So what was the very first hot rod type thing you did on your own?

4bbl intake, 351W head to 302 block swap, front disc brakes all on a 69 Mustang. I had done lots of tearing apart, but this was the 1st truely involved projects I ever did.

 

Jezz Jay; ya had to turn this into a memory test!

Let's see ... found an Ford "A" roadster in a neighbours garage when I was 13.
It was covered in dust and hadn't turned a wheel - according to the widow who inherited it when her husband p***ed away - in over 15 years.

Luck? I don't know; but I snuck the battery out of my moms car and gave it a boost. Hey, it started!! Negotiated with the widow - think I got it for $15.00 - and started my long - and twisted! - road to building a hot rod.

Snuck some tools out of my dad's tool box - without him knowing anything about my purchase - and proceeded to remove the fenders. (real hot rods don't have fenders!) That took about 6 weeks. The widow was kind enough to let me keep the "A" in her garage and work on it.

Temptation overcame good sense, - I was 14 now - and one night I took it for a drive up and down some back alleys around the neighbourhood. Not the smart thing to do!

After the police knocked on the door of my house and asked for my dad; well you can figure what happened next! I couldn't sit for a week!

Oh .. and my dad made me sell the "A."

 

Carb Rebuild.

 

Well I grew up in a busy one man body shop, and my brother is 7 years older than I. I was gettin' dirty pretty young. Always rebuilding my schwinn (it got a new paint job every year) and then we had the nasty go kart that we were always playin' with. I was always the extra hands when my bro, dad, or step dad needed one and the older I got, the more I did. My first car was a '70 VW Squareback that barely made it home. Got it runnin' halfway decent and dropped it down a little. Painted it black with a big ****y silver stripe on each side and had a blast with it. Was trying to get my hands on cars my parents had, but they were basket cases and the VW was a little less challenging.

Olson

 

Nosed. decked and removed all chrome trim around the belt line then welded up all the holes with clothes hanger and O/A on a '48 Chevy coupe. First time I ever picked up a torch. 16 years old and had the car a week. Also installed '49 Lincoln taillights. Did all the work in a barn with a dirt floor. Man that was sweet. Painted it Artic white 3 times before I got it looking good.

 

My first car was a cherry 58 Chevy Biscayne that I literally found in a museum. Having messed around with bikes and go-karts as a kid I couldn't wait to start wrenching on my 58- even if it really didn't need it.

One day I found that the rear exhaust hanger had loosened and the exhaust was rubbing the back tire. After ****ing around with it for ages I couldn't move the pipe far enough out to clear the tire. So I figured I could get more clearance if I took the pipe off of all the hangers. Still no luck.

Then came disconnecting it at the manifold. I should add that this all took place in a dimly lit ****py single carport at night, as the 58 was my daily driver, so all repair attempts were done after work. Anyway when I finally got it all reconnected and clearing the tire I discovered my temp gauge had stopped working. I look under the hood and realize that while I was wrestling the exhaust at the tailpipe end, it was waving around under the manifold and had snapped the tang off of the temp sending unit.

I take out the broken sending unit to get a replacement and temporarily plug the hole with a bolt. Next day I'm driving home from my friends house and as I get to the top of this steep hill the 58 is getting super hot and I can smell buring oil. I pull over and see hot oil leaking all over the block from my temporary bolt solution. Check the dipstick and it's virtually dry. I didn't realize the sending units were tapered threads and my bolt "plug" let virtually all of my oil drain out!

So after nearly cooking the 235, I go to replace the sending unit. I thread in the new sender but meantime put the plug bolt on top of my air cleaner, standing on it's head so it won't roll off. Forgetting about the bolt, I'm finally done and shut the hood. At the time I notice that it takes a little more effort than normal to close the hood, but whatever. Over the next week I must have opened and closed the hood a bunch of times wondering why it had suddenly become so difficult to close and why it sprang open so fast. Then I remembered the bolt. It was still standing on top of the air cleaner- then of course I spotted the corresponding lump it left on the relatively flat hood.

So the first hot rod thing I did was almost cook my motor and put a gumball sized zit in my hood, but that's all it took- I was hooked.

 

Damn I didn't think screwin' up the Ol' Man's car counted. That bein' the case i don't remember.

 

Putting headers on a '69 Chevelle, when I was 15.

 

This is identical to my first car. I blew up the motor. I found a 383 to transplant into it. Of course nothing interchanged so I needed a new trans. So then I needed a new rear w/a parking brake etc. etc. etc. I put a lopey 310 duration Isky cam in it and drove it everyday. Everything was done in the back yard along side the pigeon coop in the mud. My dad helped some but it was mostly me. The very first thing I did when I got it was to add 1" port-a-walls, baby moons and beauty rings.

I retired it undefeated...one race, one victory. It blew away a 50 Olds 2 dr. with a 394 and a hydromatic.

 

my first one is the car im trying to get running right now, which is a 49 plymouth...man its a lot of work and im just getting started

 

I'm not counting the abandoned Chevy delivery truck I showed the neighborhood kids how to work the parking brake on back in the 1940s -- (that was while I was 5 years old in Vineland, New Jersey, before my family moved to Ohio)...
My real first hot rod thing in Ohio was bobbing the rear fenders of my Columbia Roadmaster back in fifth grade during 1950.
Sure -- all the other kids were taking their fenders off -- but I knew it was a little bit nicer if you hacksawed the excess metal off the rear and could avoid the dreaded "wet trail" down your back when you got to school on a rainy day.

 

Summer 1964, I was 16. Bought a 354 hemi out of a '56 Imperial limo at the local junk yard for $75.00. Tore it down and rebuilt it with parts from J. C. Whitney. With a front end loader borrowed from my boss for an engine hoist, I yanked the flathead six out of the '58 Plymouth two door that was my first car, handed down from my parents. I dropped the hemi in hooked up to the stock 3 speed (already had a foxcraft floorshift conversion). I'm pretty sure I used the 6 bellhousing, I know I used the stock 9" Auburn clutch and flywheel (later replaced, slipped like hell). Mocked up some cardboard mounts and had the local garage guy cut them out of 1/4 inch plate and weld them up. Drove it (and street raced it) for about 4 years then moved the motor to one of my other projects and s****ped the car. After I got a torch I cut every piece of metal out of it I thought was unnecessary in my quest for speed. Learned a lot about rebuilding broken transmissions and rears, the engine never missed a beat though. Oh yea, I did this with knowledge from car mags and motors manuals with a tool box the size of a lunch box, didn't have a mentor. I did buy a torque wrench and some sockets, ring compressor and hone to ***emble the motor. And I didn't even know how to replace brakes when I built the motor, I just wanted to go, not stop. I guess this was an early model Plymouth street hemi.

 

Only an Altered would wear 1/2 the tread off the FRONT tires on the drag strip. car skidding to the left as steering is held to the right, then reverse the process. Scrubs them down a bit
Great shot BTW

Other than working on fixing **** forever, my first hotrodding stuff was all the basic stuff. Putting on headers, swapping up to 4 barrel carbs, Jacking the *** end way up there with the longest shackles we could fit and compressing front coils while swapping to 90/10 front drag shocks for weight transfer. Then the next big step was ******* bars. This was in the 60's when you wanted your trunk lid to be higher than anyone else's at the drive in. We all wanted to get as close to this in our street cars as possible>

 

1962.......

My Mother blew up the 59 Chevrolet 283.....( the oil pump malfunctioned )
Dad went and bought her a new 62 Impala...Super Sport, 327 with a Powerglide, A/C ....White with blue interior...NICE...

I had been worrying my Dad for a car.......just had my license a few weeks ( 14 in South Carolina back then )......and I had paper boy money saved up.....

He said......get the 59 running and it's yours thinking I would be without a ride for a few years...So I pulled the engine under the old swingset.....took it apart and put a crankshaft kit in it....bought a overhaul gasket set and got it back together.....in 6 weeks of summer time ...It actually ran.....decent....

My " Black Sheep " of the family uncle lent me the tools and a timing light.....and advise....but NO help until I got it back into the 59. I was 180 out...and he fixed that after I could not figure it out.....and helped with some adjustments. Kept it two or three weeks........sold it ( to by Fathers disapproval ) and bought a 55 Chevrolet 150 2 door......

and the curse was in effect from then on.....

 

when I was 12 a friend and I put a 4 horsepower briggs & stratton 4 stroke on a radio flyer. It had a wheelie bar made out of rebar. In fact, that's how I learned to weld lol. It took us two weeks to build.

But I guess the very first hot rod thing I ever dad was body work. when I was 4 my dad had me wet sand a race car he was painting in the garage....Lazy *** haha

 

My first car, took 6 months to build. 96 s10







Not a hot rod, but hell we all have roots. I am a mini-trucker at heart

 

welded new rear fender wells into a 31 four door sedan.

black wheeled all the paint of of the same body(2 days)

put a 350 in a car. my first motor change.

 

My earliest garage memory is "helping" my dad set the timing on an open headered SBC in the '36 Dodge in the garage, when I was about 6.

The sound of a lumpy cam pushing through open headers is definately what sealed my fate

The first thing I did totally on my own... when I was 16 or 17 I built a 383 SBC in the garage during my free time between high school and work.



BTW, alteredpilot, that pic rocks


- Matt

 

replaced the gearbox in my first car three days after i got it... after blowing it to bits attempting a burnout!

 

"When I was just a baby my momma told me son, always be a good boy don't ever play with guns"......or hotrods......or motorcycles.....I guess I'd have to say the most "Hotrod" thing I ever done was disobeyin' my folks. First with guns, even though moms said No! I said yes and began collecting 'em when I turned 18. Then it was a couple of choppers, which were secreted in the garage where moms never went and then it was the hotrod bug! couldn't really hide that one too well! Ha ha ha ha! 41 Ford tudor sedans take up quite a bit 'o space! Funny thing is now that I'm all growed up and on my own, she really has more interest in that old car. It suddenly turned from a piece 'o junk to a "really pretty car" and she can't wait to see it get done (me either Ma!) I guess I'm talkin' bout bein a rebel. The only thing I never did that moms said "NO!" to was the tattoo's and dope. Never was my bag anyway.

 

1n 1980 i was 15 and i bought a wrecked torino with magnum 500 wheels and a mashed frame. the next year i got a job as the used car detail guy at a local dearlership, "Miley Buick Olds" with the money i made after school i bought another wrecked torino and 4 fenton slots with white letter stones, did a frame swap in my folks drive way with about 10 friends, had a local guy paint it red with a white swoosh. oh yeah, it had a 460 p.i. we rode the wheels off that striped tomato. that was probably the best summer of my youth. we ****in seized every day. man i was sparticus.

 

Bought a '29 Sport Coupe body, frame and rearend to turn into a highboy roadster. That was 1965. I still have the Kelsey-Hayes wire wheel that I got with those parts. I was drafted in '71 so I didn't get to finish the car.

 

Mine was a '47 Chevy Coupe It had a 216 that I blew up at the drive-in. So I put a 235 in it. It had the original dark green paint, a fine patina with spots of gray primer. The interior the Diamond ****on-Tuck done in T.J.Mexico I bought from this older guy for $125 bucks. On the trunk in chalk was written "LICKIN' STICK" He finished college and his dad said he could have any new car he wanted The Pontiac GTO was the newset thing on the street... So I got his Chebby,I was soooooooo cool and 15yrs old

 

i know it isn't hot rod related buy i built my first truck (S-10)starting at 15, did everything myself cause i didn't want to spend the real money
air ride front and rear trainglated 4 link
blah blah blah
did all the body work, interior


3 years later i grew up and started working on older cars(50 studebaker, 37 ford)

i am 20 now and wouldn't build another late model ever again
i don't know very much, but i am not afraid to screw **** up tring

 

Putting roller tip rockers on my '66 A-code 289 Mustang. I consider that to be ther first real hot rodding thing I ever did.

 

hmmm... Don't remember how old I was but I removed the AA battery out of my Stomper and wired in a 9volt dc wal-wart power supply with a long cord plugged into the wall... pulled a 20lb weight across the family room carpet...

I will say though, telling the wife how beautiful she was as I pushed the non-running non-stopping 53 into the garage for the first time does rank up there as a defining moment...

 

when I was seventeen I bought a pretty cherry '56 New Yorker for $50.00 and torched the back half of the top and trunk lid off, torched the back off a forty something International pickup and started making a hemi El Camino.
got the sheet metal mostly tacked and got a job in Dutch Harbor Alaska

when I got back I found the neighbor kids had bashed all the gl*** out of it and slashed all the tires, called the junk man and got $25.00 for it

I spent my hard earned money on a '66 Squareback, put a 1600 cc with dual port heads, dual carbs and headers on it..

it ended up at a different junk yard a year or two later...

 

Rebuilt a flathead to replace the straight 6 in my 52 F-1 I got the week after I turned 16. Replaced it 6 months later with a 352, those flatheads make a hell of a noise when they drop a rod. Took the truck to bare metal, primed it in the folks garage and got it painted and back together just in time to leave for college. Sold the truck in the mid 80's when I was broke.