anyone else come up with any ingenious things with dollar store or bathroom garnishings from lowes or anything, this is a cool thread
Piece of chrome water supply pipe over a threaded piece of steel rod, thread a small window crank knob and the replacement directional signal stalk is complete. (Going back to the stock steering wheel.)
Dude I'm crying over here!!! That is AWESOME! At first I thought... "Nah, that old fashioned light bulb base looks kinda cheesy" but I would do this in a HEARTBEAT because I LOVE screwing with people!!!
shoot....I thought this was just the way hotrods were built. My dad's been into hotrods continously since the 50s and his cars have always been filled with stuff like this. He's made more cool stuff out of junk than I can really remember, and I've been doing it the same way since I started doing my own wrenching in the 80s. Together, we've used countless yards of that shiny insulation from Lowes instead of the Dynamat type stuff. There's no doubt that Dnyamat is nice, but dang....you might as well be insulating with gold.
I've used roofing paper for gaskets. It makes good water pump gasket on my junk truck. The gasket outlasted the water pump!
last weekend needed a float bowl gasket for lawnmower, rubber gasket for sink diffuser (screw on screen on the bottom of water flow) perfect size
Those little stainless pill cups from the dollar store make good velocity stacks. Plus olive oil is the best cutting oil I have ever found for cast iron, and used cooking oil will dissolve some of the worst grease and tar.
I have used 2 inch exhaust clamps as gauge pods. If you have a 2 inch gauge it fits perfect. Looks mint mounted under the dash. Stronger than that flimsy one that comes with the gauge.
I used the stainless hose from a shower head for the sheathing on the parking brake cables for my '37 Buick. BTW, I used garage door cable for the parking brake cable. Got both from the local farm supply store.
Wow, I spent so much time reading all of this. So glad that someone mentioned using aluminum frying pans as disc break covers. I have seen that a couple times. One that 39sledge figured out (but hasn't piped up about) is using the light fixtures for those down lights works well for frenching lights. I don't know HOW to do it, but if you are interested I know he does.
Im a cheap ******* and I dont care who knows it! I like my stuff to look good and to be dependable just like anyone else, and as long as cheap ALSO means durable I dont care where it came from! Im NOT paying $100 for something that I can get somewhere else for $10 after I wipe the dust off of it! Ill be a dumpster-diver, curb shopper, and re-purposing expert as long as I live! I find a LOT of stuff for the cars and for the shop walking through the local Habitat for Humanity Re-store [FONT="]http://www.habitat.org/cd/env/restore.aspx[/FONT] Its a Thrift Store for building materials! If you use your imagination there is a BUNCH of cool hot rod parts and shop supplies in there! Ive bought brand-new-in-the-box 8 fluorescent fixtures in there for $10 each because the prismatic lens covers were slightly cracked, all kinds of industrial shelving, cabinets for the garage, pegboard, industrial enamel paint for $3 a gallon, the big 3 x 5 rubber backed / carpeted WELCOME mats for the floor in front of the side door, etc I even carpeted the area around the workbench with brand new surplus industrial carpeting from there for about $25. Makes it NICE when youre on your feet a lot or kneeling down working on something. The support arm for my old warehouse light is a chunk of swimming pool handrail with a stainless steel ****** welded to the end. My dash support, radiator supports, etc. for the 49 came from a set of portable bleachers that the local elementary school had sitting by the dumpster and written S**** on it . LOTS of free 1 x 2 and 1 x 1 square steel tubing. The AC condenser supports under the flatbed on the 49 are actually bed rails from a crib! Im cutting down this old beauty shop hair dryer that I found on the curb to use as an air filter housing. It says TURBINATOR on the tag! That oughta make people scratch their heads... For the garage: I used election signs & drywall screws for ceiling covering in the garage: Those 4 x 9 sheets of Coroplast are light enough that you can hold the whole sheet up with one hand to align it, the drywall screw stays put when you screw it in by hand to start it, and then a quick blast with the cordless screwdriver holds it there forever. It insulates, makes it brighter in there, keeps the dust from the parts in the attic from falling down onto the cars, AND its FREE. But DONT take them until after the polls close on election night! Its actually against the law to tamper with the election process and they DO take that stuff pretty seriously! Be quick though because the RC airplane guys also like this stuff to build planes out of and theyll snag as much as they can carry too. Its also GREAT stuff for making templates & patterns out of because it is dimensionally the same as cardboard but a LOT more durable. Thanks for salad bowl light reflector tip! I just picked up another traffic light that had been gutted and I was wondering what to do for reflectors! On the subject, I have a traffic light installed on one of those portable basketball hoop things that have the base that you fill up with water and wired it up to my security light. When you back down the driveway and stop in front of the garage you get a green light! Of course I didnt BUY the basketball hoop, I found it while curb shopping in my neighborhood! WAAAAY off topic (well, it IS a very traditional 1950s rancher!) but when we bought this house, they wanted something like $100 each for the 9 foot long curtain rods that we needed for the big windows in front. I bought some ½ metal conduit and some nice finials and brackets and painted it all with Krylon semi-flat black. The wife loves them! She hates being ripped off too! (wife happy = more garage time and more )
If I can find the weight of oil or gear lube, coolant, pb blaster, etc, I get it at walmart. But beyond the consumables, I usually don't get anything from there for my cars.
when i changed the ****** in my 67 c-10 i used a universal 4 sp. shifter & it hit the seat i had to get it completed and running again so i came up with this in a hurry, cost= spare wrenches how cool is that
Sound deadening material/instructions cant believe this hasnt been mentioned yet havent done it but i am planning to before winter http://www.alanhorvath.com/54chevy/doors_quiet.php
Garage door handle. Chrome with a key, the square shaft works with a lot of cars. Get the single handle not the tee. Looks like it came with a 30's car.
The Jalopy Journal
