i have a question for all you grey beards about customs. in the day, say late 50s, when the tail draggers, mild custom and full custom guys dropped their cars on the floor did they have any means to raise them back up? air shocks? air springs? or did they just drag? i was born in 65, and in alabama, hot rods were the **** as i was coming up. i didnt discover customs till my mom made me watch rebel with out a cause. i dont remember dean flickin any switches. im not trying to start any ****, i would like to know cause if im grinding my pipes and quarters for nothing i would like to know.
I'm only 27, but in a lot of my "little pages" and in a lot of the books on customs..it seems like casters mounted under the cars were popular...as were dragged flat tailpipes
I didn't know that they "dropped their cars on the floor" back then. Not until hydro's were envented. As far as I know, how ever low they were, thats how they drove them.
in 1956 Bill Hines heated my front springs with a torch and I put 4" lowering blocks in the back. This was pretty much accepted practice. It rode like a lumber wagon and I was very careful with the slightest bumnp in the road, but I was cool. I had Jimmy Jones bubbles on the back and could just place a pack of cigarettes sideways under the skirts. That was probably why Bill Hines began to develop hydraulics.
alot of early hyro set ups came from airplane wings and landing gear from surplus military yards in socal
i had my frist full custom that i completed in 1962 and alot that never got done my 57 chevy [god i loved that car] had cut coils in front and 3 in lowing blocks in the back if you went any lower you would tunnel the drive shaft ,c,ed the frame and put casters on the back for going up driveways i did this around 64 when this was not my only car but 3 in,s was the most i could go when i drove it everyday
We just lived with it. I knew which gas stations I could use, that I had to come in the rear entrance at the Bellflower A&W and that my Chevy rode like ****. My moms lived on a dirt road in Littlerock Cal, and I had to park on the paved street and walk a block to her house. And we didn't get any breaks from the cops. I even got a too low ticket on the way home from the hospital the night my dad died, with moms in the car. After that I took the 14"s off the car. Pipes were ground flat. Front springs were heated and the rears had lowering blocks and crudely heated leafs. There was a high price for coolness then (1966-68).
Casters were mounted to the rear bumper...at the bottom edge...guys used to have to change them several times over the course of the summers. They drilled one hole on the bottom side of the bumper (both corners) and bolted them on with only one nut...the casters back then were made of some type of metal...but the constant grinding in and out of driveways eventually destroyed them...the hardware store in my town used to make sure they had plenty. We also used something called "****ers" on the front coils---these were nothing more than an oversized "J" hook,with threads on the end...slip 'em up in the coil, drop the threaded end thru a hole in the A-arm, add nuts and tighten, pulled the coils together, effectively ****ing (lowering) the front of the car down...but it rode like hell. Ah well, that was the price you paid for looking cool. R-
In 60 I had a 52 chevy convertible with a Olds engine. Heated the coils and 2" blocks on the rear. Had a rack and rode like hell, but it was cool.
And man, I can't count the number if times I had to back out of places because I got hung up. One of the tricks I used was to go to the Sheriff's station on a rainy night and lie about having raised up my car. The lazy cops would sign my too low ticket off, rather than go out in the rain.
Cement blocks---here's a story that I wrote for the KOA, based on a true story. T.C. ----------------LEFT CLICK TO ENLARGE
that is wild that you say that cause a couple years ago i worked with a guy who was Jimmy Jones' son-in-law. i'd never heard of him before that but after this guy and i got to talking about customs at work one day, and he told me about his pappy-in-law, i'd started to notice his name here and there. mainly on the HAMB.
Back in 53 I had a 41 Ford coupe with 6 in. lowering shackles and a tourch spring from an old stock car. One night we got pulled over, there was a robbery on the east side and they though I had a safe in the trunk. True story.
yeah,,but that was late 50's..... even though back then .most where either close to or ridding on the bumpstops,,, back then they werent nowhere like they are nowadays,,,,,, ,,nowadays its all a mini trucker menality to see who can get lower....
folks began doing hydraulics on customs in the late 1950's. while cadillac came out with airbags in the 1950's, i'd be interested in learning more about how early folks began using them as a modification meant to lower the car significantly from stock. anybody have any history on this? -scott noteboom
Yeah.. I've seen mention in some of the older magazines of using the airbags. Most of those early systems weren't very reliable, though.
Many of 48 chev and fords were lowered using the heat the front coils till the bumper rested on the block you used for a height gauge. Then finding the longest U-Bolts you could, to strap lowering blocks on the rear. I did see a lot of rear bumpers that had casters on them to keep from dragging in or out of a drive-in.
In the late 50's Rod & Custom ran an article using known weights in the trunk of a car to determine the spring deflection rate. Heated coils and lowering blocks were the standard fare as well as the weight in the trunk trick. Radically lowered cars had the frame C'd at the rear and casters added near the rear bumper. The Hirohata Merc was the first set I remember in use. All of them rode like a buckboard. During my research I came across another mid 50's R&C article that touted the possibilities of air springs. As part of the 50th anniversary celebration of General Motors in 1958 the Cadillac & Buick models had an air suspension option. Within months the word on the street was they were full of problems and road failures. I think GM recalled them for coilspring retrofits. The May 2005 issue of Rod & Custom features a 55 Buick originally owned by Ray Abendroth. After an initial round of modifications in the late 50s he had the car reworked radically. Ray Aguirre had just built his bubble-topped Corvette "X'Sonic" equipped with the first set of hydraulics. Ray had him install the second set on the Buick and dubbed it the "Busonic" and won a lot of trophies in the 62 show circuit season.
Paul Kelly Photo at Paso somewhere in the 90's... Russ Beckwith Photo of the recently restored Busonic....
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