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  • Timelines to completion?

    Just out of curiosity, for the guys who have done full restores of cars. What's the shortest and longest times it has taken you to do a complete restore on a car? What stuff slowed you down?
    '63 Lark Custom, 259 v8, auto, child seat

    "Your friendly neighborhood Studebaker evangelist"

  • #2
    That is seriously a matter of money and your available time.
    Are you looking at working on a project in your "spare" time? or work at it like a job?
    Are you doing as much of the work as possible or paying a shop to do most of it?
    Are you on a budget where you will fund it as you make money, or do you have an alotted chunk of cash set aside for the car already?

    Those are any car builds issues in my experience, rod, custom, or restoration.

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    • #3
      Right, and I understand that there are different degrees to how much goes into a build. I mean, if you ever watched that show "Overhaulin'", they would go in with a team of a bizillion guys, using a dream shop, and having seemingly unlimited resources, and they could complete a complete frame off restoration and redesign in five days. I realize that outside of TV land, that's never going to happen.

      I'm mostly just curious to hear stories and see what's possible out there in the world of Studebakers. I'd imagine some here who do it for a living have completed complete restores in short order, and folks like me, who do it as a "couple hours a week, as I have time and scrounged resources" will take years to complete. Call me curious. I'm just in the mood for some good stories
      '63 Lark Custom, 259 v8, auto, child seat

      "Your friendly neighborhood Studebaker evangelist"

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      • #4
        Not "fully restored", but in 1982 I bought a '60 Lark convertible that had been off the road for 8 years. Just to make it a decent driver, i.e., all new brakes and lines, tune up, tires, exhaust, etc. etc., I had it on the road in 2 months. Then in 1996 I bought the '54 Champion that had been in a barn for 30 years. I soon discovered that it wasn't going to be a 2-month project. Way more deterioration takes place in 30 years compared to 8! It took 10 months of fairly steady work to make it roadworthy. To get it painted and looking good was a whole other story.

        Dave Bonn
        '54 Champion Starliner

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        • #5
          Simple answer: 1,000 manhours and you will see a huge difference. You may not be done but you'll be happy. So simply tell yourself I am working an hour here and three hours there and eventually you will have 1,000 hours and man what difference a thousand hours makes.

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          • #6
            Three years seems about average for a complete frame-off for me. I work 60-70 hours a week and don't take vacations. Do a little bit nearly every evening, Saturdays as much as I can and Sunday afternoons a couple hours. Only engine machine work is farmed out...everything else (patch, weld, bondo, paint, upholstery <do buy seat covers>, blast, mechanical, electrical, glass install) done in-house and, perhaps not to everyone's standards...but I am the one that needs to be content with it. There is about once a year when a brake is needed for a month or two (other honey-do projects, cut wood for heat, lazy and it's to ____<hot-cold...you fill in the blank>.
            Last edited by Ray Stewart; 04-19-2012, 05:35 AM.
            Ray Stewart SDC
            51 pick-up
            57 silver hawk
            62 lark

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            • #7
              Took me about 12yrs to go from 30yr abandoned rotted down field car to something I could drive to local shows w/o being embarrassed.

              What slowed me down:

              - Your real day job and working overtime and some weekends.
              - Other smaller projects needing garage so project car goes outside under tarp for weeks or months.
              - Job changes and moving so car gets put in storage until things settle down and work space is available again.
              - Searching for replacement parts (lots of road trips to junkyards and swapmeets on weekends I could have been working in the car).
              - Family gatherings or holidays, etc were you could have been working on the car.
              - Enthusiasm dry spells occasionally when looking at how much more work there is. Stare at car with beer in hand until beer is empty then go back in the house....

              Jeff in ND

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              • #8
                14 years to take a crusty and rusty 52 to my almost completed vision that drives. I did a yearly kind of "blog" at studebakerhardtop.com.
                Every delay Jeff_H described above happened in my case also. Man, I sure know that stare at car with beer in hand routine. (I vote the SACWBIH acronym should be as famous as CASO).
                Then there is simply budget. I would have had more things going simultaneously had funds allowed.

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                • #9
                  I know a member in Louisiana who, for the first several years of his retirement, finished a car a year. Of course, he could work on them every day for as long as he wanted. If you are working your regular job, life gets in the way.
                  "In the heart of Arkansas."
                  Searcy, Arkansas
                  1952 Commander 2 door. Really fine 259.
                  1952 2R pickup

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                  • #10
                    In Nov 2008 I bought a '55 Land Cruiser that had been neglected for 30 years. While I didn't "restore" it, (I took off four fenders and the hood and replaced the motor, redid the interior, replaced the front seats with modern power seats, reupholstered the back seat, welded in patch panels in the floor and put on two NOS front fenders (that came with the car). In whole, including painting I put 650 hours in it. took about 18 months. I'm retired, past my use-by date and can't work full time. I thought I did pretty good, but it will never win any prizes. It does, however, transport me locally when it isn't freezing outside.

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                    • #11
                      Longest I took was 10 years on a 50 pickup .....but it was a few years of hunting nos parts
                      Shortest was about 10 months on my 66 Daytona....but worked pretty steady on that one ( retired then)
                      sigpic

                      Home of the Fried Green Tomato

                      "IF YOU WANT THE SMILES YOU NEED TO DO THE MILES "

                      1960 Champ , 1966 Daytona , 1965 Daytona Wagonaire

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                      • #12
                        Well in my case, I have only done modified stuff, but in reality some have been full frame off mods with every bit of the same labor and money involved as a restoration. In one case I built a 1957 VW Beetle Oval window custom. It started with a bare belly pan and needed the pan floor to be welded in. The body was hammered, caved in roof, hit on every corner and cut up front and rear firewalls. It took me 8 months of 3-4 hours every day and 10-12 hours on sat and 3-5 on Sun. Then I had some help from my buddies on top of that. So 30 ish hours a week + 10-15 hours of buddies help. for a total of about 40 hours a week. It took me 7 months to get it fully driveable and looking decent but in primer, and another 2 months to finish body and paint for a grand total of 8 months.

                        My La Salle I had for 2.5 years and it was running but NOT done on body work and interior, but another hard 6-10 months would have got that done. That was a wild full custom front clip, rear 4 link clip, braced and gusseted frame, roll cage, blown BBC.....

                        My current truck was a half resto. It took me 7 months of maybe 3 hours 4-5 days a week. I have a bad neck issue that limits my working time and maximizes my couch time. I did not take the cab off frame and I have not done the rust patches and body work and paint, but I have done a full restore on the brake system, motor {albeit a V8 tansplant}, interior paint and seat rebuild, roll up glass dis-assembly and repair so they roll up nice now, complete re-wire front to back, complete fuel system replacement and re-engineer, cooling system re-design and rebuild, some frame customizations {like shortening the front frame rails and box crossmember and new bumper mounts to tuck the bumper in}, as well as aloy of other custom little touches to make it my own.

                        To have pulled it off the frame and restore the frame and do all of the body work to have done a full restore would have been another solid 6 months. But I am fortunate enough to have alot of decent tools and equipment to everything myself other than engine machine work and the seat upholstery. I did my own exhaust system by borrowing a tube bender from a buddies shop and using his car hoist. So I have had some beneficial equipment use free of charge.

                        The biggest difference in time on my 3 big projects have been the money available. On my bug, I sold a car and had 90% of the cash in hand to order parts and buy everything whenever I needed it. The La Salle was a pay as I earned the spare money...do a side job, but a blower, do some OT, buy a front clip, get my tax return buy roll cage tubing....My truck I sold a Jeep TJ and had all of the money up front to buy 85% of what I needed whenever I needed it.

                        There are some stories, I hope you like them.
                        Last edited by kmac530; 04-19-2012, 07:16 AM. Reason: add

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                        • #13
                          The longest full build for me was this car...



                          It took about 5 years. I was still gainfully employed at the time which limited the hours I could work on it plus I farmed out a lot which generally took much longer than promised. In fact I had the car in 3 different shops for body and paint since the first two couldn't bring themselves to finish the job.


                          OTOH, the Kart Hauler was done in roughly 6 months. In June of 2008 it was accepted for display at the January 2009 Grand National Roadster Show . I had barely started on the car and this was the incentive I needed to get cracking on it in ernest.

                          Here's what it looked like when I brought it home. No engine and trans and missing a lot of parts.




                          ...but it was relatively straight and rust free. I had been torn down in the early 1960's for a repaint but then put into storage and forgot about for 40+ years.






                          I had lots of help from the forum on this one for parts and advice. My buddy Jon (Wyo Tech grad) spent his summer doing the body and paint. We rigged up a paint booth in my shop to shoot primer.




                          ...but we did the finish paint in a pro booth.




                          While that was going on, I cleaned and detailed other parts, networked for the missing ones, had the chrome and cad plating done, Gord Richmond built the engine and transmission. When the car came back from the paint booth, we cut and buffed it and began assembly...






                          Finding the vintage kart to go in the bed is a story all in itself. I got all too familiar with vintage kart racing and their web sites. I found the kart in Idaho, went and got it, and restored it to its former glory...




                          The car was completed just a few days prior to the GNRS (just like in the reality TV shows ). Although I had lots of help on the car, the only thing truly farmed out was the interior.








                          It made the show in Pomona. That's Jerry Pitt, HRM publisher, on camera about to interview Lee Talbot, the original builder of the car in 1958 who is standing next to me.

                          Dick Steinkamp
                          Bellingham, WA

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                          • #14
                            Four years for mine. Would have been less if I took it to a body shop before my good ol' boy sliced up my nice rust free fenders.
                            Dave Warren (Perry Mason by day, Perry Como by night)

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                            • #15
                              are they ever "Done"?

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