73 3.0CS Restoration Underway

dpdapper

dpdapper

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I've been meaning to post a link to the photos of the ongoing restoration of our '73 Chamonix/red leather 3.0CS, which is taking place in the capable hands of Peter Sliskovich (aka The Coupe King) in the Los Angeles area.

This is a car we've owned since the early '90s, and it had a Carl Nelson 3.5L/5-speed transplant a few years ago. But when my wife got into a minor fender-bender late last year (not her fault!), it was time to take the car in for what we thought would be a "freshening up" of the car. . . .
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Well, turns out the tin worm had gotten (much) further along that we thought
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, as you can see from the the photos here: http://www.coupeking.com/product_id-497.html.

The car is out for painting now, so no more updates until it's back from the paint shop.
 
For all of us undecided ones, trying to pull the trigger on a repair/respray, can you disclose estimated cost? What is impressive is the Coupeking knowledge and capability. If the cost is competitive, it may be worth it to ship the car to LaLa Land and let a real pro take charge!
 
Work continues--the car is back from the paint shop and reassembly is underway. Updates here: http://www.coupeking.com/product_id-497.html

Hoping for completion by the end of the month--in time for Coupefest and the Monterey Historics at Laguna Seca!


PS I've replied privately to John Hein's post, lest anyone think I'm ignoring him!
 
Taking the roof off is a bit drastic. Why did they do that ?

I would imagine the cost for all the work is going to be a lot more than the car is worth?
 
Rust around the sunroof was too significant to repair. This is apparently not the first time Peter Sliskovich has done a "top transplant." Having seen the car after returning from the paint shop, you can't tell. And additional welds were added to the body at strategic points to increase overall stiffness just in case. The real tests will be when the windows and seals are reinstalled and, of course, once the car is on the road.

As for the value of the car before and after: who knows? Peter reports having recently sold a fully restored '73 CSi with matching numbers, etc. for an ungodly amount of money. In any event, if economic value were the only factor in undertaking a restoration, I doubt anyone would do it!
 
Congrats of your restoration!! I'm biased, but I think you'll be happy...

The decision about restoration, as a means to coupe ownership, is certainly not easy....

For those considering this path, it does require a bit due diligence before pulling the trigger. What level of car are you expecting? Who can you trust? How much are you willing to spend, relative to any available cars for sale may be a good starting point.

If patience is a virtue, get to know the best coupes and their owners, no matter where they may be. If possible, travel to where the cars are. Understand the difference between cars generally available and selling from $10k to $40k, and those not aren't often for sale, but whose pricing reflects a quality restoration. Ultimately, someone will want to sell...not simply for what it can bring in a sale, but also because a new prospective owner can appreciate what they are buying.

Sadly, I had no patience....

I did, however, investigate Don Detlefson's The Werk Shop, Matt McGuinn's
Sports Car Classics, and Coupeking. I would now also add Mario Langsten of VSR1 Racing.

Any one of these are fine choices, or one could follow the path of Alvin Tan's Jabberjaw or Paul Cain's 3.8 CSI.

Ultimately, its a personal choice--but my thought is that if you're gonna spend $$, be happy with what you get, because you're prepared to get what you want.
 
dpdapper said:
As for the value of the car before and after: who knows? Peter reports having recently sold a fully restored '73 CSi with matching numbers, etc. for an ungodly amount of money. In any event, if economic value were the only factor in undertaking a restoration, I doubt anyone would do it!
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Even though it is more expensive to do a car yourself at least you will be know it's been restored properly.

At the end of it you'll hopefully get a car that is better than when it was new and still be cheaper than buying a new 6 series and you will have something that should maintain it's value (well until they outlaw petrol anyway! :().
 
rlambert said:
Taking the roof off is a bit drastic. Why did they do that ?

I would imagine the cost for all the work is going to be a lot more than the car is worth?
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After nearly 40 years in the collision & metal shaping trades the way they did that roof makes perfect sense to me if the repair shop goes to the max to prevent future rust at the weld points. Welding patches in a very flat panel like a CS coupe’s roof skin is a body man’s nightmare, I would say less than 2% of the body men could do that repair successfully & properly. First off you have to be able to get to both sides of the skin to be able to hammer and dolly out your weld shrinkage, a real problem if not impossible :cry: when you consider all the under structure on a sunroof car. Secondly you don’t want a roof skin that’s loaded up with plastic filler, the excessive heat upper panels get from the sun and the vibrations large flat horizontal panels are prone to will test a poor repair over time :cry:. Another thing to consider is if there are 2 or 3 spots bubbling from rust starting to break thru there will very likely be several more spots :cry: a few years down the road so changing that roof skin is the most realistic way for the repair person to stand behind his work for a number of years. I like sunroofs myself and don’t think I would bother restoring a coupe for myself without one but after having said that the sad truth is they are prone to rust problems and a very difficult area to repair :cry: properly. Just getting the doors to line up on a hardtop with that much structural repair is not a job for the apprentice body man.

If that were my car (a white sunroof coupe with 3 pedals is my dream :) sans the red gut) I’d buy a half dozen of the cheapie rechargeable spray cans with the plastic tube spray wands from Harbor Freight and give them to the shop owner. Tell him to drill small holes in the substructure and blow paint in with those thin plastic spray tubes. Blow paint into all the roof ribs, into the rocker panels, into the uni-body rails, the bottoms and all the hem edges on the doors, the bottoms of the quartet panels and the wheel arches, inside the door posts and on and on ---- every sealed panel should have paint blow into it from different angles if possible. Seal the small 1/8” or 3/16” holes with body caulking if you must or just paint the edges of the holes and leave them for future use. Find out who’s going to do this task and give him a $50 tip before he even does it or even better buy the whole shop lunch so they know how much you appreciate their work and they will go the extra mile for you. Now you have done the maximum to save all that work & money spent on your restoration. Remember every weld is surrounded by blue heated metal which is only a few days away from turning brown from rust, that is why you want to get paint on it as soon as possible to keep oxygen from reaching it and hopefully stop the rusting process before it starts. Good luck :), it is not an easy process, it's certainly not a cheap process :cry:. ~ John Buchtenkirch


P.S. I would like to know what the roof skin's dealer price was ?
 
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