Hot Rods Have you ever did any part of a build in your house

Back in the late-60's I built a '59 Harley trike in a ba*****t of a hundred year old farm house with a 5' high ceiling during the Winter. I was married and my 4-year old daughter used to ride her tricycle around while I worked on it. She usually wore a BSA beret I had while she rode around & made engine noises.

I've done many small jobs in my (larger) ba*****t over the years and my wife never complained. Sadly, my daughter grew up and didn't keep me company after a couple of years.

 

Being single between wife’s, lots of bike parts ****tered all over the ba*****t , numerous engines , trans , rear ends , my complete 32 in the garage of a bi level , painted in the driveway . Now I have detached garage , and a 4400 sq ft house . Nothing in the living quarters . My Man Land family room in the ba*****t has all my collection on dead animals , hides , car junk , reloading junk , I often threaten to bring the Harley into my land but haven’t yet . Best I can tell you is “ A happy wife , defines a happy life .”

 

Had a friend , here in Muskogee, Oklahoma back in the day, named” Gocart” that had a house that he kept the Panhead Harley in! I was talking to him one day, many moons ago and he told me he cut a hole in his living room floor to drain the oil from his bike! It was like he had just invented sliced bread! Proudest I had ever seen him!

Years later, he p***ed from this world. His son asked me if I would ride my Shovel to his funeral? Hell, yes!........ that day we had torrential rains in our area.... flood type rains.
One Shovelhead, putted to the cemetry.......pertty sad, he was the last of an era!






Bones

 

Forgive the mess. I'm building mine in my ba*****t workshop. It's about 350 sq ft with double doors to the outside. We have an attached garage, but I keep my off-road truck in there. First got to clean-up and install my overhead trolley. It is a bit cleaner now as I'm installing a bunch of 2"x10"x16' joists to make beams for the trolley system. Lol. You can barely make out my flathead in the last pick wrapped in plastic just in front of the doors.

 

When my wife wasn't home I put an intake manifold in the dish washer. But I only did once and I don't recommend any of you do doing this

 

I rebuilt my quadrajet in a hotel room in Lincoln, NB once. Room needed to be aired out when I was done. Rod ran great!

Phil

 

does the harley in my living room count?

 

I was home alone one day and it was cold outside. So I rebuilt my carbs on my moms kitchen counter. I stretched a air hose into the house to blow out the carbs and rushed to get them done before mom got home. And it was mighty close when she did get home


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Rookie stuff. Haha


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Back I about ‘83 my friend and I were riding our Harley’s through Colorado, when his Shovelhead begin to stick a valve in the rear cylinder . We pulled into the Motel 8 , in Pebulo , Co. the manager let us use a utility room to pull the rear head from that scooter and fix that valve! I guess that close?




Bones

 

Put the dash for my '40 Chevy together at the kitchen table.

 

I wasn't there but a good friend told a story of our mutual motocross racing buddy Eric who was still living at home in a nice house with an attached garage. One day my buddy was over watching Eric work on his bike when Eric put a tray of oil on the stove to heat up for his chain. Soon after they heard a noise and Rich opened the kitchen door to find the kitchen engulfed in flames. Rich battled the fire and managed to put it out. When he looked around for Eric he found him in the garage working on his bike.

 

Seems Harlys were pretty popular, I rebuilt my 76 low rider (used to be a super glide) in the kitchen.Wife was pretty understanding and just used to me.

 

I don't have a garage, and I live in Michigan so lots of parts end up in the ba*****t or other little storage areas. If I can find a decent transmission this winter it'll probably end up on the work bench in the ba*****t too.

 

Any build starts with an idea. Mine usually start in the house (sometimes in the middle of the night while I am still in bed) and then develop in doing research, drawing, cutting and pasting pictures and often building a toy model. The model idea is nice because it allows me to see the direction of my vision and provides me with a nice lasting memory that I get to see every day even years later if the car is gone.
I have a ba*****ts in my home where many smaller projects for a build get worked on. Being in my home for over 41 years, it is not uncommon to find ***embled project parts being stored in closets or unused rooms. I think I have interior panels for another project that I worked on in my ba*****t, stored in my adult Daughters old bedroom. If the weather is cold, I might run out to the barn to use a tool I need and then bring the part in the house to finish working on it. I guess if it fits inside the house, why not spend some time working on it there.

 

Mines been there so long I started decorating it for Christmas a few years ago!

 

i've done that

 

I could say yes I did, the entire car, sort of. At the time we had a large ranch style home over 2200 square feet. The garage had been converted to an apartment with bathroom & kitchen. I tore it down outside, moved parts inside. When the parts got too big, I tore out the wall and made it back into a garage. When the car was done, 22 months later, we boxed it back in and built an attached garage. It went from garage to house, back to garage, back to house.

 

I had a good friend that built a T bucket in a back bedroom, he then took a wall out to get the car out. HRP

 

Yup.....I rebuilt my brother's muncie on my pool table in the ba*****t. Built many carbs on the kitchen table and stored my 389 behind my chair in the tv room. Sweetie never knew about that one because I kept a blanket thrown over it.
Finally, I commandeered that TV room for my workshop as it's right next to the garage. Now it's part of my garage. Cost? I had to completely re-do my wife's kitchen to get it. Frees up a ton-o-room in my garage.

 

Around 63 the guy across the street put a wrecked vett together in his ba*****t. Dad and I helped carry the body up the stairs in large pieces.

 

For Xmas of 2016, I had a lot of new parts stashed in my living room that had to be cleared out. Took me a solid 2 hours to get it all stashed in the garage or trunk of my Ford. Including a Dart top end kit, heads, intake, Holley and so on.

 

IF your wife asks you to get the transmission out of the bathtub so she can take a bath, Youuu might be a Hot Rodder.

 

Yes on my o/t, but that was before renovations.
That wouldn't fly now.
Thankfully my garage now has heat

 

The timex 355 was built in our living room in '97. well screwed together, I didn't do the machining in the living room. LOL

I could give you a long list of cars and bikes that were partially or completely built in the house.

 

I scrubbed a Sportster engine in the tub before a rebuild!

 

What the hell is that thing on your desk?

 

Several years ago I bought a cool old rusty Caddy air cleaner really cheap during a rainstorm at the Charlotte Autofair. Back at the hotel I decided to clean it up in the tub so I could pack it for the plane ride back to New York. Between the scaly rust and the acre of dirt that came out of this thing, I ended up with half a tub full of standing black swamp water. I lied to the desk guy saying the tub was draining slow while one of the guys was taking a shower and asked if I could borrow a plunger. He said he would send somebody up but somehow I convinced him to just give me the plunger and I would take care of it. He agreed and my buddies and I spent the next hour clearing the drain and tub.
After fixing the rot and making some modifications to the air cleaner, it ended up inside my house for a few years until last winter when I finally went down in the ba*****t, did more finish work and got some primer on it. Saw it again still sitting around in the ba*****t waiting for me to figure out what I am eventually going to do with it.

 

When my Dad was alive one of his hobbies was working on telephones. We had one in just about every room. I even had a pay phone that my kids loved putting nickels and dimes in. That thing on the desk is a working phone from a Best Western Hotel. One time I used it when I was having a problem with my internet. When the voice on the other end said "press one for English" I realized my dial phone was not going to be much help so I had to grab the push****on phone from the kitchen.

 

In my teens I carpeted some panels for the trunk area of an off topic car in my mums kitchen while she was on holiday. Cleaned up and all looked good but a few days went by and I'd got spray glue mist on the floor and worktop and any dirt just stuck to it. What a mess I got my ears chewed off for that 1. Never did it again and only other thing car wise I've done in the house is ***emble a couple of ford dash panels I've restored
Luke