Ever scream "What the Hell?" on a new project?

When I bought my 56' ford I drove it home aganst my better judjment and did a 180 after hitting a dip. I checked out the now crooked axle and found 3 out of 4 u-bolts and all nuts were bairly finger tight. Here is a short list of some other "what the hell?s" from my car.

1. j/b weld on radiator.

2. Original police special tires with more cracks than a plumbers convention.

3. No cotter pins in front spindles and the castle nuts 2 threads from liberating the drums.

4. The bottom of the "new" gas tank was a mix of j/b weld covered with bondo and paint witch I didn't notice 'till I was straightening out the rear end and accidentaly nocked off a 3" chunk with a prybar.

5. Rag for a gas cap.

6. Fuel line was connected to the drain instead of fuel outlet.

7. A hole drilled in the float bowl and filled with j/b weld.

8. Nothing electrical in the cab worked except dome light and temp gauge 'cause some one grabed a handfull of wires and cut them.

 

wowcars dont forget the barehand aplyed plastic filler

and i've been fairly lucky most of my wtf's have been me refixing my prevous good ideas

 

My e-bay t-bucket frame was one of them. The guy said he built it according to plans he had bought off the same site. It was all painted nice but once home and under inspection all the welds were shit and the thing is so narrow a th350 barely fits between the rails.
I cut everything off and redid the whole thing, would have been better off starting with my own tubing.

 

The pans and rockers on my Henry J were repaired in the 70's. Pop riveted sheet metal covers the gaping holes and was then tared over. That wasn't surprising. But the swing set pieces repairing the inner rockers were.

 

I was looking over my 42 Hudson parts car one day. I opened the driver side door and while looking in, had my right hand on the car top, the left one the top of the door's window frame. I felt something strange under my left hand and thought "what the Hell?" I looked, my hand was lying on a live snake about a foot long. I'm pretty sure the neighbors were wondering what the hell when they heard me screaming like a girl!

 

"Original police special tires with more cracks than a plumbers convention." -- Norton

It's a good thing you can't go blind from a mental image


I took a trailer to Memphis to buy a '63 Fairlane with solid floors and a running 351W engine. You know the rest, it had sheet metal screwed to the original rust on the floor, moss growing inside the car, no battery to start the "running" engine and the shifter for the automatic trans was a 3 or 4 inch rod sticking up through the transmission hump. It turned out to be a "no thanks". Oddly enough the car looked good from the street.

 

my newest project had a few suprises. some of these I knew about before I got it and planned on fixing, some were big suprises.

1-no lower steering column mount, with column shift(if you turned it enough it would shift gears)
2-brake pedal with no pad or provision for pad, just a stub of metal poking through the floor, that could only be reached with left foot.
3-front and rear suspension bottomed out so far there was no suspension at all.
4-lowering bocks made of 2x3 rectangular tubing welded to rear axle, with all thread bent into u-bolts.
5-wiring job with no fuse box, most conections were just twisted on.
6-seams in back of cab welded up, new faux seams carved in the bondo.
7-gate latches for door latches, hitting bumps with no suspension would cause the latches to release and doors to open.
8- copper fuel line not secured to frame, hanging directly on exhaust.

alot more little things made this quick project into a complete rebuild.some people have no right building cars.

 

I had a few.

1. Had a 1956 ford truck and the driver side cab corner was odd looking like some mudded it up a painted it. I decided to repair it. Got the grinder out and started to grind it. As the grinder hit the area the wheel flew apart and parts hit me in the chest and other parts hit a customer's car. Found out that he used concrete to fix the corner.

2. Bought a 1951 Ford truck that someone had aready started. He had a Y bock ford in it. I went to remove the engine. first I tryed to remove the driveshaft but it would not move with large pray bar. THe trans was up tight against the drive shaft. Second when I removed the motor the motor mounted that were welded to the frame fell on the floor (Good weld job.)

3. I bought a 1941 Ford tudor that someone had started. All of the suspension parts were bolted in with hardware grade bolt.

There are a lot more but they were the best ones.

 

All this reminds me of the sign hanging in my dads shop when I worked for him, "We repair what you've fixed".

 

how bout a 36 ford with a home made frame. 2 stics of 2x4 tube left straight and welded to the rockers! An original mustang 2 almost welded on and the floor was welded to the opposite edge of the frame tube as the body, as in the top of the frame was now part of the inner floor! And the guy had it set up to run a WAY healthy 429!

 

Ah yes, I just remembered my real 'What the Hell'. On my '30 Pontiac phaeton, as the wood in the body structure must of got soft, somebody gas weld the bottom of the cowl, the side aprons and the rear body section directly to the frame. And, to add insult to injury, apparently the chrome cowl bands were missing so that cut out a strip of sheet metal (looks like with an axe) and gas welded it up both sides and across the top of the cowl. Warped the shit outta the top of the cowl. I wish they had used a wad of bondo instead-at least I could have gotten that off easier.

 

Non original gas tank conected to the filler pipe by 2 spliced radiator hoses.
Steering column notched for the headers, but when it got warmed up, the headers pressed against the steering shaft and it wouldn't turn.
Motor mount welded in over the idler arm, had to cut it off to replace the arm.
Shock mount beat out of the way to clear the steering arm (it was on upside down)
Brake system built with poor single flares and compression fittings.
Fan mounted backwards
interior lights cross wired positive to negative. hard to tell when all wires were white. But it explained why there was no fuse in that circuit.
trans levers upside down, which reversed the H pattern. PO said it was a modified tranny, my 14 year old looked at me and said "isn't the linkage backwards?"
A firebird we bought cheap cause the new engine kept "overheating" (we replaced the temp sending unit that came in the engine with one that matched the car)

I honestly believe these were all attemps to fix things, as opposed to those things that were purposely done to hide things. That list is endless.

 

A completely cracked in half bellhousing held together with chain and exhaust clamps.. oh and this was on a truck where the bellhousing was also the motor mounts.

 

every time i look at it plus a few other things too.
then i say what the hell and get back to work on it

 

A really bad patch job on my floors.Some type of tin metal all pop riveted to the rusted out floor.At least theres enough floor left to replace it with the right pans.While stripping the quarters,I found another peice of tin metal,pop riveted in.Turned it over and it was the side of a dupont reducer can.No telling what else I`ll find.

 

Had a 57 Chevy one time that had been hit just behind the driver's door caving in a large area below the rear window. Someone either didn't bother to try to knock some of it out or didn't do a very good job. Bondo was, no kidding, 4 inches thick in one spot. I remember as I ground and chipped it away, you could see all the layers (different color shades) where it was put on. Musta took days to lay it all.

 

When I got my 37 coupe,I knew it was "rough"---but was I in for some surprises! The car had been a drag car in the late 50's --early 60's--was told it had a Hemi in it--the guy I got it from was a druggy--and got scared of how much work--and money --it was gonna take.
1. the "firewall" was a 1/2 plate--just a plate--no sides. Stock f/w was torched out--with the front floor--and had something like 20 small pieces of metal screwed together--like 100 screws!
2. The body wasn't bolted to the frame---I found this out as we were driving on the freeway bringing this P.O.S. home---looked in the mirror to see the body about a foot in the air--only thing holding it on was an old battery cable.
3. Trick 9in. Ford rear end installed about 5in. too far back---so bad that you couldn't pull the tires--must have welded it in with the tires on.
4. The rear body area--between the roof and the deck lid--had holes in it from a luggage(?) rack or something--holes cut with a torch. That was bad enough,but stripping this caused it to FALL IN--the torching had melted all the lead in the seams and panel was held in by the bondo.
5. The worst for last: pulled the body to put on a dolly---and set the frame on jack stands in my side yard.Afew days latter,go to work on the frame---broke in half! Part rusted--part hot-wrenched--only thing holding it together was about 1/4 in. of metal on the top of the frame---I guess the ride home did it in.
A couple pics of the first day---and the car now.
Car was finished in 83---been on the road now almost 25 years--almost 100,00 miles.

 

I bought a little English Ford Prefect sedan that had been 'partly restored' and the body was all nice and straight and painted in fresh red primer. It looked 'too good' to be true so I started digging and started to find bondo, heaps of bondo.

Under the bondo was the rust, the cobwebs, the spiders, and the packed in dirt that had held the moisture that had caused the rust in the first place. I could even tell right to the day when the 'restoration' work had been done cause he'd used wadded newspaper to partially fill the holes before he filled then over with the bondo, and I could still read the dates on the newsprint pages.

The other classic one I saw done years ago was strips of lead wrapped around a crankshaft and the big end caps bolted back on real tight. After it freed up a bit the car was driven a short distance to a yard and traded in on a newer model. The mate who did the lead work got extra money for his trade as the engine sounded so good!

Cheers, Glen.

 

A "restored" car I went to look at had the rusty floors replaced. They had used reproduction floor patches, under the car, it looked like a fucking porcupine.
The original floor (the remaining parts of it anyway) where bent down leaving the ragged rusty edge dangling in the breeze... but =-) they had put down a layer of hot roofing tar (complete with those dangling tar snot stringers!) replacement floor panels dropped on that and finally countless 2" (that is two inch, not one, not half, nor excessivly long three inch, but two inch) wood screws to fasten it down. Don't forget your hard hat...

My own sins... My current DD pickup with requisite rotting from the bottom chevy bed is shored up in the rear with cedar fence boards.... Bolted safely into place to ensure I don't create a road hazzard. I'm going to build a wood flatbed for it... One way or another. =-)

Alex.

 

While poking around my F100 I found the front cab mounts had been filled with concrete, then undercoated, to pass a safety inspection!

I once saw a Honda Prelude come into a shop I worked at for a safety. The lower control arms had a chain hooked to the pivot bolts because the front subframe was rusted out. The 19 year old girl, who had recently bought the car, had just driven it across the country!

 

Once bought a 55 chevy 2 door hardtop with a freshly rebuilt 327 in it. Once home I hooked up the wiring, fuel lines, hoses, etc and fired it up. The oil pressure keep doing weird shit and the oil level on the stick would fluctuate at different times. Turned out some dumbass has left a towel folded up in the lifter galley when they bolted the intake on!

 

No shit????? You guys been buying all your cars from me????

I've been under a few project cars before and said "What the hell?" but most of them have been things I cobbled up so I could "get by". Seems like every couple years I have to go back and fix things I "fixed" before. Often I wonder what the hell was I thinking. When you have no money and the thing just has to go, you do things your not always proud of. As I grow older I have reached the point where I no longer critize work others have done before me, cause I remember some of the stuff I have done myself. You know, the rocks and glass houses thing. Gene

 

I bought a Fiat one time that had a broken door lock. To fix it so he could lock the car, the PO bolted a barndoor hasp to the door and body and installed a masterlock (who'd want to steal a car with that on it anyway?)

I have been in the guilty camp too. When I was young I learned to fix cars the same way most do, stranded on the side of the road trying to get home. When I was in college I had a Dodge Omni. These things had a plastic ball and socket joint on the transmission arm. These things would wear out and the linkage arm would pop out of the plastic socket when you hit bumps (copied directly from the VW rabbit which did the exact same thing). I got tired of snapping it back in place and took some of that multi colored phone wire and wrapped it all around the socket to keep it from popping out. I traded the car a year or so later and that wire was still on there so someone got a WTF???

 

I swapped for a little roadster pickup a while back (from a Hamber, no less) who had drilled a hole in the brake pedal and installed a pushbutton type switch for a brake switch. About the third time I drive it, the switch broke apart, and when the wire made contact with the pedal it blew the ONE 20 amp fuse that was protecting the entire electrical system.

I also bought a VW bug once that had about 20 ft 'jumper' wire going directly from the battery to the ignition switch and then back to the coil. After 5 minutes worth of troubleshooting I found out the only real problem was 1 blown fuse.

The 29 pickup I have now was missing quite a bit of the self-adjusting hardware on one side of the rear brakes.

 

my 53 chevy had galvanized heating duct welded overtop of the rust not to mention some pop rivets in there too covered by putty

 

I have had tons of projects like this. I am not even 20, and have seen the following.
1968 Impala: chimney pipe quarter panels, with bondo to hold them in.
1967 Mustang 390 4 speed: Frame rails were rotten front to back. Floor pans were patched with eigth inch plate steel, held in with blue silicon gasket sealer. Fender aprons were bashed to pieces and "welded" together with pieces of eigth inch plate steel. The list goes on.
My current project, 1950 Plymouth Deluxe 2 door. I wondered why the doors had to be lifted to open or shut. The rocker panels were entirely made of plastic mesh, bondo, and two by fours. The floor pans were made of aluminum diamond plate riveted and screwed in. There is more, but this car is here to stay.
I have had so many more projects that make me worry about what is beside of me on the roads everyday. I just hope that I can realign the door posts in the Plymouth.

 

You just know that some of us have some brews while we work on our projects and every thing always looks good till the next day? I remember welding on a shock mount on a dirt track car and thinking,Damn! am I good or what,that is a fine weld!next day I show it off to a buddy give it a kick and it flies accross the shop! Always recheck when sober!!Guess some one didn't from some of these Horror stories.

 

Lower ¼ panels on my '34 5 window, behind the doors: found bondo 1/2" thick somehow still affixed to rust !