Just in the last month I have sewn seats, repaired fiberglass, rebuilt carburetors and, most recently, recovered and installed a couple of headliners.
Repairing these headliners got me thinking: Just what is my least favorite restoration job? And while repairing headliners is right up there, there are way worse jobs to face when restoring a car.
First, though, how about the positive moments? There’s certainly an excitement to stepping into the paint booth and stripping the masking tape from that freshly painted car. All that sanding, grinding and prep work having paid off, turning your ugly chunk of metal into a beautiful swan.
Another highlight is attaching that first piece of restored chrome, or a taillight light with its combination of gleaming rubber gasket, glowing lens and chrome base. Nothing looks better and feels better than seeing that combination of perfect paint, chrome and glass.
That first test drive is another magical moment–assuming the car doesn’t catch on fire, of course. And yes, as with most things in the restoration hobby, we have learned about fire from personal experience. If you look closely under the hood of our Bugeye Sprite, you can still make out the remains of a rag we left lying along the header before our first test drive.
But back to present day: the miserable jobs that make me wonder why I keep doing this? Why spend the hours, months and even years covered in grime and full of self-doubt while trying rescue yet another basket case?
Believe me, I have done it all, from rust repair to fiberglass refinishing to bull work like pulling a filthy engine or rear end. For me, the nastier, the better. I adore the dusty, sticky, smelly fiberglass work that most sane people abhor. I also love cutting, grinding and welding. I just crank up the AC/DC and rock out in the garage.
First job on that list of least favorite things to do: I have not grown to love electrical work. As with building engines, I understand and can do it, I just choose not to. Thankfully in my life I’ve had a series of friends who are good at it and patient enough, with both me and the work, to help. As clean and seemingly easy as electrical work is, at least theoretically, it’s a weird aspect of car restoration to hate, but I just don’t have the patience for it.
Once a car is finished, I also hate going back and working on it. I would rather go on to the next project. Routine maintenance bores me to tears. And don’t even tell me we need to take the engine or transmission back out to remedy a slipping clutch or a bad synchro. I would do a month of metalwork to get out of this monotony.
[Re-restoration: The hidden burdens of maintaining a car collection]
Then there’s the fear of the unknown. Most cars are supported by catalogs full of bright, shiny, reasonably priced parts along with a knowledge base and community of fanatics that make restoration fun and, dare I say, easy. Cars like our Mustang, Corvette, Triumph TR6 and Bugeye Sprite were a breeze. Books have been written about them. There are millions of ideas, photos and tricks out there to make these restorations truly fun.
Less common cars, not so much. How can you restore the rear brakes, for example, on an ’60s Elva sports racer or a 50-plus-year-old Tornado Typhoon kit car when you don’t even know what those components should look like? No pics, no diagrams, no wisdom, no parts–just a big, black pit of despair. Rare cars like these are truly frustrating and hard to restore.
Thankfully, our connections and, yes, the internet, have made things easier over the past 30 years. This world has shrunk as well–yet challenges still remain. We did the Bugeye in less than a year. This Elva has taken us five years, and we’re not done unraveling its mysteries yet. We’re winning the war, though.
So, if I had to rank my least favorite things to do, I’d say not knowing is worse than rust, worse than cracked fiberglass and worse than filthy old suspension components. I think I’ve learned my lesson, in fact, and vow to never tackle another unsupported car–until, of course, the next one rolls around.
Comments
Bodywork, bodywork, bodywork! After the metal work is completed, a small amount of filler needs to be applied and sanded to get to the final acceptable shape and contours. In my case it's apply filler and sand. Then apply filler and sand. Then apply filler again and sand. See the trend here. I have absolutely ZERO jack for doing bodywork. I could spend a week on one panel and other than 5 gallons of Bondo dust on the floor, it looks no better than when I began. Some people can do it and some can't. I fall into the second category. I learned early on, send it out for bodywork and paint and keep my sanity. I'll continue to play with metal fab and let making the project look good to the professionals.
In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :
As much as we all want to do all the work, there are definitely times when it's worth the extra dollar or two to save your sanity.
wspohn
UltraDork
7/15/25 2:39 p.m.
I discovered the worst job when I bought an early TVR (Grantura Mk 3). The factory had, in their infinite wisdom, attached the body to the tube chassis by wrapping fibreglass around the frame tubes. Of course this ensured that the tubes would corrode, which meant cutting the body off the frame so I could replace rotted tubing, and then re-attaching it. That resulted in several weeks of itching when the fibreglass landed on skin (I simplified things by welding mounts on the frame and bolting the body to it. Every time I see a fibreglass car I feel phantom itching!
I did a headliner once.
Once.
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