How To – Improve Your Classic Without Breaking the Bank

Difficulty

What Do I Need?

Some rudimentary spannering skills
A basic set of tools
A bit of cash to improve

Why Should I?

As classic vehicle owners our hobby is very much dictated by the seasons, generally speaking, especially those of us that live in the UK. We tend to want to drive in the spring and summer and service, upgrade and maintain during the winter months, and seeing as how we’re currently up to our necks in deepest darkest December, now is prime fettling time. The trouble is, money can be tight, especially with Christmas looming like a storm cloud on the horizon. A particularly expensive storm cloud that’s imposed upon us by decades of social conditioning and rampant consumerism, making us feel inadequate if we don’t spank all of our hard-earned in order to facilitate some practically unobtainable sense of spurious festive cheer. Ahem, but we digress.

However you feel about Christmas, the fact remains that times are tight for a lot of us and so as Santa re-shoes the reindeer and gives his sleigh its annual service we thought we’d take a look at five ways that we as classic vehicle enthusiasts can improve our various steeds this winter without financially ruining ourselves for the coming year. Some are basically free while others require a certain level of investment, but on the whole these are five real world improvements that you can make to your beloved classic on a budget.

Talk Me Through It

1) Carry out an oil service
A basic oil service is still one of the single best things you can do for your classic. Good lubrication means less friction and less friction means less wear and tear on the myriad moving parts within your engine, so keeping it topped up with fresh oil is vital to its correct and efficient operation, and despite what marketing guff will tell you, frequency is far more important than which particular brand of oil you use.

An oil and filter refresh is also one of the easiest maintenance tasks you can carry out so it’s perfect for the home mechanic. Anywhere between 3 – 5,000 miles is a good rule of thumb when it comes to timing but we’re of the mind to do it once a year, especially on older classics that have maybe been around the block a few extra times. We’ve already covered it in this series so click here to see how it’s done.

Average cost: £40 – £60 (based on a 2.3-litre, four cylinder engine)

2) Fit some new tyres
Be honest. When was the last time you put fresh rubber on your classic? Moreover, when was the last time you checked your tread depth and wear pattern? A lot of classic vehicle owners will wait until the last minute to change their tyres, which normally presents as an MOT failure, but you needn’t hang on for dear life until the last vestiges of grip have finally been scrubbed away.

A fresh set of tyres can make a huge difference not only to how your classic performs, but also to how safe it is to drive. As we’ve said before, your tyres are the difference between clipping an apex or ending up in a ditch so buy the best you can afford, but even brand new budget tyres will be better than overly-degraded all-singing, all-dancing performance rubber. The good news here is that classic car wheels, and therefore tyres, typically tend to be smaller and therefore cheaper than their modern counterparts.

Average cost: £250 – £500 depending on brand (fully fitted, based on a 15” wheel)

3) Replace your bushes
One relatively inexpensive way to breathe new life into your classic is to replace the suspension and steering bushes. Factory bushes are typically made of rubber and are designed to hit the sweet spot between comfort and performance, all the while reducing vibrations and friction from pretty much every part of your vehicle’s suspension, but they will degrade over time, compromising your classic’s ride and handling as they do so.

You can either replace like for like or swap over to polyurethane items. Benefiting from increased durability and resistance to the elements, as well as improved performance, polybushes can massively enhance your car’s handling, but they can also stiffen the ride, which needs to be taken into consideration should you be thinking about upgrading. It all depends on your preference and how you use your classic but generally speaking they can be easily replaced with just a few basic tools, so this is another good option to improve for the DIY tinkerer.

Average cost: £150 – £350 for a full polybush kit

4) Get your wheels aligned
Having all four wheels professionally aligned can transform how your classic drives as well as improve fuel efficiency and significantly reduce wear to the tyres, suspension and steering components. Whether following any suspension upgrades or replacements, changes in geometry, a particularly aggressive ‘bump’, or simply due to the passage of time and every day wear and tear, having your wheels aligned can significantly improve the way your car handles and behaves on the road.

Depending on the vehicle, camber, toe and caster can all be adjusted, all of which affect the physical orientation of your wheels in relation to the car. It’s a relatively inexpensive job that really can make all the difference when it comes to how much enjoyment you get from driving your classic, so if you haven’t had yours checked for a while it may well be time to get it booked in.

Average cost: £50 – £75 for a full, four wheel alignment

5) Give it a clean
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, giving your classic a thorough wash can really change how you feel about the old girl, as well as improve how it looks and we maintain that your car will appear to drive better after a wash, even if only psychologically. It’s also the cheapest thing on our list. But there’s more to keeping your pride and joy clean than simply making you happy. A car that enjoys frequent washes will stand a much better chance of staving off corrosion than one that’s left to fester.

Not only that, but washing your car on a regular basis allows you to notice any problems such as damage or bubbling paint in good time and address it before it becomes a larger, more expensive issue. This goes for the interior, too, so grab your hoover and a bucket and get to it.

Average cost: £0 – £20

Conclusion

By all means go big if you want to. Upgrade to an electronic ignition and fuel injection, fit a bigger brake kit and a full set of coilovers. Hell, chuck in a replacement engine if you fancy it, but all of that will cost far more than anything listed above, so start with the small stuff. You’ll be surprised just how much difference it makes, not just to your classic, but to your life and to your wallet, too. Not only that but many of the improvements mentioned here could very well save you money in the future and further headaches in the long run.