Martin,
Sounds to me like you should get a new estimate. Not having seen the car,
I would estimate body work 3K to 6K & paint 2K.
1. Do not sink this kind of $$$ into this car unless you understand that you
will never get it out and it is NOT an investment. You can purchase a
good condition B for $3K or less. If you proceed you are doing this out of
love for the car, or insanity (I claim a bit of both for my TR3 work).
2. If you are going through more than a minor expense for body work,
settle for nothing less than replacing rust through with new metal.
If pannels are badly rusted, purchase new ones & have the old panels replaced
by a shop with experience doing this kind of work. If the pannel
has a rusty area but is otherwise sound, have the shop cut out the bad metal,
and weld in sound metal. A spot rust through hole can be filled by welding.
DONT SETTLE FOR BONDO OR GLASS FIBRE OVER A RUST HOLE unless you are doing
it on the cheap.
3. Make very sure the shop knows exactly what you want & have them write it into
the estimate. If you want it to bare metal, say so.
4. Shops will usually come in cheaper if you ask them to bid on a whole job
then if you have them bid & do it a part at a time. I had a problem
paying for the TR3 work. I found a shop willing to work with me who had
space to store the car. The worked on it in stages as I saved the money &
paid them for the previous stage. Some people have lost their cars,
because they ended up with a bill larger than they could pay. I could
have them stop at any time with only a small outstanding & restart when I
could afford it (downside is the car is off the road longer)
5. painting - most of the cost is prep work. You can pay $40-50/hr for
them to sand or you can do it yourself. SInce I have 3 cars to paint,
I purchased a compressor & paint gun & am learning how to do the
prep wotk myself. I took the car down to metal myself, had a shop do
body work & first primer. I sanded primer & added additional coats
myself to get it ready for final colour. I will put final colour on
places that do not show (inside boot, floors, under upolstry, engine
compartment, etc), and have a pro pain shop put final colour coat on
outside of already preped car. SInce I'm not planing to take the 'BGT
all the way down to bare metal (metal is sound), I will sand existing paint
and add spot filler myself then prime, seal & sand then have a pro
spray final colour in a dust free temp controlled booth. It is a significant
time drain, but there are significant money savings.
6. Or you can locate a poorly maintained B with a good body & switch over
parts from your B.
7. Or you can byte the bullet, pay big $$$s for the work, get it done quickly
& spend your weekends & evenings doing other things than sanding.
TeriAnn
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