Maintain my legend
Preservation work for anything built before computers ran cars. Brakes, suspension and steering first, then everything that keeps those honest. GM A and G bodies, box Chevys, Fords, Mopars, pre-war iron. 25+ years on the same systems yours runs on.
They fail slowly, in places a scan tool never looks
Old cars don't fail the way new ones do. They fail slowly, in places a scan tool never looks: a brake line hardening, a tie rod end going loose, a bushing flattening out, a float level drifting a sixteenth of an inch. Carburetors, points, drum brakes and mechanical steering linkage are what Aaron Woodson's crew works on every day, whatever badge is on the grille, and catching the small stuff is how a fifty-year-old car stays out of the back of a tow truck. That is what preservation actually means here: not parking a car, keeping it fit to drive.
Brakes
Master cylinders, hard and flexible lines, wheel cylinders, drums, shoes, pads and rotors, plus the proportioning that keeps a car from standing on its nose. Original drums fade after two hard stops in traffic. A soft pedal creeps up so gradually that most owners stop noticing it, which is exactly why it's the first thing we put on the lift.
Suspension
Shocks, springs, control arm bushings, ball joints, sway bar links and body mounts. Fifty-year-old rubber flattens and cracks whether the car is driven or not, and it takes the ride height, the tire wear and the alignment with it. We measure before we quote, so you're paying for the parts that are actually worn.
Steering
Steering boxes, linkage, idler and pitman arms, tie rod ends, couplers and power steering pumps, hoses and leaks. Slop in the wheel is almost never one part. It's four worn joints each adding a little, and every one of them pulls the alignment out with it. We find which ones, fix those, and set the alignment after rather than before.
Upgrades worth doing
Preservation isn't only replacing what wore out. Drum-to-disc conversions, coilovers, 4-link setups and custom suspension builds make a fifty-year-old car safer and easier to live with without stopping it being what it is. Fix the brakes properly and you actually drive the car instead of babying it. We'll also tell you which upgrades your car doesn't need.
Preventative care
Oil and filter, chassis greasing, cooling system flush, carburetor tuning, fuel treated for sitting. It's the unglamorous work, and it decides whether the car fires up in April or gets pushed onto a trailer.
Engine replacements
Teardown, inspection, machining, component restoration and tuning. Tell us what you want the car to be, period-correct down to the hose clamps or built to move, and we build to that number, not to ours.
Transmission replacements
Full replacements for automatics and manuals, with seal work, linkage adjustment and calibration. A transmission that flares between gears is telling you something, and it does not get better by itself.
Electrical diagnostics & repairs
Wiring troubleshooting, full harness repair, and modern retrofits (EFI, audio, gauges, keyless ignition) installed without butchering the factory loom. Half-century-old insulation goes brittle and shorts where nobody can see it. That's most of the no-start calls we take.
Your car goes on the lift the day it arrives
The fear with any specialist shop is the same one: you hand over the keys and the car vanishes into a corner of the building for months. That is not how a job runs here. Parts are gathered before the car ever shows up, and the day you drop it off is the day it gets worked on.
Deposit paid, parts gathered
Once the deposit is down, we gather the parts for your job. That happens while the car is still in your garage, so nothing sits on a lift waiting for a box to land. It also means we've already confirmed the parts exist and fit before you rearrange your week around a drop-off.
You bring it in, it goes on the lift
You drop the car off yourself, and that is the whole point of it: nothing gets collected, parked out back and forgotten until it reaches the front of a line. The day it arrives is the day it's worked on. If it doesn't run, book the trailer for the slot you picked and it gets the same treatment as anything that drove in.
Most services, same day to 48 hours
Most services are done inside a day to two days. How long yours takes depends on the scope of the work, and we'll tell you which end of that you're looking at before you leave the keys. A brake job and a car that needs the front end apart are not the same afternoon.
That timing covers maintenance and repair. Restorations and full builds run to their own schedule, in phases you approve one at a time, and that process is written out on the build page.