Hi, kinda new here. I've been mostly lurking for the last couple of weeks, though I've jumped in on a few threads here and there. I hope to contribute where I can, though mostly I expect I'll be asking questions and learning. I'm starting out on my first ever build. This is something I've been wanting to do for 35+ years, but have never had the money and time to do so. I'm reaching a point in life where I have some time, and I'm working on having the money, so mostly what I'm doing right now is research and planning. Those, fortunately, are free. My plans aren't totally traditional, but I think they'll be close enough that you won't burn me at the stake. My primary goal is to create something that is fun to drive, good looking, and reliable enough to be a daily driver, at least during the six days a year that it isn't snowing. I've worked with tools for most of my life. I grew up with a father that believed that anything that broke could be fixed. I spent much of my childhood taking things apart and sometimes even putting them together again. In my teenage years I worked in several bike shops as a mechanic. For the last 20 years or so, I've been restoring pinball machines, so wiring and schematics do not scare me. While I can't do everything on my family's cars, I do as much as I can in a garage without a lift. Taking stock of my skills vs. what I see in some of the build threads, I feel confident in my mechanical abilities, but I have no experience with welding. I'm going to rectify that through the local community college. I'm planning a '34 Ford 3 window. I don't expect to break any new hot rodding ground with this car. I do expect to learn a lot myself. Part of the reasoning for a '34 is that it's a simple enough car that it seems like something I can complete. Unlike many of you, I don't have a yard full of spare parts to start out with. Anything that old, around here, has either turned to rust decades ago, or has been snapped up and is not going to be available at anything like a price I can afford. So while I admire the ability to turn rusty junk in to cool cars, I'm not going to be doing that. Also, while I admire the ability to modify the bodies to fit a vision, I have a thing about cutting up old stuff. I can't take a cutter to a real '34 body, in any condition. If I had one, I'd end up restoring it, and that's not what I want to do. So, my plans, so far, are to build off of a Pete & Jakes repro frame as my base. I like the look of hairpins for the front end, with a dropped axle. For the body, I'm going with fibreglass. Part of that is because I want a chopped top, and there's no way I'm going to be chopping my own. Part is because I don't want to deal with rust. My first car rusted out to the point where it was almost a convertible. My last truck rusted out from under me. My current truck is rusting badly. 'Glass bodies, whatever their faults, don't rust. I haven't settled on a specific body yet. That's one of the things I've been researching. I have ideas for most of the rest of the build, and a vision in my head for what I want to build, but this is probably long enough already so I'll put those in a build thread when I actually get started.
The Jalopy Journal
