4 Tedious Moments Every Restoration Faces
Restoring a car at home, on your own, takes a lot of sweat and tears but also delivers huge rewards. The finished project is, in a real sense, a thing of your creation. If you do it right, you even have a functional thing that can be used for transport. To reach that huge payoff means untold hours of research and labor, some of which is enjoyable and fulfilling. Of course, some of it is straight-up tedious.
We’re well aware that mundane and repetitive tasks comprise the bulk of the process when it comes to bringing an old car back to life or returning it to its original specification. Tedium tends to irk us when the work quality really matters, but the actual process of doing it is not particularly difficult or engaging. Or maybe the job is just especially time-consuming due to the care that must be taken to get it right. It’s annoying to deal with work that has to get done when we don’t look forward to it. Here are four examples:
Parts cleaning
The grease and grime that accumulates on various parts of a car while it’s being driven doesn’t seem like like it would add up to much, but anyone who has taken a car apart will tell you how surprising the amount of dirt and debris that builds up is. Disassembly can be fun because there is visual satisfaction of the car coming apart. Cleaning is just boring. It takes handling numerous parts and pieces, keeping everything appropriately labeled and organized, and potentially even transporting things to a separate location for things like sand blasting or chemical stripping.
Paint preparation
For every “paint jail” joke there is someone sitting on a rolling stool or standing in a paint booth, covered in dust with fingers that feel ready to fall off. Getting everything smooth, flat, and properly cleaned for paint or plating to adhere is the pinnacle of mundane and mildy frustrating tasks. There is no replacement for time and attention when doing this kind of work, as machines can rarely get all the nooks and crannies as well as our hands. If you want a good finished product, you’re going to spend time here wether you want to or not.
Your day job
Even if you enjoy near-mindlessly sanding or sandblasting, watching the numbers on a spreadsheet rise and fall as paychecks go in and orders come out is often what drags projects to a glacial pace or at least slows them down to a waiting game. Restorations rarely make money for us at-home DIY tinkerers, so that means we need to keep a steady flow of money coming in to keep our projects moving forward. The most tedious job of any of my restorations has been my day job. Because a great day at work is also eight hours that project progress is halted.
Final assembly
The excitement and anticipation of having a beautifully organized and carefully prepared pile of parts ready to assemble into a functional vehicle again can be overshadowed by the monumental task of tediously fitting all those bits and pieces together properly and without damaging them. It sounds a little comical, but ask anyone who has accidentally put a deep gouge into fresh paint while shifting something during assembly and you’ll see why in professional shops there is so much protection for various parts of the car during final assembly.
How about spending hard earned money on parts or “kits” that don’t fit or work as designed…
The hot rod hobby has come a LONG way in the last 40-50 years I’ve been building them, and no longer are you required to scour junkyards for parts, however, there seems to be more and more manufacturers who put profit before quality.
Salvage yards were more fun! Still one locally full of old heaps, and not too many ‘buzz-worms’ or widders!
I even salvaged 1949-51 Ford parts from our local garbage dump, back in the ‘sixties. Free, but you had to hold your nose a lot! Oh, the stories… !
All these messy chores can be solved by having the correct equipment. I heard that from someone I now question. I got a parts washer and it looked all great and professional, till I poured the cleaning solvent into it. Cleaning parts with gasoline at that point seemed like a less odorless proposition.
The cleaner now rests in a shed along with the media blasters and the compressor.
Something you might want to try. Duplicolour produces an aerosol spray-on clear wrap. After a few experiments with front bumper covers and spoilers I found it worked well enough to do all those bits under the car that no one sees. My buddy, who uses the parts washer it seems I acquired for him, asked about this and explained to him that when I run him down the last thing he’ll ever see is a pristine Canton oil pan.
That said it still makes parts cleaning low on my all time favourite things list. Number one still remains road test. It should be done by yourself so no one knows about the errors of your way.
Relying on others to meet a quality level and schedule
The most tedious task I had was answering the question non car people always ask. ” When are you going to finish that thing”
Ouch. Too close to home. (but a great inclusion!)
Bwa ha ha, you touch it, you clean it, you wanna see what’s wrong, you clean it, you wanna put it back together (so it works!), you clean it, wanna show it to your friends, you better have cleaned it, or at least wiped it down so you can read the logo. That’s the name of the game.
Everyone sort have touched on my “tedium” one way or the other – because what kills me (and having just done this a month ago) — “the shakedown”. More appropriately, what is all the stuff you need fix after you’ve “fixed” everything? I don’t want to fix stuff, I wanna drive!!
It’s all done, emotions are high, anticipation is off off the charts, you take it around the block and for no reason, the fuel gauge doesn’t work now, the car is overheating, it pulls hard under braking, a pinched gasket is leaking oil, something in the door rattles, etc etc…
You never know what it’s going to be no matter how careful I am, but there is always something… at least now a days, it’s one or two, not 5-10 when I was younger.
Yes Robert. After my shakedown run on my ground up hot rod build (first one I ever did) I needed to sort out a couple dozen things. Suspension , leaks etc. got it where I want it now and enjoying the ride
I’m trying to get the vacuum/electrical systems to talk to each other on my c3 Corvette.
I sort of understand the vacuum but electrical, I’m an idiot!
I’m currently trying to get the vacuum/electrical systems to talk to each other on a c3 Corvette.
I sorta get the vacuum side but I’m a electrical idiot!
To me the most tedious job is having to do the same job over again because something wasn’t right the first time. It’s carburetors frequently. And the third time is just agony.
But think how much faster you can do it the third time!
I have to disagree with “assembly.” That is the most fun, most exciting part of the project (at least for me). Watching the pieces finally coming together and seeing the result of all the hard work and effort that went into the project is just so exciting–especially when done with decent workmanship.
Otherwise, where is the joy in taking on a restoration project that you don’t really have to do? For me, it’s seeing the transformation, the before and after effect.