For the last few years, i have been obsessed with the rolling bones cars. . Their cars just hit every spot, for ME....Their style, the paint, the stripped down gutted hot rod, the road trips, the engines.... its all perfect. I have taken a more serious eye to kens car ( 575 B), and dave scroggs's car (98 D). Both with the factory duck tail left on the body, a full 3 inch salt flat style louvered hood, side panels, trunk lid, and roof insert. About 3 months ago i ended up with a nice freshly rebuilt 8BA, .40 over, with edmunds heads and intake, from a good friend of mine. He also happens to be very close to ken and keith. Then i had a nice T5 given to me... A short while later, a set of ASC 32 rails and boxing plates found their way into my garage. With all these parts showing up... I just had to start taking my 32 build seriously... So i posted my 34 for sale. It left quick.. I took the funds from that and bit the bullet. I called flop in Pittsburgh PA and we started talking about a brookville body... He hooked me up with his dealer, and we discussed options, prices, time frames... By the end of the phone call, i had put an order in and struck a deal with flop to assemble the car. So, I sent up the funds, and we started the waiting game... Here is what i ordered, 32 3 window, no garnish moldings, no side or rear glass, 6 row louvered deck lid, stock body configuration, cowl vent, plain windshield frame, everything bone stock accept a flat hot rod floor... About 6 weeks later and the body showed up at flops. I got a smoking deal on it. I also scored a nice original firewall on the hamb... Just as i did my 34, im trying to use as many henry parts as possible.. As of right now the body is at flops waiting its turn!! Now its on to the rest of the car. I have the chassis fit up temporarily. Im waiting till i get the body so i can be sure the frame fits the car perfect. I stumbled on an original 32 3W dash from my buddy skeeter. I was thrilled to have it!!. Also a good friend, wayne, made me a deal of a lifetime on a 32 heavy axle that literally looked brand new! I was going to run a 9 inch, luckily i talked myself out of that in a hurry! so i rounded up a 36 rear with the radius rods from Mr. Delton.. The axle was shot, the rods were tweaked, But it was a start. I knew i had to run 80-90 mph.. so even a 354 rear gear setup was not going to cut it. So i contacted Cornhuskers, and ordered a winters V8 quick change center kit... a nice cheap unit, $1400 shipped to the door.. I was blown away when it arrived. It looks so much better than what the advertise. And its very heavy duty. Since i was running a 36 carrier, i had to change bearings and races to fit. Also it turned out, the hub bearing surfaces were shot. So a local small machine shop took the bells, turned them down, and installed a set of sleeves from MACS auto.. Which are a much better quality sleeve than what they used to make. A few hours in the garage setting pre load and back lash.. and i had my very first quick change rear end! It took a few hours of using my shop press to carefully straighten the radius rods. But they are perfect. I also reamed the spring bushing ends to receive the 3/4 bushings. I rounded up 4 good later style backing plates, and a nice set of hubs for all 4 corners. I removed all the old junk drums, reamed the stud holes to take a new set of 1/2-20 press in studs, and ordered 4 new 40' drum. Now my drums will be removable without cutting the swedge on the studs! I had a 34 for rear axle laying around. I struck up a deal with a friend in GA to trade for a new 32 grille shell and insert. Now it was time for a hood... I called rootleib, ordered a stretched to custom length, hood and side panels. I had 3 rows done in each top, and 4 rows down each side panel. Also i found 4 super nice 40 steel wheels from Mr. Delton. They are currently off getting blasted and powder coated. Now, on my 34, i ran coker bias tires. Just as i do on everything else.. but i had terrible luck with them over 70mph... I spoke with Dave Scroggs about his Coker Excelsior sport radials.... he had nothing but good to say about them! so i called summit and ordered a 7.50x16 rear and a 5.50x15 front. They are such a great looking tire! As of right now, thats the progress on the car.. Ill post a bunch of pictures in the next post, since i have to load them from my phone.. I plan to drive this car to bonneville and everywhere else i possibly can. Im building this car from almost all NEW part, mainly because i plan to abuse it as much as possible.
Congrats my Friend! I can hear your excitement in your words! Can't wait to hit the Highway along side 'ya!!!
Looks like it's coming together nicely. This is exactly how ya do it...ya pick a style and you start knocking things off the list and waiting for the right parts at the right price to float to the surface. And you picked THE car that turns your crank. Folks will start with any ol' ford style and they get half way thru it and they loose steam. Good luck with the build!
Wow! What a nice firewall. And nice job on the quickchange build. If I'd known that Delton had those 40 rims, you might not have ever scored them... Did you get your tire sizes pre-approved by Jeffrey James before ordering? vic
Great plan, I'm looking forward to following your progress. Sounds like you will put NC on the map with this one. Hope to see it around when you're done.
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