1.  Budget.  This is the total amount of money you are prepared to spend on the build.  Regardless if you plan to keep or flip the car, you need to have a firm number in mind before you even start.  You can research what a car should be worth all day long, in the end you have to fork over those hard earned dollars to get it there.  The Budget is your friend. Without one, a build can quickly get out of control as you you choose those new, bright, and shiny  part  and finish options.  Having a budget ensures your dream does not become a bankruptcy nightmare sitting unfinished under a tarp in your driveway or garage.

2.  Hours of Labor and Materials.   Even if you  can do some work yourself, chances are you are going to need to help to get it finished. Estimates from reliable shops help, but they are estimates.  Always figure extra with older cars as things not seen at first , i.e. rust, bondo, etc., will get found once work starts.  Those factors add into the labor hours and the amount of materials used to correct any problems.  Also, if you are going through the process of building or restoring, do it right the first time.  Nothing worse than spending money only to have to do it again in the near future because you wanted to try to save a couple hundred dollars.  You will thank yourself later.

3.  Parts.  You will need parts.  It never fails.  Even if the car is complete something somewhere will need to be replaced, repaired, or remade.  It is why you got the car for such a deal to begin with, right?  On older cars not all parts are easily found and some must be fabricated.   That will tie in with #2 and hours of labor and materials.  Other parts will have to be shipped from who knows where so there is also that cost.  

4.  Paint-  No matter how much  money you pay for it, if the body and prep work on a car are not done perfectly the paint will never look as good as it should. The paint job is what takes your build from ehh to WOW!  Let's face it, if the car does not look good,  it won't draw attention- not even yours! This is not the place to skimp.
There are, of course, many other factors especially when it comes to customization.  But that discussion is for another day. 

One more thought.  Sad as it is to say, not all cars should be restored.  I have had to tell people their dream car sitting under that tarp in the  yard needed to be given up for scrap.  Some are too far gone no matter how much money you are prepared to throw at it.  Find the best car you can for what you can afford.  The better shape it is in, the better it is for your budget.
 

With the floors done we can  now move to another section of the car.  This week it was the driver's door.  Rust on  lower doors is pretty much expected on a 44 year old car, and this one is no exception.  The driver's side door had rust of varying degrees along the entire bottom.  On the outside, the rear corner had to be cut out and a new piece welded in place.  While there, Matt ground off the tabs that held on the chrome molding since we will not be putting them back on for this car.  

Most of the work was done on the inside of the door.  With each corner eaten away by rust, Matt was busy welding new metal to both inside corners as well as fabricating the outside edge to look factory.  Also, one design flaw in this car was the where the weather stripping attached to the car along the bottom of the door.  For some reason the metal strip used to attach the weatherstripping was placed over the drain holes in the lower door.  This caused water to pool between both pieces of metal encouraging rust.  Though we could have covered it with rust converter and left it, we opted to cut and replace the metal since we already had everything we needed to do so.

That's it for this week. Hopefully next week we can get the passenger door done.  Until then, have a great weekend.  I"m still  going through the NPD catalog circling parts and marking pages!

Next on the cut out list was the floor pans.  The passenger side had to be completely removed and a new pan welded in, but on the driver's side only the rear part needed to be replaced. 

The rest of the week will be finishing up the floor pans as time allows as well as me kicking up my feet and looking through the bright, shiny NPD Parts Catalog that just arrived in the mail.