Car finally off to body shop!

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VSTwister

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I need to set up a my garage here...in my spare time...

Yesterday was the day. My Scamp was transported to the body shop. Any suggestions/advice from others who've done this before me are appreciated. My body guy seems to care, I'm meeting him again tomorrow to go over all my concerns, what I've noticed that the car needs etc, point by point.

One large issue for me is what to do about the underside of the car. This is going to be a three season driver, taken to shows/cruises/dragways all for fun. This shop is not big enough for a rotisserie job, and I do have a budget to keep in mind, but I do want the car to last as my sons will inherit the car when I'm gone. I'm thinking just address any localized rust issues, remove only loose areas of undercoating, paint those areas as needed then just have undercoating resprayed. Of course I'd like to have a full redo on the underside like the topside (it's getting new rear quarters w/wheel housings and trunk extensions, along with front driver fender inner and outer then a complete paint job done including engine bay, interior, trunk) but it's not going to happen that thoroughly. I don't need the additional stress of worrying every stone that hits the underside is going to damage it. Just piece of mind that things are done right and will last for a car that will never see winter again (it already hasn't in the last 26 years).

Thoughts?

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The best advice I can give is to have patience, a plan and expect it cost more than the estimate. The car will be in jail and never seems to get out when promised.

Rust never sleeps and when your body man starts to tear into it, he's going to find more. Communication with him is huge, hopefully you told him that when he hits your budget line, he notifies you and asks where to go from there. Its easy for things to spiral out of control.

The other concerns that you have I will leave to others to answer. Good luck and cheers to a fun project.
 
Since you live in Ohio you should have a pretty good fighting chance. Road salt will be your worst enemy but you guys might not get much. Just make sure there is no more salt on the road when you go out and you should be fine. Maybe just paint under your car might be do the trick, it is usually cheaper than undercoating.
 
I need to set up a my garage here...in my spare time...

Yesterday was the day. My Scamp was transported to the body shop. Any suggestions/advice from others who've done this before me are appreciated. My body guy seems to care, I'm meeting him again tomorrow to go over all my concerns, what I've noticed that the car needs etc, point by point.

One large issue for me is what to do about the underside of the car. This is going to be a three season driver, taken to shows/cruises/dragways all for fun. This shop is not big enough for a rotisserie job, and I do have a budget to keep in mind, but I do want the car to last as my sons will inherit the car when I'm gone. I'm thinking just address any localized rust issues, remove only loose areas of undercoating, paint those areas as needed then just have undercoating resprayed. Of course I'd like to have a full redo on the underside like the topside (it's getting new rear quarters w/wheel housings and trunk extensions, along with front driver fender inner and outer then a complete paint job done including engine bay, interior, trunk) but it's not going to happen that thoroughly. I don't need the additional stress of worrying every stone that hits the underside is going to damage it. Just piece of mind that things are done right and will last for a car that will never see winter again (it already hasn't in the last 26 years).

Thoughts?

View attachment 1715409973 View attachment 1715409974
Is the body shop going to work on it when they aren't busy or is it a dedicated rehab? I have found that shops tend to take in fast money and put your project on the back burner several times. Long restorations (over winter months) take up shop space I was very fortunate to have found a retired body man who did my sheetmetal work in his own garage. I was very lucky to have found him and he turned mine around in six months. Basically doing the same work as you are having done. Hope you have the same luck. Tinmannz is correct about the rust, it hides everywhere.
 
Another thing you might want to do is coat the inner frame rails and inner rockers with cavity wax AFTER it's painted and you under coat it.
3M makes it and comes with log tubes in a spray can.
Look it up and check it out. Body shops use it when replacing panels so ask your body man what he thinks.
Hope the best for your car sweet ride you have.
 
Is the body shop going to work on it when they aren't busy or is it a dedicated rehab? I have found that shops tend to take in fast money and put your project on the back burner several times. Long restorations (over winter months) take up shop space I was very fortunate to have found a retired body man who did my sheetmetal work in his own garage. I was very lucky to have found him and he turned mine around in six months. Basically doing the same work as you are having done. Hope you have the same luck. Tinmannz is correct about the rust, it hides everywhere.
You are so right crewchief I work in a body shop and the only reason we do restorations is to fill in when no insurance work is coming through the door.
Really hard to make a decent amount of money on restoring when most shops work commission. Many times on restoring a car I made less than half of my regular pay.
 
Your plans for dealing with the underside of the car seem reasonable to me as long as you don't find any issues.The only way to detail your suspension is to remove/rebuild if you are so inclined. Remember- no bare metal parts, metal rusts. At least a coat of paint on everything. With attention to detail on the trim, the car will show well. With reasonable care, your car will last a long time and you will have a lot of fun.
 
Just got mine out of the body shop last month. I was originally to get it around March/April. I gave it to the shop in Sept. with 2 lower quarters & one rear wheel lip to replace & a ton of "senior citizen" dents & scrapes. It was a small shop belonging to a friend. He also took longer due to vehicle crash repair contracts he has with local businesses & other insurance work. That is what pays his daily bills & 2 other employees. All this was said to just say have patience.
 
Plan ahead for any add ons like hood pins, scoops, wing, etc. Any holes that need to be drilled should be done before paint. It sucks to have to drill through nice new paint and then you have to deal with the exposed steel in the hole.
Rebuild your door hinges BEFORE your body guy starts putting quarters on. Then set your gaps and the door can help with the alignment for the new quarters.
 
All great suggestions everyone thank you, and some of which I've already anticipated. I know more rust is always found, not less, and I've pointed that out already (and I'm sure I didn't need to). He does both types of business, insurance/collision work on modern and then does the classic cars as well. He told me back mid-August he'd be ready in about a month. It was two months. That, I'd say, is pretty reasonable delay for a body shop lol. He said they will be dedicated to working on the car for the next two weeks, 2-1/2 guys working on it. (Two guys full time and the owner who is part-time retired.) They were already ripping off the vinyl top and going over things when it barely was off the trailer. (Roof looked in GREAT shape too, and I'm going to keep the vinyl top too.)

I've made all my decisions on hood pins (no), scoops (yes), and floor console w/buckets (couldn't make up my mind for anything permanent, going to stick with original bench seat for now, and maybe forever just get some new foam and springs done when the $$$ becomes available), I already mentioned keeping a vinyl top (that one had me on the fence a bit too). Also doing a passenger side mirror, so holes in the door, I don't care if I can't see in it I like the look. Getting rid of studs for rocker trim and holes filled in for wheel well trim.

I found this body shop from another Scamp owner who had some minor body work done, vinyl top removed permanently, and then a whole new paint job. He liked what he did and I thought his car looked good so that already was a good start for me.

I'm having twister hood graphics done with the twin scoops, and a bee stripe. I don't want flat, but rather a satin/matte with still a bit of sheen. He said they use an SEM Trim Black paint for this. Anybody have opinions on this product?

Thanks again!
 
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All great suggestions everyone thank you, and some of which I've already anticipated. I know more rust is always found, not less, and I've pointed that out already (and I'm sure I didn't need to). He does both types of business, insurance/collision work on modern and then does the classic cars as well. He told me back mid-August he'd be ready in about a month. It was two months. That, I'd say, is pretty reasonable delay for a body shop lol. He said they will be dedicated to working on the car for the next two weeks, 2-1/2 guys working on it. (Two guys full time and the owner who is part-time retired.) They were already ripping off the vinyl top and going over things when it barely was off the trailer. (Roof looked in GREAT shape too, and I'm going to keep the vinyl top too.)

I've made all my decisions on hood pins (no), scoops (yes), and floor console w/buckets (couldn't make up my mind for anything permanent, going to stick with original bench seat for now, and maybe forever just get some new foam and springs done when the $$$ becomes available), I already mentioned keeping a vinyl top (that one had me on the fence a bit too).

I found this body shop from another Scamp owner who had some minor body work done, vinyl top removed permanently, and then a whole new paint job. He liked what he did and I thought his car looked good so that already was a good start for me.

I'm having twister hood graphics done with the twin scoops, and a bee stripe. I don't want flat, but rather a satin/matte with still a bit of sheen. He said they use an SEM Trim Black paint for this. Anybody have opinions on this product?

Thanks again!
SEM products are good use them all the time.
Sounds like you got it more in order than me doing mine. lol
Just a heads up I have all the vinyl top trim off my 73 Scamp that is in great shape that will be selling if you need it and it fits your car.
Not trying to make this a advertisement don't really care if I sell it or not.
 
Thank you for the offer. I do have my vinyl top trim, most of it is in great shape. The one passenger corner piece has a corroded and worn away stud but the rest is pretty nice.

SEM products are good use them all the time.
Sounds like you got it more in order than me doing mine. lol
Just a heads up I have all the vinyl top trim off my 73 Scamp that is in great shape that will be selling if you need it and it fits your car.
Not trying to make this a advertisement don't really care if I sell it or not.
 
Looks great I see you have a lot of work space, that sure makes it nice.
 
Looks like good progress is being made. How did they find the fit on the qtr panel? Had to stretch my left side, right fit very well. Any discoveries on the rockers?
 
Looks like good progress is being made. How did they find the fit on the qtr panel? Had to stretch my left side, right fit very well. Any discoveries on the rockers?

Driver side went easier than the passenger side, if I recall what they told me. But both fit really well they said. AMD pretty decent stuff. The biggest pain was the gas tank hole. It was way off from AMD. They ended up cutting my original one out and reusing it. Was a pain to line up right though. They also had to do some mods to get the qtrs to fit to the extensions and line up with the rear valance correctly (which also was a new AMD piece).

Rockers...oh yeah rust. Inners too. Both sides. They did some patch work but not seamlessly done so as to look all original sheet metal. (Made their own patches, didn't use donor pieces or anything like that.) Not that it matters much since it's all covered up but some might not care for it being done that way.

Looks Great did he just spray the floor boards a satin black or is that the bedliner paint?

Yeah just painted satin black. I think Rustoleum. I plan to get a list of all the different paints he used for any touch up work needed or what not. We decided to just go with that because it was cheaper than using body color for the floor that's going to be all carpeted anyways. The bedliner paint was used in the trunk interior only.
 
I did my trunk with tinted Raptor too...good stuff. Its too bad these cars didnt come with it from the factory. Next car I have on a rotiserie will be getting it on the bottom too.
 
Sure glad to see your car isn't having the "paint jail" history that mine had:
* Shop 1 - agreed to do complete body and paint on my '69 Dart. Just before SoCal switched to water-base paint requirement several years ago the shop suggested they purchase the "good stuff" while they still could. I paid for the "good stuff" paint. When I went to make final arrangements to take my car in to start body/paint, I discovered the shop was closed and my paint disappeared with them.
* Shop 2 - Moved out of state just before I was ready to take my car in. No money lost this time.
* Shop 3 - Had my Dart for just over 1 year and had done about 50% of the bodywork - all the time giving me stretched-out final completion dates. Then refused to give me any completion dates. I'd been seeing other cars go in and get finished while mine just sat. I showed up unannounced with a trailer to collect my car and had to bring in the local PD to convince them to turn my car loose. He closed up shop and went out of business about 3 weeks later.
* Shop 4 - Had my Dart for a year and fixed the errors he found from the bodywork done by Shop 3. Then told me he wasn't going to finish my Dart because all of his collision work was much more profitable.
* Shop 5 - Thanks to one of the members here on FABO, I found the current shop who is doing an absolutely outstanding job. He's fixed all the errors from previous shops and communicates without me having to beg and plead for info. My Dart has been there about 10 months and should be completely done shortly after the first of the year. This guy works a full-time job outside of his body and paint work that he does at his home shop.
 
Sure glad to see your car isn't having the "paint jail" history that mine had:
* Shop 1 - agreed to do complete body and paint on my '69 Dart. Just before SoCal switched to water-base paint requirement several years ago the shop suggested they purchase the "good stuff" while they still could. I paid for the "good stuff" paint. When I went to make final arrangements to take my car in to start body/paint, I discovered the shop was closed and my paint disappeared with them.
* Shop 2 - Moved out of state just before I was ready to take my car in. No money lost this time.
* Shop 3 - Had my Dart for just over 1 year and had done about 50% of the bodywork - all the time giving me stretched-out final completion dates. Then refused to give me any completion dates. I'd been seeing other cars go in and get finished while mine just sat. I showed up unannounced with a trailer to collect my car and had to bring in the local PD to convince them to turn my car loose. He closed up shop and went out of business about 3 weeks later.
* Shop 4 - Had my Dart for a year and fixed the errors he found from the bodywork done by Shop 3. Then told me he wasn't going to finish my Dart because all of his collision work was much more profitable.
* Shop 5 - Thanks to one of the members here on FABO, I found the current shop who is doing an absolutely outstanding job. He's fixed all the errors from previous shops and communicates without me having to beg and plead for info. My Dart has been there about 10 months and should be completely done shortly after the first of the year. This guy works a full-time job outside of his body and paint work that he does at his home shop.
You sure had some bad luck, that's a long time to be incarcerated. Hopefully you'll get it back when promised this time.
 
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