Your Restoration Regrets

[Machlovin]

What do you guys regret doing or not doing during your restoration?

I would love to learn from others' mistakes

 

[marks73]

Buying things I figured for sure I needeed, only to find out I didn't.

 

[auron73mach1]

try to find what you can used locally and don't throw anything out until you're done

 

[imusa76]

try to find what you can used locally and don't throw anything out until you're done

+1 very important step I think!!!

BTW Mark73,

the Exhaust tips I bought from you Last November look Great!! I put them on Last night.

 

[mach71351c]

Not devoting more time to work on it.:dodgy:

 

[wwhite72]

I allowed Tim Zepp to work on my car. He damaged my property and took my money and it would cost me more in attorneys fees to try to get my money back and i still wouldnt have my car the way it was before that crook touched my property.

 

[73vertproject]

This might be a tough link. I could have reused some of the components that were still working fine (PS pump, alternator, distributor, carb and intake, similar things.... ) but I decided to replace all of them when I rebuilt my 351C 2V. Actually, no regrets so far, I guess.

 

[[email protected]]

Use ONLY OEM Body Panels and trim. If God (or Ford) had wanted you to have a new old ford he'd of made the parts sorta kinda fit. And we all know repro body panels and trim are &%^#

 

[matrixx]

Well if there is no restrictions to the rules of this question then all I have to answer is this:

Started with a better car!

 

[Stangace20]

selling off the original steering wheel (even though it was damaged/deteriorating) and (though I don't know quite how) forgetting to reset the odometer before we put the engine back in/started driving it again

 

[Mister 4x4]

+1 on starting with a better car... although, I think I'm over that.

Now that I've seen the things some of the professional guys around here have done to rebuild/restored their projects, I think I would've completely stripped 'everything' off the car, media blasted, and primed it before putting anything new back onto/into it (instead, I tackled individual sections/project areas as they came).

 

[LCB1]

Buying things I figured for sure I needeed, only to find out I didn't.

+1 on what Mark said

 

[jbojo]

Probably not doing as good of a job as i could have and keeping track of parts. Oh yeah, changing plans when I read all the different ideas here and try to fit them in my plans.

-jbojo

 

[don29163]

Start with a completed car and just enjoy it.

 

[CalgaryChris]

Finishing the job I started before tackling something else, never easy to remember how it came apart 3 months later

 

[72HCODE]

+3 start with better car.

Wish I never used stainless steel brake lines.

Wish I never wasted money on 3rd party modifications that looked awesome and were garbage in reality.

Wish I never met all the people that screwed me in the car industry as well.

 

[Bill73Ragtop]

Trying to save $ by re-using worn out parts by cleaning / repainting only to purchase the proper replacement parts 1 or 2 years later.

 

[OMS]

Use ONLY OEM Body Panels and trim. If God (or Ford) had wanted you to have a new old ford he'd of made the parts sorta kinda fit. And we all know repro body panels and trim are &%^#

There are some good panels and trim

There are some bad panels and trim

Trick is finding the company that will tell you this VS the ones that just sell all the great parts

 

[72HCODE]

Trying to save $ by re-using worn out parts by cleaning / repainting only to purchase the proper replacement parts 1 or 2 years later.

oh that is a good one to!