Quickdodge, yes, my car was very rough when I started. I bought the whole car for $200, the guy told me he could get $200 scrap, or he would sell it to me for the same price. It probably should have been scrapped....
When your building a hot rod, the hours tend to add up (or disappear) pretty quickly, especially when your scratching your head trying to figure out how to do something. I'm not really sure I want to know how many hours I have in some projects. Depending on how much modifications need to be done, how much time per week is available, and how nice you want your ride before you drive it, 1 1/2 to 2 years is a pretty short build time frame, 3 or 4 years is not outside a realistic build time. I have seen some very nice stuff built in a matter of months, but everything was present at the start, and many hours were invested.
$100,000 - $150,000 pro built cars represent parts & labor. If you assume $25,000-$30,000 in parts, the rest is labor at $100 or so $$ per hour. My math gives me 700- 1200 hours for the show quality with people that know what they are doing. For us average guys, learning as we go, those 700-1200 hours is probably a good estimate of the number of hours for good quality driver ride. 2 years, 7 1/2 hours per week = 720 hours, and $4,000 is a very cheap hot rod.
Trucks are generally easier because the older ones are all body mounted on frames. The steel brackets are bolted, riveted, or welded to the frame, and the cabs are attached to those brackets with rubber bushings with bolts going through the brackets, the rubber, and the cab floor. Once you remove the frame's original cab, you set the "new" cab on the frame, position it as you want it, and make or modify the steel brackets to locate the cab to the frame in the desired position. Often the older cabs need metal replaced in the floors. Several of the more modern cab floors & firewalls will adapt to the older cabs, it is sometimes easier to adapt the original to the frame cab floor to your old cab then it is to make new mounting brackets and replace floor pans, provided those floor pans are in good shape. Gene
