Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration

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Obviously by your post, you've never "fully" restored a vehicle, sure no metal replacement in your definition, but they had to strip the car down to a shell, blast/strip/dip the major components of sheetmetal, prime, paint, along with any hammer or filler work, nevermind the finial stages of blocking coat after coat of primer to prepare for paint, nevermind the interior prep/assembly, driveline, exterior decals/trim, etc, etc, electrical, fuel/emission lines, brake lines, exhaust, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc... the minutia of preparing, detailing all the componets for a full restoration are staggering, to the uninformed, it looks like a cake walk on a "clean" car, it isn't...trust me, 1000 hrs is the norm for a "good" restoration,....I can spend upwards of 500 hrs just priming, blocking, painting, color sanding, and buffing a paint job, nevermind the rest of the vehicles needs,....And by putting the "gun" to the builders/shop's head to finish the car based on your estimation of completion, it's guaranteed they will start cutting corners, then you'll get what you "payed for"...

And them holding my car in pieces and not telling me how many hours they think it will take to finish it is right? That is more in the unethical side than me telling them they have X amount of hours to complete it. I just told them as many hours as I have paid for this car should have been done and I am not paying to have someone "learn" how to restore a car and he needs to start taking accountability for his workers and get the job done without milking more hours out of me.

Have you ever ACTUALLY restored a car?

I looked at your pictures and I don't see any of the body in bare metal , or with the paint removed showing any filler, I see people and you saying it's a solid car , all I see is PAINT , my x-ray vision doesn't seem to work as well as others here do ????

Posted By: OLD318

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/04/13 11:28 PM

Even for a shop, team, group of guys who know what they are doing and are good at it...
One of these cars can easily take between 400-1200 hours. That's a wide range I know..
If it's just an all over paint job you're on the lower end
If it's sheet metal replacement, undercarriage, interior and drivetrain it's in the upper range..
And some (quite a few) in really bad condtion can
go upwards of 2000 hours...

and this is for "Good" restoration guys...

Add significantly more time for a DIY guy...

People ask "Why does it take so long?"...
Here's one classic example:

To guide coat and block sand (by hand) an entire car (B-Body for example) 1 time can take 24-40+ hours

And these cars might need that step done 2 even 3 times...
to get it straight..

Thats 120 hours of block sanding..alone!
Not including the prep time to put it in the booth and prime it..

So with no real repairs/metal replacement at all
it can be 200 hours just to sand the car down,
fill/ prime/block to get it ready to paint...

Then there's the paint job...
Most people think its 3-4 coats of base
then 3 coats of clear and then they are done...

In reality..alot of guys will spray 2 coats of base, then evaluate
the car... If there are any issues, dirt, runs, tiny scratches from
blocking etc... They stop and water sand them out and then
repeat...

Why?
Because this is what you have to do to get these cars looking as
good as they do...

Noticed we havent discussed the clearcoat work!
Think you can buff one of these cars perfect in 1 hour... HAHAHAHA
only on TV....

Even the best professional sprayers get runs/dirt/dry spots/issues etc... It adds up really fast...

400 hours for an allover -non repair paint job is not out of the
question... What's out of the question is:: How many people are willing to pay for this?

Notice too... Most body shops today will NOT do an all over paint job..
Why? because they can't make any money doing it...
What they end up charging for it... Most people won't pay...

I think before anyone gets into the mopar restoration hobby,
should take several body work classes at a local community college.
So they can get a feel for what they are getting into.

When you want to redo one of these cars...
you are signing up to either
1) do
or
2) pay somebody to do....

hundreds and hundreds of hours of work...
If you aren't into it, you better have a fat wallet that is into
it... or it is just going to sit and languish....

These cars are beasts in more ways than horsepower and torque...

My

Best of luck to you

Posted By: Challenger 1

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/04/13 11:43 PM

Checkout my pictures, some never seen before. This about 1/4 of the pictures I took. I took many before pulling the car apart, have only loaded a 1000 or so on photobucket, here's one album to look at. I took over 2000 photos, that alone takes some time to do. I did it at the end of each day and posted them here and the positive feedback I received motivated me to stay at it.

web page

Posted By: autoxcuda

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/04/13 11:59 PM

I realize the labor hours billed out on the job. But sometimes I think you have to take a step back and look at the overall cost.

What is this guy charging per hour? If it's $50/hr, then 900 hour equals $45,000 just in labor. I'd imagine parts are like $10-15K??

Was the motor or trans rebuilt as part of this shop's resto?

If this total bill gets up near $60-$70K plus I just don't see that quality and throughness of restoration work done. The pics look very nice and appropiate for what you seem to be looking for. Just not $70K plus type of work.

Posted By: loren kraker

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 02:25 AM

Holy cow, 38K in labor, hope its a Hemi car.

Posted By: Paul Jacobs

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 03:52 AM

I'll give you my humble opinion based on 25 years of restoring over 50 Mopars. I have done every kind of resto from basic, to resto mod, to OE Gold winners. 900 hours is getting into pro-territory, so I would expect some top shelf work with those hours.
One of the big problems I see is many shops just DO NOT know the ins & outs of Mopars, and it's a big learning curve for them. Our shop can do things that would take other shops twice as long just because of our experience.
At this point you need to decide if you want to ride it out or box it all and move on to a Mopar only shop. At this point in the game, they should be able to give you an idea the time needed to finish the job-but I bet they wont or can't because their lack of experience.
Resto work is a lot of work and very unforgiving-I'm glad I retired from it this year!
Good luck with you car!

Posted By: Rhinodart

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 05:52 AM

My 69 GTS cost $25K for the body and paint. Both quarters replaced, one front frame rail, all inner front unibody parts replaced with NOS parts, used NOS fenders and hood, and the drivers door needed lots of work. That was in 2001 and by 2012 I had $65K in and it still needed about 100 hours of work. Unfortunately I have to start over from scratch again after my garage fire.

Posted By: autoxcuda

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 05:59 AM

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My 69 GTS cost $25K for the body and paint. Both quarters replaced, one front frame rail, all inner front unibody parts replaced with NOS parts, used NOS fenders and hood, and the drivers door needed lots of work. That was in 2001 and by 2012 I had $65K in and it still needed about 100 hours of work. Unfortunately I have to start over from scratch again after my garage fire.

Is that $25K for body and paint counting the NOS and other replacement body panels?

Posted By: Dr. Red

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 07:05 AM

For us a average paint job, strip, repair, filler work, prime, blocking, paint, color sand & buff is about 500 hours. This includes putting the car on a rotto and blasting and undercoating the bottom & wheel wells. Some of our customers want the underside painted this takes longer about 40-50 hours. If something has to be replaced like 1/4's or rockers that adds time. AND what kind of paint did you go with? I see in the pics that the jambs and body of the car are painted at the same time so I assume that this is a single stage enamel paint meaning no clear coat. A single stage paint job is a little less time consuming than a base coat clear coat paint. Because you have to assemble the car prime and block, take the car apart jamb it then put it back together to paint the rest of it. Now this is just the paint job!, when you start installing and assembly, that can hit 3-400 hours easily. shoot on these old Mopars you can get 60 hours in the wiring harness! So to see the pics of where the car is at with 900 hours, I can understand why it might be so. But did they do the car as I would do it? that is the question. do they give you a rundown of what they spent time on or do they just give you a bill to pay? I would be interested to see how long they spent on each aspect of the job. Someone said that a body shop is not a restoration shop this is very true, I have had guys that had awesome reference from a production body shop that could not handle the restoration business.
Here is the 70 RT/SE we is building:

Posted By: autoxcuda

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 08:23 AM

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For us a average paint job, strip, repair, filler work, prime, blocking, paint, color sand & buff is about 500 hours. This includes putting the car on a rotto and blasting and undercoating the bottom & wheel wells. Some of our customers want the underside painted this takes longer about 40-50 hours. If something has to be replaced like 1/4's or rockers that adds time. AND what kind of paint did you go with? I see in the pics that the jambs and body of the car are painted at the same time so I assume that this is a single stage enamel paint meaning no clear coat. A single stage paint job is a little less time consuming than a base coat clear coat paint. Because you have to assemble the car prime and block, take the car apart jamb it then put it back together to paint the rest of it. Now this is just the paint job!, when you start installing and assembly, that can hit 3-400 hours easily. shoot on these old Mopars you can get 60 hours in the wiring harness! So to see the pics of where the car is at with 900 hours, I can understand why it might be so. But did they do the car as I would do it? that is the question. do they give you a rundown of what they spent time on or do they just give you a bill to pay? I would be interested to see how long they spent on each aspect of the job. Someone said that a body shop is not a restoration shop this is very true, I have had guys that had awesome reference from a production body shop that could not handle the restoration business.
Here is the 70 RT/SE we is building:

What is your labor rate?

At 500 hours with a $40/hr rate you are saying a full resto paint job like on that challenger with no metal replacement is $20,000.

Does that 500 hours include disassembly of trim/moldings etc?

How many hours would it be for a car that was delivered as a shell for only the parts that needed paint. With a shell like this there are no parts to store around the body shop to get fithy, broken, or lost. Nor take up valuable body shop square footage.

Like this:

Attached picture 7576030-ChallUnloadPnt2.JPG

Attached picture 7576030-ChallUnloadPnt2.JPG

Posted By: a12superbee

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 09:45 AM

Man you guys talk some scary numbers.

Posted By: autoxcuda

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 10:20 AM

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Man you guys talk some scary numbers.

I think some of the body/paint quotes include removal and reinstalling of pieces that a halfway mechanically inclined owner should be doing before/after hand.

Crazy thing is, people have shopped around here and got top quality work done here in So Cal for less to same price. And So Cal is suppose to be the worst place for this kind of business with all the paint regulations, business fee, taxes, high cost of living, high cost of housing, high cost of rent...

How can a place in the middle of the boondocks with low gov. regs, property values by the acre, and cheap cost of living charge more?

Posted By: Challenger 1

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 01:45 PM

Don't know how far away the shop is from your home? When my car went to the body shop for paint, I went there everyday after work to see and mainly learn from the guys working on my car. They each would use a time card that they would punch when they start working on my car. Somedays there was 3 guys at a time working on it.By being there everyday I had a good feel for what was done and how long it took. It was only there 10 days, maybe because they got tiried of seeing me everyday?? lol

No problem on my end when it came time to pay the bill.

Posted By: gtx6970

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 02:32 PM

The 1970 Cuda last year I did took just over 400 hours - start to finish.

When I get the car is was a painted but stripped shell. Nothing bolt on other than sheet metal was on it.
I did the dash,steering column , dynomat the interior, ( that alone took nearly 2 full days btw) And ALL the assy work as well as all the custom fab work to install a full aftermkt A/C system, Custom made ft sway bar brackets because the ones supplied with the aftermkt ft bar didn't fit the K frame . Custom made brackets to to mount the park brake system due to the frame connectors in the way , etc etc etc

Every single wire harness in it is brand new (even that created an issue to diag a wiper motor issue turned out to be 2 wires crossed in the main dash harness, like that can be planned for )
Engine was done, trans was done, rear axle was done.

etc etc etc .

Anyone who looks at a car and says they can give you an accurate estimate restoring old cars is feeding you a bunch of bs to get the job.

Ok, I'm done. gotta repair a firewall on a 1968 Charger today. And it has to look like it was never done

before

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Posted By: gtx6970

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 02:34 PM

Finished product.

Attached picture 7576155-6-26-8.JPG

Posted By: gtx6970

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 02:36 PM

And it's 1st major showing.
Did it go over what we both thought it would cost? sure did. Nearly doubled it btw .
The owner changed some things mid way that created issues , but overall it worked our for both of us. And he gets all giggly when ever he gets in the car.
For me personally I think the car could be better. But HE'S happy with it and that's all that matters.

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Posted By: sixpackbee

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 03:23 PM

On a car that solid and just a driver type job I would put the hours at between 300-400 for where they are at right now. Sort of hard to put a real precise figure on it as I have not seen the car in person but judging from the pictures metal work looked minimum which is where the cars I end up doing suck up a lot of hours. Just an educated opinion.

Posted By: Aero426

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 03:32 PM

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I'll give you my humble opinion based on 25 years of restoring over 50 Mopars. I have done every kind of resto from basic, to resto mod, to OE Gold winners. 900 hours is getting into pro-territory, so I would expect some top shelf work with those hours.
One of the big problems I see is many shops just DO NOT know the ins & outs of Mopars, and it's a big learning curve for them. Our shop can do things that would take other shops twice as long just because of our experience.
At this point you need to decide if you want to ride it out or box it all and move on to a Mopar only shop. At this point in the game, they should be able to give you an idea the time needed to finish the job-but I bet they wont or can't because their lack of experience.

Agree with everything Paul says here. You should expect some productivity gains from a restoration shop that knows what they are doing. Doesn't seem like you are getting that benefit.

You have to decide whether you are going to pull the plug and take the car elsewhere. Given that you are getting uncomfortable, the project is far enough along that they should be able to give you a good faith estimate on finishing. If they can't, I'd begin to think about other options.

At 900 hours, that is the same as one guy working almost half a year only on that car. That seems like a lot of hours for where you are now. My gut tells me they are stringing you along as a cash cow.

Posted By: LimeliteAero

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 03:33 PM

Im in the middle of a full monty on a low mileage super minimal rust 6BBL superbird.
I delivered the car to the shop as a rolling shell but needed to redo some items that I did prior to deciding on a rotisserrie restoration.
Im in pretty deep and wont have color until the next few weeks. the shop will then reinstall the vinyl top and reassemble the doors including glass installation minus the windshield. By the time I get the car theyll be around 800 hours???? I wont tally my reciepts until Im finished because I dont wanna

until its finished.

EDIT: I just took a quick look at the invoices for labor and I'll be in under my first estimate by a couple hundred hours. I was including materials and some other items that shouldnt be included in the labor.

Posted By: ryangtogtx

Re: Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration - 02/05/13 04:05 PM

It definitely pays to pick the right shop. We learned this lesson the hard way too. We chose a "reputable" shop that was well known and advertises in all of the major magazines. They had really nice facilities and were located about an hour away. Unfortunately, we did not check references with prior customers. The main focus of this shop turned out to be to bilk as many billable hours out of the customer as they could. After we were in deep, I tracked down a couple of guys that had used them and they said the same thing. Their estimate was only half of what the actual costs would have been. Both guys I talked to had them complete their cars because they felt they had no choice. They both spent 200K for what they were quoted to cost 100K. We, on the other hand, picked up our car once metal work was done and found a small & honest Mopar focused shopwithin 1 1/2 hrs of home . If we had taken it to him to begin with, our whole bill probably would have been what we spent at the first shop. By the way, the car is in this months issue of MCG and the "reputable" shops advertisement is right below the article's last page

. Too bad they didn't name them in the article.

Hour timeframe on a rotisserie restoration