I have a 51 Chevy Convertible with extensive rust that is way more than what I was expecting and well beyond my level of experience. Are there any shops in Southern California (more specifically-I.E.) that have the resources to do a great job on a major project that includes floor panels, installing quarter panels, door replacement, metal fabrication, etc, etc... It might not sound bad by reading this but some that have seen the car question if I really want to move forward with the car. The car is very much complete but has sat out in the snow for several years and most of the metal has withered down to very thin metal. I'm looking for shops to give me estimates on different levels of the repairs who have the experience with projects like these.
Hope you can find a good shop to do the work. that is a great car ans needs to be saved. As a resident of the rust capital, i would appreciate see in a picture of a rusty California car.
I'll post some pics as soon as I get a chance, but it's not a california car. Its from the northeast.
too bad you are so far away.......tis what I do ......lol....good luck to ya. am sure there are some good folks out there, research though.
Convertibles are hard/expensive to come by. I'd rather get a few estimates from experienced guys before I make a decision to look for another car. Even if it takes longer to get it done, I can go at the pace the budget allows.
Might be cheaper to buy a solid 4 dr. shell and swap over the convertable parts. A lot of folks have done this. Start with a solid 2 dr or 4 dr ch***is, body, floor, etc. and combine with a conv. parts car that is rusted up to the door handles...
I've restored several severely rusted out cars. I've tried to talk a few owners out of restoring their cars, but most want to do it anyway. Easy to rack up a serious bill. And once you get in you can't stop without loosing your ***. So my advise is to really think about finding a better car, or body. Even being able to do this work myself I would NEVER build a rusted out car for myself, unless it was extremely rare AND was my dream car. The body work alone on the Impala was near what the car would be worth finished. Guys first car so he knew it going in, and it was worth it to him. The T bird will probably be worse. I'm only doing the metal. Who knows how much he'll spend before it's done. Have you dis***embled and blasted it yet? You really don't even know what you have until you do. I'd like to see some pictures. Everyones idea of extreme rust is different.
If you hire out the repairs on this car to a shop that is serious about doing rust repair type restorations, when finished you will no doubt have two or three times what you could buy a solid painted car for. You may already know this.
Thanks. I should be able to get some pics up this weekend. I hope to take it to a shop or two to get some estimates to see some ballpark figures.
Rust can kill a build.. It's nice to see a project take shape but ****s a lot of the time for the owner as far as $$ goes..If its sentimental then you make sure it gets done, and done right...
Clearly has never priced a builder 49-52 ragtop; I've seen them bring as much as five grand; I had a '53 that the front and back were only held together by the torque tube and the door latches, sold it for $1500 to guys who drove from California to New York to get it, so they easily had that much more in the trip. Best way to save this car is see if you can find a California 2-door hardtop with a dented roof or something, some reason it's not worth saving and use it as a donor. Even a 4-door sedan would work for most of the floors and mounts if you transfer it to the convertible frame (or swap over the x) and add the extra mounts the convertible has. There are threads here on the board showing this, a good example is this one: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=779564&showall=1
Check with Don at http://www.highway99hotrods.com/ He's a HAMBer here's an example of his work http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=661072 GOOD LUCK later jim
Just like Tinbender, I always discourage my customer to rebuild a rust bucket unless it's a rare car or sentimental, if all or most of the specific parts are there in good shape, it would be cheaper to start from a donor 2 door hard top, if none is available a 2 door post car will do and it's getting less cost effective from a 4 door. I would say 1000 to 2000 man hour depending on how much is usable from the convertible and what donor car you bring. You could even get some money back by selling the leftover parts from the donor. Like I tell our customer when they ask what we can do: if you have a ***le and a large checkbook, you got yourself a car...
Still no pics, sorry. This was gonna be my weekend to get the pics and upload but the weather had other plans.
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