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Inspiring progress! I don't know why I haven't subbed before, but I am now. Keep up the good work and stay inspired for the sake of the rest of us who are inspired by you. :-)
Its named after a rich kid bully my husband and I went to high school with. Daddy bought him several nice sports cars during high school he didn't have to work for. He was fixing up a 57 chevy and had a new engine in it when he started it up one night and it blew up. He was all like "someone sabotaged it! We're going to find out who it was and F-them up!" and so on. Turned out he dropped a nut in the uncovered carburetor while working on it. Ever since then a number of us have referred to a carburetor cover for working on a car as an anti-brockman unit.
I knew there had to be a story behind that one, pretty funny!
Inspiring progress! I don't know why I haven't subbed before, but I am now. Keep up the good work and stay inspired for the sake of the rest of us who are inspired by you. :-)
Thanks BigBlock77. The closer I get to the end the more inspired I become. Thanks for tuning in.
Time for a quick update on what's been happening with the project. To be blunt, nothing, not a thing. Tried to remove the end of one of my fingers 3 weeks ago and that halted all work. Still healing but not there yet. Not that it mattered much, the bank account is running on empty, the warm weather is gone and the motivation to work on it took a walk also. I have a few projects around the house that need to get done this fall yet, so it looks like we won't be doing much the rest of the year.
Time to regroup, build up the bank account and get some motivation back. Not to worry it shouldn't take to long. I hope to be back on it the first of the year. Until then I will be following along on the other projects that are still going on. That always helps to inspire me to work on mine. Later.......
Time for a quick update on what's been happening with the project. To be blunt, nothing, not a thing. Tried to remove the end of one of my fingers 3 weeks ago and that halted all work. Still healing but not there yet. Not that it mattered much, the bank account is running on empty, the warm weather is gone and the motivation to work on it took a walk also. I have a few projects around the house that need to get done this fall yet, so it looks like we won't be doing much the rest of the year.
Time to regroup, build up the bank account and get some motivation back. Not to worry it shouldn't take to long. I hope to be back on it the first of the year. Until then I will be following along on the other projects that are still going on. That always helps to inspire me to work on mine. Later.......
It does seem to be hard here in Michigan to have the motivation to work on cars in cold garages huh. I try to get a few hours done a week, but that cold garage slows things down.
It does seem to be hard here in Michigan to have the motivation to work on cars in cold garages huh. I try to get a few hours done a week, but that cold garage slows things down.
Sorry for the delayed response.
I think the bigger problem is you can't do anything that produces stink, like painting, fiber glassing, cleaning solvents, and plastic filler. I can't work in an in-closed space with any of the above, bad on the health. Also since the garage is attached to the house the odors get in there, and that doesn't fly very well.
There are still some things I can work on but right now the garage is getting a makeover. It's been this way which is mostly unfinished for 20 years or so. I never liked the color or the bench layout. So this last week I started demolition and remodeling it. I hope to be done in a month or two and then we will get back to working on the project, working on whatever I can.
I thought I would post some numbers on what the cost total of the project is so far. I have been keeping a spreadsheet just so I know the total cost when finished and where the money went. I have seen this question asked before, about the cost to restore a Corvette, so hopefully this will help anyone who is thinking about getting a project. Here is a rough breakdown on what has been spent so far. I broke it down into categories to see what areas the money is being spent in. Keep in mind there isn't any labor costs so far other than a couple hundred in sand blasting.
Cost of car = $2500
Engine = $4109.02
Driveline = $5542.40
Chassis = $2465.42
Body = $3456.98
Interior - $46.32
Misc. = $809.92
Labor = $0
Total = $18930.56
I did sell a few parts from the car that were not being used. The total for the parts sold was $1952.06. So the total investment in the project as of today is $16978.50.
My original budget I had projected was no more than $15K. The main reason I am over is because of switching from the automatic transmission to the 5 speed. Without that the total cost would be about $4K lower. The second reason was I didn't fully understand the extent of the damage due to the fire. If you can find one in better condition the cost would be less.
Looking at what is left I anticipate about another $2-3K to finish the project, which puts it just under $20K total. I will post the total cost once the project has been completed. I hope this helps anyone thinking about taking on a project like this.
Last edited by Johnnycyclone; 11-28-2017 at 07:08 PM.
I realise this is a crazy question to ask , but roughly how many hours do you think you have in it ?
Not actually that crazy so let me take a shot at it. I know that when I work on it it's usually a few months and then I will take a week or two off to re-energize. The longest period I took off was last spring which was about 4 or 5 months. This January will be 3 years since the start of the project and so I would say I have worked on it at least 24 of the 36 months. I also know I typically work about 2-3 hours in the evenings and 4-8 on the weekends. If we take the average of those hours that would be 2.5 hours per weekday and 6 hours on the week ends. Multiply that by the number of weekdays in 24 months and that would be 1300 hours. The average hours on the weekends would be 624 hours. So my best guess would be around 1924 hours so far. That would be a guess using averages, so it could be a little less or a little more.
Not actually that crazy so let me take a shot at it. I know that when I work on it it's usually a few months and then I will take a week or two off to re-energize. The longest period I took off was last spring which was about 4 or 5 months. This January will be 3 years since the start of the project and so I would say I have worked on it at least 24 of the 36 months. I also know I typically work about 2-3 hours in the evenings and 4-8 on the weekends. If we take the average of those hours that would be 2.5 hours per weekday and 6 hours on the week ends. Multiply that by the number of weekdays in 24 months and that would be 1300 hours. The average hours on the weekends would be 624 hours. So my best guess would be around 1924 hours so far. That would be a guess using averages, so it could be a little less or a little more.
OK , so at ,what $100/hour ? if you paid someone to do it , they might be , maybe a little quicker but maybe also you wouldn't get the detailed finish you have done . That's a huge saving and now you could justifiably spend a little more on parts and still be in front !
Of course that's forgetting your budget ,which btw you have kept so close too considering how bad that car was to start with. Awesome
OK , so at ,what $100/hour ? if you paid someone to do it , they might be , maybe a little quicker but maybe also you wouldn't get the detailed finish you have done . That's a huge saving and now you could justifiably spend a little more on parts and still be in front !
Of course that's forgetting your budget ,which btw you have kept so close too considering how bad that car was to start with. Awesome
I would say you are pretty close on the $100 an hour if you were to hire it done. The guy I bought my wheels from said he did several restorations for others, and charged 30K for labor on a full restoration. I'm not an expert but that sounds about right to me. It may be even cost more by a good restoration shop.
From what I have learned you can save money, or you can save time, but it's hard to do both. I would rather do the work myself, because I like the challenge and I think it's fun. Saving money is a needed benefit from doing the work myself. If I had to pay for most of the work, this wouldn't even be a possibility.
I'm still here, but the car is in deep hibernation. I visit the site everyday checking on the progress of the other builds going on right now. There are two reasons for the work stoppage. One, I don't like working in a closed garage when you are painting, bonding, fiber glassing and using filler. Working in those fumes isn't very good for you, so I am on hold until the weather here gets warmer. The second reason is over thanksgiving I decided to do a major make over on the garage. I never liked the layout of the garage and the general mess. Not to mention the multi colored walls, blue and green. I tried both colors and didn't like either one. Here is a pic of the garage on Thanksgiving day.
I left it this way because working on the car was more important. Now that I can't work on the car, the time is right for fixing the garage the way I want it. I am almost there and the weather is starting to get a little warmer each day. I should be back on the project in about a month. I'm certainly getting itchy to get back on this and finish it up. Look for some progress coming in April.
Last edited by Johnnycyclone; 03-05-2018 at 09:49 AM.
I'm still here, but the car is in deep hibernation. I visit the site everyday checking on the progress of the other builds going on right now. There are two reasons for the work stoppage. One, I don't like working in a closed garage when you are painting, bonding, fiber glassing and using filler. Working in those fumes isn't very good for you, so I am on hold until the weather here gets warmer. The second reason is over thanksgiving I decided to do a major make over on the garage. I never liked the layout of the garage and the general mess. Not to mention the multi colored walls, blue and green. I tried both colors and didn't like either one. Here is a pic of the garage on Thanksgiving day.
I left it this way because working on the car was more important. Now that I can't work on the car, the time is right for fixing the garage the way I want it. I am almost there and the weather is starting to get a little warmer each day. I should be back on the project in about a month. I'm certainly getting itchy to get back on this and finish it up. Look for some progress coming in April.
Glad to see you are still around. I hear ya on having the garage open while doing certain jobs. I was able to get the car out a couple of the warmer days to sand paint and body filler off. Need another couple warm days to get that part finished. I think most of us in Michigan are ready for these cold days to end.
Glad to see you are still around. I hear ya on having the garage open while doing certain jobs. I was able to get the car out a couple of the warmer days to sand paint and body filler off. Need another couple warm days to get that part finished. I think most of us in Michigan are ready for these cold days to end.
Yep, that was a nice little teaser we had, now it's back to reality with the snow falling today and back to sub freezing temps. Not to worry though, warmer temps will soon be here. Looking forward to a productive summer!
Fantastic build !!! Superior quality of worksmanship. Easy build to folllow and will continue to follow.
Great job !
Thanks FB#1. I'm glad you found the thread. Looking forward to an exciting summer, lot's of work to do. I will post as many pics as I can of the progress.
Finally ready to get going on this again, it's been a long time waiting. The garage reno is just about done. I put in a new ceiling and upgraded the lighting. Repaired and painted the walls and built a new work bench with cabinets. I still have a little left to do, but I couldn't wait any longer to put my hands back on the car again.
Unfortunately winter isn't ready to release it's grip on Michigan just yet. Had snow again today and the temps were just barely above freezing. Enough about that here are a few pics of some progress this week. The pace will pick up once the warmer temps get here. Until then I am going to start doing what I can.
Finished fitting the fenders and finalized the fit by putting in the screws to hold it in place. Once the weather breaks I can remove it and get it bonded permanently.
The fit of the hood looks real good, no major issues. It will need a little gap work on the passenger side along with a shim or two to raise it up in the hinge area.
Last edited by Johnnycyclone; 04-17-2018 at 09:40 PM.
10-18-2017, 02:29 PM
