First time buyer, help and advice needed!

[Chix]

Thanks everyone, I’m so looking forward to getting my teeth into this.

[trunt]

eeek!! Brave man indeed..

I hope you can weld paint and do bodywork. Johns hit the nail on the head, paying other people to do the work just doesn’t make sense given the value of a well sorted car unless it’s sentimental. The only way to keep it within reality is do it all yourself, paint weld the lot. I have the tools and skills to do just about everything but I’m still $20k or more into this car, and it was pretty rust free..

Maybe you are like me? I enjoy the work involved and when someone asks I can honestly say “I did that” me.. not just my cash and that’s worth a lot.. to me anyway.

Good luck! We are here for you..

[bullstarz]

Hope you saved enough cash to sort out the tunes for the car. Play it loud enough you cant hear all the bangs, knocks and whines. There's places to hide amps and crossovers, subs can be a pain over 10" unless your passenger has short legs then 12" will fit.

My passengers listen to Great music

whether they like it or not

Its not too loud
There just too old

[flying farmer]

If you got it cheap enough it will be worth it.

My first Stag turned out to be a well polished turd and I ended up doing the back half a few years ago. The front is this Winters project.

Neil

[new to this]

Got any better pictures of the car

Dave

[RogerS]

Good on you brave man.We are here to help.

Roger S

[DJT]

Brave man!


And I speak as one who has gone through the pain with 2 Stags....... Both of which were far worse under the skin than they appeared.

[richardthestag]

good man

[Chix]

Its all down to the price and to what standard you want your Stag to be.

I did exactly that, used that evidence and got the price right down. Towed it back last night, it's now sat in my garage.

If you can be prepared to do the work sooner, catch it before it gets any worse, then you will have a solid car which you will know has been done correctly. Rather then pay a fortune for great looking car only to have to repair it a few years down the line.

My thoughts exactly...

What could possibly go wrong.

Precisely! Life's too short!

So hello everyone, I'm a Stag owner!

I'll get on to the membership side of things ASAP...

I'm sure you'll hear a LOT more of me over the next few days/ weeks/ moths/ decades....

[JOHNS]

In my experience, which I am sure has been shared by hundreds of others, chasing rust in a car ia a never ending task. When I decided to do a full restoration of my 78 Stag I wanted a complete body rebuild starting with a stripped shell blasted back to bare metal. I did all the dismantling to the bare shell myself. I knew that the front end was in need of full restoration with new wings and front panels but we found the inner wings were badly corroded as well requiring major work. Sills required replacing. We renewed three floor panels. Drivers door was a disaster and on hindsight I should have bought a replacement requiring less work. Rear end did not require much work apart from serious work on the nearside rear wing.
Economics wise now a full bare metal shell respray will cost in the region of £4000 which includes £1000 for materials and probably around £500-700 for blasting. Any reputable body shop will be charging a minimum of £40-45/hour +20% VAT for fabrication work. My final body shop bill for my rebuild was £14.000 inc VAT. This does not include the price of replacement panels which I supplied.
To break this down £14,000 less VAT is around £12.000 which equates to 266 man hours at £45/hr. Working a 40 hour week this is only a duration of 7 weeks. In reality my car was in the body shop for nearly one year as many cars are being worked on at the same time.
My advice, which is obvious, is to buy a car where someone else has gone through the restoration pain and has a fully documented rebuild photographic history. You will have to pay for this but if you don't inevitably over the years you will end up paying out the same money and lose a lot of driving time.
I know that I will never recoup the money I have spent on my rebuild but I did it because I have no intention of selling the car as I have owned it since it was a few months old.

[bullstarz]

At least you can see what you are getting in to, its not all bad. Yes lots of filler but depends if it done properly. The owner before me on my Stag paid for a full restoration backed up with bills/receipts including 4 wings. In reality they just did sections and arches. If they had done a good job it would have lasted years but a crap job soon showed up their shoddy workmanship.

The wielding does look a bit poor but if they got good penetration it could be more structural then a pretty weld. Its all down to the price and to what standard you want your Stag to be.

If you can be prepared to do the work sooner, catch it before it gets any worse, then you will have a solid car which you will know has been done correctly. Rather then pay a fortune for great looking car only to have to repair it a few years down the line.

What could possibly go wrong.

[flying farmer]

From experience I can say rectifying previous bodges is far more work than starting from an unmolested rust heap as you have to cut back further than the previous bodges. This means that any repair panels that have been fitted cannot be replaced with the same panel, you have to buy something bigger, more expensive and more difficult to fit
I spent a while trying to find a Stag with a non original engine as they are generally substantially cheaper than ones with an original engine for a given condition, ended up buying a total restoration project but it didn't need much welding apart from bodged outriggers exactly like the ones on that car
Neil

[ramjam2005]

As others have said ...Walk away .there's already evidence of past attempted welding and badly done at that.

[new to this]

Can you weld ? it looks like its going to need
1/ rear valance and maybe part of the boot floor
2/ out riggers floor edges or replacement floor panels
3/ sill and foot well repair
4/ front chassis rail repair

Dave

[redstag]

Yes, walk away. Pictures show a mixture of bodges and very poor quality welded repairs. It needs major restoration work done.
It's obvious why he wants rid of it.

Pete