So you want to restore your car?

Starting the journey to restore your car? It’s common for Aussies to have a project tucked away in the back shed.

Your vehicle may hold sentimental value, being passed down from generations in the family. It may be your dream car since you were a boy. It might simply be a freshen up or could be a complete nut and bolt restoration. Is your car rare and sought after or is a run of the mill rig that you would lose on if you sold it? A few things will dictate your restoration:

1. How interested you are in your vehicle.
2. Your personality – are you patient, good at managing people, willing to learn etc.
3. Your finances and budget. Are you pumping all your money into it?
4. Your environment. Do all your mates have 1,000hp monsters? This will not be a good thing for your wallet.
5. Who you know. This will assist you to get things done.
6. What your objective is for your vehicle.

To some people, the end value of the car plays a major role in whether they spend the big bucks to get their vehicle to show worthy condition or to stick to a mild resto. Think GTHO’s and Monaro’s.

The Cost Of Restoration Services

To put simply the going rate for mechanics is between $80 – 150 an hour plus GST. For performance workshops it is at the higher end of the scale. For shops that have a prestigious name and are in a niche market such as rotaries or imports, expect to pay even more per hour.

Rust repairs follow the same guidelines but can be as low as $50 and as high as $300 an hour plus GST. Your best guide to deciding if a restoration shop is worthy of your hard earned dollars is research. Be aware that many shops only exist on Facebook. Browse albums of other customer cars, even going so far to contact the owner of the vehicle (if you can find them on Facebook). Ask them if they were satisfied with the job and if they have any tips to managing a project. Posting an ad on a Facebook group asking for quality restoration shops is also a good way to get recommendations. Any shop that consistently updates their Facebook page with quality work will care about their reputation.

The problem with entrusting a restoration shop is that it can be a never ending saga of bills. Case in point – you give them your Hatchback Torana. From the outside she looks good. But the shop starts digging and finds rust in the hatch, A pillars, parcel shelf, radiator support, behind the bonnet hinges, bottom of the doors and in the sills. Suddenly you may be staring at a $10,000 - $20,000 bill. This is not the fault of the shop that your car is rusty. It is however, the business of the shop to send you an invoice with the billable hours. If you think the hours on certain rust repairs don’t add up, make sure you question the operator. Shops with good reputations and professional operators will be happy to explain where the time went. Very few professional shops will quote you a total figure for rust repairs because it is too difficult to estimate how many repairs will need to be made unless the car has already been blasted and stripped. Either the total figure will scare you away from the shop or the shop does not want to lose on a job.

Then it comes time for bodywork and paint. Majority of shops that offer rust repairs will also offer painting services. Remember that these services can be mutually exclusive meaning that good repairs may not mean good painting services.

Choosing The Right Work Shop

With any industry there are unscrupulous operators. Because you are relying on somebody else to do the work that is time consuming, difficult and dirty choosing a restoration shop is very important.

Visiting a shop is the best way to understanding an operator’s personality and how they operate.

• A pristine workshop may mean that the operator is professional, efficient and most likely expensive. Tip – Check the type of vehicles they are restoring.
• A dirty workshop is more difficult to interpret. It may mean that the operator is busy pumping out quality work. It may also mean a lower quality of work. Look at the tools of trade such as the compressor – if it is old, it may indicate a lack of maintenance.

Usually talking to the operator will reveal what type of vehicles they like doing and are interested in. The red hot tip – if your car fits in with what is in the workshop then you are most likely in safe hands.

What Happens If Your Car Is Not Being Worked On At A Work Shop?

When you choose a shop a number of things should take place. Your car gets delivered to the shop. The shop works on your car. You pay the bill. You receive your car back.

Sometimes, this process breaks down. It usually breaks down because of the following:

1. The shop is incompetent and does not deliver on the quality of work
2. You don’t pay the bill or are disputing the bill
3. You keep changing your mind and direction of the car
4. The shop takes on more work than they can handle
5. Your car is not exciting enough for the shop to spend time on (this does happen)

To rectify this issue, you should communicate clearly with the operators of the shop to reach a resolution. If the dispute escalates you may need to involve the police. It is not advisable to publicly shame a shop on Facebook unless you have no alternative. Generally if you are at this stage, you are a large part of the reason why this is happening to you.

Tips To Avoid Work Shops Taking Advantage Of You

You want to avoid operators viewing you as a whale. A whale is a person with an open cheque book trying to make their dream a reality by any means necessary. If you have an ego, put it in the bottom drawer. You are inviting variables to the equation that you do not want.

Things that invite ridicule and excessive bills

1. ‘Make this a Summernats top 10 show car’, pointing at your rust bucket.
2. Chopping and changing your mind ‘Gee those tubs are too big, actually can you redo them so I can refit my rear seat, I want to take my kids cruising’.
3. ‘Actually now that the paint is on in the engine bay and door jams, I don’t really like it’.
4. ‘My 355 doesn’t make enough power, I saw something on YouTube that some guy put in a Lexus V12 engine’
5. The car is rubbed down and ready for paint. Suddenly you want every single hole welded up to give it a clean look.

When you are seeking out services at an equitable rate, it is advisable to only talk about your one project. Fantasy sentences or bold remarks such as, ‘I want 900hp in my street vehicle that I will only drive on Sundays’, will elicit sarcastic, derogatory or perhaps polite deterring remarks (from professionals). Understand that automotive professionals have heard and encountered most types of dreamers and that only a small percentage of car enthusiasts actually walk the walk.

In this world, anything is possible and I mean anything. It just depends on how much you want to spend.

Be crystal clear with what you want. If you do not know what you want at least have ideas in your head. For example:

“I want to turn my VK commodore into a tough street cruiser. I like the colour blue but I don’t want it to be a Brockie replica. I want to install mini tubs to fit big rear tyres. I like the idea of a 308 engine but am open to an LS engine swap. I will have my kids in the back of the car so it cannot be excessively loud and it must be drivable so my wife does not hate the car. My budget is XYZ and my time frame is a couple of years”.

In this example let’s say that your VK is in relatively good nick with a few rust repairs required. You don’t know many people in the restoration industry so you visit shops to gauge who would be a good fit to do the work. You tell the operator what you want and then you listen to his response. You find a decent workshop that isn’t too far from where you live. The owner of the shop has a VH commodore and he likes working on them. It is relatively clean with good quality tools. You view the work at his shop and you like what you see. Winner!

Champagne Tastes On A Beer Budget

If you are cluey and mechanically minded you may decide to complete a project yourself. Don’t confuse having knowledge with having abilities.

If you commit yourself to a project, you must endeavour to complete the project. Once you pull apart a car and start work on it, you are effectively devaluing a car to sometimes 10% of its total value. Everybody sees half baked projects on Facebook that have been pulled apart to a million pieces with only a fraction of the resto work completed.

Things that most people can do

1. Clean things
2. Strip a car back to bare metal
3. Organise for parts to be refurbished – seats re trimmed etc
4. Basic mechanical
5. Taking things apart (sometimes breaking them)
6. Buying new parts

Things that some people can do and a lot of people stuff up

1. Rust Repairs
2. Bodywork
3. Paint
4. Mechanicals – Rebuilding engines etc

Many bodyshops and paintshops will not accept a vehicle where the owner has completed the bodywork. This is because the shop is effectively taking on a liability. They do not know what primer has been used and if it will react with the base coat of paint. A shop’s reputation can go down if they put a car out that has a poor level of finish. Lastly, if the shop sprays the colour and you are not happy with the level of finish it is likely to cause conflict.

Unless you can demonstrate that you know what you are doing, you will need to enlist the services of a body man (usually a mate) to assist you and teach you what to do. This happens more often than you think. You provide the labour, the body man acts like your boss and tells you what to do while also assisting. If you are cluey, Click here to learn more about prepping your car for paint.

Don’t bother building a motor unless you have done thorough research and have somebody assisting you. It can be a very expensive exercise if things are not put together properly.

Overall building a car can be one of the most time consuming and expensive hobbies to have. It can also be incredibly fun and rewarding. Remember to do your research and dive into a project with your eyes wide open. You will find many like minded people that have been in your situation before. Building a car can help foster a community, make memories and new friends. Enjoy the journey!