Hey HAMBr's, remember all those parts you sold me over the past 9 months or so? Well here they are assembled into one neat pile. An air cleaner from IN, exhaust manifolds from MD, gauges from......the list goes on and on......hell, even the car was for sale on here at one point. It takes a village - a village of rag tag hoodlems - to build a hotrod - thanks to my pals Steve S and especially Steve M for helping to keep my head in the game (I think the latter felt guilty for facilitating the sale of the car to me). So far, this car has FOUGHT me every step of the way, it finally sucummed (albeit kickiing and screaming) and survived its maiden voyage. Sure, there's an annoying off idle stumble and the clutch needs a little adjustment, but it moves under its own power. Front suspension, rear end, interior, buff, changes and refinements are all coming.....I will retrospectively post some details on how I have gotten to this point and then continue to chronical the cars evolution and adventures but for now, a few pics
Congratulations, you have built a great looking coupe anyone would love to have it sitting beside their other car in the garage. HRP
Nice lookin' car. I am partial to black '51 coupes, having had one myself for 38 years. A couple of questions; does the car have a back seat or just a platform? What transmission are you running?
Thanks! Just a platform with fixed rear windows - the club coupe had the same roof but pop out windows and a seat - I retained the stock transmission and column shift using a speed gems adapter
Ok, Ok – well, you might not like these as much….here it is “as found”. Mind you, this picture with a flash makes it out like you can see in this place – it was an old, abandoned looking, warehouse/manufacturing facility in rural Vermont that was DIMLEY lit. Of course seeing under the car was not going to happen – I liked it because it was a base, factory black, business coupe with a factory V8. All I knew about its history was it had a Texas ’84 inspection and a receipt dated ’82 for a full rebuild of the flathead at a cost of over $2,000! Piecing the car's history together as best I could, it likely received an amateur restoration in the early ‘80s. The passenger door and fender were replaced (likely a fender bender as no damage on cowl or any other structural parts of the car). The entire car received a repaint at that time too (as well as undercoating on the inside and underneath of floors). The car then appears to have sat for the next 20 years with limited use. By the early 2000s the car was still in Texas and seemed to change hands, likely to a flipper, that made some poorly executed modifications to the car – this included lowering blocks that were too wide and dual exhaust with econo headers booger welded front to rear. Somehow the aforementioned flipper got the car up to one of the PA swap meets where the owner before me purchased it – this was 2006. Perhaps I should back up and explain the circumstances. My previously mentioned buddy Steve had met the previous owner of this car 15+ years prior……When he met him, this car was sitting in the same spot, and had been for a while. This guy had amassed 60+ cars over the years and never really used any of them much – he loved the chase – he bought at Carlisle, Hershey, Mecum and of course locally. While there was some junk (like this one lol) he had a lot of top end stuff too – all stored in the same place - his tastes ranged wildly. At one point, he began thinning the herd – My buddy helped him where he could through buying some cars or helping him market them appropriately. Unfortunately, he passed with a portion of his collection still in his possession. Eventually, his widow asked Steve for help liquidating the remaining cars. It took the better part of a year and a multi car deal to have the numbers make sense on this one – I was not a “Ford guy” but liked the factory “hot rod” vibe this was giving off and thought it would be “neat” to own a flathead. So out of storage it came. Of course, the rear brakes were seized – so all the brakes, and parking brake cable, got replaced first. Next up – get the flatty running – to my surprise it woke right up! Time for a test drive – immediately learned why there was a brand new clutch (with a receipt from 2006) in the trunk – it shuddered bad enough to knock your fillings out. I was not going to do the job under the car and the engine compartment was a mess sooooooo. Ended up turning into a pretty expensive clutch job. An indoor swap meet was coming up and I had the pieces of 3 283s under my workbench so I decided to let fate decide – If it sold (armed with a video of it running) for good money, I’d do the swap – if not, I detail the flattie, have the flywheel machined, change the clutch, clean up the engine compartment and stab it back in! Well, you already know what happened – and that flathead money went quick once I got going – came home and started to mock it up. EVERYTHING was in the way – wanted to retain the stock trans and column shift – the goal was for it to look like a late 50s/early 60s junkyard take out with swap parts available back then. Rather than a dropped draglink, I went with a front sump pan (hey, they were available in ’64 lol) and I notched the cross member – arts and crafts before cutting the steel…..It also gave me the ability to sneak a crossover pipe over to the passenger side as it gets crowded with the clutch linkage and brake master cylinder under the driver’s side floorboard. If the engine compartment looks a little “’55 Chevy like” to you, well, that’s my background – one donated its radiator, hoses, exhaust manifolds, battery location etc. In the end, I guess I’m still not a "Ford guy" lol That brings us up to my first post on this thread.
The Jalopy Journal
