Can anyone chime in with some ‘reasonable estimates’ on the time required for a well experienced body person to replace: a) complete floor pan, b) complete trunk pan, c) full quarter panels - both sides, d) outer rear wheelhouses and e) lower rear fender patches. All are new reproduction parts. Any comments would be much appreciated!
Shoot depends on were your at What type of shop How busy they are .. Here in California... At least a year or more.... Don't pay up front... Pay as work is being done or else you will never see it being worked on... Good luck
Thanks! What I am really looking for are the approximate time for each - e.g., 40 hrs for a floor plan, 20 hours for fender patches, etc.....Work required up to pre-paint point with new body panels, e.g. welded and ground down....
Short answer is it depends whos doing it . a hack shop takes shortcuts and a professional restoration shop will strive for factory fit and finish. Removing old panels takes almost as much time as fitting new ones. Pans vs preassembled floor/trunk big difference. A friend of mine runs a pro restoration shop and does concours quality and he won't mess with pans or patches and swears its quicker and cheaper to do full floor panels verse pans due to less drilling and welding and high quality result. I've seen him rebuild entire body shells the right way and it takes hundreds of hours to do it right. Every job different but done right it takes time and bank. Good luck.
X2 on everything people have already said. How's the drive train, interior and front fenders/nose? A lot depends on where you are located, here in the Northeast, there's a lot of work and labor is high. Obviously, you will need paint at some point. Around here you would be lucky to get a decent paint job for less than 5K. You need to take a really hard look at the car before you think about putting 10K plus in it. Trust me when I say it's a big headache getting this type of work done. You have to know you will have the $ to finish. You have to know you will never get the $ back. It will take a long time to do it. If you have 10K now to fix it, you might be better off to find a more solid car. I'm not a body guy, I've done them and had them done, so I do have some experience. I can definitely tell you it's stressful stuff, and that's if it goes pretty good!
I had a bc cc paint job applied to my suncoupe recently. All metal work was done and paint alone was 8k.
