Restoration

[sundancer82]

Say you have a "rough" Eagle project car...... what would be a rough (no pun intended)estimate on cost to do? I watch some of these shows on TV, and it seems like you need to be a Jay Leno to afford a restoration. In some of your past experiences, is it doable? I am not trying to turn a profit, just wondering if an average Joe can afford to bring a dream back to life! Thanks for your input! Rob. 

[rollguy]

Look at Priya's thread in the project car section. She did an awesome job of restoring her SX4, and it was about as rough as they get.  Most people would have assigned it to the scrap heap.

[Baskinator]

If you shop around and use as many junkyard parts as possible, I'd say you could do a TOTAL restoration yourself for under $10,000 on an Eagle. That's including tools you may need, and I've found a lot of them at auction for really cheap. You could probably even upgrade a lot with that much money, including a 4.0, fuel injection, high powered ignition, etc.
Eagle parts are a whole lot cheaper than any of the cars you'd see in Jay Leno's garage, especially since many of them were made for Jeeps in recent years. Of course, lots of free time and a large climate controlled garage would be your next best friends...
 
However, it would be significantly higher if you had someone do the work for you.

[shaggimo]

Absolutley can be done on the cheap, it depends on what you are starting with, the most important thing to remember if you are doing the work yourself, is to stay with in your capabilities. I see far to many people pick basket cases of cars, with zero knowledge of even the basics of a restoration. That's where they get into trouble, get frustrated, then the project gets abandon.  I've made the mistake too, picked a car that was over my head at the time, didn't have the right tools, experience, or money to complete the project, lesson learned.

My gf's car is a good example of a car done on the cheap side of things, I believe I spent less than $3000 bringing the car back up to a driver. Granted, I have many hours into it, but, hours were something I had laying around, so it didn't cost me anything there, lol.


This is what I (we, er, whatever, lol) started with, hadn't run in 15 years, sat under a pine tree all of that time. Had a little rot here and there but nothing detrimental.


I didn't go "all out" on this car, but I stripped it down pretty far, lol.




All said and well never "done", but back to a reliable driver. It had a few mechanical issues, nothing major though, for the most part everything I needed was obtainable from other vehicles at my local u pull it (some amc, some not).

Though it's not an eagle, the jeep was brought back to life on a tight budget as well, call it less than $1500, but I had many of the needed things laying around (paint, driveline, body part ect). So not to take up any more space and make my long post longer, there's the link.

http://forums.amceaglenest.com/index.php?topic=36052.0

At any rate Post pics! We like pictures, lol.

[Prafeston]

Shaggimo,

That's a nice restore you did on that Eagle...did the 3k include purchase price? Just curious. I have my Freeagle Project and I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with it. Considering selling TQ and getting a cheap reliable DD and trying to fix up Freeagle.

[shaggimo]

Thanks Prafeston, that doesn't quite include the purchase price, lol, I guess a total of about $3500 was spent between buying the car and bringing it home (could be more colud be less).

[Baskinator]

Wow, that is a sweet lookin deal on the SX/4, shag. Wanna come to PA and give mine a paintjob lol?

Also, gotta give ya props for finding a gf that digs Eagles

[shanebo]

i guess it really depends on how in depth you want to get...Assuming your starting with a fairlys rust free car you can pretty easily do a nice restoration for under 10,000. Its when you start getting into the body, paint and interior stuff can get pretty expensive.

[El Matador]

Here's a guideline to keep in mind:

CHEAP  FAST  GOOD  <---  Pick any two.

Sounds to me like you want your restoration to be cheap and good, which means it won't be fast.

[shaggimo]

Wow, that is a sweet lookin deal on the SX/4, shag. Wanna come to PA and give mine a paintjob lol?

Also, gotta give ya props for finding a gf that digs Eagles

Thanks!, I'm no painter, lol there's lots of luck in that paint job  . She actually wanted a Hornet, I kinda talked her into an Eagle by theory of evolution, hahaha, then showed her a video of an sx/4 offroading (one of Mick vids), she then gave me the go ahead to find one  .