- Thread Starter
- #876
No, but listening to the viewpoints of others can help you make the right choice sometimes.Answer this question - not to us, none of us matter or have any say what so ever and you should pay no attention at all to any of us.
I'm a simple guy, the list is short, so that helps. Pretty much, concrete the lane, get the car sorted, garage, get a boring practical car. Thats about it,luckily my house doesn't really require anything doing right now.Make a list and think about it, 20k is a ****load in anyone's book.
I'd never do anything that would put me in a risk of being close to debt, only thing I've ever bought which I didn't buy outright is my house.All assuming of course that you have the funds and don't need to get into debt and all that. Then it's a different equation.
I've been saving my ass off for a while for this project. And it not as bad as it seems, I did get £8500 from insurance towards this, although a lot of that has already gone on bonnet, wings and other front end parts.
No, way more involved, hence the £15k quote (not incuding vat or me getting the car there and back or extra costs from unexpected work)What does the £20k actually consist of? Is it just the repaint and fix the poor areas in the engine bay that you’ve mentioned? Or is there more involved?
Full back to bare metal
Repair any rust found
Repair crash damage
Some modifications to the bay I want done
Chassis stiffening - extending chassis frame rails to join up with rear subframe, some seam welding at rear, strengthening bars added to front traction rod area.
Full epoxy primer, colour primer, top coat then wet sanding to perfect finish.
Underneath will be done in high grade colour matched undercoat
All the metal work is done properly using old school hammers, wheels, stretchers and so on, minimal poly filler as they use lead filler for everything apart from the final minor areas.
Does it need full bare metal, possibly not, but only one way to find out and it would be much more expensive in the long term to just respray over the current body if it is hiding something that may come out in the next 5 years. At least if I go to bare metal I know exactly what I have. Could turn out the body, other than the floor pans I know about is perfectly mint and I could have saved a lot of money, . 95% of people who looked at the car would say its mint already but previous projects have taught me its better to do it all in one go and be sure. Theres also no way I could mentally handle having to strip the car for body repairs again.
It will be finished either way, but if you mean finish it as in to the highest standard possible then I am with you.The effort you've put into the car already, you should finish it. It might not be to as high a standard as you say, but it would be satisfactory to you obviously. And judging by this thread (from memory) it won't be half assed! You finish it, to your standard. It might take longer, but will be easier on the pocket. I would feel more satisfaction if it was me.
Oh yes, proper high end restoration work costs a fortune, skilled labour and a crazy amount of hours to do it properly is the reason. A lot of bodyshops do a decent but quick metal repair and a good coat of filler, nothing wrong with it, most people wouldn't pay for or need or want the next level up but its not the same standard as work finished so well in the metal you could almost just clear coat straight over it. I've had enough of repair work rusting out after a year or two, needs to be done right this time.I never realised the price of these things!
To repair for a example a very rusty S30 shell you could pick up these days for say £10k you would likely need to spend £30k all in to have the work done to the same standard.
Most of the build is done, at least what I can do myself, while I have bodywork experience I could never match the perfection of a pro in my garage.Alternatively finish the garage and then do as much of the build yourself as possible.
I do want it finished before my next project though, as I plan for it to be a long term one and do virtually all the work myself, including welding if I ever find time to learn.
Finish it, you seem like the type of person wants it perfect. If you don’t make it perfect you’ll regret it.
This is exactly what I am thinking, with the total cost of the build so far, an extra £6k or so isn't very much to have it finished to a level I am truly happy with and I do not want to regret it down the line.To be honest, I'm not sure if you and I would take a similar point of view but when it's completed I would be more worried about wasting 14k on something I wasn't 100% on as opposed to wasting an extra 6k on something that I was so passionate about and into.
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