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

I hot rodded every Radio Flyer wagon on my block...

I used to scour the trash for dead Big Wheels, the red and yellow plastic tricycle things we all had if you were a child in the 70's. The front wheels would get flat spots in about a year, but the rear wheels would still be good. Dad used to get me the 1/2" steel rod from work, and I'd cut them the right length with a hack saw and drill the holes in the ends for the cotter pins. Most kids repainted their wagons with spray paint they found in the garage. I mixed up a batch of red and blue rustoleum and brush painted mine a sick purple color and painted "Purple Avenger" in red on each side... I am such a ****.

We'd tie ropes to the seat posts of our bikes and pull each other around in the wagons... The Big Wheel tires slid sideways on smooth concrete, I think we invented drifting in 1975.

Must have done about 6 Radio Flyer/Big Wheel wheel swaps by the time I was 11 and moved on to bikes.

 

So many insane memories! The first thing I remember is putting a hitch on my wagon"little Red type". I hooked a home made trailer to it and "Drove " it around the hood. I sat in it ,sort of kneeling and pushed with the other making a diesel truck exhaust sound.King of the road!!!! First car thing was putting porta walls on my 34 Ford 5 window and painting the spoke wheels Red. I have been writing a book on my adventures,needs serious up date probably never will. Jerry

 

I installed a Hurst floor shifter kit in my otherwise stock '54 Chevy in 1964. I cut the hole in the floor with an old pair of tin snips. It looked like somebody had chewed that hole out!

Then I put STP stickers in the quarter windows and I was stylin'.

 

When I was 17, I swapped out the tired 350 in my El Camino for a Corvette small block. When it came to rewiring the thing it took about a month of trial and error to get them all hooked up right so the car would run.

 

Took the '53 Olds motor out of my '39 Ford and replaced it with a SBC. OK this was 1965 and the Chev WAS the cooler engine.

 

When I was 8 or 9 years old, I would make a car out of old wooden boxes, with any kind of wheels I could find, usually nailed on to the end of a two by four, with old tin cans for headlights. There was a dug out hill next to the house in Palmdale Ca. where we lived, that I would try to coast down, a rather steep one, and a wreck usually ensued. I'm still fooling around with old junk fifty years later!

pigpen

 

About '58 or '59 me and a pal swiped the hubcaps from fifth grade teacher, Mrs Eliott's '56 Buick Roadmaster. You know, the cool ones with the two bar flippers? We didn't get away with it because the cops followed my friends bike tire tracks to his house. Why is this relevent here? Because, as I was telling a different story on the HAMB, I get a PM from pigpen. He asked my if I remembered ****ie Kline from Pearblossom, California? Of course I did. Pearblossom and Littlerock CA were TINY towns back then, After more than forty eight years, PIGPEN, my old crime partner finds me on here!! We went in far different paths, but we became car fiends all the same. Small world? That ain't the half of it!

The HAMB is a powerful thing.

PS, I've been PAYING for my stuff ever since. A life of crime was not for me. Eventually.

 

I was 15 and my dad blew up the Rambler. Said I could have it IF I could fix it. So knowing nothing I swapped in another 6 popper and proceeded to drive it the SECOND I got my temps. The 6 banger left a BUNCH to be desired and when I was 16 I used my gr*** cutting money to buy a 327 Chevy and Powerglide. I transplanted the chevy in there and did it without any help - but my dad did take pity on me and bought a Lincoln Buzz box welder so I could use it to make the motor mounts and whatever else. I think the only reason my dad even let me do this was because he didn't think I could. Well I did and as you might have guessed - it wasn't pretty, but it did run and I learned lots - especially when things BROKE. The welded driveshaft lasted a couple months - broke it TWICE - second time peices weren't big enough to put back together!!


I still have that car today.

 

And....I was the one who had to go up to her house, knock on the door, meet with her face to face, and give her hubcaps back. A very humbling experience and a good lesson, worse than going to jail!

pigpen

 

About February of '65, I'd had my original '55 Poncho about 10 months. Acquired a 4 barrel manifold and carb for it, through a somewhat questionable source. Dad wouldn't let me use his garage to do the swap, so I did it out front of the house with my OTASCO combo wrenches. A chrome air cleaner, and MAN was I cool! Didn't really make the car run much better, but it sounded Ba-a-a-ad.

 

Oh yeah! We used to build down hill racers out of any wheel we could find, but the wide big-wheels were the coolest. I remember when some mexican brothers down the street built one with a plywood box on the back, lined it with thick **** carpet, and cut out a heart shaped hole on each side. It was a "van".

I hot rodded a BMX after I understood gears and stuff. I used really long cranks, the biggest front sprocket, smallest back sprocket, the narrowest tires and wheel covers. Painted the hole thing black. It was hard to start off but once moving it was like riding a 12 speed bike in 12th gear all the time. Dang I miss that bike.

 

In high school autobody, I made my steel front clip a flip front end, I could flip it open and then open the hood also at the same time and it was made to be one person operated.Then proceeded to weld the rearend solid, cut the entire floor out of it, made new motor mounts inside the car, bolted the ****** directly to the rearend, moved the steering back, you could adjust the dizzy from the drivers seat...It was Krazy and did drive it to school once they tol me to never bring it back again..can you say Wheelies.....Littleman..had it crushed while home on leave from the military.pulled the engine of course..