Hey HAMBr's, remember all those parts you sold me over the past 9 months or so? Well here they are assembled into one neat pile. An air cleaner from IN, exhaust manifolds from MD, gauges from......the list goes on and on......hell, even the car was for sale on here at one point. It takes a village - a village of rag tag hoodlems - to build a hotrod - thanks to my pals Steve S and especially Steve M for helping to keep my head in the game (I think the latter felt guilty for facilitating the sale of the car to me). So far, this car has FOUGHT me every step of the way, it finally sucummed (albeit kickiing and screaming) and survived its maiden voyage. Sure, there's an annoying off idle stumble and the clutch needs a little adjustment, but it moves under its own power. Front suspension, rear end, interior, buff, changes and refinements are all coming.....I will retrospectively post some details on how I have gotten to this point and then continue to chronical the cars evolution and adventures but for now, a few pics
Congratulations, you have built a great looking coupe anyone would love to have it sitting beside their other car in the garage. HRP
Nice lookin' car. I am partial to black '51 coupes, having had one myself for 38 years. A couple of questions; does the car have a back seat or just a platform? What transmission are you running?
Thanks! Just a platform with fixed rear windows - the club coupe had the same roof but pop out windows and a seat - I retained the stock transmission and column shift using a speed gems adapter
Ok, Ok – well, you might not like these as much….here it is “as found”. Mind you, this picture with a flash makes it out like you can see in this place – it was an old, abandoned looking, warehouse/manufacturing facility in rural Vermont that was DIMLEY lit. Of course seeing under the car was not going to happen – I liked it because it was a base, factory black, business coupe with a factory V8. All I knew about its history was it had a Texas ’84 inspection and a receipt dated ’82 for a full rebuild of the flathead at a cost of over $2,000! Piecing the car's history together as best I could, it likely received an amateur restoration in the early ‘80s. The passenger door and fender were replaced (likely a fender bender as no damage on cowl or any other structural parts of the car). The entire car received a repaint at that time too (as well as undercoating on the inside and underneath of floors). The car then appears to have sat for the next 20 years with limited use. By the early 2000s the car was still in Texas and seemed to change hands, likely to a flipper, that made some poorly executed modifications to the car – this included lowering blocks that were too wide and dual exhaust with econo headers booger welded front to rear. Somehow the aforementioned flipper got the car up to one of the PA swap meets where the owner before me purchased it – this was 2006. Perhaps I should back up and explain the circumstances. My previously mentioned buddy Steve had met the previous owner of this car 15+ years prior……When he met him, this car was sitting in the same spot, and had been for a while. This guy had amassed 60+ cars over the years and never really used any of them much – he loved the chase – he bought at Carlisle, Hershey, Mecum and of course locally. While there was some junk (like this one lol) he had a lot of top end stuff too – all stored in the same place - his tastes ranged wildly. At one point, he began thinning the herd – My buddy helped him where he could through buying some cars or helping him market them appropriately. Unfortunately, he passed with a portion of his collection still in his possession. Eventually, his widow asked Steve for help liquidating the remaining cars. It took the better part of a year and a multi car deal to have the numbers make sense on this one – I was not a “Ford guy” but liked the factory “hot rod” vibe this was giving off and thought it would be “neat” to own a flathead. So out of storage it came. Of course, the rear brakes were seized – so all the brakes, and parking brake cable, got replaced first. Next up – get the flatty running – to my surprise it woke right up! Time for a test drive – immediately learned why there was a brand new clutch (with a receipt from 2006) in the trunk – it shuddered bad enough to knock your fillings out. I was not going to do the job under the car and the engine compartment was a mess sooooooo. Ended up turning into a pretty expensive clutch job. An indoor swap meet was coming up and I had the pieces of 3 283s under my workbench so I decided to let fate decide – If it sold (armed with a video of it running) for good money, I’d do the swap – if not, I detail the flattie, have the flywheel machined, change the clutch, clean up the engine compartment and stab it back in! Well, you already know what happened – and that flathead money went quick once I got going – came home and started to mock it up. EVERYTHING was in the way – wanted to retain the stock trans and column shift – the goal was for it to look like a late 50s/early 60s junkyard take out with swap parts available back then. Rather than a dropped draglink, I went with a front sump pan (hey, they were available in ’64 lol) and I notched the cross member – arts and crafts before cutting the steel…..It also gave me the ability to sneak a crossover pipe over to the passenger side as it gets crowded with the clutch linkage and brake master cylinder under the driver’s side floorboard. If the engine compartment looks a little “’55 Chevy like” to you, well, that’s my background – one donated its radiator, hoses, exhaust manifolds, battery location etc. In the end, I guess I’m still not a "Ford guy" lol That brings us up to my first post on this thread.
Still trying to figure out stance and wheel/tire combo - I like this setup so far - chrome lugs and plain polished dust cap - gonna live with it for a bit View attachment 6462470
I am a big '51 Ford fan, especially the coupes. You are doing really nice work but ya lost me when the Chevy went in. Sorry. Dave
I'd say your choices add up to perfection. At the time as it were, When I went to high school, this was the ultimate Hot car. That was prior to Muscle cars, and No, I really didn't go to classes, just hung out at the garage Thanks for the visit.
Did a 500 mile round trip "bonzi run" to the wheels of time show in Macungie, PA yesterday, most of my pics were OT but I did see the iron trap display And this awesome Hot Rods to Hell Vette - cool owner too IIRC he's a member here All in all it was about 9hrs of driving - thanks to the 3.22 geared '56 rear end chuck we did between 65-70mph and gas milage (for those that care) was high teens. We spent 4hrs walking around the show - there had to be 2000-3000 cars - not much junk, some hamb friendly stuff, a ton of street rods and tri fives - something for everyone - a beautiful setting and well run - the trip was dual purpose - I was picking up an OT transmission from a guy that lived 10 minutes from the park the show was in - don't think I would have bothered going otherwise, just timed the trip that way. So how'd the car do? Short answer, great! Longer answer - these cars are light years behind cars of the later '50s in handling, braking and ride - we went through some congested areas of fast moving traffic and it got "white knuckle" at times - I can certainly see why people make practical upgrades to these cars systems - I learned a lot about this car on the trip (previous longest round trip was 120 miles or so on familiar and more forgiving terrain). At a bit of a crossroads again - keep it traditional and enjoy it for what it is planning around it's limitations, or make some "practical modifications" that "force" the car to behave. I'm going to use the rest of the NE car season to give the car a chance to tell me what it wants. Here it is - tired, dirty and wearing its poverty caps - it's come full circle and I like it (for now) lol
The Jalopy Journal
