Hello all!
New to the site and excited to get some much needed advice.
Here is the situation. My brother and I are restoring our dad's 70 Chevelle SS 396 L34. It is a one owner but not totally numbers matching, as the block was replaced with 10k miles by the Chevy dealer for a factory defect (my dad's words). We are hiring most of this done as we do not have the time or the know how to do this job as well as a professional could. That being said, we need some advice on some things.
Since the car is not numbers matching, how original do we keep it?
Who has restored a similar car and what did you do for upgrades? Things we have discussed for upgrades include all disc brakes, upgraded exhaust, electronic ignition, upgraded suspension, etc. We are also debating on adding things that we're not original to the car but we're original to the year, such as a full cowl hood, posi rear end, air conditioning, ss stripes, hood pins, etc.
So, how original do we leave the car and if we decide to modify, what are the best upgrades for this scenario. Please let us know your thoughts. We appreciate them.
We are just kind of diving in on this and going to go for it. I wish we had more time on our hands to educate ourselves better or to do some of the work, but unfortunately it's not in the cards for us. We really want to restore this so our dad can enjoy it for a while. He is only 73 and in generally good health, but I don't want to regret waiting if something was to happen. Please pass this post on to anyone that has experience with something similar. I know this is a very broad post but hoping to split off into other more specific posts later.
Thanks for the help!
New to the site and excited to get some much needed advice.
Here is the situation. My brother and I are restoring our dad's 70 Chevelle SS 396 L34. It is a one owner but not totally numbers matching, as the block was replaced with 10k miles by the Chevy dealer for a factory defect (my dad's words). We are hiring most of this done as we do not have the time or the know how to do this job as well as a professional could. That being said, we need some advice on some things.
Since the car is not numbers matching, how original do we keep it?
Who has restored a similar car and what did you do for upgrades? Things we have discussed for upgrades include all disc brakes, upgraded exhaust, electronic ignition, upgraded suspension, etc. We are also debating on adding things that we're not original to the car but we're original to the year, such as a full cowl hood, posi rear end, air conditioning, ss stripes, hood pins, etc.
So, how original do we leave the car and if we decide to modify, what are the best upgrades for this scenario. Please let us know your thoughts. We appreciate them.
We are just kind of diving in on this and going to go for it. I wish we had more time on our hands to educate ourselves better or to do some of the work, but unfortunately it's not in the cards for us. We really want to restore this so our dad can enjoy it for a while. He is only 73 and in generally good health, but I don't want to regret waiting if something was to happen. Please pass this post on to anyone that has experience with something similar. I know this is a very broad post but hoping to split off into other more specific posts later.
Thanks for the help!