Door Rust Issue

[RICH MUISE]

And one more post (there are 2 more on page one of this thread)..then I gotta go help the wife clean house! Assuming you're going to proceed with the project you have, a few suggestions before you take stuff apart. The number one thing...take lots of pics with a high resolution digital camera. What looks obvious now, won't be so obvious a few years from now. Take pics of everything..nuts, bolts, screws, gaskets, seals, brackets, wiring, etc etc  LOTS OF PICS. Before you remove doors, hood, tailgate, drill 1/8 holes on the hinges thru the inner panel they are attached to, and into the door posts, etc. This will make reassembling your car back to where it was much easier...I didn't know about that...wished I had. When it comes time to reassemble, you can put a 1/8 pin thru that hole to get it back close to where it was.
Get lots of boxes, bags, tags, whatever. Screws and stuff, I put a note inside the bag as to what they went to..particully specialty stuff. Don't use a marker or ink that'll fade. Identify everything, where it went, etc.
Rich

[Limey57]

Rich has pretty much got it nailed with that advice, I'll just add a few comments that I've picked up on over the years restoring various cars.

Never use a ball-point pen written onto masking tape labels to identify things, the ink doesn't soak into the tape and fades real quick and you just end up with lots of blank labels that mean nothing in a few years time.

Buy a box of food freezer bags from the supermarket (the ones with the zip-lock top and white panel on the front for writing notes on).  A permenant marker pen sticks fast to these labels (mine were done 5 years ago by the previous owner and are still 100% readable).

Store the bagged parts in boxes, using a different box for different areas of the car (one for front suspension, one for steering etc, etc).  Plastic storage boxes with snap-fit lids are good and quite cheap, cardboard boxes fall apart when you move them......

Put screws & clips etc into TWO bags in case one bag splits (I learned this the hard way).

Don't buy an already dismantled car (ask me how I know that.....).

If you get the opportunity to buy a complete but terminally rusty car of the same make, buy it (if you can).  It will be invaluable for use as reference come reassembly time and will provide a source of screws and clips that you will invariably lose over time.

[Frankenstein57]

Great advice, my friend's custom 300 is in the paint shop. He is getting up in years, 74, and is rather old school about organization. Everything goes in a can or jar, then when he can't find stuff he raids my stock. The latest missing parts are the trim rings that go around the headlights, needs them for painting. I was using zip lock sandwich bags with a note inside, this doesn't work as the rusty dirty bolts destroy the note. I like Limeys idea better, also invest in some Ford shop manuals for your car, that is a must have. Happy thanksgiving   Mark

[Zapato]

invest in some Ford shop manuals for your car, that is a must have.

This works even if you're not building a stocker, there will be that one question that having a factory manual and illustration answer. Really they're invaluable. Buy any technical literature you find on your car if you're building a total restoration ford service bulletins can be extra helpful as there are countless fixes to problems that were the norm when our cars were new.

Zap-

Almost forgot thanks to Rich Muise a bunch of the service bulletins for our cars can now be found under the Technical Diagram header. Check them out.

[Limey57]

.....and if all else fails, look at some of the high-dollar cars on EBay.  They usually have loads of inside, outside and underneath detailed photos showing all areas.  It certainly helped me figure out how the parking brake cable assemblies fitted.

[Matt]

Thank you all for your advice.

My car is a 57 Country Sedan 4 dr.  I live in TX, but I purchased the car from a guy in NY.  I bought the car for $2800, which I thought was a steal.  However, my lack of foresight hit my wallet hard when it came to shipping ($1100).  Now I feel obligated to see the project through, because I don't think I could break even where I sit now.

I like the organization ideas.  Unfortunately, I'm finding that many of the trim bolts are missing or are not the original bolts.

I am discouraged, but once I am able to start making headway I will feel better.

With everyone's experience where would you recommend starting? (body, suspension/frame, or somewhere else?)

[Ford Blue blood]

Mat the question is do you want to drive it while working on it or blow it apart and start on it then.

Generally the work to do first is the work that could cause damage if something goes wrong.  I like to get the chassis out of the way first.  Engine bay next, rust/body repair, the car will work just fine without the trim and bumpers if you want to drive it, get the jams and areas covered by glass/seals painted, put the glass in, paint the body, assemble all the trim and bumpers and then the interior.

That's a quick and dirty but is the fundamental process.  The refined steps of each task vary from person to person, none is right or wrong, just how they like to do it.  I find breaking each of the task into seperate "job sheets" helps prevent the overwhelmed feeling that causes many a project to grind to a halt and get put into a corner and forgotten about.

[Limey57]

I suppose the first thing is to be honest with yourself.  No matter how hard you look at it, you have to accept that the car will be twice as bad as you think when you strip it, it will cost twice as much to restore it and take (at least) twice as long to complete!  If you want an out & out show car, stripping every last nut & bolt is the way to go.  If you just want a presentable driver, take a different approach:

Strip out the interior, pull the motor & transmission, get it on axle stands and dis-assemble the brakes.  You can now see what rust repairs are needed to get the car looking nice and being safe.  Repair panels for all the usual suspect areas are available, but the quality and fit of some is questionable.  Replace the panels that need replacing (brace the door apperatures first before chopping out structural parts) to get some strength back into the body, clean up the welds, prime & undercoat the undersides.  Use seam sealer on all the welded joints.  Take this approach going round the car will save time & money over removing the body and getting it blasted!  Leaving the glass in place will save money, but might be a problem in the long run if the seals are shot.

Running gear.  Check the wheel bearings & ball joints for play, if there is none, regrease them.  Personnaly, I would replace the entire braking system and fit new pipes.  If the car ran okay, just repaint the engine & transmission & refit them, but I'd replace the transmission seals first (if it is an automatic).

Trim can be cleaned up well using good old fashioned hard work without running to the expense of proffesional polishing, new trim clips can be sourced.

Its easy to convince yourself that you can do an entire strip and rebuild for the cost of a quick make-over, the truth is you can't, so the number one job is to decide exactly what you can afford and what you want to achieve.

Above all else, keep coming here, because this is the one-stop-shop for help and advice!

[RICH MUISE]

Matt...LOL...are you feeling like you just gained 3 or 4 fathers? I read your post from last night and was trying to figure out how to respond..Bill and Limey offered some great sound advise. You had mentioned your cost at this point would make it tough to break even, and I think my thoughts went immediatly to what Limey was getting at. Put bluntly, in all likliehood the closest you'll ever be to break even is right now, before you start. Nobody ever takes a project car and makes money at it..at least it's a rarety. We do it because we have a love for the hobby. For alot of us old geesers, it's about apple pie, hot dogs and the mother road. It's about a hobby we can be proud of and gain friends in the meantime...even if it's on the web. Zap told me once he considered me a good friend even though we'd never get to shake hands (he's in Oregon)..and he's right. One way to think about the expense is the new car  comparison...My wife received some life insurance proceeds and was fortunate enough to be able to buy a new car earlier this year and pay cash for it..about 28K, which is probably pretty close to what I've put into my car. The thing is, my car, although I'll never recoup what I put in it, at some point in time not too far away will be worth more than her's because her's is always going to be depreciating, and mine's going the other way...although not as fast as the money put into it. Usually the guys that end up with the worst cost to value ratio are the ones like me that are replacing every little tiny thing, or the ones that are paying others to do the work. Still..look at the cost of today's automobiles that everyone else is driving...I know where I'd rather put my money. I think of it as buying a new car one piece at a time, as Johnny Cash would say.
By the way, speaking of old geesers,it's nice to see a younger generation interested in our era cars...and particularly not falling into the Chevy crowd. Also, I don't know why I had a gut feeling you were in Texas. Check this "general discusion" area, page 3 for a thread called "all us Texas guys"..I think you'll be #18. Give me an idea what general area you're in, and I'll add you to our list.
One last thing..have you found our list of vendors yet?...from the websites you can get a fair idea of parts availability or cost.

[JimNolan]

To answer a few questions, I want this car to look presentable, but I will be using it as a daily driver.  I am planning on retaining the original 312, but I want to replace the 3-speed with an AOD.  I will be lowering the car with dropped spindles on the front and lowering springs in the back.  I want to convert the front brakes to disc and possibly the rear as well.

I want the body to be as straight as possible, rust free, with a decent paint job without clearing out my kid's college funds.  As the car sits right now there are small to large patches of rust all over the place.  The floor pans all need to be replaced as well as both rockers.  I need patch panels to the rear lower portion of both front fenders and to one of the rear quarter panels.  The tailgate has some rust, but it appears to have a terrible bondo job on it.  There is some rust to the frame of the hood, a few holes under the headlights, and of course the rust on the bottom side of the doors.

Needless to say I will never purchase another car of E-bay.

Right now I am just trying to figure out the best place to start.  I want to take the body off the frame to make the frame is cleaned, painted, and sealed and everything is done right.  Plus I want to replace all the body mounts.

My limited budget has left me basically just taking the car apart slowly.

Matt,
   I can tell from your post you have no idea what you're getting in to. The bodywork and paint you discribe is the same that I had with my EBay car. If you can do all that yourself you'll save 20-25K. If you can't it'll cost you that much to have someone do it. If you want a nice drivetrain with a decent reliability factor you're looking at another 15-20K. Add an interior that will cost at least 10K if you can't do it yourself and you'll end up putting over 40K in a car. Before you start ( if you're on a budget) you should ask yourself, is this the car I want to drive for life. If it is, have at it. If you plan on having a car that sits most of the time and doesn't go farther than 25 miles from home and the word "cobbled-up" is in your dictionary, you can get by on about half the cost.
  I've never had a car as rewarding to drive as my 57. I drive it year round, I keep it nice as possible for the miles I put on it but it's one of the best investments I've made in my life as far as enjoyment is concerned.
  If you're building a car to maybe sell later and get your money back, sell it now, don't ever think you can come out ahead finacially by building one yourself. Jim
 

[57 Ford Kustom]

Matt,
   You have received valuable advice from these guy's, I hope you realize this. I am a young buck here also, I was fortunate enough to inherit a car that was already gone through by my Father.I don't face the dawnting task of all the body work that you do, but I am triing to make it my own, with upgrades. I am redoing the interior, rewiring the car, enhancing the engine (I already swapped the Y block, for a 351w, sorry Dad), and next year will have it repainted. I too, like a lot of others on this site are on a budget. The only advice That I can offer you is to do bits at a time, as you can afford it. I set aside some money every paycheck and buy things as I can afford them, it works for me at least. Definitely use the years of experience that is on this site!
Good Luck,
Tim

[Matt]

Sorry for the long delay in responding.  My work has kept me busy most nights.

First, thanks to everyone for their advice.  I unfortunately knew in my gut that the price of fixing this car up would be pricey and probably much more than I can/want to do right now.  What my goal is for the car right now is to have a car that I can drive everyday while fixing it up, because I know how long it will take to get it "restored" to the level I would like.  My plans had been to start with the steering/suspension, brakes, transmission, put in new floor pans, and recover the front seat so that I wasn't sitting on springs.  I figured all of this and freshening up the engine would cost around 8K if I did it all myself (and with the help of a few friends). 

In the long run this is a car I want to keep, but for the time being need to have it on the road and currently my wife and I only have two cars.  Her car and this car.

I've gutted the interior and began removing most of the trim.  Hopefully I will be able to make some headway after the start of the new year.

Thanks again for the help.  I know I'll keep browsing this site for advice.

[RICH MUISE]

Awesome Matt..I was afraid we had scared you off...LOL...sounds like you had a pretty good idea of what you were in for. There are times when there's a ton of work involved on bodywork that is way more labor than dollars, so when the budget gets tight progress can still keep going forward. You can do this!
Rich