Projects The bucket of ugly! A de-uglifying thread...

Maelle (sp), aka the French gal, also stitched up the roof insert and tonneau cover on Dan's old truck that ya'll have been jaberring about.

 

If you have trouble with the seized bases after soaking, giving the throttle shafts a few taps left and right will usually free them up (tapping along the axis of the throttle shaft itself, back and forth several times).

 

114 degrees and then torrential rains I saw on the news. Did you get washed away?
The upholstery on the phonebooth was great. That gal has a future in retro interior trimming.

 

Thanks Tim! Been gently bonking them a bit at a time here, and they are starting to loosen up a bit.

Steel Rebel,
Monsoons, man! We can go from a 114 degree shop on Monday to floods and rain at 5:00 pm this time of year. Right now have the windows open and am just listening to the rain a bit, recovering from yesterday morning's heat induced dehydration headache. Fortunately, the real heavy stuff that you saw on T.V. hit about three miles south of here on the South Side and not downtown where EVERYTHING floats. Just to illustrate what our storms can do, I present "The Plymouth Eating Tree" from about 7 or 8 years ago....

 

We never really hear about the plymouth anymore, do you still own it?

 

I also found the article on the top I like and want to mimic for this car. looks very much like Royal Shifter's and Ivo's.... Sure would come in handy today, 'cause in a little bit I have tons of runnin' to do.

Suddenly the picture load isn't happy, I'll add the rest of the article later.

 

Absolutely! It needs about 2 weeks of concerted effort on my part to finish the repairs from it last major accident wherein yet another septuagenarian gal in a P.T. Cruiser tried to kill it. Unfortunately, for the last year or so I haven't had that much time for "me" to be able to get done what needs to be done. As well as I have been doing monetarily this summer, I'm getting caught up on bills and such and might be able to take that working "stay-cation" this fall. As cool as the 'Bucket is, Nothing beats having a daily driver that will effortlessly run 12s, and has no problem hauling the mail on the twisty turnys with high end exotics.

 

Oh yea, the dreaded "PT Cruiser" attack slipped my mind. Theres a local PT Cruiser "club" , man, you should see them. One is a "surf kart" theme, light blue with woodgrain, surfboard on the roof, and palm tree stickers all over the side, several of them have eyelashes on the headlights...Tastefully kustomized...

 

Doesn't everybody have a bucket and a Plymouth? Well you should. Mine has a Chevy. 283-350-9"-tilt. God I'm a gold chainer! I made the mistake of going to a MOPAR show once and opening the hood. Thought they were going to hang me from the nearest tree.

 

nice

 

@*#283??!! WHERES my ROPE??!!

 

Hope it's a new one. I'll bitch anyway.

 

Pre-stretched...Only the best for you Gary.

 

I was, for a number of years, a member of the local Mopar club (it's ok Gary, I don't give a shit about the 283, haha). A few years ago they extended an invitation to a PT club to the Mopar club's annual show. Good God! tastefully 'kustomized' indeed.

 

Ya gotta consider, at some point, anyone who owns a PT Cruiser had to look at one, and say to themselves "hey, thats pretty cool, I'm gonna buy one!" nuff said...

 

I made the bigger mistake of going to a Mopar show once and opening the hood on mine... When the Mopar faithful figured out it had a Chrysler small block, they all wanted to snuggle with me and do needle point and stuff... If and when that engine dies, it'll get a turbo'd small block Chevy quicker than anybody could know.

 

I'll never forget the day I saw my first P.T. Cruiser. I was half way home from my then daily 35 mile one way, non-freeway accessible commute, (which by the way gets you know where near the edge of town, just a different neighborhood!) in the Plymouth, naturally. A woman pulled up next to me at a light in her brand new, got it that day P.T., rolled down her window and excitedly shouted "Mine looks just like yours!!!" I nodded and waved back and quickly rolled my window up.

I know in my heart of hearts that the P.T. Cruiser vendetta against me, (three major accidents in three hot rods due to loss of P.T. control on other's parts...) stems from all of the indignant things I made those cars do during their lives as rental cars. Not just simply slow and boring, they are also tough as nails to a certain extent, although I would never recommend that anybody try to follow off road trucks in Moab, Utah in one... Trust me on that one.

 

Time to move on into the 21st century...Get a Gen III.

 

Hey Fred, what make are those gauges / instruments you have in the dash of your T ? Looks like those Autometer type ones that I had purchased in a moment of insanity for my T and then I woke from the nightmare and managed to on sell them and purchased the ones I really should of purchased in the first place, SW white faced winged gauges to keep the car in the right time frame.
I think you right Gary about the difference of where the spring axle is to the grille that mkes the grille look right or otherwise as on the A Pickup.
Sorry to the man who has the absolutely awesome trim job in his A Coupe,as I can't remember your name, but that lovely French Maid has doen an fantastic job on your car.
So Chip,will you make your T top a one piece or a fold down one that you don't have to remove and refit all the time? I do like the lines on that picture you posted as the side of the top is parallel with the top of the body and that is where most go wrong in my opinion by having the top going up hill towards the rear too much.

 

Gary,

Although they've learned to expect such things from me, I think they are still scratching their heads over me bringing a Hemi powered Ford (The HORROR!) to the Mopar Club of San Diego meeting and show! At least the Plymouth Coupe has a Mopar motor in it. I may even succumb to peer pressure and put a 318/ 904 auto combo in Robin's '48 sedan I just bought, but that's a ways off yet. Here's my daily driver on Mt. Palomar last spring. We may have to start a social group (or maybe a support group like AA would be more appropriate!) for P-15 and T owners (PT-15's?). Sorry, Chip! I'm sure PT's (Purple Turds!) are still kinda a sore subject around your house! So what suspension are you running under yours (forgive me if I asked that before, I remember discussing my suspension at length, but don't remember us ever discussing yours). I was just thinking this weekend on the way down from Big Bear that I wished mine handled a little better (and that my brand new brakes were not torch hot, but I think that might be an easy fix. A little more bleeding may solve that little problem, I was up till 3am the morning we left putting the car back together, and honestly, I don't think I got all the air out. They felt pretty good, but the pedal was a little lower than I remembered.

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I am pretty sure that I will make mine removable rather than foldable. Truth be told, about the only reason I need a top is for the summer time. Around here, last night is one of only about three times a year that it rains, so it's not to keep dry as much as to keep me from dying in the direct sun! I also don't really like the look of a top piled up behind the seat, and my gas cap position wouldn't fight very well with a folded top either. Ya, I do really like the shape of that top, and I wish Bob Lee was still around to do it... He did all the cool stuff in L.A. back in the forties and fifties.

I have never had any problems with Auto Meter gauges, and I have used their plain black faced white letter stuff a lot in years past. Curious to see what you had go down.

One last little tid bit for tonight, I'm testing out a prototype as we speak...

 

Sweet!

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Oh, since I'm finishing up the last couple of swigs of this evening's Sapphire and tonic, I might as well share a couple of out takes of my big "photo shoot" from last week. The guy asked if I could find any locations for him, and since I am known as Mr. Downtown here locally, I found some Lulus! This was in front of a now closed bar on Grand Avenue, and several homeless people walked up and asked for change during our brief shoot. The funniest part was when my buddy Jeremiah walked his dog down to see what was up fresh from a ten hour day up the street at his custom Chopper shop. Pretty sure Brian was about to tell him he didn't have any change about the time we were doing back slaps and such...

Also a bonus shot of our last old railroad hotel in downtown Phoenix. It was to be another location that night, but a concert at a venue around the corner put modern cars in all directions, and a clean shot wasn't to be. I'll roll the car under the neons at some point soon though and do an evening shot.

Oh, two more bonus shots from Saturday... So Cal 2nd Saturday event at about 6AM, when a friend asked if he could peddle some of his toys in my space, and Pavillions at 5 and Diner about 9:30 PM under the neon glow...

 

only one word for it............. AWESOME!!!

 

What a difference! Hat's off. Gary

 

Chip

Good article about how to build a T top BUT I have to disagree with you that it looks like Ivo's and Royal Shifter's T tops. Don't know exactly what the difference is but I think you should use pictures of those two tops as and example instead of the one in the article. Just my opinion but then that is what this thread is about. With the high windshield I think Ivo's is perfect.

Gary

 

Well, the first thing I notice (and this might be what you don't like, Gary) is the IVO top's two bows are fairly even in height, and the rear one on the Volks Rod is roughly 3" shorter than the middle one, giving the top a significant downward rear slant.

 

Yuppers. In my opinion, the back bow on a t bucket top with a tall windshield should be at least even with the middle bow or even slightly higher and both should be taller than the windshield.

 

No I think what I don't like is that it is just too short. The back of the top should roughly follow the line of the back of the body as in the B&W mag. drawing. You have to be careful though and not go to extremes and get the UGLY exaggerated look we all despise.

Wow I don't know what happened here.

Anyway the red T top is similar to the one in the instruction piece Chip posted. Think it needs to be a little longer and maybe do away with the curved side piece.

Of course I think the Kookie Kar top is perfect. Maybe just what I don't like is the curved side section.

 

Well, let's see if I can post part one of the article.