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| Joined: | 03-12-2005 |
| Location: | Portland, OR |
| Posts: | 98 |
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JH 15371 suffered an engine fire back in 1986, and my dad and I bought it at a salvage sale shortly after this. The car was in fairly nice shape from the doors back with 55 K miles on the clock. It sat until 2004 when I started restoring the engine and engine bay. I had it together and started it up last summer. It could have been driven at that point, mechanically it was done, but the fenders needed paint and a new hood and windshild installed. The car had a little rust, floor boards, trunk floor, where fenders meet the rocker, etc. Not bad, no holes. I decided to fix the rust and repaint the entire car. The yellow paint was a bit dingy on the back anyway. Paint was stripped and rust treated with POR. This is as far as I got last winter before it got too cold in the garage to work on it. So it sat.
This spring I contacted an aquaintance of mine with a restoration shop, thinking I might have him prime and paint the car. He came over to look at it, and he then started telling me how my rust preparation was not good enough, and that to do it right the car needed complete dissassemble, rust blasted off, body panels fitted, body work finished, primed, painted, etc. He offered to let me do a lot of the grunt work to cut costs. But even with this he said we were talking something like $8 to $10,000 to paint the car, and it could even be more! I already have about $5,000 in restoring the mechanicals and buying parts such as the windshield and hood.
For some reason I took this guys advice and completly dissasembled the car this spring. Now the car is all apart and I'm looking at a hefty price to finish it. Yes, it would be a very nice car when done, probably nicer than needed. But I could buy a nice running JH for a lot less than what it would cost to put mine togetter! I'm a bit disscouraged at this point. I was not planning to have $15 or $20K in this car. I have other things such as my house that need work too. I need advice, specifically on how to finish the body and paint for less that $10,000 if possible. I don't want it to become one of those cars that sits in pieces for years. Motivate me, give me a pep talk. Talk me into keeping my project on track.
Thanks, Gary