Topic: Does anyone know anything about autobody work?

[dave500]

ill be getting a quote shortly on a repaint and some rust repairs on my daily driver ive had for 26 years,its an old 1973 holden,my neighbour who is into hotrods directed me to a guy who has a custom shop,"made you look customs",,ive spoken to him and he still has to see the car,im planning on up to $5000 for doing only the outside nicley,i think im in for a shock,ill post back after he sees the car.

ok i drove over and saw the fella,hes going to repair properly some rusted areas and repaint the entire car,the windscreen will have to come out,one door and the hood stripped,$5600,im pretty happy with that,ill post close ups of the rusted areas.

[dave500]

it goes in next wednesday,ill be riding the 500 for about three weeks,i aint got no problem with that,except i mostly bring home stuff every couple of days i find doing my job(skip bin truck driver)including scrap wire/plumbing copper and brass i recycle.



        under winderscreen area,common on these cars to go there,i had this done about twelve years ago by a not so good panel beater,live and learn.



  worst of the doors,ill post the finished outcome in a few weeks,i drive this thing every day and have had it for 26 years,im nervous of it being some where else at night.

[dave500]

its been at the shop for over a week now and i havent bothered them,i rode over today(saturday) and its in the booth already ready for painting on monday,he wants to know the colour number of my 500,its a flake sunrise orange or what ever copied by eye and the painter loves it!,anyway its looking good,this is only a rust repair and respray not square up panels etc,if this gets me by for another fifteen years ill be happy, when i retire and win the lottery at the same time itll get the whole thing done better than ever,this is its third respray since ive had it,three windscreens,second motor still(i built it)third differential,five gearboxes(auto trimatic,i think in the states its a "turbo 180?"this ones beefed right up),umpteen brake pads and other wear items you dont count,this is proof if you look after and care for anything mechanical it WILL last forever.,this car might owe me now over the 26 years ive driven it about $15,000 dollars,i paid two thousand for it in about 89?,in that time my friends and parents etc have been through about five cars each losing money on everyone of them,anyway as per the original post this is a $5000 dollar paint job with rust repairs.



this has had all proper welded repairs.

[dave500]

all done $5300 bucks,i think this was good value,im really pleased,it looks so much better now.

[MoMo]

worth the wait,  looks really good and I have always liked that color-similar to the old Corvette Sebring Blue....Larry

[dave500]

the factory name was cyan blue,he just matched it from a colour chart.

[dave500]

just out of interest the shop gave me a disc with photos of the during rust repair stage,heres a couple,i cant do body work,i think my money was well spent when you look at the work involved.




             a previous dodgy repair i had done,bondorama,we used repro panels for this area this time.

[Tom]

Thanks for the reply.

I don't have any pictures of it the way it was when I had it out this summer, only pictures now that the paint has been stripped.

But it looks JUST LIKE this one from the original ad. Same color and everything. It's a complete car with a good interior.



I have no illusions about getting out what I put into it (monetarily), but I do want to know that I won't end up with 1/3 the value if it has to be replaced through insurance.

Some tell me that a proper paint job (perfect) on a car this size could easily run $30,000. Is that true?

SOHC4ever, you may be interested in my experence. I always wanted a '68 firebird 400 ragtop, I got my chance to buy one in 1979.
 I drove it and enjoyed it for years and in 1987 i decided to do a number on it, frame off full rebuild and repaint, Like you i shopped around and got quoted telephone numbers... then i came across a couple of guys working from a shed they had a good setup not flash but a nice booth and they talked me into the new two pack paint, i looked at some of there work and it was good, So i said the job is yours, the paint job cost me $4k at the time, more than what i had paid for the car. And more than i could afford at the time, but here we are near 25 years later and the paint is still fairly sharp, I still love the car, and i think its cool, And alot of FUN to drive, most people give you the thumbs up with a smile all worth it, and if i was counting it would be worth more than i have spent My advise to you is this,
Get a good decent paint job on a solid body, the rest can be fixed later, and enjoy your cool car, They sure dont build them like that anymore. Tom