how many hours do you have in your resto?

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freshayr

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Hey guys,
Just wondering how many of you kept track of the hours you put in to your restoration? I bought my car with fresh paint, rebuilt motor and tranny and rear end all out of the car. Most of the hard work done. I ended up replacing both front and rear suspension components. (with disc brake conversion) I also ended up redoing the whole interior.
Total man hours so far (almost done) 300 hrs. That doesn't include hours of research and part acquisition.
Total out of pocket $$$ (not including what I paid for the car) approx $10,000
I'd be interested to hear how others have made out.
 
Hey freashayr,

I am doing a total makeover. Any piece that could come off of the car did, except for the rear glass. I have sandblasted the entire underside,engine bay and inside of the Demon. Repainted same after a few patches were installed, New 360, 400+hp, rebuilt 727 and 8.75 rear. Converted to disks and large bolt pattern. All new suspension including SS springs and frame connectors. New 2.5" exhaust ready to go on. Next on list is new interior then off to the body shop. When done I will have $20,000 plus into it. Pretty cheap for a new car that I will enjoy for years.

As far as hours, not a clue, but it's been 16 months so far.

Jack
 
bought the car in pretty good shape. painted the underneath with rust protectant paint, and just rebuilt my 340 engine-have probably 50 hours in it
 
Rebuilt my motor, rear, trans, everything inbetween them the suspension and the interior. Took me a year and a half and $27,000. including purchase of the car.
 
And theres me thinking I spend too much time and money on my klunker Dart :???:
 
with new suspension front to rear, misc parts i've bought, rallye mirrors and seatbelts i had restored, and tti exhaust. i will guess it's about $5000.00 and still going. hours are unknown, but really you don't need to know if you are having fun doing it!
 
I probably have about 20 or 30 hours into my car so far and it isnt even close to done lol, im just getting started. so far I have torn the engine down, cleaned up the oil pan and painted it, finshed cleaning a set of heads and painted them, started cleaning up the rear end I bought, started smoothing the bumpers, pulled all of the bracing out of the bumpers, fitted the passenger side door and some other misc stuff. Plus I have a ton of hours into research, parts searching, etc. Money wise, im about $5000 into it with most of the major things out of the way.
 
Back in the mid '70s when I started rebuilding & modifying the 273 in my Barracuda I started putting all of my receipts in my toolbox. The plan was to ad them up & see how much I'd spent. It didn't take me long to realize that I didn't want to know. :sad2: Now it's 30 years later & I'm planning to do it all again, only this time it's the whole car! Still not sure I want to know, & the price of EVERYTHING has gone up! I'll probably just spend what I have to & enjoy the process and the car. I'm really lucky in that my Barracuda & my Harley are two things that my wife definitely wanted me to KEEP when we got married.


:burnout:
 
Including research, and tracking down. I can't even start to think about how many hours. But on the $$ side. I have an idea about how much. $3,000. I only tinker when I can as a mental adjuster, and I need some adjusting. I can't wait any longer for the rain to stop. As I don't have a garage anymore. Most of my car money comes from wheeling and dealing. Buy parts and trade up. I call it the nickel and dime theory. Because that's all I'll ever have at one time.
 
Firstly, my wife better not see this. Bought the car and the body was in really good shape. Redid the interior, glass, rugs, door panels, instruments, upholstery, car underside, rechrome, new front suspension, floors, panels, hood, paint, souped 383, 727, 8 3/4 and 4 yrs and it's still fun at 25-30K. :burnout:

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Here's one for you. Just bought the car last Saturday. Have about 4 hours in it (just fixing some wiring and such). In pretty darn good shape when I bought it, but figure by the time I am done I will have 20-25k in it (more if I go the stroker small block/Tremec 5-speed like I am thinking about).
 
Ok, I have never restored a car, but have made a few look allot beter than when I got them. My cuda i have about $2000 into it and my Dart about $3500. I do plan on doing more on the dart, but it wil all depend on the money and time. I just build them to drive, not into the show winner, just the daily driver stuff. I guess all that maters is a Mopar is saved.
 
demon seed said:
Firstly, my wife better not see this. Bought the car and the body was in really good shape. Redid the interior, glass, rugs, door panels, instruments, upholstery, car underside, rechrome, new front suspension, floors, panels, hood, paint, souped 383, 727, 8 3/4 and 4 yrs and it's still fun at 25-30K. :burnout:
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she probably has an idea but has not let on yet! she will save this until she needs to pull out the big ammo, beware! lol :yawinkle:
 
7demon2 said:
she probably has an idea but has not let on yet! she will save this until she needs to pull out the big ammo, beware! lol :yawinkle:
Click to expand...

Yea she's pretty sneaky that way, she usually holds on to all my screw ups and then unloads on me all at one time. But I have whats called plausible deniability going for me. That means I can lie through my teeth and sometimes she'll believe me. :evil2:
 
The only things that have not come off my 67 Dart GT are the rear end and the K-frame (needed to leave a rolling chasis so I can roll in in and out of the shop each day.) Thus far, I have rebuilt my 340; only lack finishing one fender and final block sanding the body to be ready to paint; rebuilt the front end; the dash & AC/heater box; have the interior peices for recovering the seats, carpet and headliner; have everything to overhaul the tranny (904). I still lack the rear end; getting things rechromed, & actual cost of painting. Hours -- many hundreds; money -- about 10,000 thus far.
 
16 years 3 motors two trans two rearends new paint new front suspention mini-tubed superstock springs frame conetors new interior about 15,000 lots of fun and frustration along the way. only thing i hate is if i sold it today all i could get is 5,000.but its not for sale anyway.way to much fun.
 
I took my car down to it`s unibody so the hours turned into days, days to weeks,weeks to months.......etc.. I divided the car restoration into sections and focused on that one thing (whether it was brakes, suspension,or whatever)until it was done. The money is well over 10k, and I`ve vascillated between restoration and modification the entire time I`ve been restoring it. I had just the opposite of what most people start with. My car already had the 12.5 dome pistons,big Crane cam,blowproof bellhousing ,driveshaft loop, and the 4.56 gears. I wanted to take the car back to being a more streetable ,production style car since it was a factory big block Formula-s. I finally settled on a resto-mod ,basically appearing stock but I built the engine to strong 440- 6bbl specs. As a milestone in this non-stop, year long endeavor, last Saturday, I got my state inspection done and new plates so I can drive it( legally ).I can probably speak for most of us when I say,in restoring these old cars, every little hurdle you make it over, is a huge triumph.
 
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