Oh man....it's been soooooooo long sice I've been to a swap meet, I was jonesin' for a good swap meet. 3 months is just too damn long to go between swap meets. I got up at 4 am, grabbed my buddy [a diehard Pontiac guy] and we leaped into the Rocky Goodtime Van [TM] and drove the 150 or so miles to DesMoines from Omaha in cooold weather. It was like, 12 or sumthun. I'd brought my cash stash and some trading material to meet up with Alchemy and Cornfed to look at a 33 ford grille and decklid. The money for the ford parts was carefully hidden on my jacket pocket, separate from any other bills so I wouldn't spend it accidently. I had a grand total of 96 bucks left over to blow on "other" parts. It took me about 3 minutes to find a guy selling a set of old chevy 302 "DZ" forged TRW pistons. I'd been looking for a set for a million years...ever since I foolishly let my fresh 301 go with my 53 ford pickup when I sold it some years back...like 1986. I'd been looking for 22 years for these damn pistons at all the swap meets and there was a complete set for a paltry 75 bucks! Naturally, I had to beat the seller down to 65 bucks but he agreed to my price and I now own them. I've been buying up cheap 283 engines for years in hopes of finding these pistons and now I have 3 old 283s and even one ratty-ass 305. I'm SUPPOSED to be down-sizing my inventory of cars and parts but you know how it is. Drove out to a suburb of DesMoines to Cornfed's house and garage to make the deal on the 33 ford parts and bought 'em. Damn! I scored heavily this time! Now, I can't decide which engine/trans to run in my 34 [or is it now a 33?] coupe. To further complicate my life, I stopped by my new 40 ford rolling chassis today and the guy who sold it to me had sold it to me with the claim the 59-AB motor in it was siezed. OK, I've saved froze-up flatheads before..in fact almost every one I ever bought was siezed from sitting, including the one in Mike Bishop's cherry-pie pickup and the one he's building for a project he and Tardel are gonna build. Anyway, I was standing there admiring the rusty old flatmotor between the 40 frame rails and noticed it had a big ol chunk of 1/2 inch steel sitting over the Holley 94 carb...no aircleaner, just a chunk of steel plate. Hmmmm...there was an old jack handle laying on the top of the engine too so I grabbed it and just for the hell of it, I wedged it between the lower pulley bolts and gave a little push....IT TURNED OVER! wtf? i COULDN'T BELIEVE IT! It wasn't stuck. I immediately told the seller that it wasn't stuck and he laughed....said the previous owner claimed it had been garaged all it's life [was a 40 fordoor deluxe] and was running a few years ago. I went back outside and duct-taped the carb all up and then put the hunk of steel back in place on the carb top. Just for the helluvit, I tried to get the engine to go all the way over but for some reason it goes about 270 degrees and stops with a "clunk"...a really solid clunk too...going both directions. Hhopefully, it's only something down a spark plug hole [gulp!] Hey, I'm just jazzed it isn't siezed tight. Can't wait to get it home to tear into it and hopefully find a cherry block and reciprocating assembly. I got lucky on the very last one I bought and stuck in the Old Rocky 33 pickup. It ran like a top and never heated on me. We'll see but I gotta say...good things have been happening to ol' Rocky lately...kinda spooks me sometimes.
Yea - and Rocky forgot to type in his long azz swap meet story that he bailed from meeting me for lunch and I was even going to buy for cripes sakes ! uhhhh - he forgot my cell number and I forgot his... so we are even. All for some lame azz excuse of getting some 33 or was it 34 parts....... WTfudge... Bwhhaaaaa. snicker -snicker. Pretty crowded swap meet - not much older stuff / mostly racers stuff... sunny and 30 degrees by noon. Catcha ya anutha day Brother Mod Rockster ! Cob
Yeah, Cob...sorry. 33 ford parts come before a coffee clatch with fellow HAMB moderators... at least this time. We'll do lunch some time soon, OK? You're buyin...again.
He stands me up for lunch and expects me to still buy again ! Must be Nebraska terminology for moocher or is it sucker ?????? Cob
Soooooooo is this what happens after all those years of burning sacrificial Ford emblems to the Pontiac Gods? They start sending smoke signals to the Ford and Chevrolet Gods?? Letting them know that you're an a-ok kind of guy and it's cool to share some firewater and the Chief's squaw? Lucky sod.
Hey Rocky, watch me pull a '33 grille and decklid out of my hat...... It was good finally having ya over to my shop. Always fun showing off my toys to guys that can appreciate the early tin. Now that ya know where I live, stop over whenever you're in town. Ya shoulda stuck around a little longer. Hiboy32 and his boy showed up not more than 10 minutes after you left. We BS'd for a good hour or more. Mostly about you. I forgot to ask, did you need a '34 dash for your coupe? As tough as it might be on me, I probably have one that I could be conned out of. Just remember to think of your buddies to the East when those Hot Rod Gods start raining '33-4 fenders (or hoods) on ya that you can't use.
Chris.... Thanks for having me over. I'm still seeing fuzzy after witnessing your black model A. It's sooooooo perfect. .........and yes, I do need a dash. My body came with no dash at all. I'll PM you about it. Sorry I missed Jeff and company but he lives close to me...I can go harrass him anytime I want.
Rocky,don't know if your interested but a guy in Plattsmouth has a brand new Gm NOS 302 crank in the box,motivated seller also.
is that a freaking turbo on your flatty there ? i had a chance at the cruise for charity here to buy an old accel unit , still useable , draw through type and didn't as i had several tell me on a flatty thats a bad idea due to the extra heat on the exhaust / it'd cause 'em to crack if they weren't or just cause it faster . man i'm gonna sh-t if it's done and no harm . i had the guy talked down to 100 bucks for the whole thing .............. that woulda looked cool under the hood of my 53 !!! p.s i gotta 37 thats corroded and seized bad any ideas ? i've tried filling it with oil , kerosene , deisel getting physical etc.. no luck yet . i'm getting ready to start drilling the pistons to break em i really don twant too but....................
OK, i'm not very familiar with the Ford flatties, what is that sausage-shaped thing above the intake to the left of the carb in the picture above? And the prehistoric turbocharger-looking thing next to it. Or are those just miscellaneous items laying on the motor (heater ducting?)?
I was going to say that also, my Poncho 239 6 has 2 stuck valves and the engine will rotate either way till it gets to that point. Now if I can just get them out without damaging the valves.
Rocky, make it a '33, the grille looks so much better. Congrats on the scores, sounds like a helluva time.
Thanks, Joe.....but I have 3 small-journal blocks. The only small journal 302 crank was made in 67 only and it's actually the same crank as the steel ones I have in my 283's...different part numbers but same part for all practical purposes. Mrs Rocky says "HI"... My Buddy, Jimmy, also has a NOS 302 crank but it's a '68 large journal...does me no good.
hey Rocky glad to hear that your deals went sooo well. I had fun checking out the Cornfed shop along with the cars and parts. Wow what a shop!! Hey Rock, the flatty that I used to go to the Roundup and the Drags was also in a forty chassis and was also stuck. It went about half a rotation each way, we just pulled the plugs and hit the starter n blew that sucker out! That was the best running flatty I ever used. Good luck.
The Jalopy Journal
