My 1970 Duster 340 FM3 project

Joe Mc said
Gary,
-Subscribed.
-As mentioned prior, take pictures of everything, I'll add "before doing anything", except I'd wash everything real good.
-Start a folder for storage of pictures on PC.
-In that folder make subfolders, you might consider naming them and a date you started each one. Example: 1/14/21 reference pictures. 1/16/21 Disassembly.
-Say within "Disassembly" folder you make subfolders, date + section of car.
Last thought, get an inexpensive external hard drive and place copy of main picture folder on it. And everytime you add pictures to PC, don't forget to update external hard drive.

You never know when PC hard drive will crash...

Also, you know these things start with great plans to do it right and quickly. As you know life has a way of changing priorities.

Good luck on your awesome acquisition.

Funny you should say that about the computer files. My son was talking to me earlier about a car I had when he was about 5 or 6 (he is now 23). I popped open the file on the computer and said, "You mean this one?" When he saw the number of files in my "My Boats and Cars" directory he was like, holy cow, I did not realize you had that many cars and boats. Currently there are 66 folders. I told him "yeah and this does not include all of the files I lost before 2008 or so when my computer crashed - lost a TON of stuff in that crash permanently." Needless to say, I now back up my files to an external hard drive as well. I only have 2 or 3 photos of the car he was talking about due to that crash. Lesson learned.

When I was restoring cars for other people for a while, I would send them daily pictures of work performed so that there was zero doubt about progress being made. That helped with reassembly plus eliminated questions about hours for which they were being billed. Plus, they loved seeing their cars come back to life step by step.

Fortunately/unfortunately, I have done so many cars through the years (mostly Mopars - 90% were either E or A bodies with a few B's thrown in the mix), I can pretty much look at a bolt or screw and know where it goes. I always used to have multiple projects going at once so keeping track of stuff was a little bit of a challenge. With only one project now, it will be a breeze. Going to hang some new lights in the shop tomorrow and then it will be game on!