Hot Rods Crude modification picture thread

I have a real love for early modified parts. Taffy dropped axles, hammer welded parts etc.
My feeling is that with the evolution of this awesome creative hobby we have gone towards a modern fabrication standard. Its not that this is necessarily bad just not necessarily authentic. People are building awesome cars and with the ease of posting online now people document these builds and push the bar higher.
I honestly believe chassis and bracket fabrication has been pushed to a new level by people showing how the sausage has been made rather than presenting the finished car nowdays.
That being said they're a something beautiful about early crude modifications. I feel like this is the heart of the tradition. Ill kick off with a model A crossmember that had the early motor mount removed by drilling a trillion holes.
Pre mig welder in every garage. Pre 4 1\2 dewalt angle grinder and plasma cutter. This shit took heart. You had to want it. Lets document this stuff.

 

Stole this from a thread on here about an old hot rod. Guys name on here is JNKYARDDOG_1. B model truck found with this axle. This is what prompted me to post. My love of this early stuff that got these cars on the road. No frills. All business.

 

Most people seeing that pic will miss that the beam has been hammered on an anvil, to drop & stretch it. Some of the modern builders here, would, and have said that "taffy axles" like that are shitty.

Here are the 1950s homebuilt Olds Rocket headers on my 32.

Back story here is that a late friend and I cleaned out the basement of a guy who raced his 37 Chevy coupe with Olds engines in the 50s, and he was very proud to say his name is listed in "Cool Cars~Square Rollbars" as a class winner at an airport drags in Mass in the late 50s.

Ok, we bought everything (LOTS) except a set of fenderwell headers he and a friend built from premade flanges. He went on to say how they did not have an arc welder, so they brazed the pieces together. I was going to pass until he seemed a bit hurt that we did not want them, so I bought them instantly to show respect I guess.

So, we hauled all of it up the cellar stairs to the driveway and then I saw all these holes:

^^ I asked Tom "why did you guys spend so much time drilling holes as it couldn't have saved much weight?" He said " No, not to lighten it, it was because the brazing stretched out the flanges, and the bolts would not line up, so we drilled holes and hammered down on the flange from one end to shrink the length!!!

I "just had to use these" due to 50s east coast drag history, and his handiwork. The brass has not let go yet. I did have to make new collector tubes from a 35-37 Ford driveshaft, as his would never fit my build.

here is one more, but from the 40s? a rear end in my 34 LaS...they wanted a better high speed gear for the desert area where this rear end came from..it must be tough if the closest stores are 100 miles away. They found a ring and pinion from some other car, but the pinion was too short, and had the wrong bearing sizes, so they brazed on the donor front snout of the other meatball.

 

yes, we are more than spoiled with the ready access to the tools, parts, computers, etc that we have now -but, what those guys would have given to be in our position - today RR rides are mocked for sticking parts together that are not always easy to look at - but, some are truly trying to do things how they were done in the past - of course, not having the access to junk yards or empty lots full of old iron adds to the challenge

 

That rear end is an amazing example of "Take what you've got and make it work". pretty ambitious.

 

I should have kept The U.S.Mule II, it had so many low buck features, NOT crude, just resourceful. It set a National Record in class and Won the U.S. Nationals in 1965. The bends in the headers were pieces no longer that two inches all cut to fit and gas welded together. I'll find a close up photo. That hood was made from an aluminum shower stall.

 

I'm afraid I don't find rusty, butchered cars with torched brackets, saw blades, welded chains and holes drilled in everything to be very nostalgic or representative of the old cars I saw as a kid - running or in junk yards.
Even as a boy, I hack sawed, filed and sanded brackets, gas welded/brazed up unwanted holes and used whatever I had or could get for Coke bottle money. To this day I just don't get wasting man hours and money building - junk. Some aspects of old time hot rod building are gone for very good reasons.

 

^^^^^^^^^^ There is a big difference between stuff done back in the day and modern day copies. I kept the stick weld spatter on the Lyndwood rail built in 1959. The car was a Record Holder in its class with the spatter, I just didn't think I had the right to remove that historical detail. Bob

 

There sure is and nope, I wouldn't have either.
But if that was my Dad or me building it back then I probably would have filed it off before painting it.

 

Not subscribed!

 

Adam

I feel the same way, the soul of a car is the means in which is was built. Tools and techniques have evolved but I still like making my stuff the old way, saws and files.

 

Home built " the right way and home built the wrong way". A big difference in technique , experience and attitude.

 

I love this......pics or it didn't happen...
A somewhat unusual period Hotrod...

Reverse angle chop, often debated Grille/body Combination and of course the lovingly installed front suspension.

It ain't a beauty but not all of the period was all things beautiful...I thank the Photographer for capturing this and of course the Owner for just being a Hotrodder.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...genized-hotrods.1002926/page-63#post-12538546

Credit to Photographer, Owner

​

 

There's also Rod Shop built the right way and the wrong way...horror stories also evolve from that part of town too.

The Ole Quick N' Dirty...indeed but I believe @adam401 is talking crude but functionally correct...

 

i love this thread. I have an 35-40 frame that I will be fixing for my coupe that was used as a drag car way back when. Ill get some pics of the "reinforcing" they did.

 

No respect for butcher work. This type of thread has been deleted in the past.

 

"Aim low" has never been a very inspirational call.

 

some of you missed a short but important few words when Adam started this thread.

...and a few of us on Hamb recall that 50 years ago, as blue collar teenagers we had so little to work with except dreams & determination, and no "instant" help from the internet when trying to figure out how to make something work...

I would not trade those heartbreaks, setbacks, and those memories for anything, because it made us what we are today...thinkers, builders, creators, not some 1-800 assembler.


I feel blessed now that hard core follower of the old ways just moved across the State Line to my town.. When Adam gets the coupe going, we'll go out and rip up the roads.

.

 

Thanks F&J. I can tell you get where I'm coming from. I think I've been a little misunderstood by a few that have posted.
You know when you see an early built car and you can tell its an old build. Like the split wishbones don't have catalog weld in bungs but are built with early tie rod ends. Lakepipes built from early torque tube parts. Brackets made from other parts and pieces that don't look like a tig welded piece of jewelry.
Ever see an early chopped custom without the lead applied? Miles of gas welding scars and the roofs aren't made of English wheeled panels but the parts of the original roof reconfigured and stitched back together.
I think tig welders and English wheels are awesome. I think awesome cars are being built these days. Its ok that we don't all agree though this really wasn't meant to be a debate.

 

Exactly

 

Look thru any of the “little books” and you will see exactly what he means.

 

It is pretty interesting.
I've seen old builds that scared me (cross member was cut too short so they welded some bolts to the side of it to shim it out to the frame)
And other ingenious things like reusing parts from one place to another, and almost looked like they were supposed to be. Like the old stand by connecting rod for a steering column mount on a Model A.
Looking forward to pics

 

How about a home made shift linkage and pedal in a vintage stock car?

Left handle 1st/rev.
Right handle 2nd/3rd

 

That's really cool Robert

 

I can really appreciate some of the ingenuity that went into building “gow jobs” or “ hot iron” back then when aftermarket and performance parts did not exist. The tolerances and tooling just was not there at the time. They are / were not rat rods, they were not purposely built like shit.
This was cutting edge and innovative back then.

It’s like anything person A does it first, now person B has a benchmark and if they are worth there salt will strive to make it better then person A.

And this is how hot ridding and customizing has evolved into tig welded art, precision parts and better and better engineering at every corner.
Even when we say we are building a “ traditional rod” it’s not “trad” as we make allowances for better tooling, better parts , more knowledge that’s around now then ever before.

I remember reading an article a few years ago some one toured Vern Tardel shop and he had a few “ primitive “ hot rods out back that are so old and built so long ago that trying to build something new with them would be a waste of time as just so much is “ wrong” with how it’s built ..... by today’s standards that is.

Butchered and rat rod is one thing. Building something 50-60 years ago with the knowledge, tools and parts available back then is commendable, doing it now a days is just stupid.

 

As mentioned,look through the little magazines and while there are true show cars a LOT of the cars from that day were built by folks who did what they did with what they had.
These were vehicles that were modified and driven even if not everything was done.
Want to build a traditional hot rod like they were back in the day? Stick weld a C-notch and don't grind off the extra material. Use flex tube for exhaust pipe. Read a article on how to drop a axle at home with a torch.There are more examples.
Too may cars these days don't see the street unless they are perfect,IMHO.

 

I'd say the opposite is also true.

 

Growing up around dirt track racing in the late 60's these sort of modifications were normal.
Most cars were owner/driver and built from what they already had, and modified with a gas torch and welder.

I've seen chains welded to suspension to limit travel, 12 gal drums welded to tractor seats to make bucket seats, welded diffs, etc.
And a fire suit was cotton overalls [coveralls]

Nowadays the car builder/ crew chief and the driver are 2 different people [requiring 2 different levels of skills]

 

90F6C900-93C7-4466-A123-0AECDEE34E06 by KFC posted Oct 29, 2018 at 4:36 PM

Frame on frame step on the chassis of my 34, reinforced with chequer plate. It’s being kept but the gas welds are getting re done

 

True a lot of what we might call low buck cars were a bit on the crude side back then but they were NOT DELIBERATELY CRUDE in that was all the skill and or rod building knowledge that the builder had at the time. Most were still far safer than these slapped together rat rods we see now. The stick welds weren't ground smooth but they were solid welds, the threaded ends of tie rods welded to the split bones, that's just the way it was done. A piece torched off and not ground smooth? Guilty as I never saw a 4-1/2 inch angle grinder before some time in the 90's that I can remember. My buddy could cut something off with a torch that looked like it had been done with a saw though. He also welded my T bucket frame with a Lincoln 225 stick welder and I don't remember doing much to the welds as his welds with that stick welder are prettier than a lot of guys mig or tig welds. Plus I think we decided that grinding them would hurt the strength.
I worked in a shop that backed two dirt track modifieds and true those cars held track records and won more often than not but were damned crude by today's standards.