Wheres the best place to start?

[MadScientist]

Hey all,

i feel my motivation growing and want to start project #2, a 70 500 383 4spd. Its got a lot of filler on it and my overall feeling is that I should get the whole thing blasted and start from there. My first resto was kinda all over the place (in terms of order) because it was done long distance by me and a friend (long story).

Anyway, I have been through most of the resto process, doing everything except for the engine build and body work.  So after all that, my question is somewhat general, "what is the best order in which to proceed?"  Ive got the car stripped of everything except fenders and hood. 

Sorry if this is vague, but I can add more info if needed.


Thanks for any and all input.

MS

[Ghoste]

If the parts are stripped then I would say the next step is exactly as you guessed, get that body down to bare metal and see what you're working with.

[MadScientist]

Thanks!  So far Im counting on replacing the quarters and maybe the hood (lots o rot underneath). I have a spare door for the drivers side too.  The roof has pin holes for sure.  Everything is solid underneath fortunately.

MS

[greenpigs]

    If it is solid underneath and your sure about that I would do the drive train & get the car on the road. You know the quarters need replaced on the body & most of the rest will unbolt. So getting it in driving condition & then do the bodywork as money allows makes more sense to me.

[Darkman]

    If it is solid underneath and your sure about that I would do the drive train & get the car on the road. You know the quarters need replaced on the body & most of the rest will unbolt. So getting it in driving condition & then do the bodywork as money allows makes more sense to me.

[Dino]

It's orange, the most obvious next step is to put 01 on the doors.      

Just kidding! 

Sometimes I'm on the fence with these things.  On one hand I would drive it and fix as you go along like greenpigs said, on the other I would strip it to the last bolt and give it a proper resto(mod).  It all depends on your time frame and what YOU want to do with the car.

[MadScientist]

Thanks for the input.

Im in the fortunate positiion of having another (finished) car to drive while working on this one. Its actually nearly identical to it, except FC7.  So Im in no rush to drive this one. I guess what Im looking for is the most logical way to approach this.  The other one was frustrating because there were a number of items that had to be redone due to the order in which they were done.

Right now, Im leaning towards getting the body blasted to see what Ive got to work with and then acquire the funds/time to get the body work done. While the bodywork is being done by someone else (I havre no space or skills), I will refurbish the parts I have with the extra space I would now have in the the garage, including building up the short block, trans, rearend.  When the car comes back looking all shiny, reassemble.

If there are any glaring issues, Im sure you all will point them out! 

Anyway, thanks for talking this through

[Dino]

Sounds good to me!

I have done numerous restorations and usually I will strip the entire car, mark all parts I remove as resore or replace and do the body first.  Get all the metal work done, then reassemble much of the car to make sure body panels and mechanical components line up as they should, especially if you buy new parts.  Disassemble again and get the car in paint.

This leaves you with a boatload of parts to fix so I always tried to do as many parts as possible while the body sat.  Be it for drying time or waiting for a part or simply when you need to step away from it for a while.

The other option, and this is actually a pretty nice one imo, is to restore every part you remove, one by one.

For instance you remove all the chrome and stainless trim first, send off whatever needs to be redone or add them to the list of parts to order.  Whatever can be repaired by you is done right away.  Now you have those parts all done ready to go back on the car so put them in safe storage.  Continue to take things apart.  Next could be the interior.  Take it all out, assess and order/repair what needs to be done.  At the end you have a completely redone interior ready to go into storage.  When all is assembled all that is left is the actual body, now you restore that, knowing that every single part that needs to go on after paint is either done and stored or sourced out.

When the time comes you will have no pitted chrome to deal with, no torn door panels, no rusty bolts.  It's like assembling a new car.

My personal favorite is to mix the two up a bit but I do want to have every part done before the car gets painted.

Either way you can't go wrong.  It's a big project and you can reassess at any time and change the battle plan.  Just make sure that whatever you do you don't do it in vein.  Don't spend a week restoring a part that you end up replacing.

[MadScientist]

Dino,

Actualy thats sounds like a good plan. I like the idea of redoing a part, checking fitment and then stowing it away knowing it will go on without hassle.  I actually enjoyed the part-by-part resto portion of the restoration.  The cool part is that I already have multiples of certain things left over from the first car that are already restored (again not knowing which one would fit better during assembly).

What about storing a rebuilt engine/transmission? Any really big mistakes to be made/avoided there?

MS

[Dino]

Dino,

Actualy thats sounds like a good plan. I like the idea of redoing a part, checking fitment and then stowing it away knowing it will go on without hassle.  I actually enjoyed the part-by-part resto portion of the restoration.  The cool part is that I already have multiples of certain things left over from the first car that are already restored (again not knowing which one would fit better during assembly).

What about storing a rebuilt engine/transmission? Any really big mistakes to be made/avoided there?

MS

As long as you fit and adjust what you have, you won't have any nasty surprises in the end.

As far as trans and engine go,  I will leave that up to the mechanics on this board to give you a good answer.  I would be guessing.

[kab69440]

I think you might want to consider redecorating, or at least painting your house before worrying about the car...

[MadScientist]

I think you might want to consider redecorating, or at least painting your house before worrying about the car...

Thats the funniest thing Ive read all day!  Ive been trying to get the house painted for about a year now...