"project creep"

Just got quoted somewhere over $2,000 to re-upholster my front and rear seats from a restoration shop...currently waiting on two other shops...

Does this sound right?

ICESKATER1611 wrote:Just got quoted somewhere over $2,000 to re-upholster my front and rear seats from a restoration shop...currently waiting on two other shops...

Does this sound right?

Depends on what they are doing. If they are doing something custom as a museum quality restoration in full leather reinforcing and rebuilding the frames and mechanisms to make them better than new then it might be reasonable if that's what you really wanted. A regular auto upholstery shop or boat shop may do it for less.

I contacted a local discount convertible top company that comes to you and they wanted over $1,200 for the $179 top installed on the car while a brick and motor store wanted only $800 with the difference being the $1,200 top had only a 2 year warranty that you could only get from the one vendor while the $800 top had a 6 year national warranty valid at any shop that sells that brand top which was either Rollins or Easy-On. I passed on the Discount vender. You do have to shop around.

Under a grand here for both front and back in vinyl. Paid cash and had it done in the dead of Winter, slow time of the year for the supplier.

Thanks for the advice on the seats. Of course the two other places i sent request to did not get back to me.

On an unrelated note, i will be (hopefully) removing the head of my engine this weekend to take a look at the 3rd cylinder that was not giving me good compression. so far i have everything disconnected other than the exhaust manifold to the down pipe.

Is there anything i need to worry about/need to know about this process? Are there any little details that i should be paying attention to?

On my '75, I left the exhaust manifold attached when I removed the head. It was easier to work the nuts off the studs that way.

Jeff

OK so its been a while but other priorities have crept into my life. I have here and there been removing more and more of the interior and what not. in doing so i have found some rust issues. i knew about a small hole on the driver side floor pan but found that there was more rust on the passenger side and seems to be more of an issue. all along the passenger side floor against the outside of the car is all rusted through and also what looks like part of the frame towards the front of the floor.

As I am beginning and do not know much about cars and especially body work i have a restoration company coming over next week to take a look and price out some of the body work. not sure what to expect for an estimate but we will see.

as for the engine i still haven't pulled the head off. wondering if i should wait, see what the restoration place tells me. maybe if i have them do the work i pull the whole engine, master cylinder and booster before bringing it to the shop...

we will see, Monday is the day so more to come after that...

Small update…

As of last night I have all carpet front/back removed from the car which I feel is some milestone. I attempted to remove the center console but ran into a snag. The one screw under the rear ashtray attached to a bracket is rusted down pretty good. I will have to figure that out so I can get the console out. Once I get that loose I will clean up all debris on the floor boards get it ready to send to a body shop.

Screw in question



As for the body, there is a hole on the driver side which isn’t my biggest concern. The passenger side has some significant rust on the inner rocker all the way up to the front of the floor board. I already had a couple of companies come out and provide quotes, one was a bit ridiculous and the other was much more reasonable. That being said once I get the inner car cleaned and cleared out I will finally work to remove the engine/transmission.

Passenger side rocker issues
Front


Rear



Once I can get the engine out I have to look at that 3rd cylinder to check to see what needs to be done to it. Funny to think that I didn’t anticipate basically rebuilding the entire engine and replacing pretty much all parts of the engine compartment but the more and more I think of it, I actually want to do it. If I have the engine out and what not mine as well do it all. The cost isn’t all that bad and especially over time the wife doesn’t even know!

More to come….

I took advantage of the long weekend to finally remove the head off of my engine. This was the moment of truth as to see exactly how bad (or good) my cylinders are. Based on what i see and felt everything looked OK. It obviously needs a good cleaning but i am hopeful i can maybe just hone the cylinders and just replace rings, gaskets and such.

Can anyone tell me the best way to clean the engine in the most effective way? What type of products/methods are good to use?



Third cylinder which was the one i was worried about.

After a small...ok long delay i am moving forward with more work on the car. I had lost my other half of the garage due to Family things which put a halt on my work. Darn life!

however just the other night i was able to put it up on jack stands, remove the center console and get my rear seat out. below is where i am currently. Next step, i think, is to now get someone over to take a look at the rust issue. now that i have it up on jack stands i am grateful to see that the rust issue seems to be isolated to the inner rockers and a small portion of the floor but not the whole floor.

I was going to change the interior to a brown but for ease sake i am going to keep it black this way once i can put things back together i can drive it quicker. Since i have owned it it has not been started. My goal is to at least be able to drive it by the fall.

That rust is really bad not an easy fix. It can be done but it won't be cheap. There must be other areas of bad rust. Check the shock towers try poking a screwdriver through different areas of chassis. It may end up costing you more for just body repair and paint than buying a mint condition car.

honestly everything else is OK. it is literally in those spots of the inner rockers between the wheels. Had my neighbor over and we were banging the heck out of other parts of the car to check for weak spots. It looks like parts of the underside was sprayed with some sort of coating possibly by the PO. as we were knocking some of it chipped off and revealed the blue paint underneath.

the factory had under coated it after it was painted blue
i had my seats redone "i supplyed the leather" $600
the body it 18 gauge i think
use a razor blade and seafoam to clean the block and head

what size motor do you have?
where are you at in the world? mabey someone from here can come see it?

Thanks for the response. It is the 1438cc engine. When i got the car the 3rd cylinder was stuck so i think i am going to have to understand if that did anything to the rings and such.

I have a family friend who had offered to perform the welding. now that i have it up on stands it will be good to get him out to see. I am located in NH if anyone with extensive knowledge is around!

How about a photo of the whole car? It would be great if you could save this '70.