Next project

[Laverda Dave]

I bought a crashed (wrapped around a tree) but previously restored MK4 Spitfire back in 1986. It needed a new chassis as the front of the original was pointing skywards and a new bonnet. I stripped the body from the original chassis and bought a second hand one from a guy in East London for £50. The problem was getting it home so I bought a pair of really cheap roof bars and fitted them to my Vauxhall Chevette (or the Shove-it as we called it). I then tied the chassis to the roof bars with rope and drove the 30 miles home. It was not without incident, the chassis acted like a sail and at one point turned 45 degrees whilst on the A40M as it was then called! A bit further on I drove past a police car coming the other way and the occupants were open mouthed! Anyway I got home, cleaned the chassis up, painted it and put all the running gear on along with the main body tub.
A new bonnet was £500, I was on £110/week so it was expensive and would need painting as well.
A couple of months later Mrs T hiked up mortgage rates to 15% and that was the end of the restoration, I was forced to sell it for £500 just to pay that month's mortgage.
Restoring anything costs a small fortune and as has been previously stated takes at least three times longer than expected. Probably the reason why you see so many '90% complete but lost interest' projects for sale.

[Rozabikes Tim]

Think of a budget, double it and you still wont have enough.

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[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Laverda Dave's post reminded me of the only car restoration of my own that I attempted.
When I divorced in 1977/8 I was handed back my Mini Cooper Mk 1 that had failed it's Mot.
I can't remember how much I had to pay for it out of the divorce financial arrangements, too much.
I stripped it to a bare shell with a view to fitting a new shell. The cost of transportation & painting was more than I could afford. The shell stood on the driveway of my new house (and new wife) on 4 oil drums  for about 18 months. Loosing my company car with a change of job spurred me to get the Mini roadworthy again.

I bought pattern new front wings, inner ,& outer sills plus a complete boot floor, a local mobile welder did a great job of fitting the new body panels. Six weeks later it passed it's MOT. New bodywork was rattle canned in grey primer. I never did have it re-painted. I brush painted it using Coach Enamel. I ran it for 10 years, new mortgage meant I had to leave it as it was

[badger_eng]

I’ve been retired 5 years now and having just bought the 1977 CB550K3, it will be my fourth project.
That was my plan for retirement and so far, I’m sticking to it. In fact, the wife 100% encourages me to have one on the go (Bike obviously 😬)

I always buy them too expensive, I always spend more than I really should and I always thoroughly enjoy the processes and frustrations mentioned by so many in previous posts. I’m also always proud of what I’ve achieved.

The three bikes completed so far will leave me around £10k out of pocket. I did go waaaay over the top on my CX500 spend with hand made exhaust, cerakote etc etc but that was always the plan for that one. When I sold it, the guy who bought it said something along the lines of….

“If you’d bought a brand new bike and kept it for 3 years, then sold it, how much do you think you’d have lost on it”

That was a little nugget for me, yeah I’d “lost” money BUT…. It’s actually still a pretty cheap hobby / vice and the enjoyment it brings is worth its weight in gold.

I have something to do in the winter months, it keeps some of my technical skills crafted over years in the engineering world and tests the grey matter from time to time. Oh, and gets me out from under ‘upper managements’ feet.

I might not be restoring every bike back to its original (I did with the GT380) so might upset a few along the way but I’m still taking something that’s close to the scrap heap and turning out a rideable, stoppable and enjoyable machine to clock some miles up in the summer months.

Long may it continue gents 👍

[Yetanotherbike]

In my youff, my first sort of renovation/ restoration was a Suzuki GS550. It was looking a bit shabby and losing power so I decided to go all in.
I took the frame to be powder coated and I called them a couple of weeks later to ask if it ready. I was surprised to be told they can't powder coat over filler! I paid them a visit and sure enough on the down tube in front of the side panel there was filler. After removing the filler we found a big dent. I asked them to just powder coat it. I made a few inquiries with a friend and found out that a car had reversed into the bike and it had been sold on to a well known breakers in Wrexham, who I bought it from as I was on my uppers at the time. 
I stripped the engine and found 4 burnt exhaust valves probably because there wasn't any clearance in the valve tappets, so that solved the power loss mystery. My boss went home for lunch every day so I could count on him being away for at least an hour, so I used to bring in parts every day and clean them. I got a mate to respray the tank and panels and to be fair, although not perfect, it looked pretty good. Better still the missing power was back.
Things improved for me considerably during this time as I changed jobs, my wages were literally doubled and my commuting costs were a fraction of what they were. So I decided to let go of the Suzuki and buy a Jota.
A friend who had done me a lot of favours but would never take a penny off me inquired about the bike. I told him about the dent but he was cool about it and I offered it to him for a Pound a CC. (£550) He said it was way too cheap which I knew, but it was a good way of repaying him for the favours he'd done me.
I warned him to run the bike in as I had only just rebuilt the engine, he promised faithfully he would and off he went.
Exactly a week later he called me from hospital and asked me if I could help his mate collect the bike as it was in a field.
He's been going round a corner almost flat out and lost it and he was in hospital pretty beat up and had a broken leg.
The bike faired even worse than he did, since it had bounced and was literally bent in half and was written off. All that effort gone to waste in a few seconds.
I didn't have a lot of sympathy and reminded him of his promise. 

[Laverda Dave]

And you still have the Jolly Jota . That's one to never let go

[Yetanotherbike]

The Jota is a story in itself. But yes, I still have it. When I was in school, my teacher was into bikes and knew I was becoming interested/obsessed too. I asked him what bike he would buy if he had the money. He said easy Robert, a Laverda Jota. I'd never heard of one, but the next day he brought in a magazine with a picture of one. I might not be the sharpest knife in the draw, but it took me a millisecond to know that one day I MUST own one. I had to wait 9 years before I did.