Imagine this scenario;
A Man attends an auction to purchase a Model-A very similar to what he remembers riding in with his Dad back in his youth. The vehicle is fresh out of a long stay in a museum. The paint on both the outside, -and underside are beautiful. Matter of fact, the engine compartment is beautifully detailed (- albeit WAY over-restored!) and the interior is very nice also. The man bids up into the high-teens ( + 10% bidder premium) and is the successful high bidder. They transport the vehicle home and as time permits, they start making small evening drives in the neighborhood becoming familiar with the car and just relaxing. Next the drives turn into 15-20 mile trips. All seems great until one day the man finds the transmission becoming harder to shift between gears. Next it seems the engine tries to overheat and the entire vehicle just seems to labor but this has been a gradual oncoming so it wasn't immediately obvious. Now, to make this story much shorter, I will take you to the last chapter.
The vehicle finally broke something in the rear axle so he contacted me about repairing it. I explained that it could be as simple as a faulty U-joint or as severe as a broken tooth on the Ring & Pinion. After transporting it 500 miles, it locks up again in the shop parking lot as we are unloading it. Once inside the shop, and upon removing the drain plug to see if any metal falls out, we are 'greeted' with nothing. No lube drained out nor any pieces falling out the drain hole. Evidently the museum drained the lube and it had been run dry. Now our fears were suspected when we lifted the top off of the transmission. The same scenario except we were seeing shiny gears with Blue coloring. Oh what a mess!
Since he told us the engine leaked from the rear, our suspicions were confirmed when we removed the pan. An old rebuild however upon starting the engine there was a noise. It was an upper-end noise that was similar to a wrist pin however it would not go away even when the spark plug was shorted. Removing the head revealed a gaulded piston, ...likely caused by being driven while overheating.
So long story short, the Man now has a rebuilt rear end assy. with a 3.54 Ring & Pinion, a totally rebuilt transmission, a partially rebuilt engine, correctly re-assembled brakes with new shoes and brake drums with bands, and a cleaned & properly set-up steering gear box. This entire exercise also included re-bushing the pedals, installing oversized brake pins, and even correctly assembling the spindle bolts.
My point is that Yes, the term 'Restoration' means many things to many people however this car really was NOT restored, ...but merely a "Used Car" that was Repaired & Repainted to fool folks. There are a lot of similar Model-As out there! Kevin is spot on when he says it is not quick or cheap, but unfortunately many Restorers opt out of doing the job correctly. While many folks diss the Purists for their level of restoring, I would say that 99% of the Fine-point cars I have seen in competition in the last decade are truly restored both mechanically and aesthetically where all of them can be reliable tour cars with little to no additional tuning needed. Unfortunately my customer learned a valuable but expensive lesson on what ' Restored' means!
