Ok so it wasn't a car. Ya know I left town a week ago and there was a thread about traditional cars and I came back home ( 4,000 miles later) and the same thread was still goin' on. There was some BS and some good response on traditional cars and what tradition was or is all about. Well I didn't want to hijack the post for this silly pic but there is a major part of traditional that we all seem to have missed and usually do when we are talking about tradition. So let me tell a little about this big red tool box, the man that used to own it. He started playing with cars and bikes in the late '30s or early '40s, he was working at Mare Island when the war started. That means nothing to you unless you know a little about hot rodding somewhere besides S Cal. Some of the tools in this box are that old, and some are made, in the bottom is a whole stack of input shafts used for clutch alignment tools, one that is most recognizable to me is a Stude, I used to think it was a toy. A lot of Hot Rod history (tradition?) came out of this old tool box. The motor that killed ***** McDougal on the mile track @ San Jose for one. At least a couple of Land Speed Records, the injection for several Indy winners (roadsters and formula type cars), countless cam shafts and oddball parts for a miriad of jalopies some now famouse and some not. A motor that a world famouse custom builder never paid for (***hole). He was a funny sort he knew that anything could be made faster or to handle or look better or all of the above. He never found himself in the lime light in fact he avoided it, never brought trophies home or even cared. he was happy to make things go fast and or help rodders out. Sometimes he worked for pit p***es ( if he liked you). In the later '50s and early '60s that price went up he needed two pit p***es for a normal weekend of free labor. Anyway its the part of traditional rodding that we normally fail to discuss Building is tradition and makeing it better is where tradition began. I can't drive it and it'll probably never gain me a trophy at the local cruise but its mine. Who gives a flip about trophies anyway.
This is one of the most interesting and thought provoking threads that I have read in a long time. Plain, simple, and a quiet piece of history. Lots of people and their means of hotrodding fit in here, including some that I grew up learning from. Thank you.
I helped Pn'Br unload this. All 700 lbs. of it. It took a cherry picker, but that dosen't compare to the wealth of knowledge and stories it contains. Porkn****** barely told you the highlights... r
The highlights are probably more than I should have mentioned. Besides its not likely that important to anyone who wasn't there. BTW thanks for the help that big heavy ******* like to kicked Mrs ******s *** when she put it in the truck.
The coolest things in my garage is the soap box derby race car that my Dad and Grandpa built in 1945 and the picture of my dad with his first and only hot rod, a Model A sedan finished in 1948. Someday I have to build a replica of that car for my own. I'm with ya Benno
He was one of the bunch at Hollister, not much help I guess unless you're up on N Cal Angel lore. The mile track @ San Jose is a motor cycle flat track, the joke used to be that ***** mcdougal went through the cyclone fence and strained himself, damn no more *****.
Scoob send me a pic and a body and I'll get it started for ya. Hell send me a crank and I'll try and duplicate the mill. I only need one pit p*** though.
I've made several copies of that picture because it was the only one ever taken of the car or of my dad being skinny (he was only 14 when they finished it). It wasn't anything too exciting by todays standards. It wasn't chopped, it wasn't channeled, it didn't have six dueces but to a 14 year old in 1948 it was the cat's ***. I love it for that reason. Plus the fact that my dad and grandpa built it with their own hands out of a $5 junkyard car. I'll figure out how to post one somehow. If nothing else, I'll make a copy and mail it to ya. Not because I need help but it's the coolest picture I'll ever have of my dad. I didn't know pride could show up on film until I saw that picture.
Be gone 3 years in January. The box is my inheritance well that and a never ending desire to go very fast in almost anything I can get my hands on.
Sorry to hear that. Legacy and money are all you can leave here. It's nice to have both I'll take the legacy any day. I live just fine without much money these days but I'd be truly poor not to have all the great memories. I think your post was right on.
The Old Man, Mr Roth and Uncle Sig are sipping Cognac and laughing at us right now. He had a good life for the most part. A lot of rodders and racers over the years took benifit from his talents, a good bunch of 'em seemed to appreciate it. I guess that's as good a legacy as you can ask for.
Porkn******, show us pics of some of the oldest tools and the homemade tools. I'd like to hear more about the tools. I make'em too, when I need one.
I see you are in Missouri. I believe Missouri is quietly a real hotbed of old time hotrod activity. California gets all the credit but theres a heck of a lot of HAMBers in Mo. I got a customised 1950 Ford in 1967 that was built in Missouri. It was beautiful!
I've been collecting old tools for awhile just for the character in them. They seem to fit in the hand better while in use. I like to speculate on the history of them, who owned it, what cars was it used on. Nothing like haveing some that are hand me down with the family history. Something like those would be priceless to me. Plase post some pics of the older ones. Always interested! jerry
***** McDougal! You are bull ****ting aren't you? Nobody would ever name their child *****, would they? What were they thinking of? Did he have a sister? NO.....I won't ask! I hope that was a nickname and not given name.
If he was at Mare at the start of the war, my Grandpa Ed Hall was the civilian leader then. He wasn't a car guy, but he was part of the original nuclear sub design team. I have a good friend Larry Jackson that was at the island in the 60's.
"*****" was a club/nickname. Here's a few tools off the top, I'm supposed to be studying for a test and too lazy to get in and dig. The calipers and MIc ( at least the box) came back from sea (WWII). I recall the old man using the little drill thinky for tieing saftey wire and drilling holes in the wood in old bodies. The knurled punch was made to set the bushing in an injector pump would have been the early '60s if I recall, the deburring tool he made from an old worn out thread file, you can guess about the rest.
My Dad's tool box is still in the old shop. I go in there once and a while and open each drawer, look at everything in there, and remember each tool. Some are homemade lineup tools. Some are homemade specialty tools and some are 1/2 inch sockets he brought back from WWII. It is funny how you can dig into an old tool box and go completly back in time to when you were 5 years old and diging in that same tool box. That is the stuff you build traditional rods with.
The Jalopy Journal
