First Timer Restoration

How about some Tips for people who are planning a Restoration.

1. Take Pictures, Take Lots of Pictures and when you done, take more.

2. Zip lock bags and a felt tiped pen are your friends.

3. Keep your old bolts, so that you can find new ones the same size and grade.

4. A Book on your car like a Chilts, or check for a Resto Book on your car.

5. Your going to spend more then you planned, as you take it apart you see more that you can do , because it's apart.

6. If you have a better half make sure your remove the Trans from the bath tub before they get home, Oven Cleaner eats the tub grip tape......

7. Buy WD40 in a gallon, get a milk jug and soke your bolts.

8. It's better in some cases to tighten the bolt till it snaps, rather then deal with 3" of rust thred, PA guys know what i'm talking about, as well the rest of the rust belt.

9. Cardboard boxes work great on cold floors and it keeps your shirts half able to be reused.

10. Winter sucks without heat, even if you only heat the place when your working your tools are still cold, and they feel 3 times colder then Ice.

11. Take more Pictures.

12. If your paying for some sand blasting, get all your parts together, and make sure the busshings your going to replace are out first.

13. Pack your wheel bearings in a room temp, as the bearing greese is not as thick in cold weather and will not pack as good.

14. Plan on painting your parts in warm weather, shop heaters like propane will set the place on fire, right after you get the buzz of your life.

15. Beer and wireing up your guages is not a good idea.

16. Heating up your space to sit and look at frame rails and then going home because you think "Oh crap, what did I get into" is a waste of Gas, get a few friends over and some beer, just pay attention to #15, and #14.

17. Keep all the papers on the stuff you buy, from the sales slips to the instructions, it kinda sucks calling summits tec line so that they can go get a set of instructions out of a box.

18. Bandaids, water and a 10lb hammer are a must have for anything that gos wrong.

19. Don't put your good rims and tires on the car while you work on it, it's looks kinda coold to see it come together but the crap that somehow happens to them sucks.

20. If you change the seat brackets and such you can get more time out of a worn set of bucket seats by switching the driver for the pass.

21. PAY to have a rear or front glass put in, they come to your place and do it beter then you can, after dealing with my rear 72GTO window I would have given the guy 2 times what he asked to do the windshield.

22. Use a Vac or air from a compressor to get the dirt and such out of your frame rails in the boxed areas, nuts and broken bolts and such seems to find a way in, and they rattle.

23. You had better be a man of faith to align the fenders, hood and endura of a 71-72 GTO, and don't forget to put the extractors (72 GTO only) back in the fenders of you have to take them off again.

24. Stainless Steel is allways a good idea on under car stuff, like control arms, and body bolts, as they will never rust, and they come off like day one.

25. Lock nuts save time and grace, as balancing a lock washer and a washer while laying on your back, side or even upright is hard when you have your other hand on the wrench to tighten the other end, or holding the bolt, it's also less to buy. And we all know that once the washer drops and rolls, it's going to end up under your old shoe at home somehow.

26. Have fun, don't sell it, unless it's a GTO and i'm asking about it.

If any body would like to add anything here to a would be restorer Please do, as even the people would do restore would like to know some new things.

[MagicRat]

1. Beg, borrow or steal a plasma cutter for cutting up body panels or patch panels for welding. Second choice is an air grinder with a high speed cut off wheel. Air nibblers, air chisels, Sawzalls, tin snips, your old lady's scissors all distort the panels too much and really increase the need for body work.

2. Learn to love your welder. When electric welding sheet metal, stitch weld it. Tack the pieces together, and weld in very short bursts. Spread the welds around, to reduce heat build up and warping.

3. Always wear long sleeves when welding. Do not leave any exposed skin unless you really love a sunburn in January.

4. ALWAYS remove your gas tank before cutting, welding or grinding. Even an 'empty' tank has enough gas fumes to turn your prized collectible into a pretty ball of fire.

5. Do not be surprised if your reproduction (not NOS) patch panel will not fit right unless it is 'massaged'

6. Remember your 'blue tip wrench' (Oxygen/acetylene torch) It saves lots of broken-bolt cursing and swearing.

Be sure to remove the carpet, undercoating, grease build-up etc before heating up bolts underneath the car. A fire will really brighten your day.

7. Mask off or remove all glass before sandblasting. Dont use paper etc! You are sandblasting, not painting! Mask using thick vinyl drop sheets.
An accidental blast of sand can fog up your irreplacible window glass in 0.000000001 of a second.

Don't laugh. The side window of my T-Bird still has a foggy 'Mark of Zorro' in it when I tripped over the air hose and the nozzle went sideways. I was sand blasing the rocker panel at the time.

7A. Its virtually impossible to gat ALL the sandblasting sand out of a car's carpet. Remove all carpets, upholstry etc before blasting.

8. That 9/16 wrench you simply cannot find after rebuilding your engine??
It's probably sitting in the bottom of the oil pan.

9. Use soapy water and air pressure to clean out all the oil passages of a freshly machined block. Otherwise, all the machine work turnings and particles will otherwise end up embedded in your nice new bearings.

9A. Label or mark all the pushrods, rocker arms and bearing caps as soon as you remove them. Otherwise, you WILL mix them up, then wonder why your crankshaft will not spin freely once you torque down the caps.

9B. Always use Plasticguage on bearing caps. Check all bearing clearances. Do not rely on the word of the machine shop.
Also its handy to find out which caps you put in out-of-sequence.

10. That new radiator you stored last winter in the barn? Send it back to the radiator shop before using it. It will be plugged with mouse poop and chewed up under pad that the mice used to make their cozy winter nest.

11. If you are hiding your newly-purchased '69 GTO project from your wife, do not leave it at your parent's house! Your mother will, definitely, inevitably spill the beans to the wife, who will then crucify you for keeping secrets for the last 6 months.

Then she will go out and buy 10 pairs of new shoes..............

12. Tell the wife you really, truly would like a new gas-shielded MIG welder for Christmas, instead of tickets to "Les Miserables".
Trust me, you will be feeling plenty miserables after seeing that!

13. Inevitably, your daily driver will run like a Swiss watch until your project car is fully disassembled in your garage, immobile and hogging all your warm workspace.

Then, the daily driver will fire a broken rod through the oil pan into a snow bank, leaving you forced to pay some overpriced mechanic to fix it in his nice warm garage.

14. A nice, slippery layer of snow in the driveway makes a terrific substitute for a creeper, as you fix that rod in your frozen driveway because the old lady has spent all the car repair money on shoes and tickets.

15. Beware of mice. A car in restoration is a split-level mouse condo for our furry friends. Mouse pee stinks and will ruin a car. Mice love to chew fabric and wiring.
I once briefly worked on a 1960 Rolls Royce which was rendered unrestorable and was parted-out due to 20 years of mice damage.

Use mouse traps. Do not use mouse poison, because inevitably a dead mouse carcass will fall out from behind the passenger-side visor into your girlfriends lap duing her first ride in your restored car.

Just when you think that the strang stuff only happens to yourself, you find out that it happens to everyone, or at least anybody doing a car.

I have to tell the mouse problem I had. First when I got my bare bones GTO from Lake city, I was under it and seen about 3 mice in my front boxed frame rails, i would catch a glimps as they ran by the frame holes.

Then later as I was doing my car, I had noticed sun flower seeds on my engine under the intake, it was my old Lemans 350 , and since my buds and I were eating those I thought my Chevy buddies were trying to piss me off, well when I took apart the 350 I found strands of about every color of rags I ever had and even my new carpet with the seads IN the engine, they not only went in the T stat houseing and into the intake (no stat) they bedded into the heads, as I even found poop and that "fluf" in the jugs that had a valve open.

And after my car was done they got into the car some how and were storing seeds under my back seat. I don't know how they got in, the only thing I can think of is that I used to keep the doors on the first "click" so that my rubber seals would not stick to the body.

Since I have closed them all the way I have not seen anything, so they move on or could not get in. I have no open holes from the outside to the inside, so they must have pressed themselfs in.

So it's just better to use some sort of cream or spray on the rubber and close your doors.

When I did my car I did not have the money for a welder or gas welder/cutter, but I did have that little bastard they sell with the MAPPA gas and Oxy, it worked good on some stuff. I did my O2 sensor bung and light welding with it easy, but the Oxy runs out to fast.

I wanted to add this.

Try to buy your parts at one time, not the whole project, but buy stuff like front end stuff, bushings, tie rods, ball joints, try to get all you need to do one job, it helps in a few ways, first, you don't jump around the car doing little things and forget what you did to one part of a job you started, the other thing is that you get to see one part of the car get done, if you were doing ball joints and such in the front , when you get all the parts and do the job you see things "happen" and are less likely to sell it because it looks like you are going no place, another is when you have to look for a part, or parts for a return or replacement it's all on one receipt.

Keep your receipts in a box, or file it, you may miss the fact that some sport retruned a set of tie rod ends with the greese fitting broken off inside, (I hate people) a small set of hexs will get them out bu the way.

If your doing a GM A body make sure you buy 2 of the 3/4's and 1/2's as you will need them more then the rest, and you may just snap a few.

If your buds are over to help it's not a bad idea to order Pizza at least an hour after you started some job, as the idea of Pizza comming will keep them with you as the orignal time you planed for the job like an act of god, allways go's over the time you expected, AND DON'T EVER GIVE A EXPECTED TIME ON A JOB, AS SOON AS YOU DO YOUR SCREWED, it's a hex to every person who ever did anything with a car.

You can't christen a GTO with an Endura bumper! I tryed, and I don't think it was becasue we drank most of the bottle of Jack, well maybe a little.

If you have a 70 to 72 GTO or Lemans the phantom force keeping the dash on is hidden screws on the top of the Clock/tac, speedo, and rally or your engine is allredy gone lights.

Do yourself a favor and use 8 jackstands, place 2 on the 4 sides of the car, and take note the weight of the car if the engine is not in yet or is in.

I don't like not buying American, but you can save alot of money getting a set of "China Forged open/boxed end wrenches at a Big Lots , for the price of a set of standard Craftmens, you can get 3 sets of Big Lots from all the way up to 1". it just saves money and your buds have tools to work with along side of you. This also gos for the cheap socket sets, but have at least 2 good Snap on or Craftsmen tools so that WHEN they get broken you can get a new or fixed one for free.

That being said , for hand tools, you would like to have three 1/2" Drives, same in 3/8s and one set of 1/4, for open ends, or open/boxed ended set you would need about 4, 2 full set of screw drivers, some "L" bent ones, one fair TQ wrench, as save the good one for the engine so it's not to be dropped and such, different sizes of crescent's and a few pipe wrenches, channel locks, different sizes, a good sized vice, some pry bars, some tube for sliding over your drives for leverage, plyers all sizes, pickel fork, hammers, slege, hack saw, some taps, thred lockers. I'm sure I'm missing some, but for hand tools your going to need some value of these tools.

A gule gun works wonders, just a few ideas are fabric thats pealing off the factory cardboard, adding a layer to some steel parts inside my car helped with a few squeaks, it's even helped to keep screws from backing out. I'm sure alot of other stuff can be used for the hot glue gun.

Don't tighten the upper and lower control arms and attached stuff all the way tight till it's off the jacks and under it's iwn weight, you will get "bind".

Your car doors weigh more then you think, and think about replacing the pin in the hinge that holds your doors, nothing like a smooth closeing door, and good wiper blades that made a car just "feel right".

That "fog" in the rear view is not comming off, so don't try to take it apart and clean it.

Pontiac and I bet the others used different dash harneses, I think 2, if your guages act stupid like your high beam light is now the left turn signal this may be the problem.

Don't go and spend money on a new battery once you start your project, by the time you get done you would have beat the snot out of it and may have killed a few cells from that crosses wire, running the radio, playing with 12v lights, messing with your buddie with sparks from jumper cables as hes under the car running a new wire for the electric pump, man I hate that, or just from sttting in your car with the dash lights on, dreaming about beating that over egoed Chevy guy. Getting a junk yard group 24 for $10 is the ticket, also watch for sparks as non sealed ones can explode.

being able to wash your hands or face is great, when your eating chips and see your greese finger print on a chip going into your mouth is kinda bad, as well as the subway sub with lock tight and bearing greese gives the taste a muddy slick to it. So baby wipes and no wash hand cleaner are great.

Save those pop bottles to piss in, if your drinking the Dew make sure you don't sit it out and about.

Rubber gloves, man if I had some of them I would have saved myself from alot of brake cleaner hand washings all tho it seems you find every nick and cut on your hands that way.

Rags, lots of rags, crap gets dumped, oil leaks, and by far the worse is Trans fluid, the TCI stuff is allmost clear and makes for a bad day after you lay in it.

Have a change of pants and shirt for yourself and your buddies, or at least trash bags over the seat so that the better halfs eyes don't start to glow in the dark when she takes the car to work after you have driven home with some sort of oil, lube, greese, fluid that has gotten onto the skirt, dress, or no stain and the smell of gresse has set into the heater from a glob of gresse that was on your shoe and not is an air defreshner for the heater. see #11 1/2 above.

It's best to by Lava soap and use it in the shower, I have done this so many times you forget your useing it, well untill you run it accross your nipple, and allmost piss yourself, and then try to explane what you did when your better half comes to see what the yelling is about, then by way of the female underground your buds have ear to ear grins on their faces next time you see them.

If your durms don't come off try the E brake, (you suck Andy).

Brake fluid eats paint, so that nice booster you just did in black will look like wrinkle finish if you don't wipe it up.

Use tape on your drive shaft U joints when you take it out, it keeps the caps on so that your not digging around on the floor tring to find the little needle bearings.

it's kinda a hard thing to do, but sweep your floor, it helps so much from finding dropped tools and nuts and bolts to keeping dust in and off your car.

Wipe off your tools and put them back, I have spent solid days just putting back my tools because I can't find what I need, if I could put this back at #1 I would, you have got to do this, when you sockets are out of order you have to pick up allmost every one of them to fidn the right one, as well as the wrenches, keeping them cleen makes for quick reading on the numbers, usieng a spray of WD 40 works great.

stuff you can't label in a zip lock, use tags with string on them, I used "Core" tags from a local Auto Zone to do this, some even use wire in place of the string.

Flash lights, shop lights seem to get the bulb dusted with even a slight tap to them, if your going to use a shop light look for garage door opener lights, they are HD lights that are made for shakeing.

I said bandaids up in the first part, but you should also have at least a 1" roll of gauze for bad cuts.

Fire extinguisher, not the little ones, get a med size job that puts out everything, look for the A B C letters on the bottle, you don't want to watch as your baby gos up in flames because you bought a under sized one or one that will push oil still on fire all over the place.

Trash can, A big one, but also have one for Steel, like junk bolts, as you can get some money for it, I took down 3 to 4 , 5 gallon buckets of crap bolts and steel and got around $28, for it, as well take out the rings on your Alum pistons because they get pissy about that.

Bolts and nuts and washers, your going to need lots more then you think, I found it's best to buy random sizes with nuts and washers, lock washers to match, I did so much running around for bolts , and well as wasting gas I had to lock up the place as I was renting every time I left, and in the winter I had to turn off th heat.

As for as heat, don't close yourself in with a Propane heater, you will die, I started feeling sick and got a bastard of a headach , it was kinda of a wow, thats not good moment, you have to have air comming in, those heaters were made for heating open places, not closed in, when you get the car running, get a tuble and route your engine fumes out the door and heat the place with your car, it's a better and quicker idea, and the block and rad keep the place warm even after you shut it down.

Paint, you have to have the air and the part "warm" like 70's for it to set right, and even tho you spray paint a part away from the car, the mist will find it's way onto stuff you don't what it to be on.

Shop vac is king on this kind of project, as you can sift in the unit and find lost nuts and bolts.

Fiberglass will make you itch, when working with glass body parts or scoops and you trim, cut of what not these fibers will get into your skin and not wash off, this gos for what you have on also, and coat sleaves, I have found lint rollers that use the tape work the best at getting this stuff out of your skin and off you shrit and pants, also note that when you wash your pants and shirt with this stuff on it, it will get into what ever is in the washer also.

Oven cleaner is a great tool, it will degreese and clean down into the steel, you should not use this stuf on any Alum. This stuff will also eat your skin, it needs to be washed off ASAP , you will find even a drip on your arm will itch, and when you wipe you take off skin, use the oven claner that can be used in a cold oven. Mr. muscle brand works best, even better then easy off, look for it in a Orange lid.

Brake cleaner works great on steel parts that need to be free to greese before paint, like control arms.

If your building a car that will see some if not alot of trans changes the best holes in your car will be made at your firewall, drill holes that match the engine to trans bolts in your firewall, this may seem stupid, but for the guys that have changed clutchs a few times, or just changed a trans a few times this is a golden trick, uss plastic body plugs to press into the holes when not in use. It sucks to use an open end on all those upper bolts.

I got tired, I will try to think of some more, people if you have any tips add them here.

[MagicRat]

Excellent tips, man.
This thread should be a stickey for this sub forum.

Rat, thanks for adding the tips, you have some great solid notes that should allways be thought of.

I only wish that I could have had some of the insight written above before I did my GTO. The time, money and grief I could have saved doing my car would have been great.

Your 100% right about your main car haveing problems once your into your project. I had a 1987 Chevy Blazer K5 and switced my Stat for the cold weather, and like clock work the bolt snaped in the intake, and after snaping 1 of my taps and 1 of my fathers taps we towed my Blazer to a pro that snaped 2 drill bits and 1 tap in my intake. Along with a Fuel pump (in tank) as well later on that winter.

Stuff like that only happens when it's cold and your low on cash.

I do hope that somebody takes some tips from these tips.

I had my GTO for sale in the paper 2 times because it just seemed it was not comming together, a better job changed that, but i'm sure glad I didn't sell her.

I did what I thought was right at the time and made alot of bad moves, stuff had to be repainted, new parts had to be replaced, striped bolts , you name it. I think not haveing the right tool for the job was the worse, it stoped you dead untill you could get the tool, or part out the work, like pressed in ball joints, the tool for doing it cost as much as haveing a shop do it.

Now that I know the "little things" that should make the next project more "fun", even tho it was fun I allmost sold it twice, I would even go to my place and warm it up, look around and leave, when you had a friend around it's not so bad, but alone with a bare body and frame looking at you can bring you down quick.

[Rack]

Boy am I glad I found this thread. I'm about to attempt my first restoration (68 Charger) so these tips will definitely come in handy.

[jefflilly]

I build for a living and I did not even think of a few of those. great ideas guys keep it going. Excellent strategy