I have done several projects over the years but none like "Nellie" the pink and white 64 BelAir wagon. She live a peaceful life out in the pasture giving residence to a family of pack rats. Resting in peace until I came along and seen potential in her. From day one after dragging her home it's been nothing but issues. The ole pack rats were not about to leave home. I cleaned out the car only to return a week later to find the rats had built there nest back. Through the disassembly process I encountered more obstacles and injuries than any other car that I can remember. One instance front coil spring slipping out and hitting me between the eyes. What really prompted me to share this is my total disillusion with the aftermarket auto parts industry. It seemed that everything had to be returned, some parts twice a carburetor. for instance. Then it came time to get her on the road Legally what a mess with Covid-19. All courthouse staff by appointment. Anyway has anybody had the thought that a car can have a personality? I think Nellie just wanted to rest and rust away.
I think they can have a personality, I've had some cars that were so neglected they should not have driven or even run, but they still start and drive wonderfully. Things like ball joints and suspension bushings that you can visibly see are destroyed and horrible tires, yet the car tracks straight and handles fine. Burn a quart of oil so often you dont even need to change the filter, yet they dont smoke, foul plugs and have plenty of power, just keep going. Had one with a blown head gasket. Both the oil and coolant looked like chocolate shake, drove it for another 6 months, never did blow up, I just kept draining off the overflow tank and adding more used oil. Ran great, would foul 1 plug.
I've had cars fight me all the way, I think they are basically evil and want us to suffer. Kind of like having two wives !
I get the frustration with these old cars..considering Murphys Law and all. Over the years, and many builds I've come to expect the shit to happen..softens the blow when the inevitable occurs. If/when it becomes too much, I'll quit doing it..lifes too short. The alternative is to be that guy some people like to criticize, who buys a car already done.
I had a 62 galaxie that had an invisible bulls eye on it. Although I couldn't see it, others could !! Owned it a year and it got hit 3 times, each time the car was sitting in a parking lot. Third times a charm so I sold it. Had a buddy that had a car, helped him work on it alot until I got tired of getting hurt. Swear it must of liked blood. Try to take a bolt loose and it wouldn't budge. Pull harder on the wrench or socket then it'd break loose and run my hand into some sharp part of the car cutting me and then you could just spin it totally off by hand. 1 last story (best for last) dad bought an old triumph motor cycle. Be an early 60's model. Guy built it and lost control, wrecked it, died. Friend buys it from family, rebuilds it, looses it a couple times, gets scared of it and sells it. Enter my dad, friend tells him cycle is evil, not to buy it. Dad says no problem, don't believe in cursed items. Dad has it a week, comes home, gooses throttle as he pulls into driveway, goes full throttle, front tire comes straight up and drops my dad off, bike goes 1/4 block, hits chain link fence, falls over and dies. Dad picks it up cussing and throttle is fine. Starts it, idles & runs fine. Couple days later comes home, gooses throttle in drive way, full throttle nose up and 10 feet into the shed. Takes to mechanic that has always worked on my dad's stuff. Mechanic knew bike, tells him its cursed- sell it. Dad says no, go thru it. New cable, new throttle, rebuild carbs. A week later dads sitting at stop light, light turns green throttles out, again full throttle nose up, dad sprawled out in middle of busy intersection. Dads done..... Bike goes on sale, a couple guys show up to buy it. Dad explains everything to them, guys laugh saying they don't believe in cursed items. Dad says fine they buy it. 2 weeks later guy driving it down the hiway by-pass, guy looses control, high rate of speed thru a ditch and thru a barbed wire fence, decapitated him. Family takes back to mechanic, mechanic tears the bike in parts and it's sold off as scrap, no parts were sold or used on another bike, scraped only. It was an absolutely beautiful bike. After that dad believed certain items may not be worth owning.
Made a trade for a late model car a 40 to replace my 3 window needed the trunk space to haul my mobility scooter. Was supposed to be a road ready car with no problems. Surprise!!! Needed trans overhauled instead of "just needs vacuum modulator adjusted". The list goes on with complete dash guage setup replaced to get all gauges to work oh bye the way while in there need to repair the wiring harness so they would work. While you are at it go ahead and replace the electric door solenoids instead of the batteries for the remotes. Frustration in capital letters. Have I ever had one of these yes sir would I do it again in all probability I will just part of the old car sickness.
All of them! lol Worst one ever was a 62 Dodge Lancer. We could never get it to not overheat. Tried everything, but no luck! We had constant problems with it. Sucked too, because it was a clean little car. The final straw was when my wife took it for a drive and the fuel tank fell out on the ground. It was nuts, it didn't even have that much damage or loose much fuel. It was like it just fell straight down and laid there. She drove it for quite a ways before it used up the gas that was in the lines. (she didn't even know the tank fell out)
My current truck. Cursed to brake down. Rebuilt over half of it in the last year and a half. Previous owner done a fine job building it. It just doesn't like me.
my 34 coupe was just the opposite. Everything went smooth as butter. The only thing I had to do twice was placement of the rear cross member. At first it sat too low so I cut the tac welds and moved it down in the rails..perfect! I did have a GTO that gave me grief often....and a 57 chev that surprised me when the rear axle housing broke off at the wheel bearing....and when it lost the master cylinder on my way to work but the worse was when I decided to sell it and was taking the prospective buyer for a ride. Got crossed up in 1st gear but straightened it out. Wound it tight between the gears and the cheapie Rocket oil filter adapter broke and I ran the engine outta oil in 3 seconds....oops. Sold it for $300 with a seized engine.
Had a few through the years. Adopted the 'three strikes and out' rule. Something very satisfying about watching a stripped and cut into little pieces, automotive pain in my ass, being hauled out of the shop by a scrapper. Had one tell me one time it was a shame, because it looked like a nice car. All I said was "It had it's chance..."
If you subscribe to the theory that matter can be not created nor destroyed( I assume there's only X amount of matter then)......It then seems to make sense to me that all of the previous owners and occupants of all our old iron left fragments of themselves behind.....Those " hauntings, having taken up permanent residence in said vehicles ,therefore become part of it's personality. Given that we occasionally come across people that rub us the wrong way for one reason or another, or are just plain jerks, It would stand to reason that some vehicles have taken on previous personalities, good or bad. So, there it is, twisted pseudo- science of the day.
Not a project car, but I did own a cursed engine. I called it the project killer. It was a 331 Hemi out of a ‘53 New Yorker. I bought it off of ebay from a guy out of Pennsylvania. It was complete, but totally disassembled in boxes. The story I got from the guy selling it was that his buddy originally bought the engine for his project , and pulled it out of the New Yorker. He took the engine apart to rebuild it, but the project stalled. He sold the car off, and he sold the engine to his friend. After buying the Hemi, this guy’s project also stalled, he sold the car, and I bought the engine from him. I did the machine work on the motor, and was getting ready to start putting it together....and then my project stalled out. Ended up selling the car, and sold the Hemi, still in pieces, to the next sucker. Never did hear if he got his project on the road.
LOL workin on cars and gettin hurt is a way of life. Some of us try to make everyone think it don't happen but it does. Sometimes if a car don't hurt you on its own your friends will help. Just ask @raven he can tell you a story or two.
Years ago, like late 70's, I bought a 56 F-100 off a guy that had used it for years in his carpentry outfit. It was a short bed truck with a 6 and three on the tree. He said he had used it for many years and done nothing but put gas in it. I got it cheap enough that I didn't think I could go wrong. I had to drive it 10 miles to get it home. I got about 2 miles and blew a tire, no jack, no spare. A guy came along and took me home. I dug around and found a spare and my neighbor took me back to the truck. Got the tire on and the sumbitch would not start! My neighbor give me a push and we got it started, when about 4 miles and it blew another tire, I was so pissed I ran it on home on the rim. I let it sit for a few days and wanted to mess with it so I mounted another tire, charged the battery and moved it closer to the garage. The next time I went to start it I cranked util the battery was dead, charged it up again, hit the starter and it back fired and blew up the muffler. That was no big deal so I started it up again to let it warm up and saw a lower radiator hose was leaking, while taking it off the outlet on the radiator came loose from a shitty JB weld repair left over from the carpenter. That done it for me on this piece of shit truck! I run it to the back of my property out of sight and have parted it out over the years, there is nothing left of it now but a bare bones shell. Last year a friend of mine wanted to get the Ford script heater out of it so I told him to go get it, he ended up cutting the hell out of his hand and had to get a bunch of stitches and a big hospital bill out of the deal. I would haul off this evil assed Ford but I am afraid it would kill me in the process so I will let it rust into hell where it was born.
Inherited automotive personality is kind of a gray area. Back in the day I bought a 68 GS from an impound yard. Got it cheap because it was a suicide car. Owner blew his head off in the front seat, and wasn't discovered for three days in 90 degree heat. Poster car for the 'cursed car' syndrome. Changed out the interior, let four bags of oranges rot out to get rid of the smell, and started driving the car. Drove it everyday for two years without a bit of trouble.
A friend of my uncle had an OT Datsun B210 back in the late 1970's. Got hit several times, was always in the shop for mechanical repairs, ect. Finally got mad and traded it in on something else. Fast forward to the mid 1980's and my uncle is now stationed in Juneau while his fiancee is finishing up medical school in Maine. She opts to drive cross-country to Juneau after graduation, and bought a car for the trip. Had a few issues along the way, my uncle paid a small fortune over the phone with a credit card. She finally arrives, and it turned out to be that same stupid Datsun! That lasted about a week before they decided to get rid of it. They agreed to take no less than $700 trade in and went to buy a new Honda CRX si. Dealer offered them $2200 on it, so they just smiled and signed the paperwork!
My 41 Chevy p/u, from the very first day of driving it home and being pulled over and basically impounded to multiple freak things that break for no apparent reason. When I first had it painted my friend dropped a 2x8 on it while it was in his garage, had it fixed and took it directly to a rented garage, that garage caved in and crushed the roof and front clip. Put it in storage for a couple years, got it out and weird things started all over again, one time while it was running in park with no driveshaft somehow the trans locked to the engine, it rotated the trans ripping the mounts and exploded the case into several pieces. My ex girlfriend knew about several of these incidents and being around the truck made her uneasy, once I had it on skates and we were giving it a 180 and switching sides of the garage. We struggled but got it done and was resting for a few minutes, she was standing about 10-12 ft behind the right rear kinda kitty corner looking at it, she said "is that where you want it or do we have to move" about that time the right rear skate flew out the back and slammed into the wall, knee high, that she was standing next to. I never seen someone turn so white and haul ass so fast out of there. Lots of things like that over the years, 2 steps forward then something would break that just had no reason to break. That license plate ain't just because it's got a big ass engine under the hood.
Hello, When we decided to build a hot rod with a different motor/transmission/driveline it was all ok for us. The most fun was the anticipation of the build and buying the first old car, Model A coupe. But, once we got it home, the outlook changed for my brother and he wanted gratification now, instead of months of disassembling, fixing, modifying and rebuilding the old hot rod together again. So, he bought a fast 1958 Chevy Impala and any thoughts of building anything was put on hold for this cool Chevy. Over the years of racing and upkeep on the Impala started to wane as the more powerful later year model 348 Chevy sedans and then the imposing 409 Chevy sedans started showing up at the drags. It was virtually impossible to over come a 30-50 hp difference and be competitive. So, the next stage was set for finding and building another old hot rod with an SBC motor and stuff. This time, it was a 1940 Willys Coupe that we found a few miles away from our house. We towed it home and then it hit us again. Looking at the slightly rusted body, the stock everything was good, but intimidating. This was going to be the first tear down and rebuilt of any old hot rod for the both of us as teenagers. Jnaki It was a task that two teenage brothers took on as we kept telling ourselves that we had the skills. The HOT ROD and car parts were like a big puzzle, they just needed to be organized and assembled. With a torque wrench and knowledge of how tight to set the “click,” what could go wrong? Luckily, my brother and I decided to get a long block 283 Chevy motor that was sitting in another small speed shop near our house. So, there would be less of a puzzle to start off, giving us confidence to finish the assembly and get it running. The puzzle continued with the added Chevy heads, manifold, distributor and all of the necessary items to get the 283 fully assembled and installed in the 40 Willys body. In between, we had to modify the chassis, with better brakes, new Chevy rear axle set up, springs and traction master bars. The firewall had to be moved back a little bit to give us the legal 10% set back advantage. It was turning into several things going on at the same time. It was ok, because, assembling the heads on the motor, adjusting the valves and getting that part all ready for the install was one thing. But, this hot rod needed new brake lines, motor mounts, transmission mounts and interior work, too. It was a little daunting and we broke up the pressure by doing simple things and taking a break from the main engine building. In looking at other builds at our friend’s houses and then seeing the competition at Lions Dragstrip was adding more pressure to make our street legal hot rod ready and safe. It was one of those projects that we had to finish. Our goals were to drive it to our friend’s houses, the local drive in restaurant parking lots, and of course, at Lions Dragstrip. It was “streetable”, but, not in the sense of daily driving to school or work. It had special things that made it not conducive to a weekend cruise, with such a small pressure pump fueled Moon aluminum gas tank inside of the cab. But, otherwise, it was fully legal to drive on the streets, in the local police areas and under the scrutiny of the CHP. That first drive down the block and the first weekend cruise with plenty of gas station stop overs was pretty satisfying. It was a proud moment, although through it all, we had doubts. We felt it was the beginning of a great "brother thing" and possible future.
I bought a beat up '66 Caprice 4-door in '75 for $50. Drove it all summer and eventually sold it at a profit. Ran well despite having an engine coated with oil and OG spark plug wires. I had it out in an absolute deluge... expecting to have it crap out on me. The idle never slowed, never skipped a beat. It had a 396 2-barrel, may have been a slightly never engine with a Powerglide. I raced a bunch of guys I knew with fast cars and beat some of them easily. The interior was mint, that brocade style of seat material. This was the flip side of the coin, the car that should have never ran at all... probably the most reliable car that I threw the least amount of $$ into.
All of the OT English cars that I owned when I was younger were possessed in one form or other. Now its more about me doing something stupid that I know I shouldn't do but do anyway, all the time telling my self not to do it. And of course I should have listened to my self because of course I was right and end up f'n it up. Case in point. I bought a really cool old stop light with a glass lens cover for 50 cents at a yard sale. I needed to take off the cover to see if the bulb was 6 or 12 volts but it was really stuck to the base. So rather than let it soak and take my time I proceeded to try and loosen and pry it with a screw driver. It didn't take much effort to turn the one piece glass lens into 2 pieces and the entire light went into the trash.
Had a ‘53 Studebaker with a 327 and PG like that back in the early ‘70s. Nice, clean car but.... fix one thing, two more go wrong. Everything you do to it is a pain in the ass. But worst of all, sometimes it just refused to start. Had fuel, spark, compression and cranked well but just wouldn’t start and usually when I was away from home (but sometimes when I had to get to work too). I sold it as soon as I got my ‘32 5w running. Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
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