Hobbies & Makers · Mobile + Web
RestoLog: a car restoration project tracker for long builds
Every part, receipt, and torque figure from teardown to the day it drives again.
RestoLog is a car restoration project tracker for people rebuilding a classic car or truck over several years. It holds the parts, the spend, the torque figures you looked up once, and the photo timeline that becomes a build sheet when the car is sold.
Waitlist Not built yet Updated 5 September 2026
What problem does RestoLog solve?
A restoration measured in years is really a memory problem. You pull the front subframe in March, bag the hardware, and do not touch it again until the following spring, by which time the bag is one of forty in the same corner of the garage and only three of them are labeled. The bolt in your hand is the right thread and probably the wrong length. The information is not lost, it is scattered. The torque figure for the rear hub is in a forum thread you found at midnight. The carburetor rebuild kit came from a supplier whose invoice sits in an email you cannot search, because you cannot remember the seller's name. The photo showing how the loom ran behind the dash is somewhere in a camera roll nobody has sorted since. Then someone asks what you have spent, and you change the subject, because the honest answer is that the receipts are in a shoebox and you have never added them up.
Restoration project log
A printable sheet for logging work by system, with the parts fitted, what they cost, the hours, and the notes you will need later.
| Date | System | Work done | Parts used | Cost | Hours | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Free to use. No account. Nothing you type here is stored.
What would RestoLog do?
RestoLog would organize the build the way the car is organized, by system: engine, gearbox, suspension, brakes, body, interior, wiring. Every entry carries a date, the hours you put in, the parts you fitted with their supplier and price, and any figure you had to hunt for, such as a torque setting or a shim thickness. Photographs attach to the entry rather than drifting into the camera roll, and a bagged-hardware photo can carry the label you wrote on the bag. Spend adds up as you go and splits by system, so you can see that the brakes were cheap and the chrome was not. At the end, the log exports as a build sheet with the timeline, the parts list, and the total, which is what a buyer at auction or a private sale wants to read.
How would it work?
- 1Open a project and break it into systems, then log work against whichever one you are under today.
- 2Record parts with supplier, price, and part number, and watch the running total split by system.
- 3Save the figures you had to hunt for, such as torque settings, shim sizes, and paint codes.
- 4Attach photos to the entry, including the shot of the labeled bag before it goes on the shelf.
- 5Export a build sheet with the timeline, parts list, and total when the car goes up for sale.
Who is it for?
- Someone rebuilding a first car in a single-bay garage across five or six winters.
- A hobbyist with a donor car who needs to know which parts came from where.
- An owner heading for a sale who needs a build sheet a bidder will believe.
How do you keep a project car build log through a teardown that lasts years?
Photograph before you touch anything. Not one picture, six: the assembly square on, both sides, the fastener heads, the routing of anything flexible near it, and a wide shot that shows where it sits in the car. Take them with the parts still dirty, because dirt shows wear patterns and shims and washers still in place. You are not making a nice picture, you are making a reference for a stranger, and in two years you are the stranger. Bag hardware as it comes off, one bag per joint, not one bag per size. Write on the bag with a paint marker before anything goes in it: what it came off, which side, and the date. If bolts are different lengths in the same joint, push them through a strip of cardboard in the pattern they came out of and put the whole card in the bag. That trick alone saves an evening of trial fitting. Give every bag a number and write that number on a sheet with a one-line description. The sheet is the index, and it is the only thing that makes forty bags searchable. Take a photo of the sheet each time you add to it, so a copy exists off the workbench. Keep a spiral notebook in the garage for figures you looked up, with the source next to each one. A torque figure with no source is a rumour. Put a page at the back for spend, one line per purchase, with the supplier and what it was for. That page is a boring habit that becomes the number you actually need on the day someone asks what the car owes you.
What do people use today?
| Option | Good at | The gap |
|---|---|---|
| A shoebox of receipts and a camera roll | Costs nothing, and the evidence really is all there somewhere. | Nothing is searchable, spend is never totalled, and no bidder will sit and read a shoebox. |
| A build thread on an enthusiast forum | Ordered by date, and backed by people who know the car and will correct your mistakes. | Your parts list and totals end up buried across pages of replies, and threads vanish when a forum closes. |
| A restoration budget spreadsheet | Honest totals, columns you control, and a running figure you can filter by system. | Holds money and nothing else, so photos, torque figures, and the state of a bagged joint live elsewhere. |
| General project management apps | Tasks, checklists, and files in one place, with a phone app that works in the garage. | Organized around tasks and deadlines, not systems and parts, and a build sheet is not something they produce. |
| Workshop manuals and parts catalogs | The authority for torque figures, sequences, and the part number that fits your year. | Tells you what the factory did; nothing records what you did, what you paid, or what you changed. |
What would it cost?
Free
$0
- One project
- Parts, spend, and photos
- Printable project log sheet
Builder
$5/mo
- Unlimited projects and donor cars
- Spend totals split by system
- Build sheet export for sale day
- Full-resolution photo timeline
Prices are proposed. Founding members lock in the lowest price if we build RestoLog.
Questions people ask
What is a car restoration project tracker?
A car restoration project tracker is a record of a long rebuild: what was done to each system, which parts went in, what they cost, and what the car looked like at every stage. It replaces the shoebox of receipts and the forum thread nobody can search.
Can it handle a donor car and the parts pulled off it?
Yes. A donor sits in the project as its own source, so a part logged as coming off the donor keeps that history. When you sell what is left of the shell, you can see which parts already moved across and what the donor cost you.
Where do the torque figures come from?
From you. RestoLog stores the figure you found and the source you found it in, whether that is a factory workshop manual, a marque club sheet, or a supplier's instruction card. Nothing is supplied by us, because a wrong figure on a suspension bolt is not a small mistake.
Does it track hours as well as money?
Yes. Each entry takes the hours you spent, so the build carries a labor figure beside the parts total. Owners find that number useful for their own sanity, even though a buyer is only paying for the car.
What does the build sheet actually contain?
The build sheet lists the work by system with dates, the parts fitted with supplier and part number, the spend total, and a selected photo timeline from bare shell to finished paint. You choose what to include, because some prices are nobody else's business.
Will it work in a garage with no signal?
Yes. Entries and photos save on the device and sync when you are back in range. Cold hands and a bad connection are the normal condition of a restoration, not an edge case.
When will RestoLog launch?
There is no date. RestoLog gets built only if enough people restoring cars join this waitlist and say they would pay for it. Joining costs nothing, and the printable project log sheet on this page is free regardless.
Where does this stand?
RestoLog is a proposal, not a product. This page collects demand from search and answer engines. Askwright builds it only if enough people join the waitlist and say they would pay. Read how this works.