Hi Folks, Here is a little visit with my Dad's friend Jocko Johnson in the desert. Bob https://1drv.ms/w/c/6d9d29d2f4debe11/Eby-8u0umtBPoTbU2jBJaC8BhapnJPqb3adl_ZvwQu1Fgw?e=ZTNOn0
There’s nothing better than a brush with greatness, meeting Jocko definitely qualifies. Johnson was a Renaissance man, one of those rare people blessed with a fertile mind and many talents.
I forgot to mention in the story that Jocko said that the plans for his cam-engine would be common knowledge and anyone interested could share them. Is that cool or what? There was a Japanese company asking about it. Bob
We talked to Jocko many years ago when we were at the L. A. Roadster Fathers Day show in Pomona. Jocko was walking around pulling a red wagon filled with T shirts, he would autograph the shirt if you bought one, he also had his photo album with pictures of his creations. What a character.
Whoa! Never heard about the Tank Motor, I wish I could have asked him about that. There is a previous thread about all this, I just found. More details, thanks for the interest. Bob
The tank engine was the Ford GAA. There have been various discussions about them over the years, if you search on 'ford gan' you should be able to find them.
Hi Folks, More pics from my visit. A couple of never before seen pictures of Jocko's VW. That's a lot of body work. He said it belonged to his son, but didn't elaborate. Is that a Model A axle in front? I can't see an engine, either. Actually the only VW part seems to be the deck lid. The rear doesn't seem to have any camber.
Hello, We grew up in the Bixby Knolls area as teenagers. The local hang out was in the center of the cruising area and close to the famous “Cherry Avenue” Drags location. Jocko’s shop was down Cherry Avenue going North to the limits of Long Beach. It was near the popular row of hot rod shops, machine shops, chrome shops, tire and alignment businesses and a muffler/welding shop. We were lucky enough to have Reath Automotive as our go to place for all speed equipment and advice. He told us to take our Chevy 283 heads to Jocko’s shop to get them ported and polished, when we were in stage 2 of our Willys Coupe build. We already had the motor bored out to 292 c.i. by Reath and now the new motor****embly was taking place. The heads were a work of art as they were shiny and bright. Our mom yelled at me one night when she found me wiping off the finished heads on a cardboard table in our study den area. It was warm in there, whereas, our backyard garage was freezing, even with the garage door down. But, music, warmth of a heater and comforts of nearby food source was too tempting. So, I was doing the final clean up and getting the finished heads ready for****embly. Jnaki Later, we also had our 348 motor in the Impala ported and polished to increase the speeds. Now, it was no longer in the stock class, but we were about to be finished with racing in our teenage lives. The Impala was fast without the ported/polished heads, but afterwards, one could just feel the improvement on those dark, late night full acceleration runs down the Cherry Avenue Drags location. It was a few blocks from the hot rod shops area that had Jocko’s shop as part of the whole car build location. YRMV
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