Art & Inspiration Filler , pop rivets , window screen and other acts of shoe makery!

I bought an OT suburban with a lot of body rot and a bad motor for $ 400, a mid 80's Chevy for $ 200, a gallon of tiger hair, and a rattle can of undercoating. I swapped engines, tiger haired the body, and sprayed the black undercoat over the not too smooth tiger hair. I drove it round trip to Moultrie Georgia from Connecticut. The day after I got back to Connecticut the turbo 400 died in my driveway. End of story.

 

I can relate to this one. I work in a Gary Indiana steel mill.

 

At least it had the good manners to wait until you got home.

 

There was a guy in the next town over that was a freakin artisté, the Picasso of putty, the Michelangelo of mastic, the Toulouse Lautrec of tiger hair, the Koons of krap (redundant). Anyhow he could lay down a great coat of paint, nice striping, sweet '70s flares made from goo and whatever castoff sheet metal, you name it, for real his stuff turned out awesome... for a couple months.

Rumor was he had a big spool with window screen in the shop like you'd see in a window factory. A friend's dad was delivering a square body Chevy one night and we volunteered to follow and give him a ride home. Guess what it was at this chap's place and the rumor was true.

And I'm not knocking him - he cranked out work constantly, and growing up in the salt belt he kept a lot of cars that would have otherwise been scrapped on the road. Some probably still are.

 

Somewhere around the age of 22 or 23, I discovered the value of some car parts. Being a Mopar guy, I sort of stuck with the Mopars I knew so well. After we bought our house out in the country (a couple years after the value of parts discovery), most of the beaters I bought were based on the value of the parts on the cars. We lived 8 miles out of town on a narrow gravel road with several curves. When ever the snow was blowing, some parts of our road could be completely impassable, or nearly impassable. Since there were only 3 houses on the road, the only time plowing our road was of any priority was when the School bus had to use the road. If it snowed Friday evening, the road would not even see a plow until late Sunday afternoon, or even Monday morning.

A winter beater at our house had a completely different meaning then it did for most "town folk". It had to be stone reliable, it had to be capable of going through unplowed snow drifted roads, and it had to cost less then the value of its parts. If it used some of the parts that might be available on the 5 or 6 parts cars or trucks that were present at my house, that was a huge plus. An important part of any cobbling done on a beater ride at my house included closing off any cold air entry, making sure it had heat and defrosters working, and figuring ways to make a similar parts from a different rides work so I could keep the current one on the road through the winter. More then a few of those beater rides became winter only rides that were parked every spring, and checked over every Oct in preparation for another winter of use. We lived on the narrow gravel road for 16 years.

I remember driving one or our off topic winter 4x4 beaters, just before what would have been its 3rd winter. It was still a warm day, because the door window was down and I had my arm sitting on the window frame. When I got in the Ramcharger (think Blazer for you GM people), I was sure I closed the door tightly, but as I was going through the curves, I felt the door move! kind of like it wasn't fully latched. When I got to the stop sign on the blacktop (about 3/4 mile from home), I opened the door and slammed it shut. it still didn't feel right, so I slammed it again, this time watching the door. Yep, the door was fully latched, but the rear door post also moved. "Gee, that was pretty strange, I better turn around and go home to see what is going on." was my thoughts.

When I got home, I pulled the silicone attached carpet away from the lower door post, and saw daylight where there should have been steel. Pulling loose a bit more carpet, I could see that the entire side of the body behind the door post was disconnected from the floor (this one had the removable roof, but it had never been removed). Even the wheel tub was no longer attached to the truck floor. The only thing on the entire driver side of the Ramcharger was sort of intact was the area behind the wheel well, and it was not looking too good. Had I not driven the truck with the window down, I might not had noticed the condition the truck body was in. A trip into the ditch could have been a disaster. I never even considered patching it up, it was worth more in parts and would not have been hard to replace it at that time of the year. a few months later would have been a different story.

I took a different vehicle into town that day, and bought the next beater 4x4. At least I had a good 4x4 drivetrain sitting at home to use or sell.

 

When I was in the Army in 1968, I was transferred to Ft. Dix in New Jersey. Living in Queens N.Y. at the time I was able to go home on weekends. I had my 57 Plymouth, but the engine was out and apart, so I bought a junker to use. It was a 1960 Biscayne 4 door sedan with a 6 cyl. automatic. It had some body rot, and the rear shocks were like the ones on Uncle Bucks car in the movie. The passenger side floor was mostly gone, and I found out how bad when a friend got in and the seat went through the floor. I used the shaft from the bumper jack laying horizontally to keep the seat up. The next day I did a "professional" repair using a sheet of plywood. I did change the shocks before I drove it and got them cheap at the Auto parts store on the base. Looking back the body had some rust but if you had it today you would be thrilled that the body was pretty solid.

 

the Hammer ( Hamilton) was like this till the 80’s early 90’s I live about 30 minutes up in the hills and back then EVERYTHING that didn’t move got covered in a black ….. not quite dust but not quite sand ….. something gritty dusty and dirty inbetween.

had to hose off the patio furniture Saturday morning when we where expecting guest later that day .

If you spent anytime down by the mills the windshield would get sandblasted in a few years .

Much better now out by me , still gritty n stinky in downtown …… but it’s gentrifying

Call it what you want you’re still living by a bunch of steel mills and a ton of manufacturing!!!

driving down the QEW by the mills it looks like max max fury road with the archaic steel buildings shooting flames and smoke 24 hours a day , piles of ore and equipment moving around .

I love it . Also love not living too close to it

 

In the 60's these were OLD cars , not worth more than a couple hundred bucks , you patched the up however , they didn't need to last long , you drove them & either sold them or threw them away , nobody gave two hoots about the future of the cars , most of us wanted muscle cars , make your payments , drive em hard , discard , then things changed ! Don't go getting all " uppity" about the way things got done !

 

Damn man your transformation from a young nice normal guy into a snarky grumpy old man is complete. Has your supply of metamucil run out or what.

You have been on a roll lately posting snarky comments on many threads no matter the subject matter.

 

Who we talking to? BTW nice to hear from you. Quiet one

 

About 1968, a friend and I acquired a '65 GTO with a blown engine and a big hole drilled in the top for $500. A rebuilt 421 from a newspaper ad (remember those), a little bondo and touchup spray paint on the top, and it was ready to flip as a possible "Factory Experimental" car. We did so well that we didn't even bother us that we ended up with a clapped out MG "A" in trade. A couple of days later , we decided that we should probably flip the MG. The main problem was that the right front fender had been hit pretty hard, right in the headlight. A new fender was not in the picture, so we ended up cutting the existing fender into strips about 2" wide about 3 feet back, and straightening the strips as best we could. It turned out "acceptable", except there were some holes left around the headlight bucket. My friends dad smoked a pipe, so we cut up an old Prince Albert tobacco can for metal patches, which we brazed in. The result, of course, was without mounting holes for the unknown headlight bucket we used, so we brazed that in as well. A coat of primer, and it turned out pretty well. Well enough in fact, that it brought us an additional $1100. (We also scored 4 pair of new vice grips that the former owner had been using to keep the side curtains in place.)

A few days later, the new owner came back with a complaint; in our haste, we had brazed the headlight bucket to the fender rotated 90 degrees off, so when the headlights were dimmed, the right hand headlight moved side to side, not up and down. Knowing what it would take to fix it, we told him to leave the car overnight and we'd take care of it. He deferred (good choice on his part).

Though I have moved on, I think my friend is still "flipping" cars.

 

Best winter bomb I ever had. Bought it for $1.00, got 5600 miles per gallon, used 98 quarts of oil, knocked a concrete block porch off it's foundation on an icy day, and ran forever. Loved that bomb!.

 

Reminds me of a guy I worked with, back in the eighties.
He drove the livin shit out of a 61 Chevy during the winter months. Total pos.
One day I noticed a big ol patch of sheet metal riveted to the passenger fender. He said the heater core was leaking, and that cutting through the fender made it easier to replace.
One day, he was late to work. Unusual for this guy. He said that his gas tank fell out on the road. He went back and retrieved the tank which was sitting upright and still had gas in it. He put the tank in the back seat, used some rubber hose and got to work a half hour late. Don't know if he's still around but if he is I'll bet that he is still driving it. Here's to you, Rene Sturtz. Keep em on the road.

 

I've had my f250 since 2001, so we are pretty good friends by now. Someone put the stick on stainless panels that were so popular back in 1984, on the poor thing, and they trapped a lot of crap underneath them for 30 plus years, resulting in some unsightly holes when they all finally fell off. Being much too lazy to repair it, or replace anything either, it is now looking much better after some fiberglass reinforced filler, lovingly applied via the wax paper method. Some dark blue metallic Rustoleum spray paint matches the otherwise all original painta-patina, and it's on to it's 2nd 500,000 miles. Win-win!

 

Jealous ?? BTW , it's just too easy !!

 

I'll never tell.
Oh... ok.

A long board pressed up against a shitload of Bondo makes for a really nice flat rocker panel. Pull it off before the Bondo completely sets. Perfect.

Trying real hard not to be snarky.
Or uppity.
Or grumpy.
Or old.

 

Spot on. Here's his snarky response to my post with photos of my car here in Sarasota. Seems like a bitter old man. "Nothing like folks flaunting their affluence , makes me feel all warm & fuzzy inside ..."

 

Seriously, do you have anything good to say, about anything on here? Jeezus...

 

C'mon Brian, you have to admit, you are pretty fkn affluent. And it tends to piss me off too.

C'mon 2OLD, you have to admit, you have been a persnickety old bitch lately.

LOL LOL LOL...

 

Wealth is relative. When one accepts that, and doesn't get angry that someone else has more wealth, and likewise isn't smug, and accepts those with less wealth as good people, not somehow less, then there isn't "class warfare". Someone is ALWAYS going to have a better paint job, better interior, more motor, more chrome, than someone else. 2Old here, has, (if his avatar is really his car) a car that a lot of people would think extravagant. When you get right down to it, ALL of us, every one, has an extravagant amount of disposable income, or none of us would have a car(s) that are more than our basic need for transportation.
I can't afford a Duesenberg, but I know people who can, and own more than one, but it doesn't make me angry or jealous. Their daddy, and granddaddy, had more money than mine, maybe they married well, but none of that pisses me off. What DOES piss me off is some A-hole whining about it.
A buddy of mine, when I was selling cars, went in partners with one of his buddies and bought a Chris Craft, a 35' cruiser. He felt pretty swell about it, until at a marina one day a boat pulled in a slip next to his that was so big that on their fly-bridge they could look in a galley window. He wasn't mad, he kept his perspective, realizing that no matter how big your boat is, somebody has a bigger one.

 

I believe the chosen one doth protest too much LOL ( easier & easier )
And at the moment , nope , I don't .

 

Just lettin' it fly on my way out !

 

I'm not sure I've ever embodied nice or normal , I do remember being young !

 

I just had to laugh at that. As a remodel carpenter I remember one house in particular.
We added a second story to the house, there was no room in the house to add the staircase ... so we built a addition in front of the house for the circular staircase going upstairs .... Simply because the original brick wall would not accept drilled lag bolts ... they kept falling apart ..... Great stuff glued those walls together and worked really well .... It truly is great stuff.

 

One of the best body/paint guys I've ever met was a crackhead named Chuck. You couldn't count on him, he would only show up when he ran out of drugs maybe once or twice a week
.
Chuck had no interest in doing the resto jobs that we mainly did, took to long he said. The boss had a deal with a used car lot just for him. Whenever Chuck did show up he would call the car lot and they would send over 2-3 cars. Cave and pave was Chuck's style and no prep work at all other than a quick wipe with precleaner. He would work on them all at the same time and have them all painted in 5-6 hrs. max. When he was done they looked( and felt) perfect. Then he wanted paid and you would not see him again for a few days.

I always marveled at how he was able to get his body work so perfect so fast. But his life, like his body/paint work didn't last long.

 

The car lots made money , your boss made money , chuck made money , suppliers made money , bargain hunters took up the slack ! Win , win .

 

Back in high school I got a 66 mustang for 125$, a cheap winter beater. I did not look that close at it, so I got home and started looking in trunk for a spare tire and jack.I found the bumper jack mast jammed in the frame rail and out under the bumper, the frame rail had rusted out and the end of the leaf spring was being held down by the jack mast.

 

My uncle had a 64 Chevy with a rusty floor so he used some tin he had lying around to fix the floor. And to seal it up he used 2 or 3 inchs of concrete to seal it up, than put the carpet back down.

 

I remember when I was a wee nipper my Dad had a '63 Valiant wagon, which we used as a family car / farm truck. The back seat went down in '63, and never came back up. Once it had enough years hauling calves, goats, it developed some serious rust in the bottom of the front doors. My dad fixed that with concrete. You could wind the window down a few inches and then you could hear the clunk when the window rail hit the "reinforcement". Around the same time I remember peeling bananas and passing them to my bro, while he dutifully pressed them into the rear axle on his Valiant. It then went straight to a used car yard to be traded in.