What are you thoughts on my 69 500 metal work?

[PocketThunder]

My 69 500 needs about the same amount of work that autorust spent on this 68 Charger, excelpt for the front end work.  http://www.autorust.com/gn0.html  I want to get the restoration started on this car in the winter/spring so i need to plan on how much i need to save to have the metal work done for now.  I have a 1-1/2 yr old son and a daughter on the way and i'd rather spend time with them vs doing this work myself like i did on my 68. http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,154.0.html  So the 500 will get most of the resto work hired out over several years. 

I stopped at the local restoration shop today and they said their labor rate for restoration is $65/hr.  They said that they need to see the car before they can give me a quote ofcourse.  The car is burried in the side of my garage right now and i dont have time to dig it out and take it in. 

It would probably take me 100 hours to do this work so i'm guessing a shop could do it faster but i'm gonna start at 100 hours.  How many hours do you guys guess it will take to do the metal work to my 69? 

thanks

Paul
in St. Paul

[CB]

I think Doc74 could give good advise.
He did mine a few months back.

[340_duster]

Message sent to your mailbox.

[69 OUR/TEA]

Depending on how nice you are planning to make this car,all repo panels or NOS,cutting everything off,all the fitting time of panels on on off to get them right,rear valance panel and corners need alot of modifying to get them on correctly,hidden rot like the rear crossmember,the rocker panel behind the quarter,outer wheel houses,tail panel,trunk extensions and maybe trunk floor? Then all the welding and grinding,smoothing etc,proir to plastic work,I would geuss 100 hours will be soaked up faster than you think.How many times have you heard of someone getting a quote from a body shop,and came out paying nearly double or more? Not to discourage you because a car like this(yours) should be restored,you know the expected value when done,so in my eyes,a car like this is in the relm of whatever it takes, as long as your wallet can provide,just hopefully you find an honest shop that can provide quality work.

[Silver R/T]

looks nice

[bill440rt]

As usual, 69 OUR/TEA has a good handle on his reply. That 500, while VERY worth restoring, needs quite a bit of metal work.
PocketThunder, I understand your situation as well. My '69 was in similar shape, & I also have a little guy who's 1-1/2yrs old. I started doing the metal work on my car last year, & I've finally got it into paint stages only recently. And, that's me doing all the work. No shop involved. My dad or a friend helps me now & then, that's about it.
With any resto/body work, you get what you pay for. You could easliy sink $10-$15K in body/paint work alone, to get a show quality job on a car that needs that much metal work. But, it will all pay off in the long run.
Good Luck!

[AutoRust]

Here is my 2 cents on the car.
As mentioned, it all depends what your looking for in the end. And because its a 500, there really isnt any way to do it but correctly. We see these problems every day here. It never looks as bad as we think it will, but it usually is. 100 hours these days does not get a lot accomplished. I usually estimate it like this
Trunks = 30 hours
rear crossmember = 4 hours
rear valance = 4 hours
corners = 2 hours
rear quarters= 30 hours
2 outer wheelhouses = 8 hours
2 inner wheelhouses = 8 hours
2 rear of inner rockers = 2 hours

thats 88 hours there, without seeing the car. How is the rear window area? How is the tail light panel? How about the trunk lip area? And of course whats the condition of the frames back there? And we have not even considered the middle or front of the car.

And then we factor in the hidden factors !! Thats the suprises we usually find, sometimes its hidden rust, lots of times its tearing up and correcting someone elses mess that might have been done 10 or 20 years ago.
Our labor rate is $65/hr, plus materials, so its pretty easy to run up a bill.
And a lot of places can get overwhelmed by these cars, and then the nightmare of" they have had it for _____ years already......

Give us a call if you have any questions, we are always ready to talk about old Mopars

Dave


Hey, if this was easy, everyone would do it.

[4402tuff4u]

Paul, I would throw an extra 15 - 20% of whatever estimate you come up with in manhours. Like mentioned above, the hidden stuff is what will add up. Nice project!

[PocketThunder]

Here is my 2 cents on the car.
As mentioned, it all depends what your looking for in the end. And because its a 500, there really isnt any way to do it but correctly. We see these problems every day here. It never looks as bad as we think it will, but it usually is. 100 hours these days does not get a lot accomplished. I usually estimate it like this
Trunks = 30 hours
rear crossmember = 4 hours
rear valance = 4 hours
corners = 2 hours
rear quarters= 30 hours
2 outer wheelhouses = 8 hours
2 inner wheelhouses = 8 hours
2 rear of inner rockers = 2 hours

thats 88 hours there, without seeing the car. How is the rear window area? How is the tail light panel? How about the trunk lip area? And of course whats the condition of the frames back there? And we have not even considered the middle or front of the car.

And then we factor in the hidden factors !! Thats the suprises we usually find, sometimes its hidden rust, lots of times its tearing up and correcting someone elses mess that might have been done 10 or 20 years ago.
Our labor rate is $65/hr, plus materials, so its pretty easy to run up a bill.
And a lot of places can get overwhelmed by these cars, and then the nightmare of" they have had it for _____ years already......

Give us a call if you have any questions, we are always ready to talk about old Mopars

Dave


Hey, if this was easy, everyone would do it.

Hi Dave, i should give you a call.  but sending the car to Rhode Island seems a bit far.  Anyways, it does need front floor work, tail light panel, (which i have) the back window is rust free    and it needs some fixing on the front of the rocker panel on the pass side.  The trunk lip area is good.  The rear frame rails need to be replaced. 

So i guess its looking more like 150~200 hours after its done.  So $10,000 ~ $13,000 for metal work.... 

[Blown70]

Here is my 2 cents on the car.
As mentioned, it all depends what your looking for in the end. And because its a 500, there really isnt any way to do it but correctly. We see these problems every day here. It never looks as bad as we think it will, but it usually is. 100 hours these days does not get a lot accomplished. I usually estimate it like this
Trunks = 30 hours
rear crossmember = 4 hours
rear valance = 4 hours
corners = 2 hours
rear quarters= 30 hours
2 outer wheelhouses = 8 hours
2 inner wheelhouses = 8 hours
2 rear of inner rockers = 2 hours

thats 88 hours there, without seeing the car. How is the rear window area? How is the tail light panel? How about the trunk lip area? And of course whats the condition of the frames back there? And we have not even considered the middle or front of the car.

And then we factor in the hidden factors !! Thats the suprises we usually find, sometimes its hidden rust, lots of times its tearing up and correcting someone elses mess that might have been done 10 or 20 years ago.
Our labor rate is $65/hr, plus materials, so its pretty easy to run up a bill.
And a lot of places can get overwhelmed by these cars, and then the nightmare of" they have had it for _____ years already......

Give us a call if you have any questions, we are always ready to talk about old Mopars

Dave


Hey, if this was easy, everyone would do it.

Hi Dave, i should give you a call.  but sending the car to Rhode Island seems a bit far.  Anyways, it does need front floor work, tail light panel, (which i have) the back window is rust free    and it needs some fixing on the front of the rocker panel on the pass side.  The trunk lip area is good.  The rear frame rails need to be replaced. 

So i guess its looking more like 150~200 hours after its done.  So $10,000 ~ $13,000 for metal work.... 

Paul do you need a set of frame Rails?  You want to buy the back half of the charger I have?

Tom

[AutoRust]

As I said, there is always more then we expect. I would think you could be in the 200 hour range.
And you might want to find the back half of a B-Body if you need rails.
Our caps are great if your fixin up an old beater 318 or something not as "valuable" as a 500.

Its just then your drilling out spot welds, and really cranking up the detail, and as we know, that will burn up the hours. Its why so many people try to do it at home, cause there labor is affordable, although there skill levels are not always what a professional might be able to do.
I know we are far from you, but FYI, we have a 62 Plymouth Savoy here that got brought in from Lansing Michigan. Not exactly around the corner from me !!  We get cars from everywhere,Indiana, Ohio, Penn, South Carolina, Maine, and even from Texas.
and the reason we do is because we are not a "restoration" shop. We are a "rust repair shop" and thats it. We dont do interiors, we dont do paint, we dont do motors, blah,blah,blah. We just do rust.
I was just suggesting you call us if you needed any information or assitance even, anything we can do to help out a Mopar Man is a good enough reason to talk on the phone instead of doing any "real" work.

Dave