I'll take a wild arse guess, $60 to $90 per hour labor with the following guess on hours. You can look up parts costs in various catalogs and apply shop mark up of 50 percent. Don't overlook consumables like brake fluid, antifreeze, oil, etc.


Install disc brakes on front

8 hours (if lines are not rotted)

Remove engine, paint (including intake and exhaust manifolds, reseal, new oil pump, rebuild crank shaft

16 hours plus machine shop on crank
3 hours paint labor

Replace shift cable (automatic

1 hour

Install front and rear sway bars (big bars), reroute back exhaust around sway bars.

2 hours for rear kit
I don't know how hard the front will be with the car assembled.

All new gas shocks (got rid of air shocks in back)

2 hours


Add leaf on back leaf springs and rearch.

4 hours. Install new ones from Eaton Springs instead of rebuild!

Reinstall AC, and condenser, but not hook up and get working (I had removed it long ago)

6 hours

New E'brock alluminum value covers.

1 hour, less is done during engine repair

New quick ratio steering box.

4 hours


I recommend you break the restoration down into identifiable tasks with schedule, estimate and progress payments. Have this work done on a time and materials basis. If a shop gives a low price and ends up in a money losing situation, the project gets parked on the back lot and never worked on. You want the shop making daily or at least weekly progress. This is more likely to happen when the shop gets weekly progress payments. You need tasks defined with identifiable tasks, with milestones representing completion of significant chunks of work so the project can be taken elsewhere should they fail to perform. There's a popular term called "body shop jail" folks use to talk about project cars that sit neglected in shops because the shop can't perform promised work for the quoted price. A price that has no profit for the mechanic is a job that is going to suffer.