Technical Who Drives A Sketchy Jalopy?

Gone is the sketchy exhaust. New exhaust yesterday, used my used glasspacks. I like it, should have angled dumps toward rear...

 

The roadster makes it home under it's own power 50% of the time. It starts up mint but after awhile of driving, it will not re start. Goes down the road ok thanks to a million measurements before I welded it together but man o man it leaves me hanging out on the side of the road sometimes!! That is me walking away from it head down in frustration [

 

I guess sketchy isn't what I think of on my cars. They'll occasionally break down, and yes, one of mine only has old lap belts from a racing harness set. But they've got good brakes, and good rubber. And they run well too. Sure they're manual brakes, and manual steering, but I like that myself. And I also like driving them every chance I get.
I'm kinda bored, and not paying much attention to the vehicle when I'm driving our fairly new car. But let me get behind the wheel of any of my old cars, and I'm happy.

 

Here's a sketchy but temporary adequate fix on my Hotrod. The brake pedal height...when I got the Hotrod pedal was up, brakes worked great for several years with the last year having the pedal going down closer to the floor still able to stop but being so close to the spoon gas pedal...what started to happen was my boot was contacting and pressing the gas and when stopping...

I'm sure a great number of you know the feeling of trying to stop with a foot awkwardly pressing the gas at the same time...<<<just the right face...

So there's a local shop I took it to and I had the mechanic check and adjust fronts and rear brakes and bleed accordingly if necessary...He did but he said there was something about the Buick Drums, Wilson Alumium finned backing plates and shoes having an odd alignment causing a lip on the shoe pad that impeded a more acceptable outcome...

I don't believe there are slots in either the Backing plate or the drum to adjust manually...I think you get them close and slip the drum on and Self adjust takes over...

I took it out and it was better but not near as high up as it used to be...At least the pads and surfaces were fine...

I still felt awkward with my shoe within 1/4" of the gas...

So like a mechanically inclined Hoodlum I am I got a longer bolt for the Brake Pedal Pad and added 1" or so of washers between the pad and arm...All good now...for a garage job...

BUT I plan on either taking the drums off myself to see what I have to do or I might tell him to adjust the shoes to fit the drum or machine off excess lining if that is feasible to allow proper adjustment...

I pick and choose my mechanical adventures and battles with this car...I had it out for an first drive of the year...all was fine except I have had a recurrence of a loss of power where after 20 minutes of 50 to 60mph cruising it starts to bog and lose power and if step on it it doesn't respond...then after 10 or so more minutes it all of a sudden runs okay again......I think I did accelerate from 25 mph to 60 fairly rapidly and the bogging occurred shortly after...no backfires or sputtering just loss of power when pressing the gas...

 

Sketchy to me is unsafe. Everything on my ride is safe, dont need issues with brakes/steering. Hotrods get bad reputation from unfit mechanicals,,,dont want to be in the same class as “junk rods”