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Classic Car Collector Tips for Proper Preservation and Restoration
Every classic car collector should know how to keep their fully rebuilt and restored car looking great. Whether it’s body and paint maintenance, engine or interior car, or basic restoration and repair, knowing how to do certain things can help the average muscle car collector maintain the value and drivability of their classic car. Value, in other words, is maintained when your classic car is well kept and properly maintained.
Paint and Bodywork Maintenance
More than anything else, a well kept, properly maintained body and paint job will tell the world that you care about your car and how it important it is to you. A very often overlooked, but very important part of proper exterior care are the rare wheels these classic muscle cars came from the factory with. Products specifically formulated and designed for wheel care, such as scrubbing and polishing brushes from companies like Mothers and Meguiar’s make some of the best products for wheel care, as well as overall body care. For exterior brightwork, such as chrome bumpers and rear view mirrors, Mothers and Meguiar’s both also make exceptional metal polishes. All of these products will clean, shine or polish and preserve the exterior of your car.
Interior Care
Keeping the interior of your classic car beautiful will help to ensure that just sitting in it is an enjoyable experience, and driving will be even more enjoyable. Proper interior care entails weekly vacuuming of the carpets, vacuuming and maybe shampooing the upholstery, or the use of leather or vinyl protectant on the seats and dashboards. Again, Mothers and Meguiar’s make some of the best products for this purpose.
Restoration-Rust Reversal
You’re in the middle of a restoration and after stripping the paint on your classic car, you notice patches of bad rust. You don’t know how to fix it. No, you don’t need to cut the rusted portion out and weld in a new piece. Unless the rust has caused holes, you can use something like Rust-Mort, which will convert the rust, both surface and subsurface, into a polymer, which will provide an excellent surface to take paint.
Show Car Restoration Tips
If you plan on entering your car in shows, you’re going to need to do more than the average muscle car collector during the restoration process. For the average muscle car collector, soaking parts in a degreaser and bead, or media blasting will be sufficient restoration. However, for the show car restoration, you are going to need to completely strip the car down and have the frame acid dipped and replated, if necessary, as well as all of the nuts, bolts and suspension parts. This will return these parts to as close to factory original as they can get, being upwards of 20 to 30 and more years old. Chrome pieces that have blemishes such as rust and blistering will also require complete stripping and rechroming in order to ensure maximum classic car value.
You’ve just been given some information regarding classic car preservation and restoration. Proper use of the above mentioned products on a fully restored classic car will maintain the value of that car, while using some of the other products and methods during the complete restoration process will enhance that car’s value.
