[ QUOTE ] To get a little different look on your regular old plain-jane aircleaner. In the local hardware store they have some sheets of aluminum with die cut designs, like clover looking things. I think it is for lower portions of screen doors. You can cut it in a strip and wrap it around the outside of the element, then sandwich it between the lid and bottom of the air cleaner as usual. [/ QUOTE ] this isn't anything new, it was a big thing to do in the 50s. drawer pull knobs. make a grille out of them. make custom hubcaps with them. i'd take credit for this one, but it's nothing new, i saw it in an old custom rodder or car craft or hot rod parts or something. dave
One more thing many people don't realize is Walmarts online book store is a great place to get books. How about ultimate garages for $22 bucks. go here auto books FS
Need to strip some old wheels? I had the wheels off the 51 and wanted to paint them. I couldn't get the 50 year old grease off no matter what. I even took them to the car wash and pressure blasted them. Nothing. Then the lightbulb went on. EASY OFF OVEN CLEANER!!!! It took the grease and paint of in about an hour. They are now ready to blast (a little surface rust) and paint. Mike
You Model A & T guys can check out the garage door handles. Small and easy to fit. The mechanisms even have the square stock like your Fords. You can use your handles or they're are some really nice ones available. Suicide doors? Alum. or SS slides for a postive lock and if you race easily accessible from outside the car. Running solid alum. or SS radiator or heater lines? Which you can, Lowe's, HD and True Value all sell alum. and SS tubing. Check out the plumbing dept. for the dual clamp hose ends with real SS screws. True Value also carries a full stk. of SS hardware. Nothing else goes on my projects anymore. Check out the alum. or SS turnbuckles and accessories for cheap left engine bank tie down. It'll help you get that left tire in the air. See a trend here?
Check Home & Garden places for fence posts that make great polished stainless exhaust tips or straight pipes for your custom. Use those cheap plastic stackable see thru storage bins to store your parts when you're tearing down the car for a rebuild. I use the smaller ones for things like torn down carbs, alternators or starters. Keeps the little stuff from getting lost while soaking or cleaning the carb bodies. Beats looking for springs, balls and small screws knocked under the bench. Just snap on the lid when you aren't working on it and it'll all be there when you get back to it.
A generalization that can be drawn from all of the above: Learn to see SHAPES rather than concrete objects in stores when you have a fabrication need. Boxes, angles, brackets, tubular spacers and so on are EVERYWHERE, even in seemingly useless places like housewares departments and the mailbox department. Learn to spot a shape you can use even when it is disguised as a cookie sheet or a chain link fence component. The same applies at the junkyard--you aren't going to find that Deuce clutch lever or the Hurst A-28 engine mount in the rows of cars anymore, but go study the heap of miscellany in the scrap heap--if you can see shapes, your missing bits will magically appear as pieces of industrial shelving, dead machinery, and otherwise unidentifiable fallout. Shopping by shape and function even turns wasted time--a trip to the grocery store, sitting in traffic behind a trailer full of lawnmowers--into productive Hot Rod time in which you may discover the perfect bracket or cable to solve a problem.
Is Bruce Lancaster too cheap to spend Money at WalMart? Is he suggesting that you look at trash and dumpsters? Stay tuned to find out!
i have a set of old aluminum wheels that were missing the center caps. i used some fence post caps from lowe's. polished 'em up and got back on the road.
A simple way to hide wires is the stainless braided water lines that hook up under the sink. Real cheap at Home Depot.
Bruce has hit the nail on the head! The whole point is it doesn't have to come from a catalog or parts store and life is what you make of it. Is that a frying pan lid? or a future air cleaner top... You may not always find what you seek, but you'll be better for the seeking and it'll give you a better outlook on life. Besides, every once in a while you do find something out of context that'll work just fine.
For scrap sheet metal nothing beats an old dryer or washer on the side of the road. Some even have interesting curves in them and the enameled coating on them makes it really rust proof, just have to grind off paint before tacking. Old clothing racks from stores are good for paint racks and the chrome steel has endless possibilities. Plus it is far better to recycle than to throw away!
A chain called "BigLots" has overnight replaced all the Pick & Save stores, I don't know if it's a new Corp or just a new name for the old one but I go there and buy cheap table cloths ($1-$2) to use for drop cloths and to cover the drive when I need to crawl under somethin. Also, I don't bother with Harbor Fright (sp. intended) for cutting tools. their new hack saw blades are duller than the worn "good" one you want to replace. While you are shopping at hardware stors for car parts, stay away from the solid single strand house wiring. Car wiring is multiple strand wire for a reason. It needs to be flexible to live in the bouncing jostling twisting environment of a car frame. The house type single strand copper wire will work harden and break.
hot rodding IS improvising, you don't have to go to Wallmart to get a chrome vanity drain tube to use as an oil fill tube or a vegetable sieve to use under your carb scoops or a grocery cart for a welding cart. I picked up a old aluminum cake cover at an antique store for five bucks 'cause someone here showed use how cool one can look for an air cleaner. stuff is where you find it. Paul
how bout kool stuff you can make yourself and not go to walmart. Head light rings make bitch'n picture frames so do tail light bezzels. Make a coffee table out of an old deck lid or a kitchen table out of an old hood. Bar stools out of wheels, bucket seats make kool shop chairs (and there comfy to). What bout using your old nearly worn out electric drill for a blender or mixer. Your only inhibited by your own imagination and keep in mind alot of people will pay you to take off some of this junk, fix it up, sell it make a little cash buy more parts. Life is good.
If you are looking for a shiny cup to mount your tachometer in, check out stainless coffee mugs and cups. You can also get some nice tapered cups that look great on the top of your home made good steering column.
Bruce Lancaster said it perfectly! I wander up and down the aisles at the local mom & pop hardware store endlessly...looking at all the little parts and pieces until I see what I'm looking for "hidden" within all of those shapes and angles! They have a wicked fastner assortment, along with drawers filled with all sorts of grommetts, spacers, springs, bushings, fittings, caps, etc, etc. I go in there thinking about what I need the final part to DO, then look over everything till I see a way to make it happen. Sometimes, I just buy alot of interesting metal stock, fasteners and doo-dads, then dump them into my stash of "fabrication supplies" in the garage. I always end up using that stuff for SOMETHING!!
"Is Bruce Lancaster too cheap to spend Money at WalMart? Is he suggesting that you look at trash and dumpsters? Stay tuned to find out!" Damn straight. I visit the dumpster at NAPA more often than the parts counter, mostly to get the old catalogs. For the late model (a '70 Nova filled with modern electronics like...um...err... a cigarette lighter), I get almost everything at the junkyard where I get stuff for free, and purchase only gaskets and such. I even buy stuff like mufflers and hose there--I have learned to spot cars that hit something while backing out of MIDAS with a new widget. And as for dumpsters--if you haven't learned about them yourself, you can buy a book on dumpster diving that will educate you. This is the greatest country in the world--everyone is busy throwing away stuff I couldn't afford!
[ QUOTE ] Install one 'AA' battery, and 'tap', instant dome light [/ QUOTE ] Now THAT is a great idea for my Morris. Just gotta try and remember it!
Another idea I'll try one day is the old style curvy ornamental stainless salad/fruit bowl. Looks like it would make an interesting airfilter cover, with all it's curves and shiny light trapping grooves. Want a nice curved recess in your firewall, to fit that Hemi or whatever? Use a section from a pressed steel wheelbarrow! I've seen some nice tapered tubular table legs in chromed steel in a local diy store. Make good headlight brackets As has been said: view everything as a source of parts, not as an object in its own right.
We live in an incredibly complex and beautiful ecosystem, consisting of trillions of intertwined elements which clearly exist only so that they can be cut up and used to improve early Fords. Boggles the mind...
9"x12" cake pans make great housings for frenched license plates... with room left over for a small license place light.
Family Dollar has shallow tubs that work great for draining fluids for $3 Skateboards make nice creepers when you're in a pinch For welding, if you find clean hoods from the junkyard, they work great for floors and trunks Black silicone works great to seal leaky front and rear windows, rather than replace the rubber seals Rolls of cork and soda boxes make great gaskets If you know someone who works at a Harley shop, they throw out parts all the time when they get scratched. Motorcycle mufflers work great as exhaust and since you only see the tips, you never notice the scratches down the barrel ~Melissa
Those stores also have little round stick-on reflectors, for mail boxes etc. Assorted colors, the red ones are almost perfect for 49-53 Merc tailites, same as the repop guy sells for $14 a pair. They are 99 cents.......OLDBEET
My dad made a neat custom horn cap,from a chrome coffee pot lid.It looked better than the little button caps on a cal-custom steering wheel.I recessed my firewall in the A with half of a square bbq lid.Chrome faucett handles make cool spinner caps for flat hubcaps. The grille in my '50 is 88 round chrome drawerknobs,on flatblack expanded metal mesh.Chrome P trap pipes can be used lots of ways on flatheads,roadraft tubes,upper radiator pipes,and oil filler tubes. Lowes-sleds rule!!! Glenn
Does anyone else think that it is funny this post has been less than a page away from the "Boycott WalMart" post all day?
The guys at work laughed at me when I went dumpster diving after they 'cleaned' the back room. Scrap metal galore!! Old speakers make great parts holders. Fence post caps make great bullets for anything (and they're free, just don't tell the wife!). I used a license plat for a master cylinder door. The trans tunnel in the bucket is an old Wheel Horse tractor hood. Coolant puke cans can be anything that holds liquid. Geez, the possibilities are endless!!
[ QUOTE ] Does anyone else think that it is funny this post has been less than a page away from the "Boycott WalMart" post all day? [/ QUOTE ] I've been laughing all day at it....well, since it started anyway... Mutt
[ QUOTE ] Rat Rodder...........you're cool DUDE!!!!!! Ya fuckin rip people off so you can be a cheap fuck and hurt the people who put their money on the line to make a livin. (for you and the rest of the people who haven't won the lottery) Get off your computer and start a business and hire some guys to rip you off..... see how you feel then when it comes out of your pocket...... Michigan Dick [/ QUOTE ] Did i say i Steal shit or rip people off ... Nope... Just saying my observtions .. Who am i ripping off again..?? The Big shot yuppies who are loaded and own Tons of chain stores....
The Jalopy Journal
