http://cprclassic.com/features.html
I was at this website and it has some pretty good pictures of restorations in progress. I have a time question for those of you who have done this. Given a non-rusty example of our car, how long would it take one person to disassemble and reassemble the car with the intent to do an entire color change. I realize there are variables that out of our control, such as rust repairs and the time its at the paint shop. This would not be a concours resto, but a "take it apart" to clean up and do a color change (interior and exterior). not something I want to farm out because most of us here can wrench pretty well. What is the ballpark amount of time given an 8-hour day, i.e, .how many months would it take a lone person to do this project, subtracting out the time for rust repair and paint. I look forward to this as a retirement project.

Most guys can't work on their cars 8 hrs. a day. If your retired who cares how long it takes. What else you gots ta do? Seriously, I would speculate it would take a seasoned 914 guy 40 hrs. to pull a car down to the shell. This is taking into consideration you have all your bins ready, your markers, various size freezer bags and good work bench space. You also need to understand that many of the parts you pull off the car will not be "good enough" when you start to try to put humpdy dumpdy back together again.

So while your car is at the shop you will spend another 10 hrs. Going through the bins by section, laying everything out on work benches in order from front to back or visa versa to assemble your punch list and get a large parts order ready for our member vendors. You have to do something with that pension money.

Now, if you can leave everything laid out in order until your car returns from the painter, Great! That will save time. If not you will need to repeat the second step and start over.

Then there is the parts cleaning process. Getting all the grit, grime and grease off everything you pulled from the car. Cleaning nuts and bolts, wiring harnesses, repairing terminal ends, putting together another large order for those special terminal boots and that stainless strap that goes on the brake reservoir because now you can't live with that rusty strap. This can take several days.

Once those parts are cleaned you can't just leave them raw. Out comes the masking tape and the bomb cans... Ooops, blew another several hours.

Assembly is always harder because you first you have to be careful not to scratch it. Then just when you think you were a smart guy and ordered all the parts you need you discover something that is now not fit to use. (dirk wrights disease) So you start over looking at your pile of parts, then the classified all over the internet, then eventually our member vendors again. Another big (but smaller this time) order is placed. Oh and don't forget the 20+ trips to the hardware store to replace the rusted and dirty nuts and bolts you "were" going to reuse....

We haven't even begun to explore the dirty engine, transaxle, trailing arms or front suspension stuff. This stuff can eat time. I would give yourself a month to go through the assembly. You'll end up finding yourself doing stuff like standing at the wire wheel cleaning bolts, then deciding it's not worth your time and heading to the store yet again to get another handful of fasteners....

Enjoy the process and you will do it again.

A pivotal issue is whether or not you can bring yourself to put a rusted dirty part back in place. I cannot. I plate it or paint it, and getting the grime and then rust off is detail hand work. To some extent you can probably batch it out for cleaning, but there goes your organization.

So I agree with Rick, but I would say that with my current and past projects parts refurbishment and sorting takes equal time to the time I spent hand rebuilding engine and tranny, welding in 1/4 - 1/3 of the sheet metal to replace rusted panels. Body work and then paint.
Full time for a job I am happy with: maybe 6 months total. Depends on whether you get the weekends off. Part time I am going 3-6 years per.

What ever you come up with as an estimate, multiply it by a factor of three to four times . Many things come up that you can't control and and they just add time to your project. I started my car many many years ago, a divorce and raising a daughter as a single dad turned my project into a 10+ year journey

Thanks, that's the kind of estimate of time I wanted to know. Giving myself an artificial deadline, and working it from there. I really don't want to to get a second teener, because in reality, we can only drive one at a time, that's why I sold a tail dragger many years back. And the fact that the car is already running fine, it would be a motivator to get it back on the road ASAP. I know I will enjoy the disassembly and reassembly process. There will be the challenge of sourcing new or refurbed parts, and working through unexpected repair issues, which Murphy's Law always introduces, but I think that will be part of the fun of the project, and overcoming those obstacles.

That's a question with a LOT of variables. There are some that can do it in 4-5mos, others that have taken 10 years.

Deadlines suck, I always miss mine. I'm resolved to the face that I'll finish when I finish. Half-assing things at the last min isn't cool when you're talking about a car that could potentially fail on you at an inopportune time. Hurting you, or others.

My resto to me started Nov. 2011 once it was media blasted but the car was missing some outer skin Ect. Like WORN i had every nut, bolt and washer re-plated and cleaned everything to like new condition. I just finished it over the weekend so roughly 3 years for a night and weekends project.

A year

I kept a day to day log with hours to do a full tub up rotisserie restoration, including engine rebuild which I did, and I also did all the paint and body on a pretty much rust free car. . . I worked full time, almost every day.
It took 2 weeks for the disassemble, and cataloging the parts.
From the time I started it was 1550 hours till it was on the ground and the engine first restarted. . That equated to a full 12 months, then another month to sort everything out. . total about 1700 hours when I quit counting. .

Ok fellas,
He asked about the mechanics of tear down and reassembly. The info I posted is just swag with a little experience mixed in for good measure.

Once your car goes on jack stands it may never come off.

The time line ranges from 6 months to forever...

All depends on budget, motivation and available time.

If you buy enough beer and meat, you can have club members come over and disassemble it in a couple hours.

Awesome, an Exact number. thank you. thank you all for your comments.

So at $10/ hr that's only $17000 for labor...