Hot Rods "A" REAL HOT ROD (Now Bound for Bonneville)

What is the Frenzel? Never heard of that.

 

Me likey.

 

Here are the last few posts from the Frenzel Boys Down Under's




Hard to believe but ONE OF THOSE BAD BOYS is MINE!

My daughter saw the first post with the Hats and said I need to make a T-Shirt. I bought one of the first Frenzel Superchargers and all I got was this stupid hat! LMAO. It doesn't fall far from the tree does it! We are very excited.

Thinking about having a party. We have nothing, any where near ready to run it on but we can all just sit around eating burgers and look at it right?!!!

 

Well after 10 months of waiting...basically giving up on the whole deal etc...I got a text this week saying the Ch***is was just about ready.



Since I had given up on it I pretty much burned the ch***is money on a Supercharger (as you know) but since it is complete we are going to go ahead and snag it (since to be honest it is really one of the last missing, major pieces to the puzzle). It looks nice. Now maybe if we get with it, we might at least have something to sit the motor in and the Frenzel on instead of using it as a center piece in the dinning room! LMAO!

 

But induction systems do make great centerpieces for kitchen tables. I’m my life I have had an original 6 pak manifold and carbs for a 440, offy dual quad with carters, Holley strip dominator and 850dp. Currently I have a weiand square port tunnelram with 2 660center squirters on it.

 

Sadly, from what I hear from other sources a 10 month turn around is pretty quick. everything seems to be on a we will build it on order as soon as the check clears and we get a chance basis. Not saying these shops are rip off's, over head is killing them and they are shorthanded. it's getting almost impossible to find anybody to do stuff up here. The few engine machine shops anywhere in the area are at least 6 months to a year back log. Times we live in. Keep up the great work!.

 

Home at last.

 

Yep same here. He just can't find anyone to work. And with standing orders from Pete and Jake's and Speedway a lot of his personal work simply has to sit. Totally understood. Just glad to finally have such a high quality piece to start the build with...

 

A shame it has to be painted, I experienced the same misery/joy when I finally got the ch***is for my roadster, looked just like that on my pals' trailer, when we got it unloaded I had to just sit there with a beer and take it all in.
Couldn't wait to plug this in for a look-see.

 

Yep I was thinking the same thing. I am going to just apoxy primer it right now. We are still playing around with potential color schemes. Not that we are any where near that..lol!

 

Well...the Eagle has landed. Lol. Hard to believe but it is finally here!

 

Release the beast!

 

So I started cleaning a spot in the garage to start laying out pieces yesterday. I dug out the quick change rear and double checked it. Dad said it was a Halibrand but I was thinking it might be a Winters. Eitherway cool enough. But Dad was right!





So SUPER COOL!

 

Come on Randall get this thing together already!!! Lol

 

Body made to shop tonight. Been in storage for a while.



Set it on the ch***is just about dark. I will get some more photos tomorrow afternoon.

 

First look at the trunk lid. Inside panel is pretty rough...going to need to find one of those...needs to be louvered anyway.... right?

Need a stock firewall and a couple inner fender sheet metal pieces. Other than that the rest is workable.

Swap meet coming up in a month or so!!!

 

That body looks like it's prepped for a severe channel job and lots of engine room. I like the way you have it sitting on your frame better than the channeling it could be doing.

 

Dad has a frown, is that good

 

Yes...we saved the poor thing from having to finish its life as a stupid low slung rat rod contraption. We started its salvation right there on the trailer last night with a sawsall! I cut out the most mickey moused floor pan apparatus I have ever seen. That is what Dad is frowning about...lol.

Fortunately the entire thing was only welded to the body in two places. LMAO!

 

Old Hot Rods rock !!!!

 

We are going to have a garage party on Saturday, July 22nd. So for any of you area HAMBers heads up you are invited. Should be a fun time. No particular time, we will be serving food from around lunch time to dark so come when you want and stay as long as you want. Just show up and we will feed you.
Bring your cl***ic car or hot rod if you can and hang for a while. If you are interested send me a PM and will get you some details. Hope to see you there.

 

In preparation for the party (outside of trying to get the garages presentable LOL) we have been working on getting the little hot rod mocked up and at least look like something other than a pile of parts. That being said, I have made a few design changes. I have a killer set of original '35 Ford Wire wheels for it that really look the part of a late 1940s to early '50s rod. We bolted them on the Halibrand rear end and rolled it under the car. Then I decided to half *** ***emble the front end so maybe the car could stand on its own.

Quite a few of the bits and pieces are coming off of a project rod that came out of Arizona. Long story but a decade or more ago I was showing Dad how to bid on things on EBAY. This little rod had just been listed. It was Army Olive Drab it had a quick change in it, an Olds motor and hydramatic said to have been freshly rebuilt etc. It was pretty rough looking but I decided to make a bid on it just show him the process.





Now you can not go by the top photos. It looked much more complete in the ad. Like I said it had an Olds 324 with a polished 4 carb intake. It had matching wheels on the front, in fact you can still see one leaning up against the shop wall etc. It looked to be a running rat rod etc. and at the time that was all the rage. The current bid was $1250 so I bid $1500 knowing it was going to go much higher. It immediately showed I was out bid but the reserve was still not met. I told Dad someone has placed a max bid on this car and until someone outbids his Max bid he will stay in the lead etc. To be honest, I figured this thing was going to sell for $6 to $8K. I bid $2000 to show him I was right. And again I was immediately out bid.

I said you can place bids like that and the computer will automatically update until the bid surp***es your max amount. I said this guy is probably in for $3500 to $5000. Like a ***** I bid $2500 knowing full well I wasn't anywhere near the sell amount nor the reserve. Bang. Reserve is off and I am the leading bidder. Dad kind of panicked and said what does that mean. I said don't worry we are not going to win this car for $2500 we will get outbid. We did not. LMAO!

Neither of us was feeling too excited about the car when it got dropped off a week later but it sort of grew on Dad. The first thing we noticed was there was no way it was running because the killer intake and 4 stromberg set up had no bolts in it. That is because it did not belong on this engine, it was just sitting there between the valve covers. So we pulled it and dropped a Model A four banger in it and I snagged some cool performance parts for it, including headers and a vintage Fenton Dual down draft carb intake. Then we got busy with other projects and it basically just sat. But here is what we scored from that accidental purchase.

A 1957 J2 Olds engine. That is why the 324 intake didn't fit. We got a nice Hydromatic Trans with customer shifter, A very cool 324 Polished intake and 4 Strombergs, a full set of early Ford steel wheels, A very nice set of new Coker Tires (Track T Style), A Halibrand Quick Change rear end, a set of vintage bomber seats and a killer 4 core Griffen Radiator. In reality a pretty good parts score!

Anyway back to the Rod at hand. The green monster as we started calling the before mentioned car also had a set of nearly new, unturned Buick finned brake drums up front. I had planned all along to put them on the Model A until we tried to bolt the wheels to them on Sunday afternoon. The studs were not long enough. I started thinking about what we would need to do it right. To be honest we would need some kind of wheel spacer about inch and 3/8 or so thick. It would not really change the placement of the wheels, simply give them something solid behind them to bolt to since the Buick drums are so much larger than early Fords etc.

I decided to tap into the leading site on traditional rods to see what they had to say. LMAO. Of course the HAMB always has an opinion. There was an exact thread on the subject, how to safely bolt '35 Ford Spokes to Buick drums. It became immediate obvious I was making an error. "You are crossing the streams" was my favorite reply followed by "even if you find a way, don't do it!" Its funny how you can know so much about cars and history etc. but be blinded by the trends.

It never even occurred to me that a late 40's early 50s rod wouldn't have had the finned drums. Even though my daughter and I not that long ago completely redid the brakes on here '70 Riviera! Yep Buick Finned Drums!

SO...that being said, I sat down and took a hard look at the parts catalog and yesterday I snagged a few of the remaining items we needed.

While I was on that HAMB thread I did learn that even with the 37-40 Style Drums you still need an adapter to run any of the wire wheels '28-'35. A link in the response got me hooked up with 4 wire wheel adapters. We had an issue with the spindles from the Green Monster. I am not sure what they were off of but when installed the axel boss was too close to the back of the spindle which gave them limited turning radius so I snagged an new set with King Pins etc. Probably just as well. Playing around with the stock steering arms I had it was obvious we needed to go a different route so I got a set with a 3.75" drop.

To be honest, I ordered a '37-'48 Ford front Bendix style drum brake kit which will match what is already on the rear. I felt pretty thrifty until I realized we also needed the front hubs and bearings etc. (that hurt) LOL! But while I was there I also snagged a front spring u-bolt kit and a motor mount kit for the Flathead. I know I could have fabricated the mounts but as cheap as the set was it didn't seam cost effective to spend the time building them.

 

Oh what a tease! Let’s see the mock up! Or are ya gonna make us all drive down for the party and your baiting us?

 

I like the 37 truck grill

 

Great thread so far!
Where did you end up ordering the brake kit, spindles, spacers, hubs etc from?
Thanks

 

I will show you boys the mock up the second I have it mocked! LOL.
....And yes I have loved that grill since the first time I saw it. That one is actually from across the pond.
It is the original grill from the Thames Van that Dad has had for more than 50 years. We are currently and FINALLY building that crazy thing into a G***er for him. It has been in the back of a shops, garages, farm sheds etc. but it is finally getting built. We put a fibergl*** Anglia nose on it so the grill was up for grabs. It does look a lot like a 37 Ford Pick Up Grill but there are a few minor differences. I love it though!

 

Did someone say "T" bones, I like mine medium!

 

Interesting! Definitely looks 37 Ford at a glance. I like it.

 

Yeah it’s like a 37 that someone already cut up to
Make work. Very cool, often the only thing that makes me notice it’s not the truck grill is the double crank holes

 

It is pretty cool. That was for either left or right hand drive. That is how far off set the engine was from center to give the driver some pedal room etc. The rear ends were offset as well to keep the driveline straight.