Restorations?

I've slowly being coming around to the idea of taking my 1961 Lincoln to a shop to get properly taken care of, depending on cost. My studies and work have prevented me from having time to work on it, and it is at my fathers house, which doesn't help.

Overall I would say the car doesn't need a whole lot, but it needs some body work. It was involved in some sort of accident that left a dent area between the front passenger door and the fender. It has been pulled out but will need filler and paint. The front passenger door was removed and I can't seem to get it properly aligned. The whole car needs repainting. The windows don't operate and there is no headliner, just metal roof.
It ran and drove a couple years ago, and I imagine it is just a tune up and new battery away from running again, and I would take care of that.

As a student, my finances are limited but I have some money saved. I was wondering if anyone here had experience with restorations, whether you had a car restored or work in/own a shop. What sort of work did you have done and what did it cost? I am looking for a rough sort of price estimate, I can also be contacted directly through PM

I am not looking for a show car just a nice occasional driver that would impress women

'61 Lincoln is a massive car. It is completely impossible to give any kind of estimate on a restoration without seeing the car. I can only tell you that the going rate for a full respray without body work runs around $3000.

I recall reading somewhere that those cars were not a normal production type vehicle, and may have had some hand fitment of things like the doors, which probably makes them fiddly to get right.

Are the windows electric or vacuum operated? Electric is far easier to troubleshoot than vacuum.

I would seek out someone in a Lincoln club who knows about those specific cars and pump them for information. The Kennedy era Lincolns have gained popularity but it still costs far more to restore one than they wind up being worth (unless it's a convertible). You'll sink 10 grand into that thing in no time. Unless you are really in love with it, you may want to either park it until you have a real income or sell it to someone who can do something with it. And a big Lincoln is only going to impress women with a AARP card.

You may want to post the same question over on the Classic Motorsports board. Restorations are expensive, even if you do a lot of the work yourself. Make sure you LOVE the car first. I restored an old Mercedes, and when it was finished, I hated how it drove. I never lost more money on any car, ever. So my suggestion is to make your Lincoln run properly (also probably the cheapest part of your resto), then drive the wheels off of it. If you're still in love, then by all means, restore it. But never restore a car you haven't ever driven.

I have a customer's '71 LTD convertible in the shop now. It's been dormant since '96. The car is very clean and solid, but it needs work to be roadworthy.

For comparison, he's budgeted $5000 to bring it back to life. We'll be very close to that number when we're done. That doesn't include any bodywork. This is all mechanical work.

For your Lincoln, I suggest the following:

• Find a body guy that is willing to make a house call to align the door. Pay him a few bucks to get the door working properly.

• Get a shop manual and see how the windows are supposed to work. Ad DDavid pointed out, vacuum operated windows are a different animal from the electric. At the minimum the manuals will come in handy if you do farm out the repair.

• Look into what it is going to need to make it roadworthy. Since it hasn't been sitting that long, it might not be too bad.

• Once roadworthy drive it to some shops in the area to get estimates on body and paint work. Go to some cruise nights with it and get feedback from the folks there on who does good work at reasonable rates. Or who does great work on the side.

What kind of woman are you looking to impress?

I bet materials cost more then 3K on a car like that. It was ~5.2K just for the HOK paint and primer/clear on my 61 Cadillac not counting labor.

Even as a "less than showroom" paint job, you are looking at 100 hours of time to get the body straight. Now add about $1000 worth of materials.

Cheapest shop I know of is $50/hour, so you are at $6000 and you still need to do whatever is left. A side effect of shiny paint is that it makes everything else look like it needs to be replaced.

A quality shop wont touch the project. They know the car is going to be critiqued by anyone that sees it, and no way they want their name on a cut rate effort. Plus it will tie up a bay for a long time; they could do 20 fenders in the time it takes to do this job.

Strip the car, do the body to the best of your abilities and drive it over to Maaco. Maybe 2-3k will get it done.

As to impressing women, forget it, only vehicle a woman will ever react to is a Brinks truck full of cash.

I fear the day it comes it restoring Tiff's car. A 1959 Buick Invicta 4 door. The thing is a one year only body, from what the '59 Buick crowd says it is the rarest model (very few 4 door Invictas survived apparently) and the thing is about a mile long.

M030 wrote: You may want to post the same question over on the Classic Motorsports board.

He did post over there about 5 min after posting here. I saw it there first and responded.

NOHOME wrote: A quality shop wont touch the project. They know the car is going to be critiqued by anyone that sees it, and no way they want their name on a cut rate effort.

^^^

This. A good shop won't touch it for a "bargain" rate because they have a name to uphold. Paying for a shop to do the job is an expensive proposition. Figure $25-$35K for a quality resto of any sort---- even on a small car like a Spitfire.

If you really love the car, do as much of the work yourself as you can. If you haven't done it before---learn. Most of this stuff isn't rocket science. Call in professional help only when needed. Remember, a quality paint job is 90% prep work.

I'm on page 25, year four (including waiting time because of kids) and probably 5-6K so far.

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/build-thread-for-the-72-gmc-finally-thanks-john/59103/page25/

I would recommend keeping it running and just driving it until you are done with school. Sure, you won't look like a high roller, but most everyone else who goes to school drives an old dodge spirit or something.

I worked as a mechanic in a resto shop for a couple years before going back to school, and I have seen first hand cars like yours getting very expensive very quickly.

Guy on the mercedes forum did a nut and bolt on a 500slc. I think it took something like 3years and just like a womens age you don't ask how much it costs. I couldn't imagine having a car laid up for that long, not my idea of car ownership. Then after restoration do you drive it, my car is magnetized for dents and dings so fresh restoration plus parking lot equals trouble. Or you garage it and take the car to car shows where a judge or fellow enthusiast tells you all the imperfection. Scrubbing an engine compartment for 8hours or shining tires isn't my idea of car ownership. I like to joke about some of the antique cars being shown, having a judge check the oil, "well that isn't period correct paraffin based oil" you loose a point.