53 DAYS TO 200 MILES our saga

On march 9th i rode out to the scarlet fever benifit in san francisco with my buddy kyle. I *****ed all the way there and half way home about how much I was over the project i was working on(62 newport mild custom) and how more things broke than i could fix every time i touched it. After listening to this for an hour and a half Kyle said, "why don't you just build your modified instead of messing with that thing?" So with no money and 53 days left to the cruise to cruz, my girlfriend (Alyson) and I pulled this.....


into this garage.....


and we started building this car in secret. We had some help from our buddies Ben, Kyle, and Milo along the way but for the most part it was just us! Some parts were donated (thanks Matt Seret and Ben), some parts were horse traded and we sold some air ride stuff we had in the garage for swap meet money.


We found a motor and trans on craigslist for next to nothing, and Kyle tripped over an early dodge grill shell at some old mans house and picked it up for us.




This was the scene on May 2nd, 24 hours before the Cruise. My 11th hour thrash partner NATE and his buddy Jolen showed up that morning from Tacoma WA to help finish the project.



We finally got it running at 9pm and took it for a couple of test drives around the block, filled it with gas and it was off to Pacifica (27miles)


It ran like a top the whole way. It was up at 7am to find an auto parts store for a few things, such as, the air breather cap I ran over the night before...but still running great. Next it was to the Sea Bowl to meet up and head out to Santa Cruz on the cruise.That is when it started acting a little finicky. I fought it the whole way to Santa Cruz. We left Santa Cruz and headed to EB's house in San Jose. It was still running like ****. I couldn't seem to get the timing or carb set right. The sun went down and with trusty prospect Milo as our chase car/ wing man we head out for the last leg to Oakland. It ran like a bat out of hell all the way home.
We spent all of Sunday swaping carbs and fuel pumps and setting timing. By the time the sun went down it seemed to be running pretty good. Monday morning we got up, got coffee and headed out to Seret Customs in Vallejo to say hi and then jumped over to the MTZ on the 4 to go see Big Dirty. It ran great all day with no problems.


Normally all the problems on the cruise would have drove me crazy. I've left cars on the side of the road for less than that, but we built a car in 53 days with no money, in a 3/4 car garage and it made it on a 200 mile test drive. The cosmetics will have to wait until it starts raining cause we are going to drive the **** out of it this summer!

 

hell yeah!!!..

 

That is bad ***.This is a pic of mine i built in 6 mounths and drove from Dayton ohio to chi town on its frist ride. well done bro

 

cool man. there's nothing like it huh!!

 

hell no i am going for a cruz in about tan min cant get anought of it

 

Great story. That should inspire someone to go out and build something. I'm sure in those 53 days there were times that you just wanted to say "Screw It!" but you stuck with it and had friends there for moral support (and grunt work lol) and got-er-done.

You should all be proud.

GV

 

thanks GV ya i said **** it every other day! i'd get up at 4:45 for work, work til 5:30pm, get home and say no way. alyson had to drag me to the garage kicking and screeming most nights!!!

 

here's a cool pic someone sent me from our pit stop in san jose

 

Awesome brother...

 

hey this is jolen's dad up in Tacoma, awesome story, it should be enough to get me off my *** to finish mine and start enjoying it! later

 

So cool , well done !

 

Man Thats bad-*** you Build and drove it 200 miles in 50 whatever days.

 

hey, thanks a bunch. i hope to see yours going down the road on here soon! we love jolan down here. we're talking about driving the roadster to hotrod-a-rama! how fun would that be!

 

great time- great job. The thing sounds awesome!

 

haha! ya it sounds good...... i'm going deaf FAST! BUT IT'S AWSOME!!

 

another pic.

 

we call jeff "the wolf" because he always comes through in the final hours of our builds.he's been by my side for the better part of 10 years,never shying away from my projects no matter how dumb,and it really makes me wet in the eyes seeing him drive that thing.he's been the barefoot shoemaker forever,and hes been through so much in the past that held him back from living his dream of owning his own hotrod,and no one deserves it more.i would'nt have missed this last weekend for the world,(even though that rusty POS set my *** on fire) so congratulations jeff.

 

This pic is what its all about. A new wheel to sit on and share some laughs. Job well done!

 

I couldn't agree with Nate more. Wolf bends over backwards for his friends and it's about time that he gets to enjoy the fruits of his labor. Way to hang in there Swap Meet Louie I'm super stoked for you!!!

Dirty

 

you rock!cool little roadster you built

 

thanks nate and dirty, it's been a long time coming, but well worth the wait! nate's always been there for support and i love him for that, and how inspiring was the MAMBA! besides the cars, guys like you are what keep me going.

 

Hey Jeff
That Would Real Cool If You Guys Come Up For Hot Rod Arama, Maybe Jolen Will Have An Apartment By Then And You Guys Can Stay At The Shop In Jolen's White Trash Trailer, Jolen Had A Blast Hangin Out In Cal. , We Are In S-e Oregon , We Got Here Last Night, Be Home On Tuesday And Jolen Swears He Gonna Start Helping Get The Ride Done, Hope So, Later......

 

we'd really would like to come up, and jolen does'nt need to find an apartment first. we'll bring him a sleeping bag and put him out on the shop floor!! if i can be of any help from 700 miles away please let me know!

 

Awesome read. I wish I would have read something like this 30 years ago, I'd be on my tenth ride.

 

Do it.

 

I remember you showing me a pile of parts in your garage - great to see her on the road - that car looks like pure FUN!
Noah Nomad

 

great job man..

 

what's up noah! ya that was like 4 years ago!! it survived a divorce, and like 3 moves! finally put the hammer down and did it though.

 

cool build! sure helps when your buddies want to go for a ride worse than you do! lol.

 

here's a link to the original hamb post on this thing. since then i got divorsed, sold most of the parts, and stored the rest of it in the back yard until the build started.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=106768