We can't stress this enough. Take off the rose-tinted glasses and be brutal. What kind of project do you want? How are you going to restore it? Where are you going to restore it? How long will it take? Here's a clue - double come up with a number and double it. Be your own biggest critic.

An Iso Griffo might be a lovely thing to have. And restoring one might be the only way you'll ever get to own one - but be realistic. These are complicated cars with limited spares availability. If this is your first resto, don't be afraid to tread the well-worn path of trad British classic. There's a reason Triumph Spitfires, Minis and MGBs are so popular - it's because you can get virtually everything to make a new one.

Crucial to a successful resto is putting your squad together. Joining a club means you'll have access to spares, knowledge and support. If you're struggling with exactly how that widget goes back to gether, then we guarantee others will have as well. This is your shortcut to success.

No, we don't mean blow the budget on fancy welders and plasma cutters. Your dream garage will be somewhere that has enough space to work in, is clean and tidy with lots of storage, good lighting and heat. Best of all, it'll be secure.

So you've chosen your project, you've got somewhere to store it, you've got the club on board and the Haynes manual handy. You're ready to start stripping... which is the fun bit. But remember - the effort you put in now will reward you or ruin you. So here's our tip - photograph and label everything. You can take millions of pictures on your smart phone and every takeway box is a decent storage pot. It could be years, decades even, before you have to put the car back together and you won't remember what goes where.

With the car in pieces, you'll be able to properly assess the damage. How bad is the rust? Do you need to rebuild the whole engine or can you just rebuild the top end? And don't guess here. Poke and prod to find hidden holes full of tinwork, measure and stress test to see if the crank is as good as it looks. Science is your friend.

You've stripped, assessed, labelled - and now you know exactly what's involved. That means you can start to make a plan proper. Don't rush is an attack little bits until you get bored and move onto the next bit. Break it down if you have to: engine, brakes, body (doors, bonnet) etc. Under each section allocate time and money before making your time line. You might opt to regrind the crank, in which case you'll probably spend a day taking the engine apart and while you're waiting for the crank to come back you can tackle the brakes. There's nothing wrong with operating a 'just in time' parts policy - but all that postage could add up so it might be beneficial to do a supermarket sweep and stock up. Flexibility is crucial.

Like the army says, no plan survives for contact with the enemy - and yours will be no different. There will be delays with parts deliveries, issues with parts you've sent away for repair that may turn out to be unrepairable. So keep a diary and at the end of every day (and every week) revise your plan to make sure you get the most out of your time in the workshop. There will be many miserable and frustrating late nights so keep them to a minimum.

Unless you're lucky enough to be retired and spending all your days in the shed, you'll mostly likely be tackling your project in the evening. So you've had a full day, you've had to cram in some family time and keep up with your chores, you may (or may not have eaten) so your battery light is blinking and now you're about to go for another round. We all want to get jobs done, that feeling of satisfaction is critical to motivation - but if you stay up til 3am rebuilding a diff' that's giving you a headache, the chances are you won't have done a very good job. So set yourself a time limit and get some shut eye. It's not about admitting defeat - it's about maximising your working hours. 

Whether it's not tackling the job with the right tools, or not relying on your mate Steve from the Nag's Head to 'pop round' and lend a hand, treat everything as an opportunity for learning. That might even be some actual proper learning, like learning how to weld or paint. 

The first signs of rust pop up in areas where there has been light damage - a bump, a knock, a scratch. Surface rust isn't terminal - but it needs sorting as soon as you can ideally. Of course, the trouble is that the repair can often be expensive, disproportionately so to the amount of damage it's currently causing. Left unchecked though, it will cause a lot more damage. The best repair is cut out the corrosion until you see clean metal, apply primer, paint and protect. However, there are products you can use designed to stop the rust in its tracks.

Left unchecked, the surface rust will create rust bubbles. This is because rust molecules are bigger than steel, so the damaged area expands, ultimately flaking away revealing a fresh new layer of shiny metal so that the process can begin again. This creates a scaly surface on the body that you'll need to tackle wiht a wire brush and potentially an angle grinder. If you can get to fresh metal, smooth surface the surface down with sandpaper before priming, painting and protecting.

If there's daylight shining through the metal, then it's decision time. Remember those bubbles? Well, they've now grown and taken out all the metal. So you've got two options - either replace the entire panel (there's a reason why it's nicknamed tinworm) or cut out the bad metal and weld in the new. In some ways, replacing the entire panel is easier - we've lost count of how many times we've attacked the rust with an angle grinder only to find out that it's much, much worse than expected.

Budget MIG welders are great - but they are often plagued by wire feed problems. So do your research and do your best to set up the wire properly. The wire feed spring tensioner should be tight enough so that it doesn't unravel while the wire itself should be as straight as possible. From there you'll need to align it so it feeds through to the torch - if any force is required, chances are it's misaligned. 

Wire speed is probably the most important setting - too slow and it'll burn back onto the tip, too fast and it'll be a mess. Speed and power settings will be determined by the wire and you should be able to get a ball park set up. Experiement with scrap pieces of metal to make sure you're happy and fine tune the welder.

You can be the most awesome welder in the world, but if the metal ain't clean then it won't matter. You need to get rid off all the paint and the metal, otherwise it'll act like an electrical insulater - not what you want when using an electric welder. Don't forget to make a nice clean spot for the earth clamp, too. An angle grinder and/or a dremel is your friend here.

How you hold the torch will make a big difference to the quality of your weld - one hand is good, but two hands is better. Ideally, use your other arm to steady and brace the torch. Next, place the torch at 90 degrees to the metal and drop it back to 70 degrees. Finally, 'push' the weld rather than try and push it and get as close as you can to the metal without actually touching it.

Which welding mask you use is very much a matter of personal preference. We don't recommend the hand held ones as that's an extra hand you could use better. For masks with visors, some people find the knock down marginally knocks their set up, while others find the that the auto-darkening masks 'blind' you for too long. 

When it comes to welding you need to practice as much as you can before you commit. It's much easier to spend 20 minutes getting a feel for it than 20 minutes angle grinding a duff weld because you messed it up. 

Like the saying goes, slow and steady wins the race. Unless you can weld in your sleep, we always reckon the best approach is to go step by step. If you can, weld small, pinhead-sized joins (called tacks) along the metal every couple of inches of so. After each one, inspect your work. When you're happy, you can add in new tacks between each old one and then start to join them up.

Welding can be dangerous unless you know what you're doing. Without proper protection you damage your eyes, the vapours and fumes can damage your lungs, and the UV light (and molten metal) will burn you. So make sure you have a full face welding helmet, plenty of air coming in, and cover your arms and body... no one wants a trip to hospital because they got weld spatter in their eye.

If you're still struggling, work back through the following checklist. Is the metal clean? Have you got your wire installed properly? Is the feed speed working for you? Is the power right? Are you holding the torch to close (or too far away) from the metal? Are you moving the torch too fast (or too slow)? If you're still having trouble - try practicing on different thicknesses of metal. Start with 2mm or 1.5mm and then go thinner. If all else fails, down tools and put the kettle on.

The secret to a good paintjob is great preparation. With all the welding finished you'll need to prepare all the panels - that's most likely to include a skim of filler to get the shape right, sanding it back and preparing it with primer. Here is where the professional bodyshop will bake the car and the rest it for a few days, before sanding it down again and re-priming it.

If you haven't done so already, now's a good time to protect the underside from rust with a coat of stoneship that you can paint body colour later. Now the shell's been prepared, you're ready to get to work. Spend some quality time degreasing the metal and masking up the car ready for paint. It's tempting to rush this part, but don't. It's here where the pros really earn their money.

Take your classic to a paint pro and this is where the magic really happens. They'll apply a base coat followed by a couple of laquer coats before baking the - 65C for 40 minutes should do it. If you're after a really fancy finish, then the baked shell will be flatted back, flow coated and backed again. It's this final stage that gets that glossy, glassy shine.

With the paintwork done, it's now time for a bit of elbow grease. You'll need to sand the panels to get rid of all the orange peel and paint imperfections before machine polishing it. Don't worry, you can splash out and buy some machine's to do the hard work. Once it's all done, then it's time to hit it with a deep coat of wax.

As is often the case, it's sometimes easier to retrim an older car than a new one. A talented upholsterer can repair the split leather bolster on your Mk2 Jaguar - but if you need new cloth seats for your humble 1980s Renault 5 then sometimes the only solution is to find a better set and swap them (easier said than done).

Plastic dashboards on many classics often split and crack thanks to long exposure to the sun. How you fix this will depend on how bad the damage is, but the process will roughly involve the following steps. First you'll need to sand and clean the damaged area, before applying a heavy duty plastic filler. Once that's dry, you'll need to add another layer of filler on the top and sand it back. Then it's a case of painting it the right colour and adding texture to it. Put like this, it might sound easy but it takes some skill and patience to do a decent job.

When it comes to headlining, there are two basic types. One involves securing the headlining material via hoops and rods and is often found on older cars. Repairing this often requires some sewing skills and plenty of patience. The second type of headlining is where the material is glued on to a board and is the kind you find on more modern classics. This droops where the glue has dried and there are some quick fixes, which won't please everyone (staple gun, ahem). To do a proper job, you'll need to get the headlining board out of the car - sometimes this isn't possible without breaking the board... not to mention all the bits of plastic securing trim that will snap.

Repairing your classics dials is a job that many people often entrust to a specialist. The specialist will strip, clean and repair the item. Depending on how you do it, they can even make adjustments. This is handy if you've had to swap a gearbox or differential and the dial is now inaccurate. Most of the time, you can just post the item and get it back when it's fixed. If your dial is broken beyond repair, then you can try and search out a secondhand one via the club or at an autojumble - or you can opt to replace it with something similar.

If you own a classic convertible, chances are that you'll need to give the hood some TLC at some point. That could means just cleaning and protecting it, or require something more involved such as a repair or total replacement. There are plenty of products on the market to help you rennovate it, but when it comes to repair and replacement, many owners find this is a job best left to a specialist. That's not to say you can't do it at home though - but you will need a strong friend and plenty of patience.