Hot Rods Bringing my 39 back to life

Ill go over the whole journey tonight when i get home. Been slammed at work since i got back.

On the Friday before we left, My Club Brother Del had a pushrod fail on his 32 out of nowhere, so we were working on that till almost 1 am. I had trailered the 39 down to Bens shop and was going to drive from there. Unfortunately, after i loaded the ridiculous amount of shit into the car that i was bringing for the whole family (my wife and younger son flew into Salt Lake) the car was a few inches lower and the offset of the wheels did not work well. I cut the pass side tire on the 12 mile drive from the Hangar to Del's house. Now it was almost 3 am by the time we got there, Del was wrapping up getting his stuff together for the trip and i robbed the rear wheels and tires off of Dels 38 ford pickup. They were well used (bald as shit) but they held air and were reasonably round so they would work for me. Put those on and hit the road a few hours later. they made it all the way out there, but they were not gonna make it back. the picture of the tire is n the parking lot of the Nugget.

I had to pull the trans out of the car on the salt. It was awesome.

 

Holy shit. Glad you got back home safely......Memories.

 

Dang man, you do it right! No boring road trips for you...

 

After getting my Club brother Dels 32 5 window all fixed up and swapping out the rear wheels and tires on my 39 at 3 am. We both slept for about 45 min and then loaded up and headed to @hotrodderhaag shop to meet the rest of the guys heading west.

 

Once we were assembled we headed through the mountains toward Tennessee. I don’t remember much of this from pure exhaustion. But we did manage to get a “quit your Bitching” sticker on a road sign outside of a Cracker Barrel somewhere near Knoxville I think.

 

That night we stopped in Marion IL. Completely exhausted we crashed but here are some shots from the way there.

 

The next day we got up and headed toward St Louis. We stopped to see the arch and get some pictures. Also applied another sticker to a road sign.

 

After the stop at the arch we hotfooted it towards Nebraska. I think we stopped in Nebraska City. By now my clutch was not cooperating to well. We adjusted it that night at the hotel and it seemed better.

 

Stopped again in Nebraska outside Lincoln and made a stop at speedway the next morning hoping to see the museum….. closed. Didn’t open till noon. So we made some parking lot repairs and pressed on. My clutch was getting worse and we determined it was because the engine and trans was moving forward when I pushed the clutch in. So that night we took a chain and a turn buckle and wrapped it around the trans mount then back to the ladder bar crossmember and tightened it up. Seemed to help but still not perfect. It would get us there at least. No pics of it but it was a beauty.

 

That afternoon we (I think) we meet up with all the Bones circus and made the drive to Marquette To The Shop.

 

Look Pa, it's a traditional tire!

 

Isn't there a Thread for that...... certainly a Bit of a challenging set of anomalies but having a group of like minded Hotrod Heads helps...glad it all panned out...

 

Memories.

 

When that stuff happens, I usually think "This is going to make a great story later, but it's not so great right now"

 

Been a bit since i updated this but better late than never.

After meeting up at The shop for lunch we hoofed it across more of Nebraska and stopped for the night somewhere in Nebraska again. its all kind of hazy, everything going so fast and so much happening on this trip.

 

The next morning after a night of yet more clutch fuckery we met The bones at their hotel parking lot and began running towards Wyoming, and up into the mountians. Wyoming was one of the coolest parts of the drive, however being august, i was not thinking that it would get cold on the way. Up in the mountains, and add a little rain to the mix it was dam cold. We contiuned heading west till we got to Rock City Wyoming and stopped for the night.

 

THat night we tried more clutch bufoonery, but it was pretty much a lost cause. no adjustment left, the bearing was failing bad and i had been leaning on and off the throttle and popping it in and out out of gear Since Marquette at the Shop. Now it was just gone. It would drag and shudder the car to death, when you went to push it in, It was less than pleasant. But we had reached out on Instagram and to friends that were on their way from the West Coast and where confident we could have a new bearing in Wendover. Besides it was fine as long as you weren't in traffic and the freeway was easy goings.

 

We met up with the rest of the Circus at a gas station outside of Rock City in the mountains, and fueled up for the trek through some windy ass mountains to Salt Lake City for a lunch stop and welcoming at Youngbloods shop. The Car is really fucked up now but we are so close I don't care its making it all the way. shifting is only done now by force and it doesn't like it at all, but we pressed on, thank god it only had 3 gears to go through.

 

The next morning we all met up in the bones hotel parking lot in Salt Lake on the other side of town, Driving in the city traffic with zero functional clutch was quite a challange but we would be at the salt today, so were gonna send it, and keep our fingers crossed. By now the car making a hell of a racket in the bellhousing and something has given way bad. I just needed to get a few hundred more miles out it. we had confirmation that there would be multiple people bringing me a bearing so i felt confident.

After we departed we went to an extremely nice gentleman's house for breakfast. i feel bad a don't remember his name since i did talk with him for at least 20 min, But it was heaven, and left me dumfounded... everything you could think of that is bitchin was there. there are no words to describe what we saw other than awesome.

 

After breakfast was done and everyone was ready, it was time to haul ass to the salt, Claim out Pit space and set up. At this point i didnt care if the whole dam car blew up, just do it on the salt. so we set off with pedal to the floor and gears grinding from somewhere outside Salt Lake City to The Flats. only stopping at the sinclair right before the Bend in the road to fuel up cause we were all just about empty.

 

...110mph or is that degrees...

Such a milestone adventure and a really awesome bunch O Hotrods...

 

Now that we are fueled up and itching to go we head to the bend in the road to take that long drive that so many other Hot Rodders have done before us. It truly is a religous moment. There are no words to describe the emotions when you see it and when you pull on to it. the Mountains and the salt, the endless flat is breathtaking, and inspiring. Of course we stopped to take out picture at the sign, and my poor tire cursed bro Del, got a flat right at the sign..... luckily we were prepared and got him pumped back up, had to stop and do it again on blue line in but we made it to the pits and got him taken care of.

 

That would be MPH......

 

Oh yeah!!!

 

Pits were almost all set up by the time we got there between Keith's car and Dustin's XFGR 532 car. Here is Ben and his girl Holly Getting it ready to go over and take to inspection in the morning. Unfortunately there was a wicked wind storm that blew in and shredded the cover that was set up so this was the only time there was shade save for the pop up canopy i brought with. My wife and younger son flew into Salt Lake City that day and met us on the salt. So since the car was really hosed up now, we left it in the pits and rode back to the nugget with the other half of the family.

 

The next day my older son Jake and I hitched a ride early out to the salt with @RainierHooker to start tearing the car apart to fix it. It was crazy smoky there from wildfires burning hundreds of mile away and the wind storm from the night before, so thats why the pictures look dark. Luckily Wallingford's Hot Rods was able to get a Hub and and and a bearing out to me with a hand off relay by Friday afternoon, and i needed both. I'm still not 100% sure how... but somehow the throw-out bearing hub was sawn completely in half after the bearing came apart. the pressure plate fingers were pretty chewed up too, but i figured they should work good enough to get us home. After we pulled it apart, we figured out that one of the threaded holes in the trans tail shaft for the trans mount was some how stripped out. I'm sure i did it in a rush to get this back together. that one bolt being loose, allowed the trans mount to pivot on the other mount bolt, and when you pressed in the clutch, it would push the entire engine forward, reducing the amount of effective throw on the clutch fork. We had been adjusting the clutch linkage to compensate and there was just no more, and I set it to where the bearing was apparently touching the fingers and spinning all the time causing the bearing to fail. As for the hub being sawn in half.....I don't know. the clutch fingers obviously did it because they were all worn down too, but that would have meant at least at some point the bearing made it past the clutch fingers???? in the end the only thing that was hold stuff together was the bronze bushing that came with the MEC adapter for the bearing. It probably saved my front bearing retainer too. All in all, we pulled the trans got the new bearing and hub in, made a spring for the return out of some giant spring at Car Quest in Wendover. got it all back together and driving almost as good as new in 7 hours. Plus I got the pull the trans on my 39 ford in the Pits at Bonneville. It was dam monumental. And by far the most hot rod thing I have ever done ever.

 

Now that the Car was fixed, we could get back to the regularly scheduled program of hot rod shit to do, like tacos and the cars at the Nugget.

 

Incredible adventure, Jason. Thanks for posting.

 

the rest of the week was spent heading to the salt to help my club brothers get the car teched and get their license runs in. It bears noting that at this point i was not in the club, just good friends with them, and it made the trip even more awesome by asking me to Join their club on the Salt. Super proud to be a member of the Iron Lords.

 

At some point a word of our trek from the east all the way here had been heard by a photographer named Brandon Dang (pretty bad with names so the last name might not be right but i know the first is!) He was at the salt shooting for Hagerty insurance for the magazine and website they put out. He was interested in doing a photo shoot over at the old Wendover field and an article in the magazine about out trip. here are some shots I took while they did there thing for the article and her is a link to the article.

https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-p...Yret1SudIgt7nGhx1_ilB90Q7tnFnWukgXEIN449265CQ