Hot Rods "THE WALL OF SHAME"

I wish I took photos of all the nightmares that I have fixed...

Some of these cars drove fine amazingly. It is truly a great way to get the hair standing up on your neck once you see something poorly engineered.

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

No pictures, but we did have an educational experience with a Ford Country Squire that a friend bought 40 years ago for the 390 that was in it. We learned to check for rusted frames (the front torque boxes were shot), weld penetration (the channel that was welded in to repair the torque boxes had none on the rear welds), and torque steer (it crab walked enough to cover the entire lane from centerline to the white line under throttle). Got that home and pulled the motor and trans together, and learned about wheel chocks (the tripod we were using tipped over with the engine/trans hanging from it when the car rolled away). Next, we learned about the FE unibody bolt pattern for exhaust manifolds, and immediately afterward, learned that people used self adhesive flashing for patches (when my friend kicked the fender on his still non-running Torino GT). All of which is not HAMB friendly, except the shamefulness of it all.

 

Went to look at a '56 Nomad that was "just restored and painted. Turns out the car had been rolled on the driver's side. Bond was used over every dent and twist. What really got my attention was the styling groves across the top. From the drip rail to center roof, some one made new grooves with a rat tail file? A wobbly grove too!

 

Holy crap !!!

 

Lost Angel, just seven more of those pics and you could print an alternative style calender for 2019.

 

Accidentally saw this great fab work by a professional RR builder on the interweb; makes ya cringe that people would think it is OK to promote this shit.

 

Is this @Nads work?

 

Simply WOW , just WOW

 

Your father-in-law gets a pass because of quick thinking and a real time fix. He sounds old school and good person to know. If you had a problem, he likely had an answer.

 

professional Rat Rod builder......???? That's kind of like calling a lot lizard a professional physical therapist.

 

The way Ford made the bracket that attaches to the engine side of the firewall there is a pretty strong return spring. HRP

 

I think we have a winner!

 

4 splices and 3 gauges of wire in a 12" section going to a fuel pump with 1/8" fittings in and out. and there was about 18" of slack in the wire. go figure.

 

Here are a few examples of the caveman engineering that I found on my old hot rodded 32 sedan.

Bubba boxes the frame then realizes that he still needed to mount the steering box


That rear crossmember is wedged in TIGHT, it don't need welding!


Time to patch that hole in the firewall.
1/4" ought to be strong enough.



Need some clearance for those rear shocks? No problem.


And lastly, if a little filler is good, more is better. So what if it's still uncured after 20 years.

 

Now we're rolling. Great stuff, and all this time I've been using my hammer to make pedals. Apparently I've been doing it all wrong.

 

Friend of mine had me drop around to a young guy's house to 'look over' his wiring installation. A '50 Ford with SBF/C4 tranny had been 'rewired' with a Painless kit, but the wires (which went to specific stations, per the instructions) ...were all left the original lengths, as they came out of the bags.
There were loops and bundles, underhood and dash...and under the car, gathered and tie-wrapped, wired around the frame rails...
Plastic insulated ends were crimped, neatly; just 3 to 10 feet too much wire length!
"Why didn't you trim and fit them?"
The kid answered, "What is it you don't understand about changing wire resistance by cutting lengths off?"
Must be something.....

 

Got some rotted out corners on your model a? No problem ... just weld some 1/8 inch plate across them and fill it with mud. All those belt lines and body lines are overrated anyways eh??

 

I have seen more bodged and mangled wiring then anything else in my years fixing stuff

Fuses wrapped in cigarette foil
Marrettes, different gauges of wire, wire too long, wire too short
Power wires to nowhere and live
Stacks and stacks of ground wires

What I call “ terminal cancer”. Where any new run of power or ground comes directly off the battery post, battery ends up looking like a Rastafarian with his dreadlocks in pig tails !!

Like I say, and also do.... if you don’t know ask questions , we live in a time of google and YouTube EVERYTHING is on the internet now-a-days just stop looking at porn for a minute and do a search!!!

Still say the car elpollacko fixed a few years back with pipe wrenches in the steering system and rebar used in the suspension takes the cake !!

 

OMG

 

I had a new customer come in back in the fall of 2009 with a newly purchased '32 5 window coupe. He wanted some updating done because it sat too high, had 13" wheels and just looked wrong. It had been hot rodded by the PO who basically bought a '76 v8 mustang II and used pretty much everything he could off it he could. Including the 4 bolt wheels, wire wheel covers, steering column, wiring and trim. The license plate actually said "32tang" He did buy an aftermarket must II crossmember and weld it in. As I was going through the car I noticed the steering shaft looked like junkyard parts cobbled together. I removed the conduit clamp that was being used as a support bearing and the shaft fell out of one of the joints on to the floor of the shop. The joints are cobbled onto the shaft and the one shaft is actually a ratchet handle that has 2 flats ground into it and welded to a joint. I showed it to the customer and he said "good thing it didn't fall off when I was doing 70 with my BIL in the car". The old guy that he had bought it from stopped in one day later on when I was doing some other things to it. He gave me some of the history on it since he had purchased it in 1949, including telling me how he had stopped at a hot rod shop back in the 80's to see about getting the mustang II stuff installed. He looked at what the guy was doing and decided it was easy and the guy was charging too much for what he was doing. I didn't want to get into a fight with a 90 yo man so i just let it go.

 

New meaning to hammered behind the wheel... I’m just saying.

Cliff Ramsdell

 

Sounds like something I would do to my own beaters back in the day but none of that would have lasted long enough to sell to anyone but a junk yard.
It probably still stinks from the dead vermin that crawled behind the rocker panels. That roof patch pretty much keeps everything free from pests.

Now if it has duct tape on the wiring splices and tinfoiled or paper clip fuses, it could be something I made.

 

Had a customer come in to the garage in New Hampshire back in the mid 70’s for an inspection sticker. Rear frame rail was rotted out on his mercury comet if I recall and the spring was poking thru the floor of the car.

Told him no way, gotta fix it first. Came back a few days later with a 2x4 lagged into the remains of the rear frame rail with the shackle thru it an a piece of plywood for a floor board.

Turns out he wasn’t a mechanic (you think??) he was a carpenter and he figured if it holds up a house it should hold up his car, true shit.

Cliff Ramsdell

 

Cliff, that sounds like every Mustang I saw during the late-70's into the mid-90's. One had 18" of angle iron welded to the trunk floor in a vain attempt to keep the springs from coming through. Not MY work. I DID weld a different pair of tie rod sleeves together after slicing them in half but ONLY to put the steering together to move the car around. Got rid of them as SOON as I got the right parts together and driving that car ALWAYS gave me butthole pucker syndrome

 

I think Lost Angel wins the trophy with 2nd and 3rd close behind. WOW

 

Frame I bought for my Model A. Had a flattened 32/34 rear cross member in there but when I measured the frame for square it was way out and one side was longer than the other by 3/4”

Cliff Ramsdell

 

Busted spring, NO PROBLEM!

 

^^^^^ They also make good retainers for holding compressed springs.