This month's issue of Hemmings' SPORTS & EXOTIC CAR has a great feature article about restoring old cars. It's written with input from several career-professional restorers who offer their sagest advice.

The 4-page article (Part 1) is too long to reproduce here, but some of their bold-type suggestions include:

1. Chose a car you'd want to own when you're finished with it;

2. It costs the same for a bumper-to-bumper restoration on most cars, so chose one which will have the highest resale value when you're done. (Don't spend $30,000 restoring a $15,000 car);

3. Low production cars are more valuable than high-volume cars, and usually have lower miles and fewer modifications;

4. (UNANIMOUS VOTE): FIND A CAR WHICH IS ALL IN ONE PIECE AND ISN'T A PILE OF CORRODED STEEL;

5. Don't try to resurrect something from a field unless you have an inordinate amount of talent. Only start a project if the car is predominantly complete;

6. Know what you expect from the car before you begin; daily driver, reliable racer, show car, museum piece? Have a goal;

7. Be realistic about time. You're looking at a commitment of more than 500 hours for a driver, 2,000 hrs for a concours car; MOST projects take so long, they get put on the back burner until some nagging spouse makes you "disappear it" at a fraction of the cost you already spent on the car;

8. TAKE YOUR TIME GETTING TO KNOW THE CAR before tearing it apart. The first tool to use is your camera. Photograph EVERYTHING before taking any of it apart. That helps you know how the car looked before you dismantled it, so you know what to expect when it's going back together;

9. Research how the car SHOULD have looked before you got it. Previous owners may have made modifications which you just don't want to duplicate. Remember, they stopped driving it and sold it for some reason;

10. TAKE GOOD CARE OF YRSLF! Dismantling a car and cleaning parts with Space Chemicals can really hurt you if you aren't very careful. Ask any restorer to see his scars ~ each one will have a story worth learning. (Boy, do we have some stories in THIS Club!);

11. DOCUMENT EACH STEP YOU TAKE. It's easy to assume you'll remember where and how everything goes back together again. But time erases a lot of memory, and we're talking about a lot of time before the car is complete. The previous owner of my own Z had a bad accident in another car, which wiped out nearly 19yrs of restoration memory for him. I bought the car back totally gutted, because he couldn't remember where he had left off, or where any of the wires went. Another very experienced friend (who has rebuilt more Zs than I have personally driven) recently had to reverse his entire week's work because he forgot to install a single piece ~ had to take everything apart again. It CAN happen to you;

12. Make a list of "odd things" you experience while taking the car apart. If you think something might be wrong, it usually is.

Very appropriately, they used several pictures of a stripped out 240Z for this article!

Part 2 comes out in next month's issue.

Frank

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1970 240Z

Hemmings is right-on.

When doing a restoration, the impulse is to take apart everything AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WRONG! Take your time, take before/during/after pictures and lots of them. I took over 1500 pictures of my 240Z restoration. Those pictures will be invaluable when you reassemble. This WILL be a LONG process. Accept that and TAKE YOUR TIME.

LABLE/TAG/BAG everything!!! Even parts that you will not be putting back into the car. Sharpie pens and ziplock bags work the best. Also shipping tags with metal ties and masking tape. Separate parts into plastic Rubbermaid bins (interior, engine, lights, trim, etc.).

Keep a notebook for each section of the car. Make notes even if it doesn't seem important at the time.

If restoring a Z-Car, get, read and keep Wick Humble's book "How To Restore Your Datsun Z Car". He did his and did it right. The information will be invaluable to you.

And finally, set a reasonable budget and be prepared to DOUBLE it at least. Most restorations are aborted due to non-realistic projection of cost. Keep a ledger of money spent. And hide it from your significant other. Wink

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John Taddonio
1970 240Z
1977 530Z
1984 300ZXT
zcarnut@hotmail.com
FB: Zccr zcarclubofrochester

Rule #7 should read: "Get rid of your spouse before starting". Trying to do two things at once can make the quality of your work suffer.

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71 on a rotisserie, two more in pieces in my shed...and a 69 1600 waiting for me to get to it

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1970 240Z

Lol

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1972 Datsun 240z #88178

How about if you have a photographic memory? Is it still necessary to take photos?

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240zgoldie.blogspot.com

You''ll probably wish you had. They tend to age quickly after you throw them out, and you might want to remember how she looked when she was young.