Hot Rods The Story of One Man's Roadster...or "What I did on My Summer Vacation."

I actually had been planning on writing this story for a few months now, but just couldn't seem to find the time with all that's going on in my life. I run a one-man hot rod shop, and moving forward on customer projects is always the first thing on my mind.

Anyway, that's not only an intro to this story, but also the underlying reason for it. I needed a break to work on something of my own. In this case, my '29 Model A Roadster.


Chapter 1

Let me start by backing up a bit. I found the body in late 2007 in Willow Park, TX. I was tipped off by Charlie Duran that his neighbor was going to be selling it, and I went to take a look.



That's how I found it, outside getting rained on. As soon as I saw it, I recognized it. I had seen it a couple years earlier at one of the very first LaGrave Field swap meets in Ft. Worth. I wanted to buy it then, but I didn't have the means to do so. This time I had just enough money to buy it, and that's exactly what I did.

When I saw it at that swap meet, it was owned by Mike Lazier. He sold it to a guy named Richard there at that swap meet, and that's who I bought it from. It was the most solid original body I'd seen for sale at that time.

After getting it back to the shop, I mocked it up on a pair of original '32 frame rails a short time later.



Then in early 2008, I got started building the chassis. I did a thread here on the HAMB about it, which you can see here:

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=263380



Not long after I got the chassis completed and the body mocked up, I found out that my friend Don Lofton had actually drug this car out of a barn in Gladewater, TX sometime around 2001. Fortunately, he took some photos of it as he found it, and gave me some copies.





I don't know what happened to the fenders or the chassis that was under it, but I do know that Don either traded or sold the body to Mike Lazier. So that makes me the fourth owner since it came out of the shed in Gladewater, and the first one to turn it into a hot rod.

And by the end of 2008, it was really starting to look like a hot rod.

 

Chapter 2

The roadster basically sat untouched for quite sometime. I just couldn't seem to find the time to get much done on it. I'd buy a few parts for it here and there, and the motor was already built and ready to go in. It wasn't until this year that I decided it was time to get going on it again.

This is pretty much how it looked for the last few years.



Getting going on the project again was an off-the-cuff decision. Right around the beginning of June this year, I decided that not only was I going to finally get the roadster on the road, but I was also going to drive it to Bonneville...which was only two months away.

Now, this is the sort of thing that could go terribly wrong and end up a huge disappointment, but I had met deadlines before and I felt like I could do it. Besides, a lot of the hard work was already done.

The biggest problem was that I couldn't devote all my time to it right away...I still had customer projects that I needed to work on. However, once I tied up a few of the loose ends I could send out the parts that needed polished and chromed to my chrome guy, and enlist my friend George to paint the engine, transmission, and wheels.

One of the major loose ends that still needed to be addressed was the transmission. I had finally made a choice after going around and round in my head over how 'period correct' I wanted to stay. After Eric finished the 265, I realized that I was going to need something more substantial. So I found a '69 Ford Toploader close-ratio 4spd that seemed like it would work well. I already had a neat Speed Gems adapter bellhousing to hook it up to the 265, and I found a Jeep shifter top to convert it to top shift. To me, this seemed like the best of both worlds...a tough transmission that looks right from the interior of the car.



Now, I had slicked up the block and heads on the '56 265, removing all the casting imperfections and making it as smooth as possible for paint. So I figured I better give the transmission the same treatment. I didn't go to the extreme that I did on the engine, but I did enough so that it would match the rest of the drivetrain.

I also had to completely disassemble and reassemble the transmission to remove the original side shifter forks, so I did the grinding while it was all apart. You can see the Jeep shifter top mocked up here as well.



With the transmission prep out of the way, I tackled another loose end the following weekend. The windshield posts had already been cut but never finished. I ended up taking another 1/2" out of them for a 4.5" chop, and leaned them back a few more degrees. I TIG welded them up and polished them to the best of my ability so that they could be chromed later.



When I found out that Patrick's was going to be re-making the Fenton headers for the SBC, I got on the waiting list. I'd wanted Fentons for this car since I first decided to run the early small block, but I just couldn't seem to find a pair. I even bid on several way expensive sets on eBay, but always seemed to get outbid. After a long wait, Patrick's finally got them finished...and when they came in I was very impressed by their quality. They did however have an exhaust heat riser lug and a generator mount that I was not going to need, so the next order of business was to shave those off.



I then decided to go ahead and slick up the castings in preperation for having them coated in high heat silver.



I got about midway through the first one when I said, to hell with polishing these myself! I finished up that one, but set the other one aside with the rest of the parts that needed to be sent out for polsihing.



One of the parts in that pile was this neat early Weiand aluminum water pump with the block letter logo that I just got this year. Since I already had several early Weiand parts going on the 265, this was a great addition.



I found a brand new shifter arm for the Jeep shifter top, but it was a little too "Jeep-like" for my taste. I wanted to make it look more like a '39 Ford shifter, so I was going to need to reshape it.



I ended up straightening it out and then chucking it in the lathe to taper it it more, before heating and re-bending it.



With the body off the frame, I could go ahead and build a panhard bar. I needed to make it so that it would bolt to the quick change.





About this time, the first batch of polish and chrome came back from the plater. It always feels like Christmas morning when you get to unwrap fresh chrome.



Now that I had the panhard bar figured out, I could go ahead and pull the chassis apart. Here's one last look of it all together.



I ended up sending all the chassis parts out for chrome and then got busy on doing the Bendix brake conversion on my '48 Ford backing plates.

Here's the chrome pile.



While I was working on the chassis here and there, George had been busy getting stuff prepped for paint. The engine was first, and after a long internal struggle with the color combination for the car, I finally landed on '56 Corvette Venetian Red. Even though the color is red in name, it actually is more orange, almost pastel in some light...but bright red in other light. It's a little cliche to paint a SBC orange or red, but I felt like I needed a splash of warm color to break up what will eventually be an entirely blue car. Besides, I've selected all the other colors from the '56 model year, and this is a color that was available then as well.

All that grinding and sanding really paid off.





This is no typical small block. It's a '56 Corvette block, with Jahns domed pistons, H-beam rods, a stroker (3.25") crank, Iskenderian reverse-rotation roller cam, Isky gear drive, ported and polished '57 Fuelie (Powerpack) heads with stainless valves, and the list goes on. It is now 306 ci.

George also got the transmission painted, this time in '56 Chevrolet Nassau Blue. Since I removed the original shift forks, I had to plug the holes in the side of the case. I made up some brass expansion plugs on the lathe.



We finally got to see what the overall color for the car would eventually look like once the wheels were sprayed. I don't think there's a better looking factory steel wheel than the ubiquitous '40 Ford 16" wheel.

 

By the time those pieces had been painted, I had the chassis stripped down to the frame and ready to go into primer. With my plan to drive the car to Bonneville, I wanted to get some kind of protective coating on the frame, so we prepped it and sprayed it with PPG DP50 epoxy primer.

Here's the frame before we sprayed it.



As luck would have it, the chromed suspension parts came back just a few days after the frame was in primer.

The axle is an original Mor-drop axle, and I also chromed the '41 Ford axle legs. Well, to be honest...I chromed pretty much everything on the chassis that I could unbolt.



The Fenton headers also came back from the coater, and looked really bitchin'.



Time for assembly.

















With the engine and trans in the car, and the rolling chassis bolted together, I had a few details to attend to. First up was finishing the fuel line to the carbs. I incorporated a fuel pressure regulator and Moon gauge, mounting them on the intake.





I also switched to an early Joe Hunt mag, which I had checked out by Russel Shoulders.



Another small detail was getting the steering column to jive with the '55 Lincoln steering wheel. I ended up cutting down a '40 Ford mast jacket to mate up with the wheel.

 

Next up was the exhaust. I used 1.75" stainless to build the pipes coming off the Fentons, terminating them just ahead of the rear tires with belled scavenger tips.











As with most things in hot rodding, building the exhaust was much more difficult than it looks.

I also got the backing plates back from the plater as I was finishing up the exhaust. These started out as '48 Ford backing plates, and I converted them to Bendix-style operation, with modern master cylinders and shoes. After chrome, I detail-painted them in Nassau Blue.





With the brakes and exhaust done, I rolled the chassis outside for one last look before mounting the body.





Right about this time, I fired the stroker 265 for the first time. It sounded really bitchin'.

<iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fNbeATXS1Ks?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So, now that I knew it would fire and run, I needed to get the body bolted down and take the car to Waco to get the seat put in. At this point, I had only about a week and a half before departing for Bonneville.

Here's the body on the frame for the first time in a while.



I had never done the body mounts or subrail modifications to the body, so I needed to tackle that now. The first order of business was to rebuild the rear subrails and replace the rear panel below the decklid.



With the body bolted to the frame now, I rolled it outside, loaded it up on a trailer, and pulled it down to Waco.





My friend David Devers was tasked with building the seat. While the car was away with him in Waco, I went to the MotoGP race in Laguna Seca. David worked his butt off and knocked out the seat in 2 days.



I went with a two-tone combination of pearl white and factory '56 Chevy Nassau Blue vinyl, seperated by gold tinsel welt piping.



David did a great job on the seat back's roll up over the body, finishing it out just how I wanted.

As soon as I got back from Laguna Seca, I headed down to Waco to pick up the car. My wife Angie couldn't resist trying it on for size, and decided she fit well enough that she might want to keep this one for herself.



I now had to get busy building the trunk floor and finishing up all the things that would allow me to drive the car to Bonneville in just about a week.

The trunk floor went pretty smoothly, and I knocked it out in a fair amount of time.



After finishing the floors and bracing the body, I decided it would be wise to put some kind of protective coating on the body as well, so I pulled it off, and we sprayed it in the same PPG DP50 epoxy that was used on the frame. This was on Sunday. We were planning on leaving on Wednesday morning.

 

The next two and a half days were sort of a blur. Lack of sleep and constant movement are really all I can remember of that time now, but I do know that I built a trans tunnel somewhere in that time frame...because I took pictures of it.






This is what the car looked like on Tuesday. We were still planning on leaving for Bonneville the next day.



I'm still not sure how we managed to get it done, but I wired the car on Wednesday morning, and I had some helping hands come over and help me get everything tightened up and installed on the car. The guys in the Coolows car club helped trememendously with getting the car ready for the trip.

While I was wiring and generally tearing the rest of my hair out, George came over and painted the steering wheel and dash.



So, after thrashing pretty much nonstop for a week, I finally got to drive the car at about 6pm on Wednesday evening. Here it is on it's maiden voyage to the 7-11 to get some gas.



Since I had already held the guys that were driving to Bonneville up for several hours, I wasn't going to hold them up anymore. I took the car up on the highway and brought it up to speed, drove about 5 miles, and turned around and headed back to the shop. Everything seemed to be working great, although I did notice a little bit of oil puking out of the road draft tube. I gave the car a quick once over to make sure I didn't forget to tighten anything, and started loading the trunk for the trip.



By 7pm, I was loaded up and George and I hit the road to meet up with the other three cars that were driving with us to Bonneville.

 

Chapter 3

Since we were already getting such a late start, the plan was to just drive as far as possible the first night. I was running on fumes from lack of sleep, but getting to actually drive my roadster was keeping me pumped up just enough to stay awake.

But before we could even get out of the DFW Metroplex, we got seperated from the rest of the group in construction on HWY 114 around DFW airport. I almost got creamed by a semi taking the exit for a detour, and apparently everyone else got cut off and couldn't make the exit.

So we ended up waiting at a gas station for about 15 minutes as the rest of the group caught up. This gave me a chance to give the car another quick once over to make sure everything was OK.

Here's George waiting in the car, looking at his Iphone. He's addicted to it.



Other than it still puking a considerable amount of oil out of the road draft tube, everything seemed fine. Once the group caught up, we set out for Bonneville.

There were three other Model A hot rods making the trip with us. Stephen in his Hemi-powered '29 Coupe, Ricky in his '30 Coupe, and Matthias from Germany in his '29 Roadster. Each car had one passenger, for a total of eight people. We didn't have a chase vehicle...just what we could fit in our trunks, and cell phones for emergencies.

Here's the group at the first gas stop in Wichita Falls.



After filling up in Wichita Falls, we pressed on up 287. Once on the highway, I could tell that the road draft tube had to be puking directly on the exhaust, because I could see the smoke trail in the headlights behind me. I kept an eye on the oil pressure gauge and figured I'd need to try to do something about it in Childress.

I didn't take a photo of that, but I did take this shot of what I was seeing through the windshield.



On a positive note, the car rode and drove as good as any buggy-sprung car I'd ever been in.

We were making pretty decent time, and got to Childress a little after 1am. Ricky was having trouble staying awake, so we decided as a group to book a hotel. We called it a night and vowed to attack it again in the morning.

The next morning I woke up and walked across the street to an O'Reilly Auto. I bought several quarts of oil and a piece of hose to slip over the road draft tube so that it would miss the exhaust. This stopped the freight-train-like smoke trail behind me, but it was still puking a pretty good amount of oil. The oil coming out of the road draft tube bothered me. But since I was already on the road, I decided to just keep an eye on the oil pressure and oil level, and top it off when it needed it.

We left Childress soon after, and got out on the highway. We only made it about 20 miles when we had our first casualty. A few miles past Estelline, Ricky's T5 decided to let go.



We helped him pull the transmission out of the car there on the side of the road to try to determine what the problem was. Once he had it out, it was apparent that the front (pressed-in) bearing had spun in the case, and it was no longer going to be able to keep fluid from running out the front of the transmission. Bummer.



I made a call to my friend Doug in Childress. Luckily, he was able to leave work and locate a trailer to take Ricky's car back to Childress, where he would have a safe place to work on it. I also placed a call to Flat-top Bob to try to locate a replacement transmission. Unfortunately there wasn't one to be found anywhere close by.

The decision to forge ahead without Ricky was not an easy one. It was painfully obvious however, that there was nothing anyone of us could do to help. Ricky's car wasn't going anywhere without another T-5 transmission. So after Doug and Larry arrived and loaded up the car, we set out for Amarillo. Ricky was in good hands, and we were burning daylight.



Once we arrived in Amarillo, we decided to stop and get something to eat. Two of the guys travelling with us were vegan (hipsters! haha), so finding acceptable road food was not the easiest thing to do. We finally settled on Thai food, and found a restaurant that apparently wasn't in the best part of Amarillo.



Here's George as "Bucky Hustle" throwing up gang signs. I'm not sure what they're supposed to mean. I doubt he knows either.



After lunch, we headed north out of Amarillo towards New Mexico. I was happy to see that the little stroker 265 was running at 180 degrees, even after being bored an 1/8". And this was on a 100+ degree August afternoon in the Texas Panhandle. Good job, Walker Radiator.

Crossing the Canadian River:



We pressed ahead, and before we knew it we were in Texline on the Texas/ New Mexico border. This always makes for a good photo op.





Clayton, NM was our next scheduled gas stop. While at the gas station, I noticed that my generator was smoking a little bit when the car wasn't running. I unhooked the battery, and it stopped. It didn't smoke when the car was running, but that still wasn't very reassuring.

Seeing that we were practically in the middle of nowhere, and there was no chance of getting another generator or regulator there, I decided to press on. The only thing running off the battery was the electric fuel pump, so I figured I could make it into Raton, and take a look at it there.

On the bright side, after crossing into New Mexico, we got into cooler temperatures, and some prettier scenery.



Rolling into Raton, I found an auto parts store and managed to get there before they closed. I borrowed a voltmeter to test the charging system, and much to my chagrin, it wasn't charging. The parts house didn't have a generator or regulator in stock, and didn't have anyway to test them to see which one was bad. Things weren't looking so hot.



Fortunately, there was an alternator/generator shop in town that should be able to look at it in the morning, so we made the decision to get a hotel and stop for the night.

Right about the time we were making this decision, a local pulled into the parking lot asking if we needed a hand. The guy looked pretty sketchy, but did seem to genuinely want to help. He said that he had tools to test a generator back at his home shop, and if we wanted to follow him to his house we could try to fix it there.

With nothing to lose at this point, we followed him home. After digging around and finding his antique tester, he tried to spin the generator in his lathe while hooked up to said tester. That basically proved what I'd already determined...that it wasn't charging.

Here's George helping Mr. Sketchy test the generator:



I finally was able to convince him to let me pull the generator apart. Once we had it apart, it was pretty obvious what was wrong. The field coils had their leads soldered together, and then covered with heat shrink. That heat shrink had at some point slipped over, and then allowed the joint to short out against the armature. That's what was causing the smoke. So with a short piece of hose and some zip-ties, we had 'er fixed up. To be honest, the guy was really nice, and did actually turn out to be a big help...even if his whole vibe seemed to be a mix of Buffalo Bob from Silence of the Lambs, and the gyro captain from Road Warrior.

I put the generator back on the car, and it appeared to be charging again, although it was still reading a little weak on the voltmeter. We thanked the guy for his help, and moved on.

It was getting pretty late and everyone was hungry, so we stopped at Denny's and then shacked up in a hotel for the night.



The next morning, we got an early start...leaving Raton before sunrise. Our route would take us through the Cimarron Canyon to Taos. It was much colder now, and the sun coming up over our shoulders was a welcome sight.



The drive through the Canyon to Eagle's Nest was glorious. I was really able to let the little 265 do some work with the close ratio trans. I was having a lot of fun...but I did have to stop about half way through the pass to top off the oil level. No matter, I wasn't going to let that ruin my morning.

Coming into Eagle's Nest, we stopped to take in the sights.





Not long before that photo, I killed the mag at one of our stops and the starter didn't have enough juice to start the car again. I took this as a sign that the charging system was still not happy. We push-started the car where I could pop the clutch, and after we left Eagle's Nest we drove on into Taos.

I found a Napa on my Iphone, and drove straight there. I hoped I could at least get another voltage regulator, or get the generator tested. The guys at Napa let me use their jump box to charge my battery, but I was out of luck on parts. They instead put me in touch with a local hot rodder named Mike, who said he had a generator.

So we drove on over to Mike's shop, and he let me dig through his stuff to try to find a generator. All he had was a short case GM generator, whereas my roadster used the one with the longer case. Mike then made a few calls, and located a supposedly good generator on a '61 Bel-Air across town that the guy would sell me. I loaded up in a clapped-out mini-van with his helper and a dog, and drove across town to pick it up.

While I was gone, Mike found a voltage regulator on one of the cars in his yard, and had it ready for me to install when I got back. We put it all together, and it was charging again. Mike was a big help, and a genuinely good person...I plan on stopping in to see him the next time I'm in Taos.

 

With a clean bill of health again, I drove the roadster over to get some lunch with the rest of the guys...and from there we were off to Chama.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly. We crossed the Rio Grande Gorge, saw the houses made out of junk, and moved on into the mountains.



About 15-20 miles out of Chama, at the top of the pass, the roadster acted like it wanted to die. Thinking the elevation had caused it to foul the plugs, I clicked it off and just let the car coast down the mountain. I think we coasted for at least 5 miles.

Once we got to the bottom, I popped the clutch again and the car started. It did not sound happy. I let it run for about a minute, thinking the plugs were fouled, and it would clean up and run. It never did...and just seemed to run worse and worse.

I pulled over to the side of the road, and George quickly pointed out that I had a burnt plug wire. Since I had run the wires underneath the manifolds, I had enough wire to just cut off the end and run it over the valve cover.



After that was done, I started the car back up. At idle it sounded fine, but at anything above idle I could hear a knock. A knock that wasn't there before. My heart sank.

I pulled both valve covers, nothing looked out of place. I took the belt off, noise was still there. Tried it with the clutch in and out, still a knock.

I tried to think of what it could be, not believing that it could be coming from the bottom end. I mean, the engine has plenty of bearing clearance, so it couldn't be a rod knock, right? It still had oil pressure, and it was only about a quart low?

We were still about 10 miles from Chama, and the rest of the guys talked me into hiring a tow truck to take it into town. I was lost in thought, trying to both troubleshoot and lay out different scenarios. But when it came right down to it, I knew my trip had just ended.

On the inside I was sick, but on the outside I tried to keep my cool.



After the long ride to Chama, I had the driver drop us off at the only hotel in town that had vacancy. It turned out that the town was having their annual fair and festival, called Chama Days. At least I'd have something to keep me occupied while I was there.



While on the side of the road waiting for the tow truck, I called my dad to ask if he had any ideas. One of the first things he said was, "I'll just come get you." I wasn't quite ready to admit defeat right then and there, but by the time I got dropped off at the hotel I knew I was going to have to take the car back home.

So I called him back, and asked if he still would be willing to come get me. I was almost 1000 miles from my parent's house...that's not a short trip. Of course, this wasn't the first time my dad has had to come rescue me in New Mexico. I threw a rod in my '49 Ford back in 2004 in Wagon Wheel, NM and he came to get me then too. I love my Mom and Dad.

So we agreed that they would head out early the next morning to come and get me and the roadster.

In the meantime, Ricky had gone back to Dallas and got in his daily driver so that he could still go to Bonneville. He was almost to Albuquerque when all this happened, so he was able to head north through Chama and pick up George. Stephen and Matthias waited around until they knew I was going to be OK, and then they forged ahead to Bonneville.

I had time to kill, so I got some rest that night, and spent the next day exploring Chama and their festival. I also had plenty of time to clean oil and bugs off of the roadster.



My dad used to drive a truck part time for Central Freight when he wasn't on duty as a fireman, so he's no stranger to long hauls pulling a trailer. they drove straight through from their house to Chama, and arrived just before dusk. We loaded the roadster, had dinner there, and headed back to Texas.



My dad and I traded off on driving duties and drove straight back through to Dallas. We got there late Sunday morning, and unloaded the car.

While I was waiting around in Chama, I had looked into flights to go out to Bonneville. I found one that I could make if I hurried, so as soon as we said our goodbyes in Dallas, I went home and re-packed to fly into SLC.

 

Chapter 4

I flew into Salt Lake City late Sunday night. You might think I'm nuts for driving 800 miles all the way back to Dallas, and then turning right back around to get on a plane...but I had a good reason.

My friend Ed was running his Blown Fuel Roadster out at Speedweek, and I am a crew member on the car. So I was already late by the time I arrived. Ed's a hot rodder too however, and understood what I'd been through.

Running a blown nitro car at Bonneville is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. Nitro has its own set of rules, and requires a lot of trust in the people that are on your crew. Things can go incredibly bad in the blink of an eye. With that said, I've crewed Ed's car for several years now and he needed me out there.

Once I got to SLC, I rented a car and drove into Wendover. I was finally on the salt Monday morning.

Here I am in the car for the warm-up on 65%. That's Ed in the red hat.



It's hard to describe the feeling of sitting behind a blown Donovan Hemi on a hefty load of nitro. It burns your eyes and hurts your ears, but it's an awesome feeling.

Here's a shot of Ed's roadster. I know it has modern LSR type wheels on it, but this car has been a race car since 1956, and was on the cover of Car Craft in November 1963.



This car currently holds the unblown B/ Fuel record at 268 mph. We'd been chasing the tune-up ever since switching to the blower, and we were finally getting close.

The course had gotten some rain on Saturday, and it never really recovered. It was really loose in spots, tight in others. All the big horsepower cars were having trouble getting power to the ground, and Ed's car was no different.

On our run Wednesday morning, the car was finally on a run. It sounded bitchin' when it left the truck. Nitro cars at Bonneville have a distinct sound when the tune up is right or close...a really deep and loud tone. That's what the car sounded like. However, it got loose somewhere around the 2, and Ed had to pedal it a couple of times. On the second pedal, it banged the blower.

Even worse, the car was on track to set a new B/BFR record on that run.

When we went to retrieve the car, it looked like a bomb had gone off under the hood. Well, in a way it had.



If I were superstitious, I would say that it appeared that my bad luck might have rubbed off on Ed. What actually happened is when Ed had to pedal, the fuel pressure fell off and never recovered. This caused a lean condition that was exponentially increased when he opened the butterflies again. The barrel valve and pump saver were the likely culprits here.

So the next day I stayed and helped get the car prepped for the long ride home, and I flew back to Dallas early Friday.

Back to my roadster.

I had a lot of time to think about what could possibly be wrong while I was out at Bonneville. Could it be a roller lifter? Could it be the mag gear? Maybe the torrington bearing behind the cam gear? The pilot bearing?

I did a compression test on it, and compression was even on all cylinders. I checked the timing, and at some point it had retarded itself 10 degrees. Uh oh. I checked the valve lash, and all the rockers were a little loose. Hmmm.

I reset the timing, and re-adjusted the valve lash. Cranked it up and the noise was still there. Damn. Looks like I'll be pulling it out.

At this point, I had no more time to work on it. I had put my shop workload aside for a few weeks already to get the car ready, and to go out to Speedweek. I had to get back to work, and it looked like the car was going to have to sit for a while...at least until I could find time to pull the motor. Depressing.

Even worse, I still didn't know what the noise was. I just knew it was bad, and I was too sick over the whole thing to think about it. I went back to work and finished one of my customer projects as the car sat.

Fast forward a month to the middle of September. I was at the Decatur swap meet and found a complete '57 283 for sale. I was considering buying it, when my friend (and neighbor) Larry reminded me that he had a complete '57 283 at his house. He offered it to me at a ridiculously fair price, and I was back in business.

Of course, this engine was an unknown. It might be junk, but it "ran when pulled." So Larry dropped it off at my shop, and I pulled it apart. Much to my surprise, it had been rebuilt at one point and appeared that it wasn't ran all that long after the rebuild. It was .040 over, and the crank was .010/.010. Even better, it was relatively clean inside.

This would be a way to get the roadster back on the road, and it would let me take my time in fixing the 265.



The 283 had a mis-matched pair of heads on it, so my first order of business was to send out a pair of '58 Corvette heads I had on the shelf to Tinker's to have them gone through. New valves with larger intakes, but other than that just a basic rebuild...guides, hardened exhaust seats.

I pulled the engine apart, down to the short block, and cleaned everything thoroughly. Once the heads were ready, I installed an Isky 280H cam, new lifters, a new true roller timing chain, a correct '57 oil pan, and early timing cover.

When it was ready, I had George spray it in the same Venetian Red.





I also decided that I would use a pair of Fenton valve covers that I'd been hanging on to for a while this time, instead of the Weiands. So I polished those up myself.

A few days later, I took a weekend off and installed it in the car.



After finally getting the stroker 265 out of the car, it was time for a diagnosis. I couldn't find anything wrong in the valvetrain. As soon as I pulled the oil pan though, it was obvious what the problem was. Number 5 and 6 rod bearings had decided they didn't want to be bearings anymore, and were laying in the pan.

Fortunately, Eric had given the crank enough bearing clearance that it wasn't hurt too bad...and the thick MLS head gaskets I was running kept the pistons from beating themselves against the head. I'm going to have to have the crank turned, replace the rods, bearings, oil pump, and rings. But the damage wasn't extensive, and for that I can thank Eric for his meticulous assembly.

What I think happened was this...an unfortunate series of circumstance. The timing retarded itself, heating up the block. This melted one of the plug wire seperators attached to the block, allowing a plug wire to fall against the header. After the plug wire burnt, it was running on 7 cylinders. When I ran the engine after coasting down the mountain, the compression beat the hell out of the rod bearings. Add to that the oiling issue I was having....and the result is a rod knock.

So with the 283 in the car now, I was still crossing my fingers that it would run OK. After the first drive, it was apparent that it was going to be just fine.



The next weekend, I drove the car out to the Goodguys show, and my wife captured this video of me leaving after lunch.

<iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eVboGhN60Ag?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The little 283 runs surprisingly well. It just wants to keep on revving, which makes for a pretty fun driving experience.

I found out pretty quick that it made a little too much power to powershift into second gear. I sheared an axle key for the first time, which wasn't too big of a deal. I was able to fix it on the side of the road with minimal tools.



As luck would have it, the transmission in my daily driver '06 Silverado broke a clutch sprag right around this same time. I still haven't found the time to fix that, so the roadster has been serving daily driver duty ever since I got it back on the road. I have driven it every day for the last month.

Not only do I get to talk to random strangers at every place I stop in the roadster, I also have driven it in all kinds of weather now.



Rain? No wipers, no fenders, no top, no heater...no problem.



Driving a roadster as a daily driver has proven what I'd thought for quite a while. I'm a roadster guy.

I mean, yes I enjoy driving my chopped coupe...but driving a roadster is a much more visceral experience. You also meet a lot of people in a roadster. Everyone wants to talk to you, because they can actually see you...unlike the coupe.

Frankly, it seems to blow people's minds that I am using the roadster as a regular ol' car. I get asked constantly if I am going to a car show. People take pictures of me with their phone as I'm driving to and from work. It was odd at first, but I'm getting used to it.

It's been a long journey from buying the body on a rainy day in 2007 to driving the roadster as a daily driver. It didn't exactly go as planned. My original goal was to build a really nice roadster that looked as if it was built in the late 50's. That goal is in sight now, but I still have a lot of work ahead of me.

Nearly five years to get it on the road. Eight hundred mile road trip right out of the box. Eight hundred miles right back home on a trailer. Early small block number two. When you build a hot rod like this it becomes a part of you, and this one has definitely come with its own set of trials and tribulations. But I wouldn't want it any other way.

So is that the end of the story? Of course not. This car, like most real hot rods...is a work in progress.



-Brian Bass

 

Damm !!!

That Hot Rod is Spot on !!!!!!!

Wow!!!

Wow again

I love it !!!

Great build

 

I can appreciate a good love story.

After the ride Friday, I want one!

 

Unreal man. I'm really diggin the colors.

 

Speechless, thanks for sharing with us..

 

So rad dude..

 

SO.MUCH.DETAIL! man this is awesome

 

he roadster is pretty much what we have come to expect from you,,a real Hot Rod! HRP

 

thanks for this Brian! Youre always inspiration...

 

Holy cow. Nice work!

 

WOW, just WOW, 5 star!...more of what we all have come to expect from Bass

 

awesome. looks great. What are the brake air scoops? Ive never seen a set like them before. Love all the chrome.

 

A work of art. Can't wait for the rest of the story and the finish on this roadster.

 

Awesome thats what its all about.The car looks great

 

That blue on your wheels looks familar.

 

Oh WOW - Those pipes are tooooooooo COOOOOOOOL

Love the way it sounds. Awesome ride. Love it. WAY JEALOUS! Have a blast - I can only imagine how that thing must sound cruising. All that chrome tooooo - man oh man. Too fine!

 

amazing...

 

Makes me want to finish my 29 faster, thanks looks great


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That's a good lookin' sumbitch!!!

 

Same here.

Brian, there are some terrific welds in some of those pics. Very impressive, sir.

 

Nice!

 

Wow! Great build!