larry,
the first thing I notice is that you seem a triffle overwhealmed by the whole
thing.
Question #1
Are you sure you want to go through with a restoration?
Spits are not rare nor are they expensive. A rebuilt would mean a commitment to
a LOT of weekend days when you would MUCH rather be doing anything else. Doing
a good job mostly yourself (as opposed to the body shop) will litterly take
years worth of weekends. You will pay more for parts than the car is probably
worth then pay again more than the car is worth for body work & paint.
You need to be both extreamly stubbern and commited to see a major rebuild
through. Esp if like you & me, you have not done this before and you do not
have the proper facilities. one might say you need to be stupid to go through
with it. If you give up part way through, you will suffer some lost of self
esteme, as well as the loss of almost all the money and time you have previously
spent on the project. Depending upon the state of a rebuild project you may
ether be lucky to give the car away to or you may get the equivilant of a penney
for every dollar spend on the project and hour spent sweating over it.
I personnaly do not recomend that anyone rebuild a car unless:
1. Its the only way you can afford an excellent example of the breed and you are
dreermined to do it.
2. You love doing this kind of thing, and look upon it as a fun theriputical way
to spend a glorious weekend, and you have ample discriminary cash to keep the
project in parts.
My gut feeling from the tone of your posting is that you should walk away from
the project and save up some $$ and purchase a good example of the breed. You
can probably get a good driver for about the price of doing a good paint job.
If you really want to go through with this insanity, get the tarp off the car. I
built a frame over the car and put the tarp over the frame. A tarp, even with
cover underneath just holds too much moisture in.
Just put rust converter over on the rust spots. If you sand things down you
just expose more area for future rust. Save your $$. When you get about US$3K,
take all the parts off the body and do your sanding. Sanding is low tech & time
consuming. As soon as possible get the body to a body shop & have them fix the
rust spots, repair & paint the body. When you get the body back the first thing
you will notice is that those nice condition parts you removed look warn and
shoddy on new paint. You may find yourself replacing many parts with new ones.
I was just going to rebuild the motor, spruce up the engine compartment & boot
& do a few things. I almost have a new TR3. Projects have a way of growing on
their own will take a lot longer & cost more. properly done you could end up
with a better car than you will ever find for sale. You will never be able to
sell it for what you put into it.
Do you really WANT to go through with this? I wouldn't have had I knew what was
involved. But now approaching the other end I know I could have never purchased
a car like the end product & its all worth while (as long as I do not think
about all those lost sunny weekends and the $$$$$$$$$$$$ spent.
TeriAnn Wakeman Large format photographers look at the world
twakeman@apple.com upside down and backwards
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