The Auderer Roadster: Part 3

When we last left you, the Auderer Roadster was smoking and flinging oil something fierce. But because Brian was entirely focused on The Jewel, he decided to park the car in his garage and leave it for another day. That day came a couple of weeks ago. He went out to the garage and started fiddling with the motor hoping to find the source of his problems. He gave up when he pulled the intake and water oddly and inappropriately poured from the runners.

At around this time, Tardel was tearing apart the John Mearns coupe for paint. Brian called for advice and Tardel told him to load it up and bring it on out. The timing couldn’t be anymore perfect – with the Mearns coupe at the body shop for a few weeks, there was a nice and tidy opening in the schedule and Brian’s roadster fit perfectly within. The next day, Stevo and Brian showed up with the roadster loaded on the “Dave’s Perfection” hauler. Just as soon as we had the car off the truck, Keith had the heads off and had started his investigation.

Cracked block.

So, what now? The four of us sat around for half an hour or so thinking about our options. For all intents and purposes, this little roadster has lead a full life and none of us were sure that spending the dough on a freshly built flathead would be the smartest of financial decisions.

“I’ve got that old stock flathead sitting in the corner of my shop. We could try that one on for size,” Stevo thought out loud.

“I mean, I could try to fix the crack and freshen up the bottom end,” Keith said. “But I’d hate for us to spend the time and money doing that only for the block to re-crack… and honestly, it probably would.”

“Let me sleep on it,” Brian said.

The next day, Brian sent Keith a list of everything he had on his mind for the future of the roadster. Bottom line, the history of the car had more value than the sum its parts to him and he wanted to reward the historic little hot rod. “Let’s do it and do it right.” Within a week, parts started showing up… Including a new french block from So-Cal Sac, Navarro heads, a new intake, etc… New ideas came with them:

Why don’t we finally chop those a-pillars?

Man, I’ve never liked that flat aluminum dash. Think a ’32 dash would fit nice enough?

And how about paint? We should probably think about that one a bit too…

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Welcome to the Auderer Roadster build thread ladies and gentlemen. This one promises to be fun and rewarding, so stick around and watch it all come together.