Hot Rods BUILDING HOT RODS & CUSTOMS - USING WHATEVER GET'S THE JOB DONE

The recent post about the brake light pressure switch and comment's touting the ease of using a mechanical switch got me thinking about what is involved in building our cars & trucks, from the individual pieces it takes to do so.

I was thinking about what make of automobile the part was originally designed for, or was it even meant to be used on a automobile, possibly a motorcycle or boat maybe something even more mundane.

Home built HOT RODS & CUSTOMS are usually a amalgamation of what ever will do the job.

I was reminded of my first Model A pickup built on a shoe string budget and a lot of creative scrounging, for instant I wanted to use a 4 bar for the rear suspension so I looked at some catalogs and then made a trip to Ed Powell's junk yard.

I removed 5 sway bars from wrecked Chevy's went to the local Dixie Bearing House and purchased female rod ends,cut everything to length, borrowed my grandad's huge die set and cut threads on the shortened sway bars, took the old fire wrench and cut the plates to weld to the rear axle, ground them with a huge grinder to smooth them up and welded them to the early mustang rear axle, then came the hard part, saving enough money to buy new KONI coil over shocks, remember this was in the early 70's and all I started with was a bare frame.

It to me 3 months to scrape up enough money for the shocks.

I used a Chris Craft ensign boat dash, a mustang floor shiftier, cut down Datsun bench seat and a VW steering column, I used a Buick V6 engine & transmission (because it was small & free) I also used a pinto flex shaft to work the Colt rack & pinion.

The truck was far from being a nice rod but I learned a lot building it and at the time there were just a few hot rods in town.

So what parts have you used in build your past or current hot rod or custom?HRP

 

Lets see, steering box off a S10, unknown GM steering column, 67 Chevelle steering wheel, engine came out of a F100 truck but had been put in it, I think it might have originally came out of a Crown Vic. My clear parking light lens are cut from the lens of an old fluorescent light. My shifter linkage is a rod off a junked riding mower. Transmission came out of a 85 T bird, 8" rear out of a 66 Fairlane. Tail light sockets are later Ford plastic units shaved to fit in original housing. Gauges are all SW from eBay except factory speedo and clock. Probably more I can't think of right now....

 

When I find a particular junkyard part that works well, I tend to try to find the same part for whatever the next one is. Unfortunately, these parts get scarcer with time and the wrecking yards are now off limits. Not the same surfing the net.

Sent from my SM-T350 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

yeah, the junk yards have dried up. HRP

 

I'll use about anything I can find...even if it's not an automotive part

TURN SIGNALS vintage Schwinn bicycle fender lights
HEADLIGHT BAR chrome plumbing supply line & 5/16 threaded rod
FRONT SPREADER BAR stainless handicap bathroom grab bar.
AIR CLEANER modified '39 Ford hubcap.
etc, etc, etc..

 

I've spent a lot of time in over-run and discontinued boat parts warehouses. Great source for stainless anything, gauges, seats, upholstery, steering wheels, hydraulics, V-drives, gas tanks, shift cables, steering shaft u-joints and the list goes on. I was only limited by my own imagination. I found winter time to be the best time to buy.

Example: High grade stainless u-joints suitable for 3/4 steering shaft routing. I walked up to the counter, pulled the freezing kid away from his space heater and asked him how much it was. He asked me what it was for? I said, how should I know, I don't work here. He picks it up, tosses it around in his hands, and says, "Pretty heavy, gotta be worth two bucks." I set it on the counter, go back and scoop up every last one off the shelf. As he's counting them out, I mention it's a shame that's all there is. He says, "You check the floor?" I go back and spot three unopened boxes with the same part number on the floor. I grab a dolly, and haul everything to the counter. Turns out the boxes held 50 each, and there were 35 on the shelf so I get a grand total of 185 stainless steel, steering shaft u-joints, for 370 bucks. Needless to say, I'm rather delighted with the transaction and pull 400.00 out of my pocket. Kid looks at me, and says " Oh yeah, the boss says to give 20% off on big purchases. So that's uh...." I help him out and tell him it's 74 bucks. He asks if he could make it 300.00 because he's 'got no' singles. I give him 320, and tell him lunch is on me. Hell, he's so happy he helps me load everything in the back of my Elcamino, all the time babbling on about how this was the biggest sale he'd had all week.

 

I have actually used kitchen spoons to guide the pins on the fold down back seat in the Ranch Wagon. when the seat was padded and reupholstered I dropped the back and tore the upholstery.

We had to think outside the box, I sure didn't want to take the seat out and spend even more money & waste time, the solution was simple, we purchased 2 spoons from wally world and bent to allow the spoon to guide the pin into the hole without the upholstery being damaged by the pin when the seat is folded down. HRP

 

Hey Danny,I used a cone shaped lamp from a pole light to make a bell for my steering column.

 

I use a Harley- Davidson horn on my old beater. HRP

 

I used a chrome motorcycle license plate frame to make a bezel for the shifter boot in the ‘35 Chevy. And a drum pedal for the gas pedal.

 

RJP brings up a good point about surplus marine supply liquidators being a great resource most don't think about. I work in boat manufacturing, and over the years I have sent complete warehouse loads of obsolete stuff to these type of places. It gets written off and sold for pennies on the dollar.

Some marine specific, but lots of things perfect for the Hot Rod guy. Lots of stainless hardware, aluminum, upholstery materials, interior parts, adhesives, fiberglass materials, and on and on.

I was flipping through the thread where someone was trying to salvage a glass flip front nose for a gasser. For you guys working on glass projects, you need to make friends with someone at a local boat factory. Fiberglass materials come to us as roll goods, and are cut by CNC machines. No matter how good your nesting programs there is a lot of waste materials that go into the dumpster. Same with composite core reinforcement materials. Because of many glass materials are multi-layer (either stitched or adhered) this material is not practical to recycle. So into the dumpster it goes. You can usually get with someone in the factory to collect this for you, and its just what you guys need for doing repair and modifications. Bonus is these are multi-layer / multi-directional materials that are way more advanced than what you are going to buy locally in small quantity.

 

Guess my most extreme example of mixing stuff up in one car was in a '53 Studebaker I built back in the early '60s. I'm sure memory wouldn't bring forth all the different stuff I used, but I do remember that I had parts and pieces off 33 different makes, models, and years of cars in that build. And that doesn't count non automotive stuff such as HRP's table spoons!

 

Dave, if my memory serves me correctly I believe they were salad spoons. HRP

 

Also, tail light housings made from cut down desk lamps I bought at Lowes

 

When I was working on the stock instrument cluster of the '54 wagon I started looking for the green replacement lens for the turn signal lights, I had searched the catalogs to no avail and the originals had turned dark and brittle.



I had stopped for lunch and was in the kitchen making a sandwich when I noticed the green plastic cover on the sliced turkey, that's when the little light bulb in my brain went off.



I am pleased that I could use something that was destine for the garbage & it works great.



With that accomplished I looked around the kitchen and realized a Jif peanut butter jar lid would serve as the lens for the high beam headlight indicator.

It was a lot harder to cut but fortunately I had a set oh leather hole punches and the smallest on was the perfect size. HRP

 

Since this is becoming a "not car part- car parts" thread, I can play that game too. My fuel block is in reality an "air distribution manifold" from Princess Auto made for hooking up more air lines to your compressor. It had 4 outlets on the side but I shortened it to 3 with my handy hacksaw and 1/2" NPT tap. Of course, the proper way is to find a 4 carb intake manifold.

 

I used a piece of 1964 VW running board trim to make the covers for the B pillar pulls for the wagon. HRP

 

I used a (formerly) chrome tailpipe extension for the steering column to toe board mount and the steering universal stone guard was fabricated from a curved section of exhaust pipe.

Brake pedal is from a ‘55 Cadillac, gas pedal is ‘59 Pontiac, accelerator linkage was formed from sections of a frame for a folding lawn chair and brass bushings from a ’31 Chevy hinge pin repair kit.

 

Built the tilt frontend on my old '40 pickup (with '37 sheetmetal) from my Wife's Easy-Glide exercise machine. She eventually got over it

 

Stainless steel salad bowls, cake tins, measuring cups, for headlights, license plates, gauge pods, air cleaners and just about anything you want to sink for the that sunken look. Spring loaded door hinges for cheap hidden license plates and glove box doors and hidden radios. Hotrod building requires imagination. So let yours run wild. There's a whole world of gizmos and gadgets out there just waiting to be repurposed.

 

That's nice work. HRP

 

Thank you.

 

You know, I never had a thought about a stone guard over the steering shaft U joints, but with a fenderless car like mine, that's not a bad idea.

 

Other than the body, frame, and grill shell, everything else comes from something else. Haha. I love repurposing whatever I can.

 

Talking about non automotive stuff, I don't know if you can still buy them or not but the old chrome sink supply line piping works great for vacuum lines. It's chromed over copper, so it's easy to bend without cracking the chrome. Could probably use it for gas lines in a non vibrating situation but I never have.

 

I have used the round chrome plumbing plugs to cover the hole in the column drop where the 3 speed shiftier passed through. HRP

 

I had forgot about this but I was visiting with my old pal Rene' yesterday and we were talking about his 1932 PB Plymouth coupe he built back in the early 70's and he said he used a piece of stainless steel from a junk ice machine pop riveted in the top opening of the car. HRP

 

I used a HD motorcycle speedometer in in my car.

 

Radius rods donated to make rear lower shock mounts.

 

I just used the plastic screw tops off a gallon jug to allow a larger defrost hose to attach to the defrost vent on the 41.worked like a charm. Snowman