, Ga. Truthfully, I believe it was a good deal for both of us, Paul

[JohnD1956]

One of the most important "tips" I can think of is ...allow 3 times the amount of time you expect to tackle anything...

Just a few weeks ago I wanted to put a different set of seats into my 69 Electra. The factory set up is power seats on both sides of a 60/40 seat. I had another 60/40 seat and I figured this should have been a bolt in operation. I figured no more than two hours for the whole job. Right on time, 2 days later, I had it done.

BTW, if you ever want to change the seats on one and the switch for the power is on the seat, as opposed to on the door, look for the little metal collar bolted to the seat frame "under" the upholstery, that protects the wire where it passes under the seat springs and over the seat frame. There is no way to get this out without removing quite a few hog rings.

JD

[Guest 58srgreat]

DYNA,

SAY WHAT?I'M NOT SUPPOSE TO BUY NOS PARTS?WHAT IN THE WORLD AM I GOING TO DO WITH THE $20K IN PARTS I HAVE STASHED EVERYWHERE IN MY HOUSE?I AM ADDICTED TO NOS PARTS!IN HINDSIGHT I WOULD DEFINITELY AGREE BUT WE ALL HAVE OUR ADDICTIONS DON'T WE?ANY TIPS ON HOW I CAN LEARN TO DO UPHOLSTERY WORK?

[Guest Dyna]

Hi,

Yep the 3x the time is definitely a good. It's always like that; it takes a lot of time. The more restorations you done the more accurate your estimates will be.

If you already bought your NOS parts and still aren’t starving then I suggest using them. They are after all very nice. I know we all have addictions, I just want people how have not yet get caught in them not to fall for the temptation .

Upholstery work, join a sewing club or a club dealing with restoring old furniture (not seen the latter one). You will need basic sewing lessons. After that it can be a good idea buying a book about furniture restoration you can then translate your sewing lessons to how to go about with furniture. As with everything doing it is the perfect lesson, but please don't start with your icon but rather your old daily driver. Get a good sewing machine (one for upholstery, or leather work -- should have a deep arm so you can sew in a middle of a door panel). Also don't make complicated stuff just the simple it will be hard enough. Hence stay away from complicated sewing patterns or two tone door panels etc..

Cheers

Dyna