First few steps of a car restoration.

[Swamp Donkey]

Because I'm terrible at conveying my thoughts via written words, I am just going to list the things I want to do to my car, and maybe there is already a thread or whatever I can use as a reference.  But these are the things I am going to do. 

1) USCartools stage 2 kit
2) Replace floor pan and both rear passenger floor pans.
3) Replace rear 1/4 panels, trunk floor extensions and rear wheel wells.
4) Sandblast and prime car

Now I have access to a rotisserie, but some of these steps from what I have read have to be done with "weight" on unibody and the suspension in the car.  Can someone lay it out on how to proceed.

[Rbob]

Way to get things going, keep the pics coming.

[anlauto]

First things to decide is what your final outcome looks like and what your budget will allow. If those two things align, then go for it. If you want a nice clean car with zero rust, nice paint etc... then you need to start taking the car apart until you have a bare shell. Have it media blasted down the bare metal and start fixing the rust. first. There is no reason to start welding new part to the car until you find ALL the rust....it should be stripped 100% to do a correct job in my opinion.

[Swamp Donkey]

Fantastic.  Thanks.  Exactly what I was looking for.  Off to the shop for some disassembly.  Pictures and bagging and tagging coming up. 

[340sport]

As you dismantle the car, inventory what you have and note the condition of the items. Decide along the way if you need to replace a part, want to replace a part or if it can wait until further down the road. If budget allows, you may decide to splurge on some appearance items or decide to upgrade performance. It's your car, build it to YOUR liking. Ask for help or opinions along the way and YOU make the final decision. Have fun, take your time and enjoy.

[anlauto]

I'll expand one what I meant by your outcome.
Decide TODAY exactly what you want your finished project to look like. This is a very simple step if you're doing an OE type restoration, but when building a car to your own personal taste, the options are endless...
To protect yourself from wasting money, you decide on your end goal now, and only work towards that....

I've seen people buy "used" parts first like "decent bumpers", only because they are better then the ones currently on the car etc...then later after the paint job, they decide the bumpers are no longer "good enough" and they buy new ones.....wasting the money on the first set they bought...

...or wheels....decide what you want once, and stick with it....don't buy new stock seat covers if later on you decide to put custom seats in it.. etc... you get the idea...

Think twice, maybe even three times before spending money.....the project will be expensive enough without wasting money on stuff you don't end up using... 

[xx88man]

I'll expand one what I meant by your outcome.
Decide TODAY exactly what you want your finished project to look like. This is a very simple step if you're doing an OE type restoration, but when building a car to your own personal taste, the options are endless...
To protect yourself from wasting money, you decide on your end goal now, and only work towards that....

I've seen people buy "used" parts first like "decent bumpers", only because they are better then the ones currently on the car etc...then later after the paint job, they decide the bumpers are no longer "good enough" and they buy new ones.....wasting the money on the first set they bought...

...or wheels....decide what you want once, and stick with it....don't buy new stock seat covers if later on you decide to put custom seats in it.. etc... you get the idea...

Think twice, maybe even three times before spending money.....the project will be expensive enough without wasting money on stuff you don't end up using... 

This is good advice. Many people have made these mistakes....

[HP2]

I would also add that if you are taking it down to a shell and using a rotisserie, none of what you have mentioned above require "weight on the wheels".  In particular, using the Stage 2 kit, if you have a complete car that you are adding this to, then yes, you want the car in a full dressed, weight on the wheels set up to keep all panel  gaps in alignment. If you are taking it apart, this is no longer an issue.

[MoparLeo]

Take loads of pictures of everything. Documentation is key to reassembly. Invest in the Dave Wise e-body books and a complete Factory Service Manual, Factory Parts Manual. Have a good buddy for an assistant, do one section at a time. Focus. Have a good quality set of tools, torque wrenches.
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[anlauto]

Interesting lists MoparLeo

[Flatdad]

If you're taking it to a shop or paying anybody to do body work or disassembly, make sure they don't throw away your fender tag and any build sheets! Photograph your door sticker too if its still there.

[Dakota]

Circumstances and inexperience created a lot of extra work and some pain on my car that I would hopefully avoid if I ever did another one.   As Alan said earlier, give some serious thought to what you want the car to be before you start and try to stick with whatever decisions you make.

Getting the metal work right is certainly the best place to start if you're going to have the car painted.   My car had very little rust to start with, but getting the car stripped to bare metal and repainted was the still the single biggest (and most unexpectedly large) expense I had.... even more than the purchase of the car.   If you're paying someone to do the work, my experience and what I've seen on other posts here is $15-20K for this is not unusual.   It was a very uncomfortable discussion with my wife when I got the final bill since I was expecting/hoping for something much lower.

Over time, I ended up adding all the stiffening kits from US Car Tool and Firm Feel.   Other than the parts that go under the front fenders, everything else was added after the car was painted.   It can be done the way I did it, but access is so much better when you don't have to work around fresh paint or installed parts.   Now that I'm finally driving the car, I think all the stiffening stuff was a good investment as the car is rock solid.

Some other examples:

1.  I changed direction a couple of time on what I was going to do on wheels and tires (and eventually the ring gear size too), so now I'm the proud owner of 4 different sizes of speedometer gears.  I spent more time sweating this aspect of the car than anything else.    There's lot of details and pictures listed in the "sticky" in the wheel & tires section of this forum to look at alternatives.  In my case, it took a visit to a Summit Racing showroom to stare at their "wall of wheels" and display vehicles before making a final choice.   And all this was to fit a standard width E-body axle.   If you want to go with extra wide tires in the rear, that opens a whole set of other decisions including spring relocation and/or a narrowed axle.

2.  Carb or EFI?  The more you deviate from stock, the more you're going to spend in $ and time getting things to fit and work.   Assess the condition of your gas tank and fuel lines.  Mine were full of crap and had to be replaced.   I bought a stock replacement tank because I was going with a carb initially.   Then I changed my mind to use EFI.   Tried to retrofit the stock tank for an internal fuel pump, but the pump and level indicator didn't fit, so I ended up buying another tank specifically set up for EFI.

3.  Stock or aftermarket ignition system?   If aftermarket, where are you going to put the extra hardware and what do you want to do with the holes in the firewall for mounting the stock hardware?

4.  I wanted a nice stereo, so I bought a 3 speaker dash (kick panel speakers are another option in the front) and added speakers to the rear deck lid.    Getting a 3 speaker dash means you're probably going to be on a search mission for the speaker covers.   If you're using aftermarket speakers, you'll need to do some surgery on the dash frame for the larger magnets to fit.  After all that work, guess what?  I can barely hear the sound system over the rumble of the engine.   I love the engine sound, so the stereo is mostly going to collect dust. 

5.  Manual or automatic?  If manual, stock or aftermarket?  Most/all of the readily available aftermarket manual transmissions will require some level of modification to the transmission tunnel.   Related to that, stock clutch mechanism or hydraulic clutch? If you have to add the bracket for the stock Z bar, it's certainly going to be better to do that before paint and the addition of anything else to the engine compartment.

6.  It is absolutely amazing how much space a dismantled car can take up.  Aside from making sure you have the space, as more things get jammed into every available corner it becomes easy to lose track of what you've bought and what you still need to buy.   It didn't happen on any single super expensive item, but as the car was completed I found myself with multiple copies of things like foam gaskets and screw kits.   Whether it's a paper list or a spreadsheet, it would be worthwhile to have a way of tracking what you've bought.  Those "little" purchases of $25-50 each add up over time, so it's best to only do them once.

Lastly, when you're stuck, ask a question on this forum.   Someone likely has an answer.   At the risk of "shouting", let me say again:  I WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO FINISH MY CAR WITHOUT THE GREAT HELP I RECEIVED HERE!

P.S.:  Unless the wiring on the car is relatively new, give some thought to going with new harnesses.   The wiring in my car was "all original".   There was cracked insulation, corroded connections, and even some burn marks where wires had shorted.   It was basically a fire waiting to happen. The harnesses made by M&H that are sold through Year One are excellent, but wait for a sale because they are pricey.

[B5fourspeed]

I removed all the bad metal before I had the car blasted.That way you get more of the car blasted in areas that are not blocked by the bad metal. I also did a lot of little welding of pin holes and other small jobs of welding before blasting.Then the blasting will clean up the spots someone worked on.

[soundcontrol]

I started with adding the subframe connectors, while the car was all together and drivable. I welded them in with the car on it's wheels.
It's a convertible, so more sensitive in that area. A friend  of mine did the subframe connectors on just the empty shell and then the doors didn't fit, also a convertible.
I did clean and paint the floor area where the connectors would go and inside the connectors.
Then I took it all apart and sandblasted the shell and continued with rust repairs.