Projects The bucket of ugly! A de-uglifying thread...

Thats a can of worms I aint gonna open today....

 

I think Ted Brown's T is right there with Royal's T, Ivo's and Grabowski's

 

I'd posted a couple shots of Browns car on the old T bucket thread that wound up being deleted.

 

And we agree again!!!

 

Flail away at that one sir, my skin is pretty thick! We've talked a bit off board about that if I remember correctly. I know you'er in the steel is real camp, and I do understand that. In my opinion, I honestly couldn't see a T-Bucket with Grabowski type cues, that is very fifties influenced WITH a glass body. But both Almquist and Speedway hit the market with glass stuff in mid to late '59, and in my mind that makes it fair game for the era of these cars that whack me out, the early sixties stuff. Some of the most fun I have had with these cars is when that body shows up with four coats of paint on it and I get to try to piece together some form of history for it. Generally it's digging through old catalogs and magazine ads to figure out how made the body, then on to old magazine feature articles to see if I can pick it out. any way you look at it, glass or steel, a 54 year old body should have some history....

 

BLASPHIME! INFIDAL!!!

Yes, I did get your question, but I got in a hurry this afternoon and forgot to say thanks. I finally got the wagon around back at the house today with the help of fellow H.A.M.B.er Hot Rod Ron, and I have to admit that it unfortunately IS going to station wagon heaven. It looks so much less worse in the pictures than it does in real life it's silly... So frustrating. All of the good stuff is going to be recycled onto the '62 Ranchero I have, and, as a plan "B", if I can get it inexpensively enough, I do know where there is a very clean wagon body shell in a small private wrecking yard here in Phoenix. We'll see.

 

Sorry Chip but the statement above was probably below the belt. You and I are definitely at least one generation apart. You probably think fiberglass was the start of the T Bucket revolution. I view it as the decline. I see no nostalgia in fiberglass. But that is just my 69 year old view.
Sorry again for not being able to hold my views back but as with Franko the Kookie Kar "ate my brain" in the late '50s.
All that being said I'm sure you can "take the ugly" out of your roadster. You know all the rules and if you check the Magazines you posted I'm sure they will recommend at least some rake.

Gary

 

Like I said earlier, this thread is kind of more like a shop night at Chips house than a typical HAMB thread. We are all "big boys" in the garage right now, and we are all saying what we really think in no uncertain terms, without anyone getting their feelings hurt, or getting their ego involved. When you can get the right group of guys together and do that, theres nothing healthier, its what gives this thread zing.
Most of us in here right now "know" each other well in the sense that we are all active on the same threads, and have a mutual respect for each others opinions, that comes with reading each others posts for some time. It really is like a virtual shop night at Chips house, and we are expressing our opinions openly, without anyone getting huffy. Thats as good as it gets.
And I'm in the "glass T buckets are traditional" camp, as long as the flavour of the build fits the glass era.

 

Oh, and Gary, sorry I called you Larry earlier. But hey, at least it rhymes.

 

Thanks George we are all big boys able to get behind ideas we like or throw out
the ones we don't. The good thing is there is a lot of ideas being thrown out.

I really like your last sentence. According to Chip fiberglass bodies were first out there in '59. By that time WWW were pretty much out, Chrome and Alloy wheels with slightly wider belted tires with inch walls were starting to come in. I too hate to see a kit car with WWW and calling it nostalgia. I think we are all above that.

 

I was wondering who Larry was. I've been called worse!

 

Hey Gary, no offense taken at all. As for your other comment, though we are a generation apart chronologically, we really aren't as much as you'd think. You'd expect the average guy in my age bracket (48) to have may be picked up his first Hot Rod mag in the mid to late eighties and have a bit of a slanted view from that era.

My life was a bit different growing up from birth in my dad's speed shops in the St. Paul area. For the first ten years of my life our "family cars" in the summer time were mom's Purple 'Bucket, and Dad's Green 'Bucket built from kits our business sold. My buss dropped me off at Dad's Cleveland road fab/engine/warehouse space, and I spent every day after school there, learning. Let's just say I had a handle on the Hot Rod world far beyond my years due to immersion long before I should have, and leave it at that. When my health declined, my parents split and I was moved to AZ., Since I couldn't be out side running like the typical kid, I read. And I read, and I read, and I read, and I read. I amassed about half of my collection of literally EVERTHING in print Hot Rod related between the years '74 and '79. My first car ('35 Ford 5 window) came to me in '77 with the proceeds from my first paper route, and was driver complete with the front plate from my mother's El Camino by '79 when I was 14. During those years I was "adopted" by the neighborhood's street rodders and in turn for cleaning parts, sweeping, lifting, sanding and polishing I rode many a mile to Rod Runs all over the Southwest with these five guys that I to this day lovingly call on Father's Day every year.

Now all of this long winded rambling has a point. I'm pretty well versed in the history of all this stuff. I've been around for a much larger chunk of this "history" than most my age, so I'm pretty well aware of where it all came from. Absolutely I am aware of the cars of the fifties and where Grabowski's and Ivo's cars fit into this deal, and, absolutely respectful of both, and their place in time. If pressed, I'd much rather have the Lightning Bug version of Grabowski's car than the 77 Sunset strip version of it, simply because it has a less "showy" vibe and is more purposeful.

But in my mind, and the magazines of the day, the T-Buckets of the fifties are a completely different deal than the cars of the early sixties. I was just digging through a late fifties Rod & Custom the other day when I saw an article bemoaning the lack of "good "T" bodies these days". There is no other way of saying it, but the glass bodies of the late fifties and early sixties made this type of car EXPLODE in popularity. Suddenly, by late '60 or so, every copy of Car Craft, Rod&Custom, Hot Rod, and any other magazine had two or three of the cars featured, if not an entire section of the magazine dedicated to them.

With this accessibility, came a bunch of style changes in the cars. The more exaggerated proportions of the low cowl cars like Grabowski's faded a bit as most of the then new glass bodies were later high cowl bodies. The repurposed stock "A" and "T" frames gave way to tube frames built by companies such as Racemaster, Speedway, Almquist, Cal Automotive, Roadster engineering, Eelco, etc., hell, even the guy with the arc welder out in the shop could follow Bird engineering's plan set and roll his own. The bigger, heavier hot rod engines of the fifties and the Flathead somewhat started to give way to the now affordable five year old darling of the time, the small block Chevy. About the same time as the glass bodies, American Dropped the first of it's mag torque trust wheels, and another element was changed.

I can see where one could get entirely wrapped up ala "the car that ate my brain" in early type T-Buckets. Bitchin' stuff! And I could also grasp looking at the cars built with glass from '60 on would be the beginning of the end. Now it was no longer exclusive. But as wrapped as I know you are in the fifties cars, (and you have to be as well detailed as your car is!) I have always been in the early sixties stuff! The cars I saw in my dad's older magazines as a kid just weren't like our T-Buckets, 'cause dad was in business, and business is always trends. I've just always thought it was time to celebrate this particular era for what it was, 'cause there was sooooo much cool stuff going on in the periphery around these cars in this era. Then, the next era, the late sixties where I come in, not so much... At least, maybe in the jaded mind of someone who lived it semi-vicariously.

The whole thing boils down to a question of eras, and which one turns your crank the fastest!

Gary, please note that none of this is said to single you out in particular or force you out of our conversation. Your input is valuable to me big time in this. And, know as well, there is the front half of a steel '23 touring, and a '57 Nail head hanging around this joint for future use... Heck, now that I think about it, a '40 rear end, a junk but savable "A" frame and '40 front suspension too - and half a steel "T" bed, and a nice set of '46 brakes, and....

You know, I have always railed against whites on mag wheels as being totally incorrect, even though you DID see them on cars occasionally in that late fifties early sixties era. True, they were mostly on east coast and Midwestern cars that were maybe not "HIP" to L.A.'s latest trend. But dammit if Bill Roland's redo of Ivo's car hasn't grown on me over the last few years just for that reason! It's almost like it so wrong it's kinda right! No worries on my end though, I'm still a black wall kinda guy!

Gang, I gotta get out side and work! gotta get the radiator in this afternoon!!!!

 

One last thing before my break is up... Yesterday you guys were debating rakes on these cars. I prefer the lower flatter cars with a bit of rake myself, but I have always dug this little car a bunch sans the 13" front wheels. Funny, 'cause it has allot of stuff that I would usually in my mind consider "not quite right". I also like how it kinda illustrates a kind of cross over from the fifties type car to the sixties type car in some repects, and, how the article invokes the thoughts of this car coming from the typical starting point of the "modified"... Gary might somewhat like it 'cause it's got the heavy rake thing down (In Hot Rod's articles it was titled "Rakesville") and some fifties detailing, George is gonna hate it 'cause it's damn near the same blue as my beloved Niekamp track car...

 

You know Chip there is a lot I like about that little blue T. Also a lot I would change. Hope the blue car with the top up in the little shot on the cover is not the same car. Beyond ugly. You are right about it being the perfect example of a crossover from the '50s to the early '60s. Before the real ugly stuff really stepped in.
I really like the sound of the steel body A frame roadster in your future.
I unlike you am a one shot wonder. Built my roadster in the '80s after finding the steel body and have been trying to perfect it ever since.
Tell you something you probably won't believe but I am really getting into the "Uncertain T" and the story behind it. A young guy pretty much on his own designed and built it in his mothers single car garage tract house. It is really a marvel in design and execution. So much right. I can even forgive the body being it was built for a pure show car. It actually has a steel T cowl.
Well anyway I'm sure you will devour all said on this thread and come up with a nice roadster with very little UGLY in it.
Gary

 

Well gang, got a bit done today! I needed to get the radiator mounted for this beast, and then this week I need to get some papers on it so I can legally drive it for a bit.

I decided to mount the radiator a bit differently than most would in a typical T-Bucket application. What I ended up doing was to make a cross member that stretched from frame rail to frame rail rather than just a small pair of tabs as more commonly done. The reasoning behind this is that I have purchased an aluminum radiator for this car, and my experiences in the past have led me to a bit o caution. See, I have noticed if you run an aluminum unit on a flat cross member like a Model "A" or '32, it has a much longer service life than if simply hung off of tabs and unsupported in the middle.

Basically, I took a piece of 3/16" cold rolled stock 3" wide, trimmed the ends in a pleasing, rounded shape, drilled for the radiator, drilled so I could completely plug weld it to the frame, and took it over to my buddy ElPolacko's shop for a date with his press brake. I made two 90 degree bends so that it would tuck up into the frame, and it did quite nicely. I neglected to take a picture of the completed cross member before I clamped it in place, but I have to pull it out tomorrow and clean up the rails before welding, so I will try to remember to take one then. In the A.M. I'll fire up the welder and zap it in place and get this thing back together.

I got another surprise today. I told you my glass half a deuce shell was rough, right? I hadn't told you guys HOW rough. when I started sanding and cleaning it up, I uncovered a seam running straight down the middle of the shell through the nose. A call to the buddy it came from got me the number of the friend he got it from, and I found out this... He narrowed it 1"! CRAP! That explains why it won't fit down nice and snuggly over the radiator and sticks up so damn high. It also explains the mass build up of fiberglass on the inside of the nose, too. Bummer!!! Bummer BIG TIME! So it looks like for at least the near future it will get it's "T" shell and patterned insert. I'll keep my eyes open for a deuce shell or get little less busy and fix this one later on down the line. BOOOOOO!!!


The other cool thing that happened earlier in the week was a quick trip over to Roy's to look at an issue with another car netted a cool discovery - a set of exhaust pipes that have some genuine local history on a car from the sixties. From what I am understanding, they were originally built for the car that local H.A.M.B.er and sometimes chimer inner to this thread, John Evans built into a nice traditional roadster a few years ago. This car was a fenderless '27 drag roadster that had the driver moved back into the trunk, and was powered by a pretty fearsome Chevy in '62 or '63 or so. They later ended up on another's street roadster and that is were the perforated "baffled" ends came into play. From what I've been told they were passed from guy to guy for the last 40 years or so, 'till Roy decided he needed a head flange. I can set that right though. They are a little coby, but I think they will be a neat addition to this car, sandblasted clean, fixed and painted white.


Hold on a bit, I'm having issues loading picts.

 

I really like the sweep of the primaries. Those have a nice look! I'm sort of the same as you Chip, I'm 53, but was reading Car Life and Spotlight books before I was five, and bought my first Hot Rod magazine in '67. I started going to the local road-racing circuit with my dad when I was two, and when my mom went to the hospital to have me, it was on the back of my dads race-prepped Norton international. My grade 4 teacher told my mom that she thought I had some sort of mental problem, because every time a loud car rumbled by (which was every 5 minutes at that time in that neighbourhood) I sprang up in my seat and looked out the window, and while other kids were playing dodgeball, I spent most of my elementry school lunch hours either hanging around Orvilles Garage, which was a gas station/hot rodders hangout beside my school, or across the street at the Hadden bros house, watching Wilf work on his Falcon.

 

Those headers are BAD ASS!!!!!!!!!!

 

Cool, glad you guys dig 'em! I'll run over to Roy tomorrow and grab the left one, too.


Ya George, I'm with you, I can't remember a moment of life that wasn't in some way shape or form punctuated with what ever car thought I was having at the moment. I'm just thankful, and always have been, that the guys that did take me in as a pre-teen did, 'cause had I not had their influence and guidance I would have been a very different person. Ya know, I think of that any time a younger guy expresses interest in any of this stuff. There will be day when I can pay that debt back, and truth be told there really has already been several time that it has. It seems like every few days I run into guys that are about ten years younger than me that remind me of a wheels up ride I gave them in my bug when they were 12 and I was helping their older brother put an engine in something... Makes me feel good if nothing else.

 

Well, I dug up the photo, and I have to eat a little crow here. As Gary said, we do know that Ivo copied the bug version, because of the rear suspension layout on the Ivo car, but its actually the Kookie version in the Santa Ana photo, not the Bug. I'll try to find time to post it tomorrow, but I might not get'r done, I am going to pay another HAMBer a visit tomorrow. I'll see if I can do it when I get back.

 

About the only time I'm not thinking about cars is when I'm screwing...Sometimes even then. I used to unconciously slip into this wierd thought process when I was in that place halfway between sleep and awake when I would start thinking that whatever woman I was seeing at any given time was a car, and how I could tweak this or that to improve her performance... Sick bastard...
When I was in my teens through my thirties, I had this recurring dream that I owned this dirty, dusty warehouse FULL of Max Wedge stuff, including a black on red, aluminum nose '63 Plymouth wagon, that had beautiful shiny original paint under the dust. Shelves and shelves of dusty stage II afbs's everywhere, racks of heads and intakes, several sedans...I used to refer to that dream as "going to my happy place".

 

I really think while Ivo was building his roadster (about a year project) (pretty much a klone of the Lightnin Bug" except paint and engine. Norm at the same time was changing his roadster into the Kookie Kar. Ivo told me he wanted to flame his roadster but Norm beat him to it. Tom really didn't like his tall windshield and top. That is the reason he put a quarter moon back window in it. He thought it looked like an outhouse.

By the way Ivo is very humble and approachable. If you ever run in to him he likes nothing more than to talk about the old days.

Gary

 

There was such a wagon in the Vancouver area in the 60's that was sponsored by either the Plimley or Lawson Oates Dodge I think, (lots of memory cells ago) on Kingsway just off of Main near the CalVan Speed Shop. It may be a subconscious thingy.

 

tmi

 

what like...lose the handles, wax n grease , shave n a haircut, a nosejob, tuck n roll ...that kinda thing FG??

 

I read the second paragraph first. Wish I had stopped there....

 

Pretty much, but I'm more of a hot rod guy than kustom...But sometimes Dagmars would come into it...

 

My subconscious is NOT a pretty place...

 

Nor is mine man!

Got lot's-O'-stuff accomplished today! The radiator cross member is in, primed, the radiator is bolted in place, and tomorrow will bring the search for hoses top and bottom. I'll have to trim the fan a bit to make it all work since everything came down about 2" or so, but it's all good.

I then point my attentions to something I have been wanting to do since I got this thing... Dropping the seat down a bit. The risers were 5" straight back, and the seating position super uncomfortable. I mean really super uncomfortable!!! With your butt up so high, you felt like you were on top of the car. Even with the full height stock windshield my head was slightly above it. Worst of all though, you felt like you were falling forward the whole time you were driving. Solved all of this in one swell fwoop this afternoon by cutting the riser down to 4" at the front, and tapering it down to 1" at the rear. I might still cut the front down another inch or so, but damn what a difference!

Now, I sit down inside the car instead of above. My three inch chop can now become a reality and be comfortable. You can't believe how much easier it is, and with much more room to do it, work the brake pedal and gas. Like lots and lots more room. I sat out there in the thing for about a half an hour spitting on the windshield makin' motor noises and kind of hoping a neighbor would walk by to take a picture. No such luck. I will probably cut some "butt holes" in the seat base wood and use some webbing to help with the bounce and keep the foam for the seat base minimal. I just love it every time a guy tells me there is no way some one my size (6' 1" and 195lbs) can happily drive a T-Bucket... Yes you can!

Next up, Roy and Kurt came over to pickup a spare saw blade I had, and brought the other header over for me. This one had not been cut from it's flange like the other one, so I just bolted it on and enjoyed the semi-cobby coolness of it all. I probably still will make another set later down the line, but for now these have the cool factor over the off the shelf "sprint" type headers I had. They are not a master work by any stretch, but they do have a loving hands built kinda cool about them that is rubbing off on me. I guess I'll have to slip ElPolacko some coin for the use of his blast cabinet, 'cause these are just a bit big to fit mine. They'll be white!

The last little bit of good was Roy and Kurt had to go to McFadden-Dale hardware, which is right down the street from IMS... So I rode along and stopped and bought a trim of the "clover" perforated steel they sell that is a match for the grill insert Bill Roland added to Ivo's car in his rebuild. It's all good!

 

I REALLY like that future grill insert! I had an interesting day. Hung out with hemideuce most of the day, we went and visited a friend of his that has so many blown early hemis kicking around, that he stores one in the john. I shit you not. Shoulda took a pic, it cracked me up when I saw it!

 

Whew. Glad you guys didn't go all crazy into the glass V/S steel crap. It's old and there's never a winner. Besides, everyone knows glass T's get a pass because they came out in the late 50's.

Louvers, isn't that mesh going to be a bit restrictive? I was going to use some, but before I did, I held some between a fan and myself. It really did cut down the air flow.