Shortly after I started college, I met @Don Moyer at a cruise-in in my hometown, and he preached to me the gospel of the Traditional Hot Rod. At this point, I've spent nearly half of my lifetime wanting to build one of my own, and I'm finally getting my chance. I do a bit of racing on the west coast and my team owner's father (a former funny car mechanic back in the '70s and '80s) purchased this '29 Model A Tudor more or less to win a bet with his grandson (my teammate) about how it is indeed possible to find an affordable prewar car. It pretty much just sat there ever since, tucked in the corner of the race shop (in fact, it's still there right now – more on that later). I admired it when I visited the race shop and I thought about it often. I really love these cars. Apparently, prior to their ownership, it had been used as a daily driver by three generations of the same family and is a lifelong Washington car. It's remarkably clean, and looks like it will require a minimum of rust repair to get the body looking great again. The damage to the fenders isn't a major concern of mine, since I'd ditch 'em anyway. Recently, I inquired about it, struck a deal, and this spring, it's making a big cross country trip so that I can cut it up and ruin it. I have a bucket list of events I want to participate in, including TROG, so this car will be built in the style of an early '50s hot rod. I've got a pretty solid plan for how I intend to do it, including a flathead V8 swap using the Old Yankee Speed Co. kit with juice brakes (hopefully Lincoln brakes), a '39 trans, an F1 steering box, '35 wire wheels, and some other traditional tweaks like a dropped axle, reversed spring eyes, and tube shocks. I'm calling the car "Luna Moth," as a tribute to a friend and mentor who p***ed away last year. Luna Moths are nocturnal, prefer wooded areas, and have remarkably short lifespans – it's pretty rare to see one. But, after my friend's funeral, one landed on my leg in the middle of the afternoon in a suburban parking lot, and it stayed there as I carefully walked over to a tree, where it hung out for the rest of the day. I'd like to think it was my buddy Pete telling me that everything was going to be okay. Just one of those moments in life that stick with you. I plan on utilizing the light green and cream/white color combo of the luna moth on this car, with black detailing on the ch***is. I just don't want to go too bright – I'm thinking like a pistachio color. For the body, I'd like to do a 3-4" chop, a Deuce grille, and Guide headlights – pretty basic stuff. I'm not really breaking any new ground here, but you don't mess with Grandma's famous meatloaf recipe, you know? Even though the car is over 2,000 miles away, I've already been hard at work on it. How? Wheeling and dealing, of course. Stay tuned for the next update and I'll show you what I mean. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!
I've been keeping an eye out for vintage speed equipment since I agreed to buy the Model A, and the week before Christmas, a Fenton 2x2 manifold for a late flathead popped up on FB Marketplace. I got him down to $250, and the next day I drove out and picked it up. It appears to have been polished at some point, but the luster faded many years ago. I wasn't sure how much trouble I'd have pulling the studs out, and the filled-in road draft tube hole gave me pause. Either way, I was happy with my purchase, and I decided to stop at Summit Racing on my way home (I live about 15 minutes away from their original retail location). I always check through the scratch & dent area, although I rarely find anything. This time, though, I hit the jackpot: a set of Patriot 8BA lakes headers! I did an old-school "holiday gift guide" style photo shoot under the Christmas tree with this June 1952 issue of Hot Rod that came in a collection of magazines I bought. The real shame about those headers is that they're the perfect style, but the bright ceramic coating isn't really era appropriate for what I want to do. However, given that they were about a third of the retail cost, it was a no-brainer to pick them up as trade bait. It didn't take long to find someone who wanted them. My pal Lee needed a set of headers for an engine he's building, and he offered me a late Mercury flathead in trade. It's an engine he pulled from an old hot rod, so it's already got some mojo built in. He even had a picture of the hot rod in question – it's the blue Ford in the background. I know that's not what anyone is paying attention to in this photo, though. Yes, he still has the dragster – it's actually blocking in my engine right now! It's hard to tell from this photo, but the engine is really hard to get to. Not only is it behind the dragster, it's tucked back underneath some industrial shelving. Nevertheless, hopefully I can get the heads off to check for noticeable cracks within the next couple of weeks. I'd like to get it to the machine shop soon as well, if it p***es the visual inspection. While I was there, I strung up my Fenton intake in his hot tank for a couple of hours to clean it off and pull the studs. Thankfully, they came out relatively easily and the threads held up just fine. This intake is really growing on me and I think I'd like to run it if I can figure out what to do about the road draft tube. Thanks for following along! Until next time!
Your engine has the stamped steel bell on it, it can be used to run a top loader 4 speed if you wanted to, that is what I did. I also used the Jeep shifter to mimic the early style transmission. Caution should be used, there are 2 styles of that bell, one is deeper and will not work with the later trans conversion. I can't remember the measurement at the moment but it is something I ran into during my build years ago.
A few days after hot tanking my intake, the finish was very dark and uneven. I decided to sandblast the intake to get an even finish before sanding and polishing. It came out looking more or less brand new! Not bad at all for a seventy year old hunk of aluminum. Ask and you shall receive! Here's the filled in hole for the road draft tube that I intend to re-open: Honestly, someone did a pretty good job filling this in back in the day. Hopefully I can get this plug or whatever out of there without damaging the manifold. A trusted friend with a lot of prewar car experience recommended drilling a 3/16" hole, tapping it for a long bolt, and trying to wiggle it out. I'll have to figure it out before I can start on sanding and polishing. In the meantime, that Hot Rod magazine from the last post was unfortunately falling apart (it was a good 10-12 years older than the other magazines in the box), so I decided to repurpose a couple of my favorite pages into some garage art. I would have saved the Stroker McGurk strip as well, but it wasn't a particularly memorable one that month. That's all for now! Hopefully the next update will see that plug safely removed from the intake and a cursory inspection of my Merc flathead.
A small detour for this installment. Browsing Facebook Marketplace as one does, I saw a listing for a trailer made out of, as the seller stated in the ad, "1932 Ford parts." Of course, you and I know what we're looking at: a Model A front end and a pair of the desirable '35 wheels. Me and my buddy John picked it up this evening. The center beam is actually bolted to the frame, not welded, so I'll be able to ditch it and s**** it pretty easily. I might get to that tomorrow or Friday if the weather holds up. This thing is super weird, I've seen plenty of trailers made out of the rear half of cast-off Model T and Model A frames, but never the front of one! What's nice, though, is that I'll be able to use this section of the frame to mock up the front end of my car before it arrives from Seattle sometime in the spring. Between this, the teardown of my Mercury flathead, and polishing my intake, I have plenty of work for the next few months! Here's a better shot of my '35 wheels: Outside of these photos, I still haven't seen the trailer or the wheels in daylight. Tomorrow I'd like to try and figure out what the stamped steel wheels are from and if they're worth anything or if I should just s**** 'em along with that center beam. Seems like they might be early Ford wheels mounted backwards. I'll have to pull 'em off tomorrow and take a closer look, and use this thread as a guide: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/ford-steel-wheel-tech.115542/ I'm not very well-versed on old Ford steelies, but it looks like I'm about to learn!
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