5 things every project car purchase will need

It’s that time of year, and I don’t mean decorative gourd season. No, it’s the time when the DIY devout start casting hooks into the depths of the project car pond hoping to reel in the right winter undertaking. While every project is unique, a few universal truths span them all, regardless of how the vehicle appears in those crunchy, dimly lit photos you’re seeing in a Marketplace ad. To that end, these are the top five things your own project will need, regardless of what it is or what shape it’s in. You can’t say we didn’t warn you.

Patience

Someone else’s project—or worse, abandoned project—is going to require a massive amount of mental gymnastics to figure out what they were thinking when taking it apart, storing pieces, or putting it back together. Occasionally that isn’t difficult, but even then it takes a lot of patience to sort through what someone else has done and try to decide if their process is acceptable to you. Do you trust the previous person based on what you see? Do you think they cleaned and assembled things to the same standard you would? Are you willing to risk it? Taking the time to wrestle with that question will be crucial to how you proceed.

Cleaning

Whether it’s a venture someone else started or one that was never gotten to, project cars rarely get tender loving care when stored. Dust, dirt, and moisture combine to create some of the grungiest substances known to man. Just getting a project car home can leave pounds of dirt and debris on a trailer, and that’s before any real cleaning has started. We often get caught up in the excitement of the big tasks involved with bringing a project car back to life, but the reality is less glamorous, and a lot of time—more than you think—is going to be spent scrubbing and just generally making things un-grimy.

Tires

We don’t know what it is about project cars, but they seem always to be sitting on the worst rubber we’ve seen since the last project car that rolled into the shop. Tires are expensive, so they’re often the last thing a project car will get. This means that when you buy a project, there’s a good chance its tires aren’t even round anymore, let alone safe to drive on. Even just sitting on dry-rotted rubber can be dangerous, as blowouts can occur. Check the date code just to be sure, but in general every project car will need fresh rubber before it ever reaches the driving stage of the process.

Fluids

Another item that isn’t worth gambling on is anything that flows. Fuel, brake fluid, coolant, transmission fluid, and even differential oil are all items you should change by default. Sure, there’s a chance that what’s in there is serviceable, but more than likely your project car has questionable service records—if any at all. Mentally reset the clock on all the regular changes by knocking them out all at once. This also forces you to look at a couple intimate areas of a car, which more than likely will tell you a lot about what else you might need to do.

“Un-screwing”

No, I’m not talking about backing out threaded fasteners here. I’m talking about winding back previous repairs. Project cars often live at the bottom of their value curve before appreciation picks up and owners begin to see the potential. That means repairs done while the car was worth little may be incomplete, or, well, crude. Un-screwing them could be as simple as cleaning up shoddy wiring, or as in depth as rust repair from sitting neglected in a field. If you are buying the cheapest example of anything, it likely has been screwed with by someone who didn’t know or didn’t care. You will have to deal with that.

Project cars are incredibly rewarding to see through. We know a lot of you readers have worked on a project or twelve over the years and these five things are likely not the only universal truths. What have you found to be true? Leave a comment below.

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