Art & Inspiration Traditional Construction Techniques?

Pretty good assessment 31Vicky.

I'll add that some folks like to use what it is they're building, and that can change your priorities. If you want to get it done, you might decide that it's OK to cut corners, as long as it's not safety or reliability you're sacrificing. Striving for perfection is a slow, painful way to prevent getting the damn thing done.

I did my first engine swap almost 40 years ago, it took a day and a half and I was on the road.

 

I visited a "high end" restoration shop one day and witnessed a technician laying bondo on an aluminum cowl of a 30's sprint car...I almost lost my lunch.......

 

That's absolutely right Jim, and it gets worse because the slower it's going the more perfect it needs to be or should be. The path is usually determined by the destination, and the destination by the vision. There is another kind of ride, the one that never gets finished because it has to be perfect. The vision of perfect ultimately leads to a dead end path unless truly unlimited means are available.

First engine swaps stories are fun. My first one took a bit longer because there was some compartment work done. After I had a few under my belt they got pretty quick. My GTO engine had started making noises and I figured it was a most likely a piston. Started on it early Saturday morning, yanked the engine and found a busted skirt. I had a spare engine in the garage and stole a rod and piston out of it and put it in my GTO engine. Put back together, put back in the car and took the goat to pick up my date Saturday night on time. I asked my dad to help me with the hood and he said "that was pretty good- you almost hit the flat rate"

 

Basic concepts still apply whether something was done yesterday or 50 years ago. Good fits, keeping things square and strong welds are a few.

We built championship caliber stock cars with little more than a stick welder, acetylene torch, body grinder, a drill press and belt sander. Labor intensive and the long way home but in the end it looked good and held up. Notching tubing was a chore and a half. Now we do it in seconds.

Today I have far better tools than I did 35 years ago but I still have what is probably not the best equipped shop. It is still a quantum leap from where I originated.

 

Having a shop at all, is a quantum leap from where I started.

 

yup the three 3 Fs... fit form and function! All equally important!

 

Then as now, there was a wide variation in quality of construction for hot rods and customs. I started in the late 50s/early 60s as a teen. I worked in my folks garage. I bought an oxy-acetylene torch and tanks, and later a Lincoln tombstone buzz box, some Proto body hammers and dollies, and used my dad's wrenches and other tools. I was better equipped than most kids who were working on their cars. My friend, whose dad had a wrecking yard, was miles ahead of me in the quality work he did. The older guys into hot rods and customs often had better access to tools through their jobs, and put together better quality cars. ...but even then many "professional" body and paint shops did hack work.

Now, I have better tools and my own larger than normal garage space, more time, money and desire to do the best quality I can do, with no anxiety about being able to drive my car on Monday, since I now have more than one car to drive. There is no absolute right or wrong in how a traditional car is built, as long as it is safe.

 

You bet Jim,I remember laying on a gravel driveway installing a clutch in my Falcon Sprint..add to the fact it was in the dark with a drop light with regular bulb,no rough service bulbs at that time ~ heck you could fart and the bulb would go out!

It was also in January with the wind blowing and freezing rain...it sucked,I dreamed of having a concrete floor,dry and well lit.I have it made compared to that 16 year old kid I remember. HRP

 

At 16, was living with my older sister, no garage, just a gravel pad behind house,, that was my work area, so having a garage of any type was good, owned home 30 years, ran my race operation out of a 2 car garage 20X22 and 1/2 of it went to wife's car in winter for 20+ years and that was my hot rod shop too. So......Now I have about 2700 sq ft of shop/garage, but not much gets done anymore and what I do "Nothing Happens Fast Anymore" applies.

 

One of my first was a Chevy small block in a vauxhaul viva. It was on the road in a weekend. And off again even faster. Turns out seam sealer and pop rivets aren't really the best way to put a new firewall in a unibody sub-compact... fits nicely with the unspoken agenda behind this thread too.

 

Roger that HRP
Thanksgiving day, 1970, 16 year old also, swapped the 3 speed in my 57 BelAir for a T-10.
Laying on the frozen ground, wrenching for two hours, strained my back half way through trying to lift the transmission up by myself, nearly dropped it on myself, could hardly crawl out from under the car, had to call a friend to come and put it in and button it up. I haven't been right since.
The "good old days" weren't what people want to make them out to be.

 

We are better than we used to be, but it still takes a level of craftsmanship to truly build a car. No matter the tools you accumulate, you still gotta have the ability to see in your mind what you want. I cannot hammer a nail to save my life, I can't see the final product, always cut shit wrong or discover halfway through that I missed a step, but with cars, it's all in my head. Most of my stuff gets built by eye, it has to look right to be right, otherwise it shows like a sore thumb. Chassis work is by tape measure, but body and stance, well, that's by eye. My shop is small, heated and comfortable, my tools are considered to be basic, a ton of clamps, a few angle grinders, three stand up tool boxes, two mig welders, a few sheet metal cutters, some steel, some heavy duty sawhorses. ( my friend built them, cause I couldn't). What I need is what I have, a ton of knowledge, gathered over forty years of building choppers and then cars, a ton of patience, making two brackets can take several hours, but they're nice and look like they belong where I put them. Motor mounts are not bought, they're made, headlight stands are made, brake lines are bent and flared, the same as it used to be, but easier because I have better equipment than my dad had. That....is really the only difference in my shop. BUT, it took a long time, I did without and learned my craft because I wanted to ride and drive something different than the store bought shit I saw at shows, and I take pride in blasting down the road at a cool 100+ knowing it aint gonna break and that I built it myself. I'm pompous enough to think I'm pretty good at what I do, but I still stand in awe of guys clearly more talented than myself.
I built my girlfriend from a Bellingham Washington airport fire truck twenty years ago, a 50 F 1 frame, stock pinto front end, all chev drive train, box built by me, bent up by a local sheet metal guy per my specs, she's got big miles, I'll die with her.

 

A lot of guys still work on gravel. A couple of tips, split open a large cardboard box to lay on, makes it much easier on the body (we called 'em field creepers), a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood makes a usable surface for a floor jack or tranny jack.

 

Hell, I even do this in the shop. It helps insulate you from the cold floor, and gives a little cushion.

 

We all laid on our backs shoving trannies up into place with icemelt running down the open necks at the backs of our carharts because we didn't know we couldn't do it. Its what we had to do and did it. One summer I went thru 4 engines in my '67 Nova because I'd get beaten, out that engine would come for another cam or pistons. Pulling an engine out of a '67 Nova with fenderwell headers is a task. But it was worth it. That same Nova is in my avatar and is sitting about 20' away.

 

Skill level does improve with time but a craftsman doesn't blame his tools for a shoddy job. Depending on how I intend to use what I build determines how far I go with it. Alot of what I see nowadays is overdone and sterile looking. I appreciate the time and skill it takes but don't need the latest tool offering to get a good job. When I first started doing bodywork and needed to jack a car up it was a bottle jack at each wheel. I still remember the day my dad and I went to monkey wards and bought a 2.5 ton hydraulic jack. What a time saver! What ease to jack up the rear of a car to set on jack stands. Wouldn't go back to that and in fact with my own shop and 55 years of age I have two.

 

I love this thread, great info on hotrodder ingenuity vs "what is right today".

This thread is bound to be closed.

 

My last stock car I worked on out of my dad's garage, a real primitive setting. No room for the car in the garage, it was covered by a tarp next to the garage. Welder plug ran out of the basement window. If it rained, I was SOL to do anything on the car. The asphalt driveway had ruts in it, impossible to take any critical measurement on anything short of moving it out to the street.

 

I have a a different take. When coachbuilding started dying out there was a void. The young guys became customizers and did things off the cuff because many of them did not have a mentor that could show them fabrication. WW2 happened a huge leap in fabrication caem about thanks to the war effort. After the war these guys came home and had access to some pretty neat technology. Fast forward........... Racing and hot rodding grew with time and technology. I remember in the 80s when the first home Migs were becoming common how big of a deal it was! Now, A few hundred bucks buys you a welder or Plasma cutter that would have been top of the line stuff 30-40 years ago. Enter the internet age and our access to knowledge is great now than ever before. I'll take today, you can keep the "good ol days"

 

License plates screwed down sealed with roofing tar for floor repairs, aluminum tape or brazed on patches over rust holes. I forget that the younger set wasn't around back when the '53 four door they have acquired was lucky to get treated to such TLC, from someone they bemoan as a hack or a butcher.

 

Swapping engines in the driveway with a tripod made from 2 inch god-only-knows what kind of pipe. Duals made from flex pipe attached to the "split" Y-pipe. Exiting in front of the rear wheels, of course. Tool set consisting of a crescent wrench, pliers, and a claw hammer. Vise grips.were a major step up. Jacking the car or truck up in ways that would make Davy Crockett cut and run.

 

LOL...or pulling engines from that "iffy" tree limb with a borrowed block and tackle.

Very impressive observation, 31Vicky. With Squirrel's added comment, it's perfect. Mine sure doesn't fit the "lacking nothing" catagory, but I definetly gave up the instant gratification, lol.

 

Thanks for all the response guys. While I had original compared modern techniques to those of the past my original intention was not to create an argument over then vs. now. My original intention was to see some of the creative ways that builders of the past overcame a problem that today can potentially be solved much easier with modern equipment or a phone call. Sort of like a Vintage tech thread of sorts, which I understand this may be difficult because back then cameras where not in everyone’s pockets the way that they are today. It seems most pictures you can find are at milestone parts of the build. While a lot of these techniques or ideas are outdated and no longer practical, I believe there is still something to take away from these, especially if you are someone just starting out in this hobby with limited tools. Refer back to my last post with the Tech on hand forming louvers, is it the most practical by today’s standards, No. Would it work, with time and patience, Yes. The norm may have been crudely cut pieces with little focus on aesthetics and more focus on being able to drive the car to school or work on Monday, but at the same time there were real craftsman building great cars with limited resources all over the country and that is what I am most curious about. Carry On.

 

Hello,
In 1959, Lions had the most up to date dragstrip in So Cal. But, in looking at the myriad of film clips, I came across this Lion's pit structure for engine changes at the strip.
An old backyard playground structure stripped of its swings and see saw. We did see that being used and by the looks of it in the photo, it has been used quite a bit. We all had 2x4 supports holding up the cross beams in various garages. But, this one was put up with a few minor detachments and worked well.
Jnaki

 

That axle is the tits!

 

There's all sorts of changes that can't be excluded in that comparison.
See that watervliet hammer? That's nearly an ancient metal forming tool and is highly sought after today. It will set you back around 3 grand today. It's doing the same work as any one can do by hand, like he's doing in the picture. The thing saves so much time and labor produces a better product cheaper. Back then I'm sure they were CHEAP COMPARED TO HOW MUCH THEY WERE NEEDED AND USED AND IN EVERY BODY SHOP WITH EASY access to them. Today you'll not see that tool used in any body shop.

There's no reason at all that ancient technology does not work today. The very same technique used in the Middle Ages to form and polish a suit of armor works to shape a fender today. An English wheel is nothing more than a continuous hammer on dolly. With enough skill you can do exactly the same with a hammer and dolly. The comparison is days to mins to get the part and decades of experience to hours of practice.

There are countless ways to skin a cat, everyone of them is messy in a different way.
Forget the opinions, seek trusted advice, and don't be afraid to make mistakes.

 

Is a frame table necessary, absolutely not
but my mom and little sister could jig up a frame in a table.

Is a brake necessary, absolutely not
But my mom and little sister can get great bends with one.

Is a Tig welder a necessity, absolutely not
But if it's here I'm gonna use it.

Do I need 67 drawers full of tools, no but there are here
Life time of accumulating and inherited another life time of accumulating.

The first few years of my fabrication career I had one large tool box of hand tools.
In it was squares, marking tools, measuring tools, 3 size hammers, 3 size crescent wrenches, different clamps, my torch and grinder. What was given by the shop to use was a large dead flat table, 1/2 dozen heavy duty saw horses, any materials laying around the shop, a mag drill. I could and did make ANYTHING they wanted or I wanted.

You tell me what you think you want to make or do and I'll tell you how to do it with next to nothing.

 

Heres one that inspired me to no end. Dunno when this was built, prewar? but think of the workanship just in the headers alone.

 

I had a big oak tree with a convenient limb that we used to yank engines. I had a good Yale chain fall that I borrowed for years. The limb was over the fence line, so that section came out and never went back in, later to become the back driveway.

I did a 283 swap in my '65 C30 truck and bought Blackjack headers for it, but the dealie lacked ground clearance to get it in with the headers on... take them off? Hell no, just grab a shovel and dig a hole...

 

I got some 8' cut offs from one of my customers I deliver to for free. The laminated beams made a damn good floor for my car trailer. 2.5" thick, some were 18" wide. Matched widths and it only took 5 boards wide to floor the 8' wide trailer. Painted them with outdoor barn paint, they should outlast me....