View attachment 5125928 View attachment 5125928 How many times have you heard that. If you're as old as I, it's been a bunch of times. My last real "guy" of interest (to me anyway) was Leland Grantz. The story of Leland and his "Chevrolowster" can be found under the heading "Gene Winfield Custom Found". I lost a piece of my heart when Leland and his passed away. So much to learn in so little time. Now I have moved on, sorta. I have breakfast every Sunday with a drag race club in the wee burb of Kuna, Idaho. A while back an old farmer comes over and askes if we are old car guys. Well, a couple of us are, the rest are young car guys. Kinda like the Marty Robbins song which says "I see by your outfit that you are a car guy"...... He is 90ish and says he has a six with a head that has 12 ports. I says, you mean a Wayne Horning??? You are an old car guy!!!! and the rest is history.
Glad someone noticed the scatter shield. This is back when men were men and sheep were scared....Now another tidbit. He had trouble with the input shaft length on the Ford tranny. Seems it was a tad too long. Solution, space the tranny back to compensate, simple. He cut a number of spacers (rigid pipe) to the correct length and voila, problem solved. This may have been part of the reason for the 7.60/16 scatter shield.
So I'll cut to the chase.... Here is what I saw in the building, under the tarp...... seems his milkman approached him one day and asks if he would be interested in a hot rod, a tee roadster to be exact. The milkman had extended credit to a customer, and when the bill got to a couple hundred bucks he asked that it be paid. Guy says he has no money, but has this hot rod. this engine was in the tee... ANd no, it's not for sale, sorry.....
I will post the story of this mill in the next couple days. It is fascinating. My newfound friend remembers every detail, not just about this mill, but about all of his racing escapades.... He has had this engine since the mid 50's. I will go into detail about all that later. I'll start with his rail jobs.....
Another Wayne headed Chevy,,,yawn,,,call the Chief,,, Flathead V-8 only here... I'll take care of that boat anchor for you, no cost,,,, really
Dick tells me that he needed thick gaskets in the Winfields to make them work proper, so he made them out of thick cork. Now stovebolts don't know the word cool, and with the abbreviated water system (like none) he had about 20 seconds of run time before it overheated. When it was being push started (remember, no starter, spaced bellhousing) he knew when it had fire, because it had fire, literally, as the fuel seeped out the cork gaskets.... The amount of flames indicated how good it was running. Full throttle, no problem... Make the run, shut it off quick. Isn't that what you're supposed to do.....
Notice the "slicks"..... I might add that my pal Dick is the pilot in all these, and the one standing between the hardtop and the rail.....
Okay, now for the meat of this story...... Dick decided he needed a new chassis for his Chevy 6. Not the one with the Wayne head, as that would come later. He lived in Southern California, where war production had left lots of "stuff" available, if you knew where to look. So after chalking out the chassis on his special jig (concrete slab in the backyard), he appropriated the necessary pieces for the frame rails. In this case, two pieces of teardrop cross sectioned aluminum originally destined to become wing spars in a Consolidated PBY seaplane.. To emphasize the ingenuity of young hot rodders back in the day, all the welding was gas, and these guys made their own acetylene in the garage..... Dick tells me that the entire chassis cost around $100.00 to build. Stay tuned, and we'll walk through right up to the when it ran with the big Wayne mill.....
Oh yah...and Frank Kurtis made the frames of his 4000 series Indy cars out of boxed wing spars that had large holes perforated along their length if I remember correctly. Forgot what airplane. I have a photo I will search for when time is available.
Here are a few more pics. I hate to simply post the pictures without the input from Dick. That's the best part of Dick's story, he's still here to tell it. He remembers every detail, every nut and bolt, the weird sounds his buddies made as they were flying out of the garage when they twisted that Wayne up to eight grand on an engine stand. Photo's show sizing up the components, the flanged rear connections to facilitate engine removal, letting a friend take the wheel..... Seems it was time for real slicks..... Notice the rear engine configuration in early 1956.....
Thanks for spreading the Gospel @cabong...give a high 5 from us to the others revolving around this story...that is some great history and I always talk of Aviation and Indy connections to The Hotrod Evolution...great timing for a Wayne headed 6 with @Cody Walls Hotrod Coupe trending...
Thanks for the great history lesson. We should be thankful that there are still some old-timers around to tell us what really happened back in the day.
There is more to come. Lot's more pic's and and great stories. I love talking to these guys, and they aren't that much older than I, but it seems a generation between. Actually, I was there, but not, as my father was an engineer and we traveled a lot. At some point I will tell about his 6 cyl chev and the radiator cleaner. I like to died laughing.......
You are correct. Too many young guys come here and try to twist Traditional Hotrods into something it never was
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