A couple months back at a swap meet I saw a real old wooden steering wheel, sitting with an equally old guy. He seemed pretty excited with this old wheel but everyone else was just walking by. So I stopped to chat and had quite an interesting conversation. 5 minutes later he reached conclusion, "Well I'm 87 and probably never gonna do anything with this damn thing.. you can have it for 5$." So the wheel and smile changed ownership and I dragged it home with me. He mentioned it was likely installed in the early 1900s, meaning the wood is probably 200 years old by now. A bunch of people told me it was real ugly but I didn't care, everything has potential. I started by just sanding off all the old oil and grime that had accumulated over the years, it started to look a little better. At one spot the layers had slightly peeled apart so I stuffed some high strength wood glue in there and then covered it in saw dust. Peeled it off and looked again, still ugly. Then I got an idea, an awful, wonderful idea. So I wrapped the entire thing in wire, in an X pattern, and torched it with a propane burner. Probably not what the old guy had in mind when he passed it over, would've gave that guy a heart attack. Now, slightly worried what I'd done, I unwrapped the wire, sanded it down again to bring out the grain in the burnt spots and sprayed a clear coat over top cause there was no going back at this point. I'll let the pics speak for themselves! This fancy wheel is going in the blue sedan. I had to take all that wood out of there, may as well put some back in!
Wow! What a great way to get into this hobby/obsession of ours. Let's see some pics of that meteor dash installed, too. (Subscribed)
Thanks guys! I was a little skeptical at first of how it might turn out but I'm really happy with the finished product. Dash pics next post! This little guy is for the back upper roof section. My tubing bender couldn't get it quite tight enough so I had to pie cut and re weld. Then I wanted to work out a system for bear claw latches. Luckily there was a how to thread on here somewhere, that cut out a lot of guess work. First I took the old latch apart to use the farthest piece to the right. Only 3 left to go Latches are from hotrodlatches.com Good guy and I'm impressed with quality so far.
I did a bit of body work on the convertible but it was getting a little tricky to see the high and low spots so I scooted to the next city over to get my hands on some epoxy primer. I'm from a town of only 5000 people, so certain supplies in this town seem to be elusive. So I gave the outside a thick coat and the inside a coat of etch prime, but left the firewall for now because it still needs some hammering. Complimentary dash pics for bengeltiger still needs a little tweaking here but its close.
I'll second the Calvin and Hobbes reference! They tried to build an airplane model once with rather mixed results...can you imagine them building a hotrod?
Free Stuff + Using What Yo Have + Great Work...That's Old School Traditional! Keep Up The Good Work!...Subscribed!
Great looking work on your A's! What's not to like about the free price too. What else is in that stash of 50 old cars? Hope you go back and save some of them. Photos?
Lots of trucks in his collection! And apparently he has a 51 monarch somewhere, but I didnt get to see it. Unfortunately this is the kind of guy that loves to collect but doesn't like to sell. Lots of these cars were rusted in ways I'd never seen before. The river valley that he lives in seems to have its own humid climate, not a whole lot will be left in 5 years
...really cool story and cool projects you have going there, ...too bad the old guy won't let loose of some of that cool tin. ...steering wheel is awesome!
Nuthin ugly about that steering wheel! My first T Bucket (1965) had a steering wheel (13"dia) I cabbaged from a dodge-em car from an amuzement park I worked at in '64. These dodge-em cars were apparently built in Chicago in the early '20s. Identical to yours except mine had the black hard rubber rim, and had that nice full feel in the hand. Polished the hub and spokes and had it plated. Wish I had it today on my present car (avatar). Meteor ----m-m-m-m-m, somewhere in central Canada?
Haha that's funny, car parts seem to come out of the most unusual places. Good guess, yes, central Alberta to be specific. I always found the meteors and monarchs to be a little interesting. Almost the exact same as a US Ford, just a nightmare to find information on. We have a Canadian built GMC 1 ton, and none of the vehicle identification numbers transfer over to any known records. If anyone has Canadian vin decoder, I'd be thrilled
Next thing up on the list was getting the engine/trans mounted. I bought a sheet of 1/8" sheet metal and plasma cut my pre made template out x4. that held up the trans, and the engine mounts are made out of 2x3, much like they do in the Bishop/Tardel book. Certainly not art, but it works like a charm.
Put the body back on and managed to get my hands on a 1950 ford f-1 steering box. Upon further research I found most people shorten the sector shaft, but I don't have the machining skill to do that. So instead, I cut a hole in the frame rail and moved the box outwards. The frame will get reinforced anyway, so I'm not too worried.
My apologies, I haven't been active here for a while, so all my progress seems to be packed in bunches. Below the door on the ex-phaeton was an unsightly gap. The cowl has a lower line and the back half does as well, but below the door was open. So I decided to make a body line as well as somewhat of a door sill. I used 16 gauge and bent it over with a hammer and the edge of a table.
Really enjoy your work and enthusiasm! You asked about replacing the glass in your windshield frame. The frame comes apart at a the top corners so the glass can be slid out and back in. Likely will have to drill some screws out to accomplish this however. Tim
Nice to see progress being made. Here is a shot of my '29 Steelback , may help you out on finishing yours. By the way I'm fairly sure that steering wheel you restored was in a 1920's Franklin originally. Bob
Thanks for the picture and info! I've been puzzling and puzzling now my puzzler is sore, with this new found info I'll puzzle some more!
Some tires showed up! Running firestone 6.40-15s up front and 8.20-15 in the rear. Wide whites of course! We decided to get big tires on the rear wheels for a higher top speed. Poor man's gear change The old steelies were slightly rusted so I took them to a friend for sand blasting, then I primed and painted outside on a nice day
I had a few days off work so I hooked up a 4 link suspension system to keep the 9" in line. Having the body separate from the frame was taking up way too much floor space, so we employed an unusual method to lift the heavy ass body over. Success
My goal is to have the little RPU running first, just in time for summer. The sedan will follow shortly after, so it may go without updates for a bit. Next step on the ex-phaeton was getting my paws on a radiator and finishing the floor. One of the 1929 rad shells we have is beat to shit so I was looking at something to replace it. A deuce shell was out of the question because of price and the sheer number of them that live on model As probably out number the hot rods with model A shells. Just by chance stumbled across a stainless steel 1930-31 grill shell. I figured the universe had spoken and I scooped it up. In my opinion the later rad shells look far superior than the early ones blurry but you get the idea. A sheet of 16ga steel on the floor is not quite picture worthy so moving on! The old man was gone for a weekend so I wanted to get his car looking like a car. Started with a stock 29 headlight bar.. torch, cut, repeat! Then I heard about headlight fluttering, so my next step was to fix the problem before it happened. Same piece of headlight bar got slightly bent like a rainbow, chopped in half, then 6 pie-cuts along the bottom on each one, welded and smoothed Polished! So these 2 formed together to make the "V", then I used 1/4" rod to form 2 rings for an 8. Should have taken more pictures, but I was on a roll. I tacked one end on a piece of pipe, then torched it cherry red as I bent it around the pipe. Then welded and smoothed Ta-da! functional art.
Just a heads up- when you get ready to fire the flatty, break it in on a single carb. The "bling" can come later.
The Jalopy Journal
