Hot Rods Teenage Hot Rodder's Cheap Tricks in the 60's

Moms are Awesome and Vacuum Cleaner Spray Guns Priceless. Hey how did the spray painter get in on the Vacuum deal did your Dad request it. That must have been a upscale vac to have that option. That interior looks pretty sharp Blackrat. Was your Dad into Hotrods n stuff...I mean at sixteen you were pretty darn active in more than minor mods?

 

The best bang for the buck is rear gears. Kaiser was same width as 55 chev and 49 to 56 ford and came 4.56 ratio 15 dollars all day long. The 49 mercury and 49 to 55 ford station wagon with over drive had 4.26 ratio these were 15 to 20 dollars complete. ......................................................................If you had to have a roll bar a bed stead or head board would fit on many cars plus the looked cool. I have used the bed steads to build headers. Very nice looking bends. ..........................................................................Stop signs were great for patching a rusty floor board. .................I used a wheel barrow to make a fire wall in a Henry J . It fit well and was cheap. I saw a friend use a bumper jack shaft to make a front engine mount when installing a 303 Olds power plant................... I have seen power cords from vac cleaners they are quite long to wire tail and brake lights. Tractors and farm equip have been giving up head light for years for non fendered cars. A mail box made a great hood scoop............. I have used house hold light switches installed on the brake tail light circuit . In fact many other circuits ... They were almost always free { every dad had spares} and toggle switches cost a dollar ...........I have used a concret block to side clear connecting rods. I was very young and very very broke and had lots of energy.......More later.....

 

Cameras were hard to come by but you guys if you have any kicking around scan or snap a pic of the pic and get it on here. It is the evolution of the Hotrod...some pretty some not.

K9 I hope the stop signs were from the wrecking yard...

 

The road signs were the old steel ones that were replaced by the new aluminum units. The state guys would give them to anybody so they did not have to transport them to salvage.

 

I did not own a camera until I was in my late 30s. No one would have thought that any person would want to look at our Jerry rigged Rube Goldburg thrown together crap. My Daddy gave me hell for using coat hangers and wire to hold things up. After I was in the Airforce and he saw all the safety wire on every thing he said " I was hoping they would get you to quit wiring up things now I give up" ............................ Speaking of coat hangers they made great gas welding rods.

 

All bet your mechanical skills changed forever once the learned aviation skills kicked in...a bit of a redirection in how things are done.
Hey ya know K9 this is why you guys sharing the stories is so special and valuable as there is
No Pics and it Did Happen. Thanks

 

The spray rig was actually an attachment that came with the Sears Kenmore torpedo shaped vacuum cleaner where you wanted it or not. My dad was a good guy but didn't know a spark plug from a battery. In 1957 our TV broke and mom(the boss)said "It's not going to be fixed.
It's a time waster!" With no TV I got into the small hot rod mag's.(Rod & Custom, Car Craft)
and learned about engines and built a go kart(thanks mom). I married at 18 and needed a car
my wife could rely on(not a hot rod). Bought a '55 Ford for her, after selling the '40, and built
my first dedicated race car at age 20. It was a Model A coupe built for D/A with the '48 Merc engine that I pulled out of the truck when I put the '51 Merc in it. I still have that engine!

 

Hey Blackrat
You really found a way to live life and have fun at the same time. It's equally cool you have key pieces of these past memories around to be repurposed. Your pics and stories...fantastic. Keep em coming...

Thank you

 

Hey all just a big thank you to you all for sharing your past experiences with the Hotrod past.
Again I was in diapers and pushing Tonka toys and missed the times you are describing and sharing via film/video.
This is a picture that can only be painted with help by people like you...

 

I just did a set of those for my 57 chevy every one ask why I did not just buy a set

 

I will add a few more. If you wanted a open air cleaner toss the top and go the kitchen supply area and buy pie pans. They looked great on 2 four carb cars. In the 60s less than a buck each. ...................................... A 283 chevy carb would bolt on a 49 to 53 flat head merc 4 bolt intake also fit on 53 Studebakers V 8. a cheap power up grade..........When everybody raised the front of their car to look gasser local hill billys install spark plugs between the coils on the front springs. No cost. ......................I had a friend find a old leather sofa and used the leather to cover his seats in a 51 Willis .............. ............................... The last is not car but you might be able to use it. On a 750 honda powered chopper I thru together. Mirrors did not look good on them. the local law would stop us for no mirror. I purchased 2 small stainless steel dental mirrors. cops did not like my fix but it was legal under the law.

 

Wow! Vacuum cleaner spray guns. Ancient history. Back in the 1950s a friend snuck his Mom's vacuum cleaner out of the house when she wasn't home. We primed three cars at the club barn that afternoon. We got it cleaned up and returned before she got home. He said his Mom used it to spray clothing with moth-proofing liquid.

 

Here's a pic of the flathead from my D/A Model A. It's still sitting in my shop trying to attract a roadster :>) I pulled it out of my D Altered Model A and sold the coupe to finance my next drag car, a '48 Anglia with a Rochester Injected Small block (265)Chevy with ported and polished '57 FI heads and a Crower 100F cam to run in C/A ("C" Altered class). The engine was set back 25% and sitting just inside the door. The seat was against the back window. I will try to include a pic of a time slip. I was now a "semi-pro" drag racer at age 21.

 

That reminds me of a beat up '49 Ford I bought for $24! It needed a head gasket and provided alternate transportation when the '40 was not running. We called it "..the red turd".

 

Gas filler Cutouts worked good, had to keep making gaskets from asbestos paper plates, rubber lasted about a day.

 

An exciting night in the '34 pickup when I was testing out my new 3-2's. I went to our local favorite illegal drag
racing site in far east Dallas. A street called Santa Anna which ran through an industrial district and had no cross streets. It's about 1/2 mile long and dead ends into a rather busy 4 lane Garland Rd. just across a couple of railroad
tracks with about a 10' drop to launch a runaway airborne into the traffic. We called it "going to 3M" since 3M had
a building just by the tracks. After winding the little flathead out, through all 3 gears, I was probably doing about
100 mph at the halfway point. I backed off and began to pump the crudely firewall mounted hydraulic brake pedal.
Then I heard a metallic "tinkling" sound and the brake pedal was swinging freely and not pumping the master cylinder! (later I found the clevis pin laying on the floorboard)
I pulled the emergency brake handle and it had no effect. I was closing toward the railroad tracks and "launching ramp" too fast! I then floored the throttle spoon pedal and forced the '39 topshift box into second gear(melting the brass synchronizer). That was probably the highest rpm that little flathead ever saw when I let the clutch out. That
slowed me down enough that I was able to swerve into the 3M parking lot, on 2 wheels, just before reaching the
RR tracks and "launching ramp" into traffic below!! I think I idled around the empty parking lot twice before I
regained my wits and headed home. Oh to be an "invulnerable" 16 years old again!

 

Atlas Bucron tires, available from your local Standard Oil filling station. Didn't last long, but were super sticky for those who could not afford slicks.

Jon.

 

That's a cool picture!

 

Super cheap thing some of us poor kids did for "Mag wheel" look. We painted the wheel black and painted the lug nuts, wheel cap silver and from a distance it looked like you had "mags" on it.

 

I bought a '61 Cad Coupe DeVille (short top, like the '61 Chevs) Black car, automatic trans was burned up. Car was 2 yrs old...AAMCO transmission told the lady "$2,000 to rebuild" She sold it to "polite me" for $200.
McBar adaptor? Not Cragar, can't remember. '37 Cad box, (LaSalle) steel flywheel, '58 Olds clutch pedal and linkage,
modified the driveshaft.
Guys downtown would point, "Cad! With a big floorbox!" Stick was the standard LaSalle, 38" with a big black knob.
Tall geared, though...LOL

 

I had a 'Dumped Rim' business in high school, yes: The Buick outers were the 'SHIT'! (slang for "The cat's ass")
Also used some Oldsmobiles, and Lincolns. (6" wide) There were some 7", also. Thing '57 Buick, can't recall.
Cheap way was to chrome the 'rim' (the 'outer') and paint the center, with a 'Poverty' cap.
International wheels ('40s-'50s) '40s were 16" and '50s were were15". Looked like '40 Ford wheels, or '48 Mercs. Inner nubs, Ford caps fit. ('40-'48) BUT! (and it's a big but) the pattern was 5 on 4-1/2"! Late Ford pattern, but early caps!
Wheels were 5" wide, (15s) 16s were 4.5" wide.
Another but: The International wheel rims were rolled different than Fords, had some 'inset' look, wider outside, looked 'reversed'. Bolt 'em on a '54-'60 Ford and use early Ford caps or the 'deep Baldys'. (Baldys were free from the House Trailer sales after dark)
Guys with the good eyes would ask, "How'd ya get early Ford wheels to fit that '56???"
Subtle thing, but very cool...Wheels were it.

 

My older bud Angie had a '50 Ford Coupe, nice car, super straight...he wanted to 'rake' it.
He brought it to Grandma's house, we jacked one side at a time, floor jack under the front 'A' arm, bumper jack under opposite side rear bumper, diagonal. (instant spring compressor!)
Unscrewed trunions, lowered A frame down, removed coil spring. Vise and hacksaw. (4 or 5 blades each, coils were HARD!) Cut 3 coils, put 'em back in...Picked 2 reject 8.20 X 15" whites out of the Firestone Garage's reject bin, 'seconds' were free, but don't mess up the pile!
The big back boots looked just like a picture! Rake was 'excessive', but looked 'Real George'!
Angie had a vacuum leak at the carb base, it whistled loudly. He had our car striper, Shannon, paint on the front fender: The Screamer

 

Angie's Ford makes me want to talk more about "The Red Turd"(my $24 '49 Ford mentioned above). The front
fender on the passenger side was completely missing and the headlight bucket was sticking out mounted on a piece of band iron. The light beam would "hunt around" on a bumpy road at night. The drivers door was tied closed with
a piece of wire as the latch was broken. I had a bucket seat from a panel truck on the drivers side and a folding aluminum lawn chair for my girl friend to set on (it would fold up on hard braking). Seat belts?...we didn't need no
stinkin' seat belts! It had a comfy back seat though.

 

Traction Bars of the homemade variety.
Scored a partial length of rectangle tube out of my dads work truck (he probably still wonders where it went) Bought 2 new 55 Chevy front suspension rubber snubber's at the Chevy dealer. Fit/aligned/shimmed and tacked in place to the bottom spring plates then welded em off.
Worked like a charm for a 17 yr old hotrodder with a OT 67 Mustang

 

tire dressing was too shiny, looked like cheap buy here-pay here used car lot, so we rubbed cheap brake fluid on tires to give that rich black look

 

One of the earlier posts got me thinking about a friend, who years ago had a Plymouth Fury. It was a pretty nice car, but he thought it needed a 4-speed. Now old Tom was lacking cash to buy any conversion parts, abut had a 4-speed out of an early '60's Mopar. He removed the torqueflite, sawed it off at the front pump (by hand), bolted on a piece of 1/4" plate that he laid out and drilled to fit. He then took a hole saw that his dad used for cutting holes for doorknobs, and sawed a hole in the 1/4" plate , attached a scratch awl to the crank and rotated same to scribe

 

Scribe a mark the same diameter as the bearing retainer, and cut that out with a stone attached to a drill, finishing up with a rat tile file. He scored a clutch fork for it, and bolted a bracket for the pivot to the plate. Clutch fork hole was cut using the holesaw again. After a few weeks of hand cutting a couple pedal assemblies, he had it all together. On it's maiden voyage, the headlight switch gave up. The solution? A good old household electrical switch.It took some doing, but he eventually replaced most of the switches in the car with them. Wipers, heater, even the turn signals were operated by them. There were enough of them on the dash it looked like a 747 in there.

 

I was the only one of my friends in our car club that had unlimited access to a torch, and I was good enough to be dangerous at welding and brazing. My buddy had a 50 GMC 1/2 ton with a 6 banger and he wanted me to do a 4-2 split on it so it would sound like a V8. While crapping bricks, I hacksawed the manifold, brazed it up, and fabricated the exhaust. All the bends were done with the blue wrench by heating the inside of the pipe and pulling it until the inside folded, wrinkled, on itself. I did that 4 or 5 times for each bend, and it looked quite reasonable. When it was done, it sounded good enough that I got paid to do 2 more.
I also lowered the front of a couple of cars by cutting the front coils. One, was a near new Ford 406, and I was particularly nervous about it until I thought that if it didn't turn out right, we could get a couple of coils from the auto wrecker. I cut one coil off and then quickly cooled the remaining spring so as not to change the temper.
The job looked good and resulted in my chopping the coils on a couple of other cars.

 

Now that's some REAL "high school hot rodding"!

 

After the C/A I wanted to go faster! I sold the Anglia and bought a "lightly used" TE-440 Chassis Research dragster
chassis with an Olds rear end and a Crosley front end and built a SBC, B/XGD. I ran it at the '64 World Championship Drags at Green Valley Raceway. Great fun days! The night I finished getting it together, my buddy,
Jesse Measles, push started me in an empty discount store parking lot with his '57 GMC Carryall with the stock
Pontiac V8. The cops were there in about 60 seconds! It was 11pm and next to a residential area where I lived with
"brand-X". The cops were cool after I shut it down. They were fascinated with the dragster!

First race car I had a trailer for. I flat towed all previous cars with a tow bar.

Scotty Fenn (far left) in his California chassis building shop.