This year we at McKinleyville High School Auto Shop, in good ol' Humboldt County, CA, are building a Model A sedan hot rod. So far we just have a bare body and frame, no suspension or drive train or anything. Students in the auto body program will tackling the body work, and the advanced auto students will be doing the drivetrain and chassis. We are on a very tight budget this year, so any help we could possibly get is extremely appriciated. We have a club that meets during lunch period a few times a week to work on the car, and later in the year we will be doing many fund raising events, such as BBQs, T-shirts, and selling our mom's delisious baked goods. Right now the biggest thing we need is a front suspension setup. Our vision is to do a traditional spring-behind dropped axle setup, but we really just need a front axle,suspension, and steering. For a rear end we are thinking about a 9 or 8 inch if we can find one the right width. We aslo are looking for other parts, like a grill shell, headlight buckets, dash, seats, ect. I will aslo post build pics as we progress along through out the year. You can reach us by sending me a PM, or you can contact our very dedicated teacher, Mr. Sheppard, at [email protected] Again, we greatley appriciate any help and support you guys can provide.
nice! all we had in auto shop was a rot box 74 torino...... the shop teacher told me i was too advanced for the class so i got to work on my own stuff half way through the year
Thats so cool, all I had to work on in shop class was a Monza (not that thats bad) and some teachers cutlass, and a few odd ball stragglers every now and than. So.. who will own this once your done? or will it go up for auction? Hope you all get a chance to play with it or run it down your local track when its all done.
Greetings from 70 miles up the 101 from you (Crescent City) !!! Looks awesome, look up Crusty Nut here on the HAMB, he has a 30-31 Tudor, that's powered by a 4 banger diesel engine, really a nice Sedan...and he's in Loleta, or maybe Eureka/Arcata now...he has a website called Singley Speed Shop, I don't know the actual URL, but the name came from living on Singley Road... There's a guy 6 houses down from me here here in Crescent City building one, too... Subscribed, gonna keep an eye on this one, PM me if I can be of any assistance.
.......You kids a very lucky to have a class to build a car...good to see youth into the movement of hotrodding.....keep us posted on the Model A. Sorry no parts...but will try to answers questions......Big Bad John
Thank you everybody for the kind words. I speak for all the guys in class when I say I'm so thankful for such a supportive community. 26Tudor- I know CrustyNut! He's a really nice guy, as are the rest of the Rusty Nuts. Im gonna be doing some lettering on his A as soon as we find time to get together. That thing is so sweet... I love that lil green truck he built too. Thanks for the support man. Von Rigg Fink- When it's done we will be selling it, or auctioning it, to raise money for the auto program.
Matt's pickup was the very first time (that I can remember, anyway) that I saw a Flathead with a blower on it...You've seen his father in law's flamed '40 too, right? and one of Matt's relatives ( I think his dad) has an unmolested '33 Willys... all stock, no straight axle, no Hemi, no ladder bars, just stock...
It's awesome to see a high school support hot rodding in this fashion. Can't wait to see more progress.
cool, looks like fun... I have been doing the same thing for the past three years with my auto shop students, 2 weeks ago out of the blue the administration tells me I need to quit doing it, in their minds building the chassis and all the fabrication / engineering, problem solving, welding, etc. etc. doesnt fit the "curriculum".... sorry, I think I need to vent, I am very mad obviously at this turn of events... good luck with your project - guess my only advice is make sure the powers that be are on board, I thought mine were...
are you , like going to be on tv ? I remember seeing it once. kool kar. Keep us posted. And don't forget your english class either.
Thanks, everyone, for all the support!!!!! It is greatly appriciated. This week we stared taking the body down to bare metal, and made some temporary body mounts. The driver door is almost gone, and will need to be replaced with new metal, or possibly a new door skin if we can find one. I tried to take a good picture of it, but you can't really tell in photos. For a rear end, we are thinking of using a 9 inch out of an 80s Ford truck. A local guy has one under is A and it looks to be the perfect width for the stance we are after. Here are some pics of the work so far. (sorry they're such bad quality. Taken on my cell)
Glad to see shop class back in high school. This will be something those kids will remember for the rest of their lives even if they don't participate in the hobby. This kind of thing warms my heart. Keep us posted. Andy L. Kaempfer St. Louis, MO
fory, to have a guy like Mr. Sheppard and to take on a project like that, you are all very lucky, I wish everyone in the class the best with this memory of a lifetime, BDM
I would have killed to have a project like that in highschool, or even now in college. Those are some very lucky kids. Good luck with the build!
Awesome! On a sadder note, these High School kids are going to finish their project before I am. Damn it! Keep the pictures comming so that it will motivate my dead ass.
Hey it looks like a great project. I ran across this front end laying in a junk yard near me. Don't know if it is beyond use, but I can find out what the guy wants for it for you. The other problem is shipping, as I live in Kentucky and you are in California. Have you considered writing companies like magnum axle or Pete & Jakes on school letterhead? I'm sure they get requests daily for parts, but explain that you will being displaying it with a sign of donors and they may send you somethinhg for the publicity.
xhotrodder- We are already working on letters to send out to some companies. Any donations we receive will most definitely be noted and appreciated, and mentioned in any publication our project lands in. We have the body almost all the way down to bare metal as of today, and started fabricating patch panels for the cowl where it has rusted out on the bottom edge. I will post some more pics tomorrow morning as soon as we have some uploaded. Thanks again for all the help and support guys!!
Just an udate on our project here at Mack High We have most all of the body down to bare metal, and are strting on straightening her out. Lots of dents in this puppy... I got a pic of the holes in the door. We got a new one earlier this week. We also started to patch the bottom of the cowl where i started to rot out. The picture shows the inner panel. We also were donated two front axles. One stock with wishbone, and one that was dropped 3 or so inches. We will be splitting the bones and use them with the drop axle. We also aquired a '37 Plymouth steering coloumn that we will be using.Thanks to all who have donated!!! On that note, we need spindles bad! We have a disc brake kit for use on '37-'48 Ford spindles, but the ones that were on the axle we have turned out to be wrong. If we could find a set of those, that would be great! we also have some buick drums we are contemplating using, so if anybody has some GM spindles they might fit, that would be much appriciated also. Thanks again for the support!! This project wouldn't be possible without you guys!
Dan, start a thread about this. Maybe we can get a letter writing campaign together. Lots of Industry folks here as well that would lend their support.
Finally!!! It let me upload some pics! A week later than I wanted, but better late than never, right? I will post some more pics of our progress since then as soon as I can. Thanks again for all you're support guys! couldn't be possible with out you!
We haven't been hitting the A as hard lately, but we picked up the pace this last week. A friend of mine recently bought a '28 roadster and brought it by the school to show my class, and that really gave us some inspiration to get going on it. It also inspired us to whack that roof off and turn our sedan into a tub! We hope to have it on a rolling chassis soon, but until then here is a pic of what we have going on thus far.... Thanks again everybody for all the help and support!!!
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