Hot Rods The very best trade you ever made

I've never forgotten the top one for me--traded a pair of bucket seats and a 4 speed muncie for a '55 210 2 door chevy sedan, with 265 v8, 3 speed and full interior. No rust but had quarter panel damage on one side--very fixable--rest of the car was great. Drove it home with about 60K on the speedo. Of course, this was when the earth was young.

 

Walking out of a guys shop and spotted a 9 inch center section laying in the dirt! Asked him about it, he said the gears are burned up in it, he had to replace it. I said I can see that …what do you want for it? Again he told me about the gears, I said ok! Then he said “ take it, that way I won’t have to haul it off! I said ok….loaded me a nodular iron 9 inch case with a trac-loc…..for free!





Bones

 

Traded a 440 Mopar crankshaft and rods for a 1972 340 Demon roller .

 

Traded a 305 Honda Scrambler for a 23 T-Bucket

 

Traded out a 53 Chev front bumper for a 40 Chev accessory steering wheel.

 

A bunch of 'em. Memorable was a couple of garage outlets wired up for the CJ2A hulk the lady's son left in there. Early Ebay, sold it off well.
Not a trade as such but wife #1 ran off and made room for younger #2 bride who gave me 2 great kids. Silver anniversary coming up.

 

Triumph tiger 100 for a 1940 Ford coupe with a 303 Oldsmobile in 1963.
1962 VW for a tall T on a Speedway frame.

 

Craftsman toolbox for 70 Caprice 400 with a 400 turbo

 

gettin ready to polish a set of Mercedes valve covers for a Packard transmission ..
fabricator john
miss you dad

 

Traded a thousand bucks for a 59 vette. Lippy

 

Traded a crappy 28 Chevy 4 door and some boot for my 32 Ford coupe. But straight up trading I guess it was trading some BBC aluminum valve covers for a 4 speed tranny.

 

1968 Yamaha Big Bear motorcycle that ran plus a roached 1970 Roadrunner minus engine but still had the 4-speed.
Cost me 2 cases of Busch Light.
Seller may have had a alcohol problem.

 

$75 bucks and a pair of Chevy rally wheels and tires for a Model A frame

 

I traded a rough '29 roadster body for an equally rough '32 Cabriolet. Like many of you I traded off wife #1. High school sweetheart. Two kids and sent her to school for respiratory therapy. I kept the kids and gave her some pots and pans and my '66 Impala, this was 1974. ( A tear runs down my face. I STILL MISS THAT IMPALA). Wife #2 is really number one in my heart. 48 years of rod and bike runs from Puallup to Pleasanton, North Dakota to Louisville, Sturgis to Laconia to Daytona. Covered 42 States in a primered '48 Ford pickup and my motorcycle. And she knows the difference between a '33 and a 34 Ford, which is better than some of the dummies that wander thru here.

 

A little off topic, I use to work at a Sambos restaurant when I was 16 .... Regulars would come in for coffee and sit for hours.
I bought a 1969 Dodge 2 door coronet with a 318 wedge for $35.

The car died in the parking lot, the owner did a tune up on it in the parking lot .... car never ran ... sat for 2 weeks and the restaurant manager was going to tow it .... I paid $35 for the car & title, I fixed the firing order on the plug wires the next morning & drove it home ..... yeah did I mention we were never friends after that?

 

Traded a defunct grocery store building with a rental apartment on one end for a dump truck.

 

I traded a mangled up Model a rumble lid for 2 reallly nice rust free 31 Model A coupe doors!

 

I traded 4 gallons of house paint for a running 327 Chevy engine. HRP

 

Swapped a hex barrel .22 pump for a 4-71 and Cragar Olds intake

 

Swapped a Gibbons conversion '29 sedan delivery and not a lot of money for the Woodie.

 

My dad's buddy called him and said he had bought a dune buggy and he wanted to swap the wheels off of it. The wheels were original 1968 Shelby Mustang aluminum 10-spokes and he said they looked too weak for off-roading. All he wanted was to trade straight across for some stock Ford steel wheels. We made the trade and I eventually found a 68 GT500 to put the wheels on.

 

My phamtom '32 Sedan Deliv. straight across trade to the late (RIP) Al Casteen @Hamtown Al for his '36 Cabriolet...and the 6 page thread that followed the trade.
Art & Inspiration - Two deals in one week... things definitely changing for me... and others! | The H.A.M.B. (jalopyjournal.com)

 

I traded a pair of used tires for a 49 Chevy. The Chevy was rough but it ran well. The tires weren't that great either. I'm not sure who got the best of that deal.

 

Traded the 1974 Ford Maverick I had built for my 47 Lincoln coupe.

 

A running '58 Nomad / 225 HP 283, Turbo trans, 150,000 miles.
For 3.5 months touring Europe and N. Africa, plus 3 early Jag chrome wire wheels.

 

Bought a rare Honda in Japan, sent it to the US, sold it and the profit bought my 34 3W. Put the initial Honda payment into a Harley and Model A, shipped those 3 to Japan and the profit from the HD and Model A paid for all the costs for the whole deal (transport, tax, rego costs) and got to put my original outlay back in the bank. Free 34 3W landed and registered in Japan with some beer money left over Wish I could do one of those every year...

 

Hello,

This kid in our neighborhood had an old surfboard(longboard) with a popular name. He did not want it because his mom told him to “get rid of it.” So, I offered to buy it and he just gave it to me. It was dinged up and looked to have a ton of surface rail cracks absorbing water like a sponge. I rode it one day and it was not the best experience out in the water. But, it looked as if it had some history and possible trade in for my next custom shaped new surfboard at a local surf shop.

When I got it home, my wife asked what I was going to do now, with three surfboards. One was my last longboard from the teenage years still in wonderful shape and great riding surfboard hanging from the rafters. The other was a new shorter, more modern shaped surfboard just recently shaped.

The newest one at the time was the red finned 8 foot speed shape board with an orange/red fin on top of the Rambler sedan we bought for our Kauai adventure.

Then, there was this name brand longboard that was a ding repair nightmare. After contemplating for a week, I decided to strip the outer layer of the fiberglass covering and exposed the foam underneath. My preliminary discovery was that a slight dings did absorb water, but held its structure well. So, I proceeded to sand the whole foam blank down a little.

After spending time with the blank foam piece, I made some shape designs from a large refrigerator cardboard box pieces. The overall new speed shape for the outline, the shape of the rails and a side shape with some curvature on the nose area. The longboard foam was straight as an arrow, popular design back then. But had enough thickness for me to experiment with the drawings and hand shaping tool.

My goal was to get a shorter board for me than the current 8 foot board just shaped for our trip to Kauai. Well after spending several hours hand shaping in the garage, the 9 foot longboard blank was now less than 7 feet, a few inches thinner and had the speed shape of a modern surfboard. I had made a “v” bottom just before the fin box and it looked good. The overall look was pretty good if I say so myself. I was proud of my first speed shape surfboard. But, I knew it was too short and thin for my height and weight.

Jnaki

After cleaning up the mess in the garage floor and surrounding “stuff” coated with fine dust, I was looking at the blank shape wondering if it would actually float and allow me to glass it to ride the waves.

The young neighbor kid happened to walk by and wondered what I was doing in the garage. So, he saw the modern shape blank sitting on two supports. He asked who did that work. When I told him it was me, he was amazed that it could be so nice of a design and finished shape. (plus points for the kid!)

So he grabbed the blank shape, hefted it over his head, walked around with it and yes, it fit him well. Knowing his mom was having some problems with extra cash for her son’s adventures, I gave him the finished blank and he was flabbergasted. My reasoning was that I was too large for the modified foam finished blank. Glassing would put on a little more weight and it would not have been a good sight with me trying to surf on it.

Note:
Many years later, I had a custom twin fin made and it was 6'4" that rode well on "down the line" speed maneuvers and cutbacks. But, while sitting on it to wait for the next set of waves I was sitting underwater. Ha!

Note 2:

The young kid took my newly shaped blank home and had the local glassing/finishing shop complete the board. He came a week later running down the street with the new finished surfboard. His mom added some money for glassing and finishing. The local board shaper/glasser gave him a super discount on finishing the board. It looked great and fit him perfectly. He was around 5 feet tall and the finished board was just a tad shorter than 6 feet 6 inches. The amazing thing was I saw him surfing it and he did well on “his” new surfboard.

So, the story of an old, dinged up, name brand longboard turned into a trade of sorts. He gave the old board to me and I gave him my best shot at shaping a new surfboard that worked out for him. “Pay it forward”… works every time. YRMV

 

I traded a rust free 79-87 G body G.M. with an extra nose and a roll cage kit for a vintage Edelbrock SU 359 3x2 flathead intake with carbs, a vintage Edelbrock 4x2 324Olds intake, and a Edelbrock 3 CBX for a Smallblock Chevy!

I got the G body and the noses for scrap and paid $25.00 for the cage kit at a swapmmeet!