How to Restore Your Collector Car 2nd Edition: Disassembly, Welding, Electrics, Rebuilding, Wiring, Dent Repair, Painting, Upholstery...

The flourish of disassembly (taking things apart is easy; restoring and putting them back together is the hard part) quickly leads to dismay and loss of interest. Where do I go from here? With a car completely apart, it’s also easy to find yourself financially overcommitted. Before disassembling anything, you should project an estimate of what it will cost to restore the car to whichever condition level (the three restoration standards discussed in Chapter 2) you’ve targeted.

The estimate can be made by pricing items that you know you’ll need (like a new interior lit) from a supplier’s catalog and getting rough price quotes for work like painting or an engine overhaul that you know you’ll hire out. When you’ve arrived at what looks to be a realistic figure, multiply it by three. Now you have a fairly close approximation of the cost of restoring your car – not counting, of course, your own time.

Fortunately, you’re not going to spend the entire cost figure in one amount. Assuming the restoration takes an average time period (four to five years), you can budget the cost over this period. But to do so, you’ll need to plan your work and expenses accordingly.

The most practical restoration approach – which fits with any of the three condition goals for the finished product, factory new, nearly new, or original – is to restore each component as you take it off the car. With a frame-up factory-new restoration, you will seal and store each component as it is completed so that it will be ready when it’s needed in the final assembly process.

With a partial-disassembly nearly new or original restoration, the components can be placed back on the car when they’re finished. This one-component-at-a-time approach helps you budget your restoration expenses and keeps up your enthusiasm for the project because you can always see finished work.

Applying a deep gloss finish paint is more that good timing: it’s an art. While the finish paint choices used to be lacquer or enamel – lacquer being easier to due to its fast drying characteristics and enamel a tougher, longer lasting, but typically a lower gloss finish – today automotive finish suppliers talk about their paint systems.

This means a complementary range of products extending from the initial primer layer through several primer-surface coatings to a sealer and culminating in a catalyzed two-step base coat/clear coat finish. The new systems yield a deep luster that surpasses even the most fastidiously applied lacquer finish for depth and shine and provide a durability that far exceeds yesterday’s enamel.

However, the catalyzed paints in this new generation are highly toxic, to the degree that they should be avoided by the hobbyist whose attitude toward safety can be best described as casual.

This book’s recommendation, strongly supported by the paint manufacturers, is that you have a professional apply your collector car’s finish paint.

Though a professionally supplied finish will be one of the single largest restoration expenses, the cost can be justified in lasting quality and – not insignificantly – your having avoided exposure to toxic painting chemicals.

• Acknowledgments
• Why Restore a Collector Car?
• Restoration: What Does It Mean?
• How To Select A Collector Car
• Research: Uncovering a Car's "Life Story"
• Setting Up Shop and Working Safely
• Disassembly: Taking the Car Apart
• Restoring the Car's Brightmetal Trim
• Cleaning, Stripping, and Derusting
• Abrasive Blasting
• Metal Repair
• Smoothing Dents and Repairing Metal
• Applying the Primer Coatings
• Applying the Finish Coat
• Inspecting and Overhauling Car Brakes
• Restoring Mechanical Assemblies
• Renewing the Car's Wiring
• Restoring Your Collector Car's Interior
• Replacing a Convertible Top and Renewing Weatherstripping
• Care and Preservation of Your Collector Car
• Showing and Enjoying Your Collector Car
• Restoration Training
• Resources
• Index