This is going to be a bit long but it seems we have several new people that may need some help getting properly started on a building project. As we all know these projects can be difficult enough as is but success depends on getting off to a good start. What follows is not necessarily the “best” or even the “only” way, but it is one way that works pretty well and will keep you on track and organized throughout the entire process. Getting off to a good start can be summed up by the following: Planning, Organization and Execution. I’m going to talk about the first two here. The actual building process (the execution) is the result of doing the first two properly.
So you finally bought that project car. Great! But what do you do now? The first thing you need to do is come up with a plan. How do you plan to use the car? What do you want to do with it? What is the budget? Are your fabricating skills up to the task? Do you own or have access to the tools necessary to do the modifications you are thinking about? These are all questions you need to answer before you turn a single wrench.
For the purposes of this exercise we’ll assume that you purchased a late 30’s sedan and you would like to build a nice cruiser but an occasional trip to the strip is not out of the question. Lets also assume you have about $5000 to spend start to finish. This may seem like a lot but trust me, it’s definitely not much and anyone who has built a street rod can tell you this amount would be considered a shoestring budget. It means you’ll have to look for good used parts and probably won’t be able to spend a lot of money on “performance” upgrades. It also means you’ll have to do most of the work yourself. With this in mind, most of your parts will have to come from a donor car. In many cases this is the cheapest way to go simply because you can adapt the entire driveline, sometimes the suspension, and usually many other parts such as power brakes, steering column and seats. There are always loads of adds in the paper for older cars that have rusted out bodies but are still in good operating condition. A careful choice here may save you a lot of money.
Part of the planning process is research. Do a lot of it. Read everything and anything related to your build. Know what aftermarket parts are available and which vendors have a good record. Attend as many shows as you can and ask a lot of questions. Don’t always assume that something that may be popular at the moment is what’s going to be the best choice for you. Only after doing a lot of research can you decide, with confidence, on an overall plan for your project. Lets say that after reading every street rod related magazine you can lay your hands on and talking to several owners at shows that you’ve learned that most people go with a small block Chevy and TH- 350 trans in these cars, but you have never really been a “Chevy” kind of guy. Since the plan is for the occasional trip down strip and you don’t have the money to build a healthy small block, you’ll probably be looking for a big block. Most stock big blocks will have respectable performance so one of these should suit your purpose. Also you have the advantage of wanting something other than a Chevy. What you say???? Chevys are a dime a dozen and cheap to build. Yes they are, if your talking about a small block but Chevy big blocks are expensive. You can pick up a Buick, Olds, Caddy or even a Mopar big block for less almost anywhere. You’ve also decided that you want air-conditioning an automatic trans and at a minimum disk brakes up front. You want a better handling car with a comfortable ride so that old front suspension should probably be replaced as well. Since you like the overall looks of the car you don’t plan to do too many body mods, maybe shave the door handles but nothing big. You considered going Pro-Street but after looking at a few of these cars at shows and talking to their owners you’ve decided that route is a little to “race oriented” and way too expensive for you so you’re just going to stick with bigs and littles with some nice rims. Now we know in general what components we’re going to replace so we can be on the look out for “affordable” parts. We now know what the budget is, what you want to do with the car, and what kind of parts you’ll be looking for to complete this project. In short terms, you now have a plan. So, what’s next?
At this point you can do one of two things. You can either start the disassembly process or you can start hunting up parts. Most people do both to some extent. It really depends on the amount of room you have to store “stuff”. Keep in mind that you’re going to need a lot of space to store the parts you’re going to remove from your car so don’t buy a bunch of replacement parts too early. You’ll just wind up having to store them outside. Wait till you have the room inside. You’re neighbors will appreciate your hobby a lot more if you don’t fill up your yard with what they may consider useless junk.
When it comes to the disassembly process be very meticulous. Document everything and organize everything. Start by purchasing a body manual for your car. A service manual would be useful as well but not an absolutely necessity like the body manual. When you finally begin disassembly start with the major body components. Hood, doors, trunk lid, and fenders. Check the body manual to make sure you understand how it’s supposed to come apart. You don’t want to inadvertently damage a part because there was a bolt somewhere you didn’t know about. It only takes a minute to check so do it. Store these large parts in a location where you won’t be constantly tripping over them. You’re not going to do any work on the hood, trunk, and doors for a while so rather than disassembling these individual parts just make sure they’re stored out of the way and protected from the elements. As you take something off the car take a picture of it on the car and then another when you get it off the car. If it has mounts or hinges make sure you take a picture of them as well. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to forget how something came apart when its time to put it back together. The pictures will help remind you of this. Also take copious notes. And don’t just throw those bolts in a pile either. Get a generous supply of zip lock bags and when you take a part off the car put the bolts and nuts in a bag, label it and stick the bags in a cardboard box for easy storage. You may not reuse those parts but at least you’ll be able to purchase the right size nuts and bolts when the time comes simply because you kept the originals. Being organized will take a little more time but it will save you a lot of time when it comes to reassembly so do it right the first time. Organize your storage space too. You will see before the disassembly process proceeds very far that you’ll rapidly start running out of storage space so be selective as to how and where you put stuff. If you have the room you may even want to build some shelving to keep this stuff out of your way.
Once the major components have been removed and stored, you need to get the body off the frame. You also need a place to put it. I’m not going to go into the specifics of removing a body from the frame but I will say that if you are hurting for storage space it is relatively easy to put the body up on supports that will allow you to roll the chassis out from underneath it and then back under the body when you’re not working on the car. This way you can work on the chassis or the under side of the body (replacing floors etc) without the other being in the way. If you have the room you may want to build a body dolly so you can easily move it around and keep it out of your way while you’re working on the chassis.
So now a couple of years have passed and you’re finally ready to start reassembly of the car. Yes, I said a couple years. Anyone who thinks building a street rod can be done in a few months or even a year is dreaming. If you have a shop with a half dozen employees maybe, but when you and possibly a buddy are working on a car it’s going to take time. Rule #1: Building a street rod is a LONG TERM project. If you don’t want to make that kind of commitment, don’t even start. The papers are loaded with people selling half built projects, and they’ll all loose money in the process. My first street rod only took 6 years and I’ve been working on my current project for two years with another year or so to go. Don’t be fooled… these things take time.
During reassembly refer to your notes often. Also use the pictures you took and the body manual to remind yourself how things are supposed to go back together. Unpack the bolts and nuts and if you can’t reuse them buy new ones. Overall the reassembly process takes time but if you have kept yourself organized along the way things will go back together a lot easier and faster.
From start to finish you need to check what you’re doing against your overall plan. This doesn’t mean that plan can’t change as you go along either. Just make sure any changes are thoroughly thought through before you make them. If you go haphazardly making changes on a whim, you definitely won’t like the results. Remember that changing one part of the plan may have a profound effect on several component choices you’ll have to make so think any change through and make sure that’s what you want to do before you commit to it. If you make a good overall plan and take the time to organize yourself, your chances of success will be an order of magnitude better than someone who just starts tearing stuff to pieces and throwing parts all over the garage. Stay focused and stay organized but most of all, have fun.
Centerline
So you finally bought that project car. Great! But what do you do now? The first thing you need to do is come up with a plan. How do you plan to use the car? What do you want to do with it? What is the budget? Are your fabricating skills up to the task? Do you own or have access to the tools necessary to do the modifications you are thinking about? These are all questions you need to answer before you turn a single wrench.
For the purposes of this exercise we’ll assume that you purchased a late 30’s sedan and you would like to build a nice cruiser but an occasional trip to the strip is not out of the question. Lets also assume you have about $5000 to spend start to finish. This may seem like a lot but trust me, it’s definitely not much and anyone who has built a street rod can tell you this amount would be considered a shoestring budget. It means you’ll have to look for good used parts and probably won’t be able to spend a lot of money on “performance” upgrades. It also means you’ll have to do most of the work yourself. With this in mind, most of your parts will have to come from a donor car. In many cases this is the cheapest way to go simply because you can adapt the entire driveline, sometimes the suspension, and usually many other parts such as power brakes, steering column and seats. There are always loads of adds in the paper for older cars that have rusted out bodies but are still in good operating condition. A careful choice here may save you a lot of money.
Part of the planning process is research. Do a lot of it. Read everything and anything related to your build. Know what aftermarket parts are available and which vendors have a good record. Attend as many shows as you can and ask a lot of questions. Don’t always assume that something that may be popular at the moment is what’s going to be the best choice for you. Only after doing a lot of research can you decide, with confidence, on an overall plan for your project. Lets say that after reading every street rod related magazine you can lay your hands on and talking to several owners at shows that you’ve learned that most people go with a small block Chevy and TH- 350 trans in these cars, but you have never really been a “Chevy” kind of guy. Since the plan is for the occasional trip down strip and you don’t have the money to build a healthy small block, you’ll probably be looking for a big block. Most stock big blocks will have respectable performance so one of these should suit your purpose. Also you have the advantage of wanting something other than a Chevy. What you say???? Chevys are a dime a dozen and cheap to build. Yes they are, if your talking about a small block but Chevy big blocks are expensive. You can pick up a Buick, Olds, Caddy or even a Mopar big block for less almost anywhere. You’ve also decided that you want air-conditioning an automatic trans and at a minimum disk brakes up front. You want a better handling car with a comfortable ride so that old front suspension should probably be replaced as well. Since you like the overall looks of the car you don’t plan to do too many body mods, maybe shave the door handles but nothing big. You considered going Pro-Street but after looking at a few of these cars at shows and talking to their owners you’ve decided that route is a little to “race oriented” and way too expensive for you so you’re just going to stick with bigs and littles with some nice rims. Now we know in general what components we’re going to replace so we can be on the look out for “affordable” parts. We now know what the budget is, what you want to do with the car, and what kind of parts you’ll be looking for to complete this project. In short terms, you now have a plan. So, what’s next?
At this point you can do one of two things. You can either start the disassembly process or you can start hunting up parts. Most people do both to some extent. It really depends on the amount of room you have to store “stuff”. Keep in mind that you’re going to need a lot of space to store the parts you’re going to remove from your car so don’t buy a bunch of replacement parts too early. You’ll just wind up having to store them outside. Wait till you have the room inside. You’re neighbors will appreciate your hobby a lot more if you don’t fill up your yard with what they may consider useless junk.
When it comes to the disassembly process be very meticulous. Document everything and organize everything. Start by purchasing a body manual for your car. A service manual would be useful as well but not an absolutely necessity like the body manual. When you finally begin disassembly start with the major body components. Hood, doors, trunk lid, and fenders. Check the body manual to make sure you understand how it’s supposed to come apart. You don’t want to inadvertently damage a part because there was a bolt somewhere you didn’t know about. It only takes a minute to check so do it. Store these large parts in a location where you won’t be constantly tripping over them. You’re not going to do any work on the hood, trunk, and doors for a while so rather than disassembling these individual parts just make sure they’re stored out of the way and protected from the elements. As you take something off the car take a picture of it on the car and then another when you get it off the car. If it has mounts or hinges make sure you take a picture of them as well. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to forget how something came apart when its time to put it back together. The pictures will help remind you of this. Also take copious notes. And don’t just throw those bolts in a pile either. Get a generous supply of zip lock bags and when you take a part off the car put the bolts and nuts in a bag, label it and stick the bags in a cardboard box for easy storage. You may not reuse those parts but at least you’ll be able to purchase the right size nuts and bolts when the time comes simply because you kept the originals. Being organized will take a little more time but it will save you a lot of time when it comes to reassembly so do it right the first time. Organize your storage space too. You will see before the disassembly process proceeds very far that you’ll rapidly start running out of storage space so be selective as to how and where you put stuff. If you have the room you may even want to build some shelving to keep this stuff out of your way.
Once the major components have been removed and stored, you need to get the body off the frame. You also need a place to put it. I’m not going to go into the specifics of removing a body from the frame but I will say that if you are hurting for storage space it is relatively easy to put the body up on supports that will allow you to roll the chassis out from underneath it and then back under the body when you’re not working on the car. This way you can work on the chassis or the under side of the body (replacing floors etc) without the other being in the way. If you have the room you may want to build a body dolly so you can easily move it around and keep it out of your way while you’re working on the chassis.
So now a couple of years have passed and you’re finally ready to start reassembly of the car. Yes, I said a couple years. Anyone who thinks building a street rod can be done in a few months or even a year is dreaming. If you have a shop with a half dozen employees maybe, but when you and possibly a buddy are working on a car it’s going to take time. Rule #1: Building a street rod is a LONG TERM project. If you don’t want to make that kind of commitment, don’t even start. The papers are loaded with people selling half built projects, and they’ll all loose money in the process. My first street rod only took 6 years and I’ve been working on my current project for two years with another year or so to go. Don’t be fooled… these things take time.
During reassembly refer to your notes often. Also use the pictures you took and the body manual to remind yourself how things are supposed to go back together. Unpack the bolts and nuts and if you can’t reuse them buy new ones. Overall the reassembly process takes time but if you have kept yourself organized along the way things will go back together a lot easier and faster.
From start to finish you need to check what you’re doing against your overall plan. This doesn’t mean that plan can’t change as you go along either. Just make sure any changes are thoroughly thought through before you make them. If you go haphazardly making changes on a whim, you definitely won’t like the results. Remember that changing one part of the plan may have a profound effect on several component choices you’ll have to make so think any change through and make sure that’s what you want to do before you commit to it. If you make a good overall plan and take the time to organize yourself, your chances of success will be an order of magnitude better than someone who just starts tearing stuff to pieces and throwing parts all over the garage. Stay focused and stay organized but most of all, have fun.
Centerline
