History Fail or succes.Your first build story.

My first build started at age 11. My grandparents had a 1978 chevy 4x4 that I was itching to get running. After sitting under an old oak tree on the farm for the last 15 years, I knew it would be a struggle. The best advise I can give to anyone starting a full rebuild: 1. Stay organized with a game plan 2. when said game plan fails, get a new one 3. always keep your hopes up 4. make the vehicle yours, don't let others tell you what they think you should do (although advice, when asked for, is great) and last but not least 5. have fun with it, document as much as you can so that you can share your experiences with others who are going through what you just did. Now at the age of 20, I'm in the middle of another build. This time on a 1954 3100. Started in June and plan on finishing up by the end of the winter break (can only work on it during summer and winter break, stupid college) Hopefully this can inspire you to continue going through the hard times. It may take some time but its all worth it in the end when you know that you did it yourself and the car is completely yours. Here is the finished 78 and the current stage of my 54 (sorry for the messy shop).

 

DAM!!!al of those were your first????
wow got lots to learn

 

My off ot 54 willys pick-up goes down the road straight but, dog tracks abit (ok maybe more than abit). Did everything atleast 3 times. As stated earlier have a plan and work your plan. That was leaned the hard way.
My Model A build is going better. Research and planning followed by more research and planning. Skills still suck so not always easy to do what I'm dreaming of.

 

Like many here I started young, anything with wheels had my intrest.
I have had several very successful builds over the years each one more complicated and taking longer then the one before.

My 53 is the first frame off build I have ever done. The first thing I leaned was building cars are alot harder than trucks or jeeps.

The best thing I could tell someone younger is to do builds of this level you must have 2 cars. What I mean is when I was younger I would wrench all weekend to drive to work on monday. 2 days is not enuff time to do serious builds and to do a quality job.

MrC.

 

grew up in a house without a garage, so all wrenching was done either parked across a sloped driveway, in the dirt easement or parked in front of one of the neighbors' houses (which they did not like). my first major-ish project needed a full drivetrain and brakes (plus body work, floor pan sections and wheel arches, etc). the brakes leaked at all four corners, but i eventually got the fronts to function on the old cylinders, plus the park brake (sort of). pulled the blown motor out in the middle of the night using a borrowed cherry picker and a couple of flashlights. began to get heat after a couple of weeks from the neighbors/fuzz for having a dead car parked on the street, so i started casting around for a better place to work. one of my buddies tells me that his folks are selling their house, and we can use the garage to work in while the place is unoccupied (sketchy, yes, but that's how you do it when you're a greasy 19 year old). didn't let the fact that we had no trailer stop us either--borrowed my dad's pickup under some false pretense or another and tow-strapped the bumpers of the two cars together with, stupidly enough, the dead car in the rear. we grew up in the foothills, so we thought it was essentially a matter of coasting down to his folks' place with maybe light application of the semi-functional brakes. not so. i had a few new dents to explain to pops in the morning. anyhow, we got it there, and installed the whole drivetrain, tried to give it a test drive and realized we'd forgotten to install the pilot bearing. that was fun. i'd say that first attempt was a semi-success, but only because i rather not say semi-failure.

then there was the time we almost killed another buddy trying to bumper tow a '51 willys. the jeep had no brakes and the straps came loose on a hill with maybe a 10% grade. luckily the steering still worked so he was able to coast it into a sidestreet (on two wheels for a second or two) before he had a chance to meet his doom. but i digress.

 

This was my first build I started 52, never drove on the road buy drag raced in 55. Sold it in 59, bought a 34, raced that in 60 - 62 sold it. Bought the Terraplane in 85, put aboyt 5000 miles a year on it, still have.

 

to any first time builders out there..... MEASURE. MEASURE. MEASURE. MEASURE everything. MEASURE it twice. Ask someone else to MEASURE it. When you think you have it MEASURED right, MEASURE it again. Then check your MEASUREMENTS.
Then ask lots of questions and listen to the answers.
Make sure the people you're asking know more than you do.
And did I mention... MEASURE?
That said, my first build was stuffing a 455 Buick (free) auto(free) mopar rear, into a 66 corvair. Midships. Got it running, by reaching in and hitting the starter button. Never gave any thought to the seating arrangement, (although it had been mentioned). By the time I made all the sheet metal covers to keep me from the very hot everything, I DIDN'T FIT. Hell, the stock seats didn't fit.
Race seats wouldn't fit.
Finally gave to to somebody who thought even father out of the box than I did. He removed the windshield, re-shaped the bulkhead and planted his ass in the middle with some kind of chain driven steering set-up. Someone told me they saw him racing it at some outlaw eighth mile track somewhere. Said the set-up looked like a go-kart on steriods.

 

Nothing from scratch. When I was 16, I bought a theft recovered '55 Chevy Nomad. After I got it running, I traded for a '56 Chevy wagon that had a 394 Olds and Hydro. It was around 1966. Got married and forgot about cars until 1973. Bought a '55 Chevy as a daily (see avatar) then a '65 Chevelle has a race car. Then in '79, I restored a '68 Vette Roadster. My old roomate worked at the House of Corvettes, so getting parts was easy. It was a body on restoration. In '85. I restored a '69 Chevy C30 as a tow vehicle for my '62 Nova Race Car. Except for the '55 Nomad, I always finished what I started.

 

I guess I can't avoid giving you guys a chuckle or two about my first build.

Some of the details are a bit hazy as it was more than 50 years ago, but basically I had a collection of "stuff" that I wanted to turn into a car.

I had picked up a '36 Ford sedan - complete - for $50 (lot of money in those days) and I had a model A roadster body and grille shell. And I wanted to marry the two.

So I took the entire body off the '36 and gave it away to a buddy. Then tried to fit the A on the '36 frame. Ahhh, not such a great fit.

OK, out I go and buy a set of torches and rent some BIG tanks. Cut, hack and weld and before you know it I had the A body on the frame...sort of. A LOT of stuff got hacked up, including the closed driveshaft. My buddy said you cannot weld one of those with gas and expect it to stay together. Sure you can.

One Saturday morning at the (rented) garage, we got the thing running, complete with a leaky radiator. Of course this was the perfect time for the first test drive...so off my buddy and I go. This is in the city of Vancouver in a nice quiet residential area...no mufflers on the car.

We had only gone maybe 6 blocks when I hear a noise that sounds disgustingly like a police car siren behind me. No rear view mirrors either, who needs 'em if you are only driving forwards? Yessirree, it's the fuzz...well, since we are only a couple of blocks from the garage, might as well race it back there just for the hell of it.

The cops were not overly impressed with this display of stupidity, chased me all the way - siren wailing - until I drove the car back into the garage. It should go without saying that I got a ticket, but only for not having any plates on the car! That was pretty lucky actually.

Over the next few weeks I was getting more stuff done on the car when I got a call one Sunday morning from the garage owner saying that the garage was on fire! Lovely. By the time I got there the entire shebang had gone up in flames.

The fire chief asked me what the car was, so I told him. It turned out that he had owned an A about 15 years earlier.

So, not only did I manage to get a ticket and lose the car, but I had to buy the oxy/acetylene people new tanks to boot. A pretty exciting first build all round.

You'll be happy to know that it didn't stop me from building rods. But what a learning experience!

 

I learned, at the age of twelve, that throttle plate screws MUST be staked over on a carb rebild..... va-a-a-a-a---rooooom!!!

 

I think it was a success, Nothing jaw dropping but when i was 14 i bought a 1961 chevy van and restored it over a summer with an old hotrodders help, learned alot from that guy... including stay away from drugs (was great and talented guy, now he cant do much cause he got into drugs)... It was my daily driver until last year when someone decided they wanted it more than me and i sold it.. (Im 22)

 

My dad had some friends that ran dirt track race cars, and did junking to fund the racing. From an early age, I went along with him sometimes to his friends. As I got older (maybe 10-11) the guys sent me out to take stuff apart from the junkers, probably to get rid of me. By the time i was in high school, I had a lot of basic knowledge, and the school had an excellent auto shop. My first real job, at 15 1/2, was at one of the major auto repair service stations in town. By 16, I was doing tune ups and brake jobs at the station. I had worked on several major repairs well before i was out of school. There was a string of race cars, and performance Mopar street cars, yea, I was one of those guys.

I never had a street rod, and wanted one in the worst way, but of course I didn't have any money. A guy I knew found out I wanted a street rod, and knew a guy, that knew a guy, that had an abandoned street rod project. The word "project" was a very loose term for what I was looking at.

Before my eyes was a 35 Dodge, 2 door, trunkless sedan, or at least originally was one. Years before, the guy removed the body from the frame, and started chopping the top. The top was removed, and 3" was removed from all the pillars. The body was sitting on saw horses, and was not braced. At about that time, the guy was injured in an auto accident and was laid up for several months. At some point during the guys recovery time, his father tried to move the sedan body, but it broke and fell off the saw horses. After the accident recovery the guy and his father loaded the sedan body and all the other sedan parts on a trailer, and took the parts to a stone quarry at the back of their property and through everything into a pile. The "car" had been laying in that pile in the stone quarry about 7 or 8 years when I saw it. $75 got me the pile, the 35's frame, a complete cross torsion bar subframe, and a legal title in the guys name.

I had the vision, I thought I had the know how (I'd built several dirt track race cars), and i had a welder and torch. It was a street rod, and a Mopar to boot, and it was in my price range.

In a matter of days, I was hauling my prize home. I was stroked. My wife thought I'd lost my mind, but only said she couldn't picture the pile as being car. She said as long as it was what I wanted, it was OK with her.

It took me a couple weeks to sort through everything. Wasn't long before I knew the original frame wasn't going to work, the front had been hacked off and was too narrow for the cross torsion bar subframe, and the rear of the frame was almost rusted in two. There was no floor, or rockers from the rear seat kick up to the firewall. The doors were uncut, but missing everything inside. The cowl and firewall was separate from the rest of the body, and the back 1/2 had a little twist from falling off the saw horses years before. The sedan sat just off the drive for a few years while I figured out a plan.

A few job changes, kids were born, a few more race cars, and life in general happened, while the sedan sat and waited. One of the jobs that came along was at a small welding shop. The guy built trailers over the winter and did odd jobs year around. I was working for him for cash while I was trying to be self employed. One summer, he decided to go on vacation and ask if I would be interested in minding the shop while he was gone. He wasn't going to pay me, but any work I did would be my pay, and if i sold any steel, that money would be his. He mostly wanted to keep the shop open while he was gone. I jumped at the chance. I bought some 2" x 3" tubing from him, and used his trailer frame jig to build a frame for the sedan. I did the frame and got it rolling and even did a few small jobs that first week. He called me and extended his vacation another week. That week I brought the body parts in and welded them together and welded the body to the frame. The sedan had been waiting about 10 years since I'd brought it home. None of the body or body to frame was completely finished, I wanted to get it roughed in so i could work on it at home when and if time permitted. When the boss got home, he admired my work on the sedan. I managed to get a few more hours of work on it before I took it home a couple weeks later. A few months later, I had to get a real job.

A couple years later, The guy offered to sell me his welding shop. All he had to do was give me a price, I would have done it. Instead, he told me he was giving it to his son and I should work with him. I wasn't interested. A couple years later, the guy died, his kid didn't want to do little jobs, he wanted to build dump trucks.

A couple months after that, I opened my welding shop, part time, nights. I had a full time job, and did odd jobs at my shop nights. I took the sedan to my shop so I had something to do if it was slow. It wasn't very long before I had some people coming in weekly to see what I'd done on the sedan. Between actually doing work, and working on the sedan, the shop hours were growing longer. The shop was getting busier and work at the real job was getting slow. My day started at 5:30 am and finished at midnight. I was scheduling work in the shop 3 weeks ahead, and leaning on a broom for 8 hours every day at the job. The decision was made to quit the real job and work full time at the shop. At that point, the sedan was progressing well, so we entered the yet unfinished sedan in the Back To The Fifties show. I had 3 work bays at the rented building I was working out of. The sedan occupied the 3rd bay. If I had a few minuted of free time, it was easy to do something. I had a guy come in and want me to do a major floor repair on a 63 Impala. It was a big job that paid well, so I took the sedan home so I could work on the Chevy in that 3rd bay. That was Jan, 1995. After the Chevy was done, there were 2 more big projects the occupied the 3rd bay. It was March before the sedan came back, barely an enclosed car with out glass. It was a car that was entered in a car show, 400 miles away, in June.

The sedan became a priority, and some of those guys that had been watching the process stepped up and helped work on the car. It was an amazing transformation. I bought a running Chrysler 5th Ave that basically rusted in two for $100. That car provided a lot of parts for the sedan, including the motor, trans, steering, power windows, and much I'm forgetting. I had some guys that brought me some real deals on parts as I needed them. My wife and son were getting involved by then. When my wife got off work, she would drive home, pick up my son off the school bus, get us something to eat, and the two of them would come to the shop to help. They were doing all kinds of stuff. I would set something up they could do. When we finished eating, they would tackle the project laid out for them. About 8:30 or so, they would go home so my son could go to bed, and somewhere between 10:30 and midnight I'd be home.

June 9th was the first time the car ran and moved under its own power. I drove it up on the trailer to go get a windshield and rear window installed (custom cut & bonded in). It was back in the shop on the 11th. The show date was June 21. The car still needed wiring, seats, interior, front fenders and grill shell installed. There was an issue about where the battery was going to be located. Late nights, early mornings, helpful guys with great ideas, willing and able hands, and the parts I needed when I needed them. My wife and son, and sometimes, my daughter, and of course friends, all pitching in got the job done.

We planned of leaving for Minnesota Friday morning. On the Wed before, one of the local fast food joints had a cruise night. The first drive from the shop was to that fast food joint. The car was still unpainted, so it had several different colors of primer, some bare new steel, and some rust coated pitted original steel, and maybe even a few spots of the original black paint. There was no hood and no side windows, but it had plates, "35 DODGE". After the cruise in, I drove it back to the shop and checked everything over. I drove the car home that night (first time to use the lights) and back to work in the morning. Finished up a few little things, and checked clearances, and made sure nothing was rubbing or had any issues. Went home that night at 5pm and loaded up the car for the trip. The next morning we left for Minnesota, there was 40 miles on the car when we left town.

About a 1/2 hour up the road, (the longest time it had ran all at once) the power steering started oozing out of the cap, it was foaming up bad. Problem was, the power steering pump was on the top of the engine. Without a hood, that fluid flew right back on the driver side of the windshield. We stopped at a gas station, refilled the power steering, and cleaned the windshield. About another 1/2 hour up the road, the power steering purged itself on the windshield again. After another refill, and windshield cleaning we were back on the road. We were now on the interstate and discovered 2 more things. The speedometer (it was a SW 160 mph unit) was off about 30 mph, if we were doing about 65, it was showing about 100. (We happened onto the interstate right behind a state cop for a convenient speed check) and at interstate speed (after the cop turned off, about 110 on the speedo) the motor was pushing some oil out of the breather. The motor oil was hitting the passenger side windshield, compared to the ps hitting the driver side. By the way, after the 2nd refill, the power steering was no longer purging. After a stop to check the oil leak and determined if we kept it under 100 (speedo reading) it would be OK until we got home. The wife took over driving duty, I don't think she liked me swerving all over the road as I tried to stay awake. Instructions were simple. Keep it under 100 mph, and wake me up if anything doesn't seem right. I climbed into the passenger seat and crashed. At some time later, I woke up to a windshield covered with oil, and glanced at the speedo that was showing 130+. We were passing everyone on the road. The wife was motoring. I requested a stop at the next gas station, for a potty break. (I really wanted to see if there was any oil left in the motor.) It was only down about a quart. We cleaned the windshield (again), filled with gas, got something to eat, and did the potty break and made it to the show without much incident. At the show, we got a lot of rain. Remember, we had no hood and no side glass. We invested in some large garbage bags. One to cover the engine when we were not driving, and one to slip over the tops of each door trying to keep the seats sort of dry. We couldn't lock the car either. We had a blast!

The next week I brushed red primer on the car and made a hood. The motor had a plugged air breather for the pcv system, which was causing the oil leak at rpm. I screwed some plexi glass in the rear side windows and got some door windows made. Almost every week, I did some body work and primed it for every weekend. We drove the car 8,000 miles that first summer. The next winter the car got a fresh, well built, 318 and some refined body work. It wore gray primmer that year, and logged over 13,000 miles. The 3rd year the car was painted gray with white fenders and a white roof. We owned that car 7 years and put 66.000 miles on it. When I sold it, it was back in primer, black with orange & red flames. The car went to Iowa and a year or 2 after I sold it, I saw it was sold on Ebay. I don't know where it went from there.

It was replace with my 54 Dodge pickup. The 54 was a ground up build with a modified frame. We drove that one over 40,000 miles before I sold it to buy something else. Between the 35 and the 54, I mentored my son on a 55 Dodge panel van, then there was my 50 Dodge on the 80 4x4 chassis that was just wrecked in Oct. There was also a 47 Plymouth coupe that was my son's, a 39 Plymouth sedan that was my sons, he traded for a 70 Dodge pickup, The 70 is on a newer frame and currently has a big block Mopar sitting in it. The 70 is his current project, and is drivable, he is collecting parts to do a body & paint job on. My 54 truck was replaced with a 39 Plymouth business coupe that I just had to have. I sold it to fund a motor project in my 50 4x4, 4 or 5 years ago.

My current build is a 48 Plymouth business coupe mounted on a Dodge Dakota chassis. That one will resemble a mid 60s dirt track car, for street use. It currently moves under its own power and should be on the road this spring/summer, providing the state of IL cooperates.

I think most of my projects have been a success. Gene

 

Here is my sad sack story. On my summer vacation when I was 14 my dad and I bought a 51 chevy 5 window pickup for $250, then a running 81 camaro. 305, 4 spd, even had chrome wheels for $500. he let me drive it to his house and I literally scared the shit out of him!! My dad is not a car guy but grew up on a farm and is VERY handy! We tore into it. We used the subframe, went to a private wrecking yard and got some leaf springs off of a ford ranger to hang the camaro 10 bolt rearend. Then I stripped the frame with a wire wheel and painted it myself with napa chassis black. We fix the rusty floor, mounted the cab, hung the pedals, the steering column, and bolted the sheetmetal back together.

Then my spring break was over, back to my mums house, a ton of work in 3 months!! fast forward 10ish years I sold the truck for the $750 i had into it. Looking back all it really needed was wired and I could have drove it.

2 summers ago I bought it back as-is when I sold it. last year i threatened to tear into it but did not. maybe this year? only thing is know I want to change the suspension and drive train. what to do what to do?? I am 33 now and work on everybody elses hot rods everyday for a job. like a plumber with leaky pipes I am a auto body dude with no ride. I will try and scan some photos soon.

 

im still on my first build

im 24yo and back in feb 2011 decided i needed a challenge without knowing anything about welding or metal work i went and bought 2 x 38 chevy trucks

been fun 1st one is nearly finished it is a little rough but i know i made it so its like a ugly child the parents love it

biggest failure i had was with my steering was a "why are my wheels going right but i am turning left" moment.

all i can say is build it for yourself and don't give up.

before





as it is right now started her up for the first time last week was a great feeling!

 

wow that a good chunk of reading guys

 

dude, that right hand drive truck looks awesome... How hard would that be to do to a Left hander?