At club NARP there was a "restoration forum" that could have been REALLY helpful. It would be nice if we could get them all together in one forum here. I know that there are LOTS here, and all have something different to add. It would help a lot of people that are in the process of restoring a car to easily get information from members who have already gone through it and know how its done. I will gladly take the time to compile a list of all of the restoration threads here if we can get a new forum going for it. Admin?? Admin?? Are you out there?

interesting idea...

It seems like restoration should be under the Concours forum.

Personally, I like the way the other forums have a Garage and a Tavern or another forum for non-car related stuff.

Why Concours forum? There are all kinds of restorations. Maybe it should be changed to build threads. Amature restorations, race car builds, Concours restorations like michelkos... etc...etc. I always enjoy reading peoples build threads, and it would definetly help people that are in the process of doing a restoration themselves....

I think a restoration forum is a good idea. I'd certainly be there.

Zach

a genius must have come up with that idea

I know...who was that again???

to me, a restoration means taking the car or part/assemblies (such as floor boards or battery tray) back to original condition or better......

doing a hack patch panel to repair some rust on the floors or battery area with pop rivets is not a restoration, yet some people think it is...very misleading for the next poor sap to purchase the car or that is following the advice at home....

nothing wrong with an amature restoration as long as it is done correctly....

Hey yeah...we can charge admission.....

I'm thinking out loud here, but....what if there was a Restoration Forum that were links to the threads elsewhere?

There is a lot of info in those threads, if they were moved you wouldn't be able to search that info in the garage, with pointers from the restoration forum, *I think* you could search from either location to find the info.

I would have to disagree on that one. The percentage of people doing concours restorations is very small.

Hey Sean.

I think I like ther idea best. The search here really gives a lot of stuff you don't want. A page of links will keep the garage from being split up but will improve finding specific topics or threads. Also this way, old threads can be inserted right away. I doesn't need to start out empty.

How would it be different from the Classic Thread Forum?

I really like the idea of organizing all the great info on this site somehow to make it a little easier to sift through. Classic Threads is a great feature, but they are only a tiny sliver of what lies hiding in the archives. The Search feature works okay, but it's often a lot of work to find what you really need.

The idea of "restoration" as a theme sounds interesting. I like the idea of defining restoration as broadly as possible, though. Like pretty much any time you start digging into the car with the hope of making it better, as opposed to just repairing or replacing an item, or doing diagnosis and tuning. Some lucky bastards people have cars that are already in decent shape, and they can drive, maintain, and enjoy them without the real or imagined need to tear them apart. Others want to know how to deal with rust, where to get seals, what's the deal with chassis stiffening, DIY upholstry, paint, etc. I don't know that a specific restoration forum is a neccesity, but it does seem to address a specific sub-group of 914 people. Like Ferg. Not.

On another tack, since the admins don't have anything better to work on , I wonder if its possible to replace the search engine with something like google (that ranks hits by popularity) or some way to let people vote for threads that are useful/interesting. That way all of the good stuff in the archives could work its way to the top.