Mikec4193

It was so hot on Sunday,,,so what should I do on Sunday??... we grind and weld some rusty old metal... Rear quarter had some thin spots... I ground it down and filled it a couple time...still not sure why I didn't take a pic of it... So I dragged this poor excuse for a rear deck panel...they are made of un-obtainium so we will grind and weld on this one...in the past someone added some aluminum strips for a support...I thought should do it a little better... Bring on the 3/8" left over brake line... Grind grind tac tac tac...repeat... It came with these not so old but still cool hinges... Look Mom....the deck lid opens...and the old shop broom stick holds it up... It was a good Sunday... It is crude and rude but I smile when I see it... Grind on fellow rust loves...

I love to drive old vehicles but just not out where others tend to run as well...where I currently live back roads don't exist anymore unless you go out at 4am. My current plan is I am moving this January to a very rural part of NE Kansas and I hope to have a shop and a couple old clunkers to toddle around town...I love that smell of un burned gas and rattles and the bangs the smell of coolant as it runs out the overflow... It is just the newer point and shoot vehicles are so fast and so quiet it scares me where I live now to actually drive the old heaps...

Hi Mopar guys...as I toil away on another pile of rust...I recall how much I don't really enjoy driving these old vehicles...love love love to tinker on them...but the thing that hurts me the most is pulling out on the roadway where I live and actually taking it down the road....it is terrifying to say the least... My last old project car I drove on the roadways was a 1968 VW Bug...it would run down the road ok (once I got it wound up) but it was so slow getting it going...people right up my back side was a common occurrence...close calls every single time I took it out too... So I think some of us are drivers and some of us are builders...I am a cobber/builder...but I have saved several old heaps from getting thrown away and allowed others to take my projects and make them their own.... Thanks for listening... Happy grinding everyone...

Hey Dansk.... Summer of 1980...this is me at Malta...I was 19 years old...love racing more than life...hope to go back in the near future (4 cylinder class)...hot rods are fun in the winter months but racing is for summer time....I raced for 3 years in the 1980s and then went back in 2002 to 2012 (second picture)

Waiting on parts....so we look around at all the rust....last weekend was rear deck lid gutter rework time... out with the old stuff... before shot here... gotta love scrap pieces... A little cowl patching going on too... I have a trunk lid that someone made from GOD only knows what that I am going to be looking at in the very near future... As it looked 4 months ago... Keep writing checks...scratching my chin...tacking...grinding...and of course repeating... I have until Dec of 2022 to get this ole heap rolling again...we will see

I kept trying to figure this ole man out...he was giving my a little tussle for sure...I got brave and fabbed up a period correct hood for it... I had some 18 gauge kicking around...I thought hey what the heck...lets do it... It just didnt look right...I kept looking at it...tape measure in hand...nothing looked right...so... I yanked the motor out of it...cut all my cobbled up motor mounts too...found a professional shop in Canada that built engine mounts for this specific motor..so I order them up... Tape measure in hand...wish me luck...so thankful this was a mess when I got it...

Found some stress cracking going on the drivers side cowl... tac tac tac....grind grind grind...repeat... I had some steel from an "EZ-up canopy that took a dump in a summer storm a couple summers ago...I saved the square tube.. Now I can actually sit the new seat inside the cabin...gotta figure out pedals still... I work part-time at a local big box lumber place...they had a display they were throwing out...I snagged it and cut it apart today... More floor supports... tac tac tac....grind grind grind...repeat... Got the top of the cowl all buttoned up... waiting of wheels and wheel spacers... Need to get the floor tacked into place too... one bite at a time...

So I thought about ways to get the car to sit correctly...I went on line and found a company In Oregon selling 4 link kits...I was hoping their stuff was made in the USA... Well I tried... Had to do some cleaning and grinding to get stuff to fit... This was the second try and getting this stuff to sit in the right spot... the kit was a Generic kit for a 1928 to 1946 Mopar...so the cross member was too narrow...so what does one do?? You cut it in half...and you spend many many nights scratching your chin...clamps in hand...tape measure stuck in your hand... I learned a little bit about how to build a shock...I have never built a coil over shock before... Still not sure if any of this stuff will work... I don't think I will be driving it much (maybe once or twice tops) so as long as nothing falls off of it we should good to go.... Working on the floor pan supports too...pics to follow...

I have no idea what this rear end is...someone told me it looked like 55 Chevy...there were no guts in it...so I put it out to pasture...face down in the dirt... There were no gears in it... Something about a pre war coupe sitting up on jack stands that make smile...reminds me of the many Friday nights spent at the local oval track watching the cars get worked on... Took everything out and starting mocking stuff up... I love the way it looks in this view... I tried my hardest to get a Mopar rear end but ended up with this mid 1980's Monte Carlo...cost me $100.00 hope we make it work...at least I get brake parts for it from Rock Auto... This is how the brake drum came off...someone put new drums and shoes on it and then parked it out side.... Oh well...better days are coming... Tac Tac Tac.....grind grind grind....repeat

Went to the local oval track shop and we talked steering parts.... lots of chin scratching.....cut cut cut....trim trim trim... I have never done a total custom steering since I did a rat rod truck years ago...I keep forgetting how much work it is... ran out of gas too...as soon as the welding supply store has moe gas...we will be doing the tack tack tack shuffle... MikeC

Bad Chad would have a field day with all those curves... Hope someone gets to pull some tin off of it... MikeC

Been out in the shop...doing my grinding thing again...cobbled up some body mounts...had some 1/8" plate laying around... had to tie the door openings together... I bought some 1x1x1/8" steel angle when I first started this heap...cut cut cut...tack tack tack...repeat... I had sometime and I found more holes that needed some TLC.... One bite at a time... Next on the docket...need some couplings and some other pieces and parts to make this old heap turn.... time to pull out the wad again....and feed the beast... One bite at a time....

Thanks for the kind words...I am just an old guy that loves to tinker with rusty old metal... There is something about fresh ground crusty steel that makes me smile...

Been trying to spend at least 5 times a week to keep this thing on track... Yea ole 6 banger is sitting in the frame rails... Old 3 speed is sitting pretty too... Had to cobble up a tranny mount into it to hold all this stuff... Front frame rails had some issues.... Before During After.... We have a cobby hobby going on here....

Making body mounts were next on the docket... This is right behind the B pillar So when I cut the mounts out to channel the body...I kept looking at the old front cab mounts...I said...why not reuse them again...so I did...rotated them 180 degrees...did a little dance with the grinder and we have mounts again... I ordered a roll cage kit from the fine folks at JEGS...took almost 2 months but it came in a couple weeks ago... The last roll cage I built was in 1978 and I was 17 years old...and all I did was cut up pieces and parts and then I hired a welder to actually make it all right... I even got instructions from the folks at JEGS... So here we go...cuttin and grinding and welding....

So we have been busy...took a weekend and got all the floor pan bolts The body had been off before...we had all kinds of different hardware holding it together... Then came getting the front clip welded up again...before After they had covered their sins with tiger hair... the next thing was trying to cover up the origin of the front clip...the era that this car would have been racing would have been early to mid 1960's...the chassis of choice was a Chevy of the mid 1950's...so I did a little dance with the cutting tools... After once the front clip was sturdy again....we' moved onto the channeling of the body... 6" seemed to be the magic number

Does pushing a carcass into the garage count??

With all my old heaps that I have driven...50 to 55 is about it...I did once get my 1968 VW up to 65 mph and it had a feeling that I was about to take off... Had a 1947 Willys CJ2A and that liked to run about 35 to 40...anything over 45 and things got really squirrely.. I even had 1953 Chevy truck once...that was flat footed at 53 mph even with 4.10 gears in it... Old and slow MikeC

I bet some of my family members got a ride in one of those...that is a cool looking hot rod right there... Thanks for sharing

Love that crusty rusty look a lot... What plans do you have for it? MikeC

Hey Bryan I am right there with you...I am currently working on an old English car and other than the quirky ways they put stuff together...it is so basic when you really look at it... The new stuff is so complex...I love the way the new stuff runs and drives but I love the simplicity of the older junk... Good luck on the old Dakota... MikeC

The plan right as of now is channel the body over the frame rails...mount the 6 cylinder and the 3 speed back into the Nova front clip...looking for an old roll cage to mount up in it once I get the body setting back down on the chassis... My inspiration pictured above..... This guy ran at Norwood arena back in the 1960s...during that same time frame I was going to a local oval track in Malta NY from 1965 until the early 1980s and in the 1960s this type of car is what ran every Friday night...

He is a rough old project.... The current owner says it is 1939...first gen Camaro front clip...looks like a GM rear end already in the back... I have some parts that I have left over from projects that have gotten sold...so this is gonna be a budget build...I have a 1974 vintage 235 cu in Chevy motor...a 3 speed same vintage as the motor...I even have a brandy new Mustang radiator still in the box... I see another vintage oval track build coming on... Wish me luck.... P.S. I have not had a vintage Mopar in my yard since probably 2008

Picked up a back up just in case one of the other 2 crap out on me.... The old heap came with what I thought was a stock 40 Ford rear end...the folks on the HAMB set me straight...it was a 1948 Ford front end...everything was locked up on it... I started hammering on this axle off and on in August of 2019...it was last 2020 when I finally got all the parts apart... Next time we tackle radius rods .....

Not sure what was going here...looks like it got hit an then they tried to straighten it out again...I bought some 1/8"x8" flat stock... Hows the story go???.....cut cut cut....weld weld weld...grind grind grind...repeat... Gotta love metal work to fiddle with these things... A little crossmember work next on the docket... grind grind grind... weld weld weld... one bite at a time...I think the crossmember cob job was part of an old riding lawn mower deck...