help a kid fix his first old car.

what time does it start?
i might hafta stop at the Clubman's British bike show 1st in the morning.

 

Just got back from work and they say I can come in at 5 tommarow so Ill probably be there from around 10:30-11 till 2:30-3. Any thing I can bring with me, refreshments of the non-alcoholic type, meat, give me some ideas here.

 

starts at 10am , and i wanna slam that trans first thing , and while its up on the lift , pull the wheels and swap on the tires . Let me know when you think you can make it , if you are gonna be late I will put the trans in and leave the pan off till you get there .

 

we got the drinks handled , bring safety glasses if you have them , but I do have extra, and clothes that can get dirty. could use some scrap sheet metal . Glad you will be able to make it.

 

you can put the pan on,i just left it off because you were getting a new gasket.
you got the gaskets,right?

basically all i'm bringing is tools for the linkage set-up,and the tires i picked up from Erik (tetanus shot) and a thermos full of coffee
i might not get there until 2:00 because of clubman's show/post office stuff.

 

yeah we got gaskets , we will get it in , and see you when you get there

 

heading down to the shop in a few, see you guys there.

 

I can't wait to see pics and hear how this goes! You guys are the coolest putting this together and helping this kid out!! Hope this continues to really motivates him to turn his life around, looks like hes on the right path now!

Rock On HAMB!!

 

It was wicked cool. I cant wait till JohnDanger or somebody posts those pics and a final list of what happened. I had to leave early unfortunatly. I would have loved to stay and see this thing in its end state. Got to meet some cool people and learned a thing or two, all in all great day.

 

I must agree! John is one cool hombre. I had a great time and learned some cool stuff as well. There are lots of great people on the HAMB and today certainley showed it once again.

Viva la HAMB

TERPU- by the way that is for- Tim Edwards Roadster Pick-up. Just in case you thought I had some sort of wierd fetish

 

He does have a weird fetish, but its for gay cowboys.

 

Ok where do I start , I guess i will recap as it happened ;

As I got home last night I realized that my Chevy's 235 was low on oil and something in the valvetrain was making a racket , I filled the oil , it didn't go away , great , my daily driver is falling apart , went to bed pissed off, and worrying that no one was gonna show up.

I got up late because it was raining outside, so the Flea market was not happening and I was not too exited about working with it raining . I started the car and it was still ticking . I drove off to the shop in the rain .

I got to the Liquor store bye the shop to get ice for the sodas in the cooler . They were closed .There was a lady outside , she asked me when they opened , and said she was going to wait there cuz they had a really good sale on JackDaniels , she was drunk , it was 9am , I think she was still talking as I drove off to the gas station down the street , but I couldn't hear her over my engine ticking. Pulled up to the gas station , gave a homeless guy outside the door a buck , he thanked me and told me that I had a cool car , but it sounded like there was something wrong with my motor I wandered around inside looking for the ice ( which was outside ) grabbed a bag and got in line behind the homeless guy who was buying a 40 ouncer of Old English with the dollar I gave him . It was 9:11am . I drove off , passed a cop , who pulled in behind me as I went bye and followed me 2 blocks to the shop , as I pulled into the lot , he drove off , it quit raining , and I noticed that my car was quiet as a mouse and running great. ( Its all true ,I sware )

Dusty was there early waiting for me , he said he was so exited he couldn't sleep . We talked a bit about what we were gonna do as we opened up the shop, and he told me that he couldn't believe that people we didn't even know were coming over to fix his car , he didn't know what to say or how to thank them, and he started to get a bit emotional , and with all the compassion that I could muster , I told him to shut the fuck up and quit being such a fag , try not to embarass me in front of all my cool new friends from the Hamb and to keep his mouth shut and his eyes open and to try and learn something , and most of all .....earn it .

As we rolled up the door in front of his car , I saw the trans on the floor with a box full of rusty parts, and I noticed the right rear tire had gone flat overnight .This thing was worse than I remembered , and I realized we had our work cut out for us.

 

Come on all this better build up to something!! ^^^^^^^^^^

i'm bummed i missed it but i had to have suprise surgury on my throat, but thats still no excuse!!

anybody have some pictures?

 

Sorry I missed the HAMB thrash I did work today in Sac. and I didn't get home until 10:00 pm, But that's only a excuse.Wish I was there to help the kid out.Are you planing another Thrash?.Please let all of us who missed it know so we can try to make the next one.

 

As I stood there , I thought of the work ahead , I looked the car over , and reevaluated the situation , I remembered all the advice I had been given when faced with the work on my cars ; try not to get overwhelmed , stay focused , pick small tasks that can be completed quickly, I also wanted to keep everyone busy and get Dusty involved so that we were not just doing it for him.

Terpu shows up , introduces himself , rolls up his sleeves and is ready to work , with Tim showing up , I realize that at this point ,even if no one else shows up we have the 3 of us and at least 2 of the mechanics that work with me to help out if we get stuck, there is nothing that we can't handle till Yorgatron gets there at 2 with tires and his Hydro tools . It's go time .

Dave , who works at the shop , gives a quick tour of his GIANT tool box , its all ours for the taking .

The plan; car in the air, clean parts , trans back together and in , lowering blocks on , wheels off , and cleaned .

A young kid drives up and walks into the shop ,He's wearing a Hamb shirt, it's Blackflag , he's been driving for 2 hours , and he's ready to rock. He is introduced to the bead blasting cabinet and gets to work.

People start to show up, Hamb lurkers and longtime local hotrodders Marc and Connor show up , they are meeting at the shop to go pick up Connor's new truck , came bye a few hours early to help out , and they get to work .

Lowering blocks are on , and the new shiney parts look oddly out of place , everyone is having a good time joking around , we make fun of Broke Back Mountain, and shit is getting done. We notice that the car has been infested by spiders and the exhaust is falling off , I call in the expert , Steve is the shop Exhaust man , a magician with a pipe bender , he looks it over , knods , we tear it all out .

we clean up and reseal the Hydro , Terpu chases the treads in all ten million holes on the Taurus cover , trans is in , after a bit of tweaking the crossmember and mounts are in and the driveshaft , wheels are cleaned up and painted red and new endlink kits for the swaybar.

Marc and Connor go to pick up the truck , and come right back to work.

Yorgatron shows up an hour early , drops off the tires , and we load them into Dustys sponsor Gregg's ford pick up , and he's off to Big O , they hook us up with the mount and balance... Freebie!

The gastank comes out , its full of crap and shitty old gas , another guy shows up , nice guy, it's Blackflag's Dad ( he came down because Blackflag's truck started making bad noises on the way down , but he didn't say a word about it and kept working on Dustys car ) Dad jumped in and went to work on the gas tank with Gregg and Blackflag .

Yorgatrons back and he's messing with the linkage .

we get out of the way and let the pros handle the exhaust work , steel pack to duals .

Terpu has to go , and I am sad to see him leave , this guy can work , great attitude , never slowed down , stand up guy.

Blackflags truck is ok , and he and his dad gotta go , long drive home. It meant alot to me that a younger guy came so far for this ,and worked selflessly on the project at hand ,the whole time unsure if his own rig would get home, it gives me faith in the next generation.

Exhaust is done , Marc gets the doors to latch and stay shut , we are running out of time .

Dusty jumps in to fire it up......... nothing , everyone crowds around and leans in under the hood , Yorgatron remembers the neutral safety switch , it cranks ... Dave sprays into the Carb ... it fires ... but it wont run on its own ..no fuel .. we pull the line off and blow air back to the tank , hook it back up ..... cranks .. fires .... it runs , it idles , its alive. Dusty is behind the wheel , he shifts into drive , checks the brakes ... gives it some gas ...... It drives off the rack , out of the bay and into the world for the first time in 9 months.

We all walk out to witness the test drive , the car actually looks pretty good , like someone cares about it, everyone is quiet .

We all hope for the best , but we are snapped back into reality , there is a problem , it wont shift out of low , and we're out of time . Yorgatron suspects the valve body , it might be stuck , we will try some TransX and see if it lets go .

I was worried about how Dusty would take it , but he was still smiling ," we'll figure it out " he said , with a confident smile , " let's see if we can get it tomorrow "

I'm not sure how things will go with this , if it looks like serious trouble , I might just make a move on the other motor , and see if we can get a deal , allthough , his is running there is a rumble from the motor , I think its the water pump , and there was a bit of blow by , you can't beat 400 or less for a good motor and trans , and all the other work was time well spent.

Everyone had a goodtime , we got alot done and met some good people .

I didn't go into this thinking I was going to get anything out of it , but I did.

I want to say thanks to ;

Yorgatron
Terpu
the Blackflag family
Marc
Connor
Gregg
Dave
Steve
Allred
Tetnus for the Tires
Steve at BigO
My boss Bill for letting us destroy the shop
all the Hambers that sent good wishes , support , and offers of $
and Dusty for reminding me why I got into this hobby

I will add pictures as soon as I figure it out , and keep you posted on what happens from here.

Thanks , John

 

Sounds like a lot of good work was done, hope that you guys can figure out those tranny issues, as a young kid with little to no money tranny problems seem like the end of the world, i remember blowing my galaxie's tranny over the summer luckly i scraped together the dough to get the old fmx rebuilt, cuz i know i wouldn't have desereved somthing like this! if you need pics posted e-mail em' to me i'll put em' up.

 

What a brotherhood. thanks, guys.

 

Great to hear everyone pullin' together like that...

Ya done good.

Olson

 

Just plain and simple- John is the man! Thanks John and call anytime you need help on anything. I had a kick ass time.

Tim

 

Just a note from the UK - just wanted to say this is a very cool thing alot of you guys are doing for this kid, it really does help retore your faith in humanity!

Johndanger, if your or this kid ever find yourself floating around the UK, give us a shoutm there's a cold beer waiting for you, likewise with the guys that have helped hook this kid up. drop us a line via www.speedandstrip.co.uk

Send us some pics of his ride and we'll post em on the site!
speedandstrip@hotmail.com

Rock on!

Bj's
Moonshiners (UK)

 

wow this is really great. this is what its all about

 

Just a quick congrats and kudos to all that showed up for this kid, and to John make that a double. If the end result is that the youngster has to buy the other motor and trans for his ride I'm in for a donation. And another thing. John if you don't know how to type you must be one patient person to post this using the hunt and peck method of typing. That is cause for another congrats.

 

thats funny , if you look at the time stamps on the posts you can see how long it took. Proof reading and correcting takes a while , but I wanted people that didn't make it to have a feel for it as it went down for us , and after all this buildup , a simple " yeah , we're done , it was fun " wasn't gonna be enough.

As for the pictures , I took a bunch , but my oldladys nice new camera and my crappy old computer don't get along , so I gotta get them loaded up and sorted out so I can post them.

I gotta spend a little time with the oldlady this morning before shes off to work , and I'll let you know how it goes at the shop later today.

Later , John

 

This would have made such fabulous TV and that is not disrespecting what Johndanger has done. It has not been done for TV but for real, parts and cash donated by real people who have done it because they can not because they can get cheap air time. I would have love to come and just make the tea (UK, we don't do coffee) and get in the way. If this Kid don't get his act together after this, a shit load of people he don't even know fixing his car for free and even getting it cooler then fuck him. I do hope he does sort himself though, he has been through some real serious shit in his life but has made the start on the hotrod life. I wish Dusty well and if John danger is ever in the UK I'm sure any of the HAMBers over the pond would help you out.

 

Im pretty sure this kid already has his shit together. Just the impression I got from working alongside him. It was no problem going down, even if the truck did have problems, that was the most fun Ive had in a long time.

 

I think he will be ok , and we are not gonna be able to fix him , but with any luck we can fix his car, I think just exposing him to an alternative where some hard work a some friends get you imediate rewards that you can see and drive , might be enough to keep him out of trouble .

the good times we had yesterday made me understand why people like to be in a club , a bunch of guys with the same goal , working together , and getting shit done , its like reality TV , but without all the drama bullshit , real goals and deadlines , and no big budget . I even thought that a local car club with a monthly build day , might be something to think about , but then I realized that we are allready have a club in the HAMB , a strange gigantic secret society that most people don't even know about , were guys with secret code names that you have never met before will help out , or just show up and work for free , because they think its the right thing to do.

 

john you are the man.if any of you find your way to vegas look me up. we all need people like this around. im proud to be a part of the HAMB.. and if you need a little $ for the motor and trans just let me know !! im in for it..

 

I'm thrilled this all worked out for the best! I wished I could had been there but I was having Pontiac problems of my own. I can't wait to see that car runnin around NorCal soon!

Oh that's soon as in "as soon as I get MY problem child running".........stinkin car.

 

Just caught this-you homo that's sheep herders nuttin like muttin bustin'

TERPU

 

I am beat so I will keep it short , Yorgatron showed up at 3pm , we drained the trans , it was full of water , pulled off the side cover , Yorgatron and Dusty went through the valve body , cleaned everything , and reassembled as I worked on my own car , it all went back together just in time for the 8pm deadline , but it still wont shift.

I am over messing with this engine and trans , the water pump bearing is shot and the engine has pretty serious blow bye . We're gonna buy the other motor and trans , and stuff it in .

One more work day, to slam the motor , we still need to do the floor patch and brake lights .