Benny's EK wagon

[Cal]

Unless you're a professional repairer, or you buy, repair and sell cars for the purpose of making money out of them, I'm not too sure you can count the time you spend on your own car as an expense.

Essentially it's a hobby, so I don't get the logic of adding up the hours spent working on your own car, then putting a value on it. When one does the business with the missus, they don't pass her an invoice at the end of the session

[WayneXG95]

Unless you're a professional repairer, or you buy, repair and sell cars for the purpose of making money out of them, I'm not too sure you can count the time you spend on your own car as an expense.

Essentially it's a hobby, so I don't get the logic of adding up the hours spent working on your own car, then putting a value on it. When one does the business with the missus, they don't pass her an invoice at the end of the session

issue an invoice.
I just leave it under the pillow. Cash transaction.

[STANLEY]

Beware the after sales service though!!!!!!!

[Smooth customs]

Unless you're a professional repairer, or you buy, repair and sell cars for the purpose of making money out of them, I'm not too sure you can count the time you spend on your own car as an expense.

Essentially it's a hobby, so I don't get the logic of adding up the hours spent working on your own car, then putting a value on it.

I know lots of people who keep track of their times just as a reference to how long each piece took. And adding a labour charge shows how much it may have cost if sent out. And their possible saving.
When going to insure a classic, I have seen owners get better value cover based on a complete listing of parts and material costs and hours spent on the project. Never enough to do a complete replacement but every little bit extra helps


When one does the business with the missus, they don't pass her an invoice at the end of the session

That is a very male reply, who is charging who depends on whoever thinks they are supplying a service to the other party.
A very grey area, and best left alone

[MeFB]

Beware the after sales service though!!!!!!!

And never ask for your deposit back...

[STANLEY]

Same is true with all trades unforunately.

I do a fair bit of resto work on old Ducati's, the engines in these things are a work of art internally (& externally) but they have 48 separate places to be shimmed & adjusted during assy. Most young dudes dont even want to know & alot of those that do still struggle because they have never been taught something as simple as how parts work together to produce an end result.

Painting would be much the same I expect with types of paints etc. & prepping for the end result being hard to instill to someone who sees the quick & easy way with a shiny paint finish, not looking forward 5-10yrs.

[vmx-mxr]

Nice job Paul - Benny should be a pretty happy man cruising in that wagon. Great attention to detail with no stone unturned!

I agree with Tim.

If you are winding back a bit there would be no harm finding a young (or not so young) apprentice that could prove he/she had a love of the old cars and old ways of working on them. They are out there - a young bloke I know very well was wanting to do an apprenticeship in 'proper' panel-beating and is a pretty handy guy around cars but all they do is un-bolt - correct chassis - and re-bolt. Sign of the times I know but custom and resto is much more in the skills required department!

Is that wagon going to be a driver?

Cheers

Dave Mac

[vmx-mxr]

"I do a fair bit of resto work on old Ducati's, the engines in these things are a work of art internally (& externally) but they have 48 separate places to be shimmed & adjusted during assy. Most young dudes dont even want to know & alot of those that do still struggle because they have never been taught something as simple as how parts work together to produce an end result."

Sure do agree on that Dave - just never added up all the shimming we do on Ducati engines, lol. No wonder I've got to have big selections of shims

Pity the skills are going - seems like it is the way of the world.

Dave Mac

[Stygian]

They can still restore steam locomotives, so I'm guessing the skills to restore old cars will persist sometime into the future. It'll just cost an increasing amount of money, like the one million dollars they spent on getting the Germans to make a brand new boiler and firebox for 3801, only to get it back here and find it was stuffed

[EK283]

Pity the skills are going - seems like it is the way of the world.

Yep and its no wonder why.

A friend of mine has been working for Renault overseas and he tells me they are playing around with hydraulic baffles so you can't dump the engine oil unless you take it in to an approved dealer. Plug the computer in open the gate, instant oil dump.

Got to wonder about this brave new world

Regards Greg

[browny]

Amazing wagon! worth ever cent

new custom job for Renault's drill and tap a sump plug in

[Smooth customs]

It's a shame to see Smooth having to retire,

I am not retireing, wish I could. Am having to stop doing work where physical strength and prolonged effort is required.
Like most everyone else I need to eat and pay the bills, hopefully for quite a few more years.
Now I just need to find something I can do and get paid for

Paul, it would be fantastic if there was an opportunity for you to train apprentices and other young tradespeople (and still bring home the bacon)
In 20 years time many of the real skills of the automotive trade will be lost forever - for instance, imagine a 3rd year mechanic doing a tune up and tappet adjustment on a holden grey no machine to plug in. You'd be surprised how many times I have needed to rediagnose my wife's 5 series BMW when the mechanic wants me to pay for a $x'000 quote, only to do my own diagnosis and fix it with a simple part for a few hundred dollars. It's not that the mechanics are trying to rip you off, they just don't have any ability to mechanically interpret what the computer is giving them as fault codes. If mechanics were starting on the basics without using computers than they might have half a chance..............
OK speech over, but my point is you have a lot to give Paul.

Tim

Been there done that, trained apprentices and shown some tradesmen some things they didnt know. And I have learnt off them as well.
Have applied to tafe up here a couple of times, but I am unsuitable. My skills and knowledge dont apply to the trade of today and the future. And people like me are a threat to others well established in the system. Lastly I am not politically correct and will not conform to the new systems of how apprentices are trained and must be passed.

I have offered my knowledge here several time, but my tone is not liked by many.
So I have a couple of things I want to finally do for me. And a couple of people here like Scotty know and understand what and why.
after the finish of Bens wagon I may not be seen or heard of around here.
I will keep looking in as I have a great interest in FB EK Holdens and my youngest daughter has an EK Wagon project for one day.
And I will keep making Cruzin Skirts and some of the other bolt on custom pieces that I have been making for the last 17 years if there iis still interest.

This post is and was about Bens wagon. Not me.
so if the job done is still of interest questions on it are what is important here

[MeFB]

More pictures, more pictures...

[Smooth customs]

Things that piss me off during a rebuild!

Its not nice to bitch about some parts and or suppliers that are used during the rebuild of any car. But!
I do not use the cheapest available parts, but do like a good deal. And try and give my customers the best available parts as it reflects on the finished job.
On a rebuild or resto you can not escape replacing most of the rubber seals on the body.
So I bought a "Complete" rubber kit for the wagon at what was a conciderable amount of money, but it came from the biggest suppliers of repoduction Holden parts in Australia. So you would expect that their components should be the best available.
First thing I found when laying out my purchase, and doing a mental assesment, was that there were quite a few pieces missing. I wont go into my conversations with my supplier and the parent company. In the end I had to buy seperatly from them and a couple of other companies what else was needed
Now we get to the fitting of these rubber components. Some did, others sort of fitted, and the remander I reverted to a lot of stuffing around and adding or making pieces to do the job.

One comment i heard a few times was "You would not understand whats involved in producing parts like this" But I do! in the late 70's and 80's we had a manufacturing buisness that supplied repoduction rubber components for a make of car I will not mention. We made everything here in OZ, as we have with everything we have done in the past 30 odd years. And set levels of quality and controll.

Here are some of the things I had to rectify or change
the front screen was in more times that I wish to mention, moulds would not sit properly and the screen would not seat into position as it should. I aquired another screen rubber from the same supplier that when measured was 25mm shorter than the one I was trying to fit. This new rubber fitted way better.
Have a look at the "NEW " tailgate rubber. no way would that ever seal. So another was supplied, over a week later when they could find one good enough to send. Looked and fitted better but leaked like you would not believe. I spent two full days reworking the complete upper and lower rubbers to get better fit and seal. Plus repainting area after removing the first lot of rubbers
And this is time you can not charge the customer for, a s he is paying good money for a component that should only need fitting once

Its extremly frustrating that so much repoduction material is not 100% correct concidering the investment some companies put into production. Almost there is not good enough today with the technology we have. How hard is it to replicate something made 50 years ago. Very hard by what I have seen in the last ten or so years.

[Trev]

Vary frustrating Paul, the company you speak of probably thinks these cars aren't meant to be driven in the rain anyway .