I've been watching the auction sites and even though I said I wouldn't do this, how much $$ would I really be looking at to have a salvageable e-type with floor rot repaired. I'm fine with nut and bolt work but I'd want a competent professional to do all of the sheet metal work.

 

That depends. Below is most of a complete 'repair'. It is nearing the finish line and will be something over 200K in total, but it IS a total restoration.


Prior to restoration

Ready for dipping

New floor in

All the metalwork complete, ready for body work

Completed bodywork, primers, base coats and clearcoats

Suffolk and Turley interior going in

Engine, AC, suspension electrical complete

 

It is highly likely there is a lot more rot than just floors. You would really need to have the car inspected by a professional body repairer to ascertain the work to be done. Body panels are almost all available. Certainly you would need to allocate many thousands of dollars. Bodywork is almost all labour charges, then you have the repaint to consider. Ideally, the car would be disasembled and the body repairs done on a bare shell. There is no sheet metal forward of the bulkhead, (firewall), just the bonnet, (hood)

 

Wow, that's impressive. I think you like working on cars more than I do, LOL

I'm confident I can identify the work needed but I can't weld for sh*t and don't intend to learn. Unsurprisingly it sounds like it would be cheaper to buy a car that's already been repaired.

What I intend to end up with is something with my preferred minimalist aesthetic. Think "race car" rather than "show car". I like stuff that I don't feel guilty about modifying in whatever way suits me.

 

Allen,
The cost of replacing the floor really depends on how much rot there really is, and how much work you do prior to delivering the car to the body shop.
Just replacing the floors should be the cost of the parts plus the labor which in my area would be about $3K. That does not include any paint work that may be necessary. I really think that you should have a competent body shop evaluate the floor repair and possible surrounding areas for peripheral rust. They look at this with different eyes than we do. If the inner sills get involved the cost will go up from there. If you want to get the car painted....consider from $7.5K and up for a nice paint job.
Good luck and let us know what you decided to do.
Bill.

 

Thanks. I was thinking 5k was as much as I'd want to spend, excluding paint and disassembly. I wouldn't take on something as far gone as the pictures shown above. He's a braver man than me. 😂

 

Trust me, that car was not something you would have thought of as ‘far gone’. It *needed* repairs that could have been the type of patches you seem to be contemplating. That would have been safe and drivable for a few years until you repeated the process. That could likely have been done for 10-20K fully turn-key. But I would have still had a car that was rather tired and old; not what I wanted.

I have another, older, OTS E-Type that really IS very far gone. It would absolutely require the treatment that the FHC in the pics got and It would not cost terribly much more to do.

My advice to you is to do one of two things:

1) buy a car that was fully restored in the fairly recent past (and confirm the ‘fully’ part)

- or -

2) buy something that constitutes the remains of a car and do a full restoration

Alternately,

3) buy something that is patchable.

The problem with option 3 is that there is MUCH less certainty about what you are getting and how much risk all the tired bits represent. Also, you never really get the car you might want.

Best of luck

 

Option 1 is preferable and not unaffordable. Option 2 is a no-go. Option 3 is really option 1 when it doesn't go well.

I've bought enough old crap to know that you do your best when you're buying but you get what you get and figure it out later. The last rental property I bought looked okay and I knew there were issues to be resolved but I figured some things are difficult but some stuff you catch a break on. As it turned out EVERYTHING I touched had been bodged together and needed redoing. I did some of it myself, hired the rest and made it work. In the end I did okay.