Hot Rods Boy! I never seen that before!

Doing an engine/trans swap in a 1 ton, right hand steering, ex-mail truck. Pulled out the slant six, dropped in an early 318. Drive shaft length was wrong. We cut two shafts & one slides inside the other with lots of extra room. We cut the ends out of several beer cans & split them down the side. Shimmed up the shafts & welded them up. He drove it that way for several years with no vibration.

 

NEVER! I'd cut wires at different lengths so you could tell what went were when taking things apart. I was a body and paint guy and did all the aluminum body welding. It was a great 13 years of my life. Bob

 

You all are thinking like old men, wiser and tired, and sore.
I was a kid when I did that. Not worried about counting steps, wear on seats, shoes, starters or cheap gas.

I was still living at my folks house and all at the same time I owned and had parked there , 1968 bonneville convertible , 66 GTO convertible, 67 firebird convertible, 65 lemans, 66 Skylak Gs. All perfectly functioning automobiles, all plated and insured.
My dad told me if I brought home one more old Pontiac I'd have a really big problem.

Now what's kind of funny, my mom loved to drive my bonneville, we taught my sister how to drive in the firebird and then she always wanted to "borrow" it. my dad borrowed my Buick a lot mostly because it was on the end he said (nothing to do with 450 ft lbs of torque in the 401 nailhead), the lemans was my daily/work car, & the GTO was my fair weather date night cruiser.

So I said Dad, which one should get rid of???
Your favorite, Mom's favorite, sis's favorite, Or my favorite?
He says, " I didn't say you had to get rid of any, I said don't bring any more. If you do you'll have to find another a place to park them all (long pause) except the Buick you can leave that one here

 

Knew a girl whose wiper blade fell off. She put a oven mitt on the arm so as not to scratch the windshield. Every one was waving hi to us. Buddy had an older brother, got pulled over in his Austin- Healy no windshield vicegrip steering wheel. Cop was pissed wipers were required, law didn't mention needing a windshield.

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That reminds me of when I was in high school hauling hay on my 37 ton and a half Ford. Pulled the windshield took it to the glass shop to have new glass put in, sure enough the man I was hauling for, that told me no hay for a week, called, had hay. Hauling at night, passed a high way patrol, he turned around and stopped me, stuck his night stick in my window and out the “ windshield” . He said I thought that looked like no glass . Gave me a ticket for no inspection sticker. He was a good guy, told me I had two weeeks to get it inspected and they would dismiss the ticket, I did, they did. Asked him about hauling more hay that night, he said” well I won’t give you another ticket”, I finished the job that night. Bones

 

had a 1950 ford broke the column shifter, cut a hole in the floor and used 2 vise grips, one on each shift arm on tranny drove it like this till I could afford a Hurst Mystery Shifter

 

Yea, it does lead you to do some crazy $)(*. Years ago as a senior enlisted the Squadron Commander saw two people get in a military vehicle and do some stupid driving. He couldn't recognize who they were but the CSM brought it to our attention. We were more careful after that, well kind of anyway.

 

In the '80's we used to scoop up all the early/mid '60's Chevy trucks we could find....cheap. While imbibed on liquid substances, we decided to lower a nice '66 short bed. We engineered the idea of putting 4x4's under the rockers to use as a 'stop' when we torched the springs. After more imbibing, we set to work and fired up the torch. We were so 'happy' with our ideas of the outcome we forgot the 4x4 'stops' when we heated the springs. The truck was on a hump in the driveway so we could get under each end with the torch. We finished but we didn't know how far it dropped. We fired that ol' girl up and literally hit the road!! With the weight of the truck on the bump stops, suspension travel was about 2 inches of up and no down! Talk about slammed -We always joked we came up with the term "rides like a rock" We sold it to some local kids who tore the a-arms mounts off the frame. We got it back as scrap but that's another story......

 

Back in the 80s , chopped a 39 Plymouth sedan , installed stock mustang II , chevy 350 , no glass, no fenders , no hood , no exhaust ,no insurance..no interior..nuthin , just got it running and decided to take it around the block...sat on a milk crate and off i go..just got to the stop sign down the street. Cop sees me , comes over..he's scratching his head and asks me what the hell are you doing....just said..well I've been building this for a year and wanted to just test out the drivetrain...Nice cop...told me get it home now..got to drive it around the block and realized I did a damn nice job on it..always got a pass on hot rods..Not daily drivers..go figure..

 

I have seen articles that tick is stronger than mig.. Crane bom repairs are stick welded. Maybe Miller and Lincoln in the right hands on.

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I posted the widow makers found on an old FED. 16 inch split rims, with good year blue streaks..1100 x 16 inch, then cut center and weld in Chrysler rim centers....sickest rims ever...

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Wife's cousin was into VW dune buggys for a while. Bought one that had a 40 hp on it that ran good, but had a knock at the flywheel end. We pulled the engine and found the gland nut that held the flywheel to the crank was loose, they are supposed to be torqued to something like 350 ft lbs IIRC, and the dowel pin holes were wallowed out on the crank and flywheel. We loaded it up in the pickup and carried it to one of his buddys shops. His buddy tightened the gland nut down with a 3/4" impact wrench, then welded the nut to the flywheel. No more knocks! He ran it for a while then sold it. Whoever tried to rebuild that engine in the future was going to have to get a new crank and flywheel.

 

In high school I had a summer job building silos with a an old boy with a '48 Ford pickup. He'd pick everyone up in the morning to get to the job. There'd be four of us sitting in the front seat with a lab laying across our laps. The throttle linkage had long broke so he had a coat hanger through the firewall hooked to the carb and bent circle on the other end so he could slip his finger through it. He would pull on the hanger and slip the clutch, whoever was sitting next to him had to do the shifting, quite the sight.

 

I would have short chained them together and tied the steering strait..Bumpers cry a little but works..

 

Did something similar involving girlfriend's panty hose? She was a very suspicious girl, didn't quite believe me when I was talking her out of them. Still married 50 years later.

 

Right. I don't care what happens to the car. None of my Laphroig, Balvenie or Oban single malt is going into anything mechanical unless it's in me first.

 

The two cars chained together won't collide if you run the chain through a piece of pipe.

 

Used to be legal tow method in Alabama. Speaking of which, My brother-in-law (native Alabamian) had an old Pontiac with an inline flat head 8 (or possibly 6). Can't remember what failed (piston or rod related) but it was No. 8 at the very back. So he pulled the head and oil pan to remove the offending piston and rod. Then he cut a plug of oak and wedged it tightly into the cylinder, put the head (and oil pan) on and drove it. He said it ran rough but would get you there, so apparently the firing order didn't begin or end with 8. He had another car with stripped steering wheel splines that he drove with vice grips. Alabama engineering at it's finest.

 

I bought a 50 Chevy PU my senior year of high school that had the rear frame hacked off right behind the rear end. Had a pair of coil springs welded to top of axle housing just sitting on bottom of frame rails. Torque tube held it together. Sometimes frame would fall off of springs, but could be lifted back on by hand. Drove 18 miles round trip to school plus lots of extracircular activity for the entire school year. This was a 60 dollar purchase.

 

Rope tow stories...bare knuckle wits about you....my cousin still has nightmares...

 

40+ years ago, my 235 powered 52 Chevy pickup left me stranded 30 miles from home. My dad came to my rescue with our pickup and a chain. 10:30 pm on a dark Idaho back road we went. Part way home, we changed places so he could see how it sounded when the transmission was in gear. He honked to let me know he was ready to change back. I obligingly hit the brakes and then remembered that he was supposed to stop me. We jousted for a while still we got them both stopped. I meekly traded places with him. We made it home ok. Years later when telling that story to someone, he related that he laughed for the next 5 miles, which is what I had done as well.

 

Did that at 17, the 3rd bounce took out the transmission. Sometimes learning costs money, that time it was $10.

 

I did something similar, during the late sixties shackles were the craz, about 8 to 10 inchers. Well thinking like a hotrodder if 10 was good 15 was better and about 24 was just right, so I made some two footers. While jacking up the car with the shackles disconnected I noticed the rear end with the wheels removed coming up too.... the u joint was binding and raising the 9 inch at the end of the drive shaft. Abandoned that idea, real quick. Bones

 

Friend in high school did similar. he used a spare return spring so they would go down on their own and a rope into his window. No passenger needed, just 1 hand.
he drove that car with manual wipers a couple of years. blew a few transmissions in it and had studded snow tires on it for at least 5 years. Meanwhile he had a really sharp square body short box chevy truck in his garage that just needed painted and bolted together. I bet its still sitting in that garage untouched.

 

How about Ford's hydraulic windshield wipers on the 4th generation Thunderbird? Those are a PITA. On a separate note, on a non-HAMB friendly car, a friend of mine blew a hose cap for a Filter for the antifreeze (why Volvo did that, Ill never know). Used a red solo cup and some duct tape to cover it, that leaked, so we plugged it with silicone and a empty beer can from the side of the road. Water came from a mosquito filled ditch.

 

Gearhead Graphics, you guys were sophisticated. High falootin' we say.

 

Three friends and I went to Jellystone park on a three day holiday when I was 17. We had a 50 or 51 Pontiac to drive. The fuel pump went out at Jellystone, no parts stores open ,we had to be back on Tuesday for work . We took the fuel tank out set it on the hood with a garden hose running from the drain plug to the carb. Used the tank straps to bolt it to the hood and drove it home, 400 miles that way.It would only gravity feed about enough fuel for half throttle but we made it fine. Good memories.

 

It never made sense to me all the work he went to keeping the turd on the road, when he had a really sweet truck just a few weekends away from driving

 

I did have to drive my VW bug home with a piece of bailing wire looped around the outside for a throttle cable.
My son called one day, the hay truck broke down. He was on a dirt road a few miles from home. The ignition circuit went up in smoke as well as the throttle cable. Back to the old fence line, we used the bailing wire for a throttle cable and an ignition circuit.
He was pretty amazed just as I was when I was a kid, somewhere in the mid sixty's, on family vacation when the fuel pump failed in our 64 chevy long roof. We had no money and we were in a campground in yellowstone. Dad dug though the trash can and pulled out some stuff from a camper, cut a diaphragm from it and put it in the old chevy fuel pump. We made it all the way back home to Kansas.
CJ7 broke the leaf spring U bolts while on top of Mount Antero, Co. I tied it up with a ratchet strap and drove her back down the mountain.
And yes, we shortened drive shafts with a lincoln arc welder, more than once.
My Vette, when I bought it had the exhaust clamps on the rear shocks. Look like they had been there since 59.
Seems jellystone was hard on fuel pumps!

 

Way back in the late 50's Lloyd, a local schoolboy used his pocket money to buy a straight eight 1929 Chrysler . There were always several passengers on board as push starts were often necessary. An emptying of passengers pockets usually found enough cash for a couple of gallons of gas for cruising. The Chrysler was always followed by a trail of blue smoke, so used oil was used to top up regularly.
When a bearing knock got too loud, the conrod and piston were removed, and a leather strap was hose clipped to the crank to try and maintain some oil pressure.. And off on seven cylinders.
Over time more bearings failed - with same "repair". We saw it sneaking slowly along with only four working, then the following week it was back to the bicycle. Three just would not pull it along.
Garpo