The Challenge

[Tedlark]

fp, so much double talk. you said; you spend money on hobbies that don't make money but bring you pleasure. DUH, isn't that exactly what going to the casino is.

regarding those you fault for mentioning it is possible to make money at a casino. i see very little of that and your comments disputing that assertion dwarf any mention of making money. my personal belief is the number of gamblers who actually make money gambling is soooo small, not worth discussing. probably the same percentage as those who restore a car and actually make money selling it for a profit, after all costs are considered.

is it any more of a 'sin' to spend your money on purchasing, restoring, insuring, maintaining a vanity car than donate money to a casino. why don't you donate all the royalty checks you are collecting to some worthy cause? sell your vanity car and do the same.

no more lectures.

notes may I add: when selling a car for profit, many people fail to take into account the number of labor hours that they put into the car. It is easy to add up sales receipts for things like Isky cams and rebuilt transmissions but when it comes to calculating labor hours, that's when things get a bit muddled.

[notes1]

no one wants to be lectured.

So take the challenge. I'm betting you can't.

why would i take your challenge,i have no interest in stopping my trips to casino.

how about this, you just stop lecturing altogether and quit beating the same subjects over and over and over and ov.....

[Jstark]

Man, you guys have been busy today...

[Tedlark]

Man, you guys have been busy today...

Slow news day, lol.....

[notes1]

ted i know absolutely nothing about cars and don't want to know. tell me where to put the gas.

but, you are correct, all the time one puts into a car project, should be considered. as you are a car guy, how much would you guess he has in this car. and, what would it sell for.

what i am is a money guy and it seems to me that folks often overestimate the value of the cars they own, the antiques they have bought, the art they own, the real estate they own, jewelry, etc. the one thing about the stock market is that one knows the exact value of what they own, everyday at 4pm.

[FAA]

In black and white. And these days, all too red all over.

[Tedlark]

ted i know absolutely nothing about cars and don't want to know. tell me where to put the gas.

but, you are correct, all the time one puts into a car project, should be considered. as you are a car guy, how much would you guess he has in this car. and, what would it sell for.

what i am is a money guy and it seems to me that folks often overestimate the value of the cars they own, the antiques they have bought, the art they own, the real estate they own, jewelry, etc. the one thing about the stock market is that one knows the exact value of what they own, everyday at 4pm.

notes I really don't know where to begin. FP said that it took a long time for him to find this car but yet with the amount of work that he said he put into it I would question what condition the car was in when he bought it. He said he was looking for a rust free car with certain options. The list of what he stated that was done to the car includes:

Replacing front end parts such as control arm bushings
Cleaning up the underside of the car
Installing big heads & new camshaft
Installing new distributor
Installing new intake manifold & carb
Electrical system conversion to 12 volts
Rebuilt engine
Rebuilt rear end
Rebuilt suspension
Rebuilt brakes
New exhaust system

When you install new front end parts such as control arm bushings you normally install some other front end parts as well and you usually put new tires on because you'll also do a front end alignment. Cleaning up the underside of the car includes a lot of scraping and sanding then painting or undercoating. Some people do this to dress up the bottom of the car but some also do it to minimize any rust issues. If this is a Texas car and if came from the gulf coast area then rust may have hit this car a bit. He mentioned that the block was bored .060 over and this would mean installing new pistons which would also mean that the crank was redone too. The heads were most likely milled and rebuilt so new valves & lifters (this would only make sense if installing a new camshaft) would also be installed. The rear end was rebuilt and 4.11 gears were dropped in (the original ratio was 3.73). This makes no sense to me going to a 4.11 rear end, which is a respectable street gear but it greatly reduces gas mileage going from 3.73 to 4.11. A 4.11 is not really a good gear for sustained highway speeds but an overdrive transmission is good for sustained highway speeds. Doing much highway driving in overdrive with the 4.11 could actually hurt the rear end. I personally didn't redo my rear end "pig" but had a shop do them because the tolerances and shimming need to be very precise or otherwise you are asking for trouble.This would also lead me to believe that Phil didn't rebuild the transmission himself but sent it out too (for the same reasons as the rear end but rebuilding a manual transmission is a bit easier than a rear end). With the car producing 250 horsepower (as Phil stated), a jump from the factory 196 horsepower seems low considering what he states was done to the engine and the car. While the engine is apart you might as well stick on a new water pump because why put the old one back onto a rebuilt engine? Same for the radiator; it was probably done too. New exhaust means pipes & mufflers (pipes may have been bought from a company that makes knock offs as that is cheaper than having them custom bent from a shop), mufflers may be Magnaflow or Flowmasters (remember, Phil said there was no radio and you probably couldn't hear it anyway). The car has aftermarket rims on it with the wrong tires too.

Given that a machine work was done by a race car shop in Orlando makes me think that they did the entire engine rebuild. Phil may have thrown the engine back in and on a good day this is 12 hours. He probably sanded and painted the engine compartment while the engine was out. When Phil first mentioned that a new Isky cam was installed and the heads were done, this is commonly referred to as a "top end" rebuild. But then I realized Phil said the block was overbored .060 so this would normally include the pistons and crank being done and coupled with the top end rebuild I would consider this a total engine rebuild.

So, I'm guessing that Phil has about $32,500.00 invested in the car not including his labor. Given that he probably bought the car for $12,500.00 (I hope not much more) and right now market prices are anywhere from $17,500.00 - $45,000.00 (45,000.00 for a restored showroom ready car) I do not see this as a good investment and is solely for RECREATIONAL PLAY only. I wasn't counting cars going for stupid money because their owners made all kinds of stupid modifications that actually REDUCE the value because most people who buy and collect 55 - 57 Thunderbirds want them factory original (think Dan Tanna from the 70's tv show or Suzanne Summers white T-bird in American Graffiti). To me, considering what Phil has done to it - this is NOT a restored car but closer to a "resto-mod" and that is a hybrid modified restored car.

Sorry that I ran over the word count but once I get going it's like eating Pringle's and gets darn hard to stop.

So, what exactly was this challenge again??????

[olds442jetaway]

It doesn’t really matter but a really nice one like Phils could go for 40 or $50,000. However, there are more hours involved in restoring these cars then one can count, parts are super expensive, and sometimes very hard to find. Some Things have to be farmed out adding to the expense. All cars are a labor of love and meant to be enjoyed. One can buy a brand new SUV these days and spend the same money and then just a few years it’s worth just a few thousand bucks. Back in the 1970s I restored a 1946 Oldsmobile Sedan. I did everything myself spent a zillion hours on it, went to a few shows with it but mostly enjoyed driving it. It did take second place in a regional car show. I sold it in 1982 for exactly what I had into it in money. $4950. I’m guessing my pay for this labor of love or somewhere around $.10 an hour correction one cent an hour , But a family fell in love with the car and I sold it to them. I also gave them a ton of irreplaceable original factory literature photo catalogs etc. just gave them to them all of that stuff with the additional parts I’m sure was worth another thousand bucks or so But I didn’t care at that point and it was not about the money.

[notes1]

OMG, ted. i am sorry, i was just hoping for a ballpark estimate and you went way farther than i could ever have imagined. thanks for all the hard work, although i must admit, i don't know about 90% of what you are describing.

i don't fault anyone for pouring their soul (and money) into a project that gives them pleasure. again, it is their money, to do as they please. but, the same respect should be given to those who use their money to do something that one may not disagree with. this is something fp cannot seem to accept. if he doesn't agree with one spending their money on a financially losing proposition such as gambling, then no one should do it. well, i could give a rat's a$$ about some restored car, but i accept others may enjoy it.

thanks again for the effort. next time my car is making some odd sound, i know who to ask....you!

[Tedlark]

I completely agree. I could really care less how much Phil has in this car because the money and time into it aren't mine, they are his. If a person wants to throw their money out the window of the 20th floor hotel room they are staying in - who cares.

But, I do go to casinos with my main objective being to leave with more than I went in with. I don't go with my main objective being to have more fun than I was having prior to walking in. The main change in my play over the last 10 years is that I have become a much more disciplined player. When I hit a royal 2 days after Valentine's Day this year I had only been playing for 15 minutes. I cashed out just a few hands later up about 900 bucks, walked out of the casino and went home happy. To me; discipline is one of the main keys.

I'm not looking to have a posting war with Phil but he is preaching about the evils of gambling now and it is getting old quickly.