I got this Butternut coffee can full of these spark plugs along with some early hemi parts I bought at a swap meet 45 years ago. These parts never spoke to me, so I don't know what the story is but the fact that "REATH" is written on the side of the can makes me think there is a story to go with them. Maybe I should make one up......
My last NOS ARDUN V8-60 lifter, At the time in the 1970's swapping the complete engine for $2,200. worth of Reproduction 1932 Ford parts was a smart thing to do, now in 2025 not so much.
All I have in old coffee cans are self tapping screws. I bought the can full 30 years ago at an auction for fifty cents. I've used about 1/2 the can full up. It was a great investment. It was a different brand of coffee too. No pictures... I scrapped most of my old broken parts with a story when I moved here 23 years ago. One of my favorites, of those scrapped long ago was the 2 lobe section out of the middle of a big block Mopar cam. The #6 rod broke in our dirt track car, and it came right up through the center of the block and broke the chunk out of the cam before the motor locked up. No warning, no fire, no smoke, no show. It was running strong, then suddenly it wasn't running at all.
In 1964 my late uncle Joe bought a wrecked 1963 chevy station wagon, for parts. he took it all apart and used the parts to make repairs on customers cars. The 283 motor eventually ended up in the back of an old school bus behind the gas station that was used as part storage. In 1979 while building a stock car I was tasked with the job of dragging the motor up the aisle to the front door so we could hook it with the wrecker and get it in the shop. This was early evening on a Friday . Once in the shop we took the heads off, cleaned the cylinders, my uncle worked his magic with the heads and reassembled it. We got the motor in and running sometime before daylight. That night, the car took the heat and the feature. It ran two seasons in the car then the track closed. The motor ended up in my coupe, while I rebuilt the 301 that was in it. once I finished the rebuild, I swopped it back out. A fellow club member had blown the big block in his '40 Studebaker and didn't want to lose the season, so we installed it till he rebuilt the big block, two months later swopped it out again. A few weeks later a good friend of mine sunk his 1976 Chevy Blazer in a swamp while off roading and bent a rod, so the little 283 went into that till he found a 350. Out it came again and went back into my coupe because the 301 blew and I ran that motor till I rebuilt the car in 2014 . This motor is sitting under my stairs just in case...... a very special part.
Thanks Ted, That is a Midnight Joe story I never herd before, far better than the one about buying and driving home the winner from a Demolition Derby. I hadn't planned on giving an award but my two Grandsons 8 &13 have learned the art of dumpster diving and I've got trophies to give away now.
Once upon a time, I had a nasty girl friend. Besides nasty, she was broke, homeless, and out of work. Being the nice guy that I am...I mean stupid....I set her up with a place to live and a fine 67 chev wagon to get a job. After a few months of hell, I figured out she could not live in the country with out that car. At the time, I owned a gas station in my little town, And when the car was there, (for free gas) we poured every liquid in the garage in the poor old 283. Anti freeze, brake fluid, you name it, in the crank case. It would get 10 or 20 miles down the road and seize up. She'd call me, I go out with the wrecker, and by that time it cooled off it started rite up! After 3-4 of those episodes, I held the gas pedal down till she seized again at the garage, then loaded it with scrap to haul to the scale. I'm sure the old 283 would have been fine with an oil change.
Hello, When we first got to use all of the machine equipment, the high school metal shop was a fun place. We had never worked with large machines, but in a rotation of students, it took a while to get my turn in line. So, the first thing we all had to make a standard chisel from old hex bar our teacher had in droves in the stockpile. a small chisel He had his model on the table and we had to measure it to duplicate his skills. Sharp point and all. If it did not look like his model, including measurements from point to point and the angle at the right degree, we had to do it over again with a new hex rod. It took me two tries to get it right. The first one looked like the model, but the angle of the sloping area to the tip was off. Although I had polished it to a shiny finish and the blade + rear sanded/filed end was excellent, it was wrong and I had to start over it again. Why could I not just re-do the angle? I could but then the overall length would be off. So, it was easier to start all over again. The chisel followed me from project to project, but it was not the most used tool in the tool box. It just sat there under other tools that got places in one of the lower tool box drawers. Then it got moved to a cabinet box for tools to be used, later or when I needed a chipping incident. Which was a few to none after our hot rod/drag race build days came to a slow closing of the shop ideas. But, for the next few years of dessert motorcycle racing, it did come in handy. Old welds comes to mind… or building a new kickstand for off concrete motor/chassis work. Jnaki These days, one can get a set of metal chisels from all over the place and in all sorts of designs. Whether the quality is good or not, at least it is a set for all sorts of whatever work. The old chisel is in the chisel portion of rusty ground somewhere in the city trash dump. So, what did I use that high school chisel for? I thought it was just a paperweight and threw it in the Craftsman tool box. Then when I needed to get a rusted blob of metal from an oversight welding joint, I had to use the giant screwdriver like all folks use them. At least they were guaranteed for life. But, then I saw the old high school chisel sitting in the tool box. So, out it came and gone was the blob of welded metal off of a smooth firewall sheet. Then later on, we had a wonderful artistic sculpture of poured left over color and clear resin from our surfboard business. At each mixture of the final color resin and catalyst, one had to pour out the last bit to let the remaining bucket of resin cure. Then the next clear coat was fired up and utilized. The pour out was difficult as it was waste and could not just clean out the bucket and down the drain. It starts like this and then more gets poured out onto a specific area, like our backyard pole. So, we poured the left over color on a small pole that we attached to a concrete block in our mom’s garden. It was supposed to be a garden sculpture. Over time, the short 12 inch pole was now over two feet tall with a myriad of colors from the various hot batches of resin+ color + catalyst for those patches and for the two longboards we actually made. Pole inset in a concrete block, buried into the ground... We could have just let the left over resin color solidify, but as one bucket was used, the next one needed to be ready for the last gloss coat. So, out comes the old and the new bucket was used for the clearcoat. Note: When we moved our hot rod/drag racing stuff and started our surfboard business along with desert motorcycles, we had a empty yard with no car sitting outside being worked on, so, the covered canvas tent shade did the same for repair surfboards or using resin for gloss coating on various wood projects. Over the years, the little pole on a concrete pad grew. When we listed the house and the real estate agent was doing a walk through, he spotted the colorful pole. He said that “object” has to go. So, I said no problem. The concrete was down about a foot with the pole inside. So digging it up was the method. First, I had to chip off the pored, spread out, solid three inch+ thick resin, so out came the trusty large size Craftsman screwdriver, as usual. But the large screwdriver was not enough. I used large spikes, sharp nails and even tried drilling holes with a concrete drill. The holes were ok, but it took too long to go through the whole blob of color. Then I got the idea of using a crowbar to hit it to break up the surface into chunks. But, that fizzled. So, in this moment. I did not care what tool I used, it had to come out. The high school chisel was sitting in the tool box and called for me… ha! Now, a sturdy 8 inch homemade chisel from the high school days that has seen limited usage over the years wanted to help. I used it like a “chisel” and as I was hitting it and the flat wide point went into the surfaces, it started to break up. Then cracks started showing up and as I stuck the chisel inside, it broke off larger chunks of solid colorful resin. Now, I was on a roll and in no time, the base was exposed and it came out easily to be disposed in the trash can. I thought about keeping the top portion of the smooth point and flowing of the different colors as a reminder. But, in knowing our small apartment, it would not fit anywhere, including the dinky side yard. So, I said goodbye and off it went to the landfill pick up for the next day. YRMV
Piston from 1985 Prudhome funny car. The budget was tight. Snake had a friend of mine patching parts together for spares. This piston and rod were beyond repair so I snagged it for a paperweight. I heard he was going to be at the Shelby birthday show in 2015 so I took it along for him to sign.
Repco Brabam V8 620 Cylinder head I always wondered where the rest was of this famous engine what it powered and of owned and raced it before i saved it from scrap a Aussie Icon speed part Made By Jack Brabbam 66-67 for a race car he built to take on the world of F1 whish i had the rest of it
Hello, Recently, my wife was on the warpath for tidiness and the annual summer garage drawers/cabinets official clean out project. If I happen to look for a tool for a project or two and cannot find it easily… actually, it was somewhere I put it, but the old brain is lost in the woods at this point… ha! Such as a fine blade shaping file that can get to small places my wife requires in some of her house projects. I looked, but the small file was probably in a narrow crack between other drawer containers. So, I ordered a new one to finish the project. Now, I know where the thin file is located, but the other one is still missing. That was one incident. But while we were in the garage, it looked nice with all of the “stuff” off of the long counter top cleared off and in their respective drawers. Plus, I just finished taking apart an old laptop I had not used since 2020. It worked until this year and got put away for later disposal. Since I am having fun writing and researching on my new, more powerful laptop, that old one was in a drawer, out of sight until I could get to it. Ha! So, that was a great excuse not to clean out the drawers for the annual project. Summer is here officially and it was time. We have shallow drawers for the normal daily stuff, scissors, X-acto knives, pencils, measuring tape plus tapes of all kinds, and Velcro rolls/pieces. That is the almost, everyday stuff. The next shallow drawer is my Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Corgi drawer. I have several custom little cars being modified in various stages and one project that has been sitting for two Christmas seasons due to “stuff” getting in the way. But, these days, the drawers are neat and organized, plus I know where things are. The one drawer that gets used most are where my wife knows what is in that drawer for her usage. Those thin drawers have kitchen utensil separator containers and that is where the thin or little tools are located in their respective sections. Normal screwdrivers, files in another, pencils, rulers in one and small pliers in another section, etc. All nice and organized. Jnaki One of deepest drawers, 4 in total, store the heavy tools, electric drill, saw, hand saws, files, etc. Everything one would need to start and finish a project or two. But, stashed in the corner of one deep drawer are some memorabilia items. They were once in a plastic container in the attic, but now, they reside in one of the accessible garage drawers. In that drawer, are only 4 things of interest from our various family history. Of the 4 things, this one is a doozy. This guy has survived clean out purges since 1966 and used since 1950. Vintage Hanau Alcohol Torch. Patent #1755216. Buffalo, NY, USA The last remaining tool from our early hot rod days and model car building is still with me. My brother, when he was alive, did not want it and told me to keep it for posterity. Whenever, that time is… is it posterity, yet? To our granddaughter’s kid’s kid, it will probably be just an old oddball tool from the early 1950 time period. What great grandfather did in his spare time? What a weird guy…ha! We can see it now, out of respect, our son would have kept this item as family history. But, we know the newest generation has little time for such a crazy looking tool. Who knows what the future generation would think of this odd ball tool and how it played an important part of our model car building days and hot rod days from 1953 onward. It quietly sits in an automotive drawer in our garage and if it ever gets cleared out in the future, hopefully it will remain in our family history. The first thing someone would say is what the #$@!! is that black thing? And what was it used for in their lives? My wife and I have our memories together and since we are now the gatekeepers of a lot of family photos and papers, those tell plenty of history from both sides of the extended families. So, I can see my son going through this deep drawer and finding the black unusually shaped tool. “What the…” pops out and this tool will probably be headed for the nearest trash can. But, if our granddaughter is with him that day, she will say that is what was used in grandfather’s history from his stories. So, now, if my son has read our stacked digital written stories that my wife has been writing and my files of films, written stories, plus photographs, he may have come across this one about our first tool for our hobbies way back then. Note: My brother and I used this torch for our modifications to plastic chassis to lower cars, make them sit higher in back, and fit inside of bodies that they were not made to fit. The flame was pin point to the exact spot that we needed to make a slight bend for the fit. Matches and candles could do the job, but they were not able to be controlled for the exact pinpoint heat. It was as if we had a gas torch and heated real car parts to hammer into shape or configuration. The other thing was an even flow of heat to make wax rods for headers and custom roll bars. We just had to know that on hot days of the summer, the heat sometimes melted the sturdy wax forms into worms. But for the headers, we used my mom’s extra needles melted into the backsides of the individual pipes to keep the shape. This flame source gave us even heat, pinpointed at what exactly we wanted to heat/bend or meld together. When we were connecting real electrical wires together, we used this torch to melt solder and then shrink the insulated coverings. It was perfect as we could control the heat and where it was pointed. It was a handy tool in model making and in real automotive uses. The wick lights up with a nice flame. When the trigger is pulled inward, then the air gets shot out of the small hole with a bent precision flame hitting the object in question. So, the future great, grand kids or whoever, please don’t chuck it in the trash. It was an important part of the two brothers growing up and using a funny looking tool to help us out in our mini customizing or in real hot rod mechanics. Note 2: This little flame thrower had been sitting around all of the houses we have lived in as a decoration. I even polished the shiny black exterior and it was a conversation starter. Yes, someone asked if they could use it as a different lighter for candles and such. It could shoot a flame down to the unlit candle on a cake surface without touching any other candles. Today, we have those click flame thrower/starters that do the same. But, they do not have the history of this black oddball shape item. It fit the need of an antique item (to display), to go along with our then, antique furniture. But, when those were exchanged in the next furniture purge by you know who, it was given a nice resting spot in the garage cabinets. To me, it has always been a miniature flame thrower. The wick made the flame go upwards and the needle valve outlet shot out a stream of air to push the flame towards whatever direction it was pointed. Those little green plastic toy soldiers had no chance against this flame thrower. Over the years, it has occupied any garage cabinet. Once in a while, I will get it out and look at it. It was used as a flame thrower against the hordes of little green army men and cars. But, also as a pin point heat source to bend those “wax resist” rods for model dragster frames and header pipes. Later on during the hot rod days, the flame thrower was used to heat shrink the thin rubber tubing. As part of an art jewelry class I took in college, I used almost the same “wax resist” rods with a needle nose pliers and this flame thrower to meld the rods into a custom ring or piece of jewelry for what was called, a “lost wax casting” project. This was one of my favorite college classes to make some jewelry for our own uses and possibly to generate some source of additional income. I wore a nice lost wax ring for a year until we got our own custom made wedding rings from a jeweler, for both of us. The old, reliable flame thrower is still old and still hanging around. It has been my friend for 73 years. Will I ever get rid of it? Who knows, there are fewer items from back in those days that have stayed with us over the years. Many house to house moves always created a situation that the “extra junk” from the old house gets stored or thrown away. No more gawdy sticker walls or street signs we found. Just nice clean walls of a garage that looks as if it was a hospital room. So, since we are on our last house move, it is safe from the “roving junk, purge character” that has been with me for a long time running. Still safe and hiding behind a few, old, car model boxes. For now…YRMV I loaded up some alcohol into the compartment, primed it, and lit the flame end while depressing the trigger. I found some 5o year old wax rods and tried shaping a dragster frame. The old wax did not want to cooperate (too brittle and the composition melted/crumbled when slightly heated) and the project ended up in the trash. The flame thrower was drained of alcohol and stored away for another rainy day project in So Cal. It does rain in So Cal and my wife always remembers the official garage clean out day. Any day she picks… ha! Stay with us old friend… oh, the stories you can tell... The cap on the chain douses the burning flame when finished and for storing. The alcohol inside eventually dries up with less use or no usage for a while.
The Jalopy Journal
