how to build a T bucket for under $3000 book

Just got my ebook, well worth the price!

 

am i the only one who's ebook looks mostly like heiroglyphic dot matrix garble???

some of the pages are clearly typed, but most of it is almost unreadable on my screen.

 

Have you tried altering the size of the page on your screen? That worked for me, but it still looks like a mimeograph.

 

Chester,

I have your book published by Motorcar International about 1990. This is a bound paperback, not spiral wound. Love the book, and would have to be pretty desperate to give it up.
Glad to see you on the H.A.M.B. .... Welcome!
Dennis

 

I bought a second mag as a kid because I knew I'd want it around. I've still got it in the shop, I'll look for it for you.

 

Chet: I knew your were one of us ( crazies) from some of the stuff I read in the book .LOL Oh: I did use a lot of the things on bay bucket. Thanks

 

I kinda dig the look. At the beginning of the ebook, they say: "This eBook is from Chester’s scans of his original work. Just remember that in 1986 personal computer word processing didn’t popularly exist, so you get to enjoy the “old school” visuals of typewritten text and Kodak film snapshots. "

On this screenshot from the free chapter you can see some shadowing that came through from the scan, but still quite readable.

 

I kinda dig the look too, it brings back memories of blue ink on paper from when I was a kid, I loved that smell, but the crap used to rub off and get on everything!

 

I just forked over the 9.99 to have it in my collection of info. I'll need to remember to put it on a disk later.

Got it. It has plenty of info and and answers a lot of questions for a lot of guys who want to build a little rod with a tube frame chassis.

True somethings might be improved on or updated these days such as shortening a drive shaft but the whole concept of building an inexpensive rod is still there and ready to run with.
Finding a doner car with the proper engine, trans and rear in it. This means not going to crate engines R us but usually you still find a good running rig to donate those for if you hunt around a bit. It won't be a ZZ4 or a full on flathead but it will run you down the road as fast as you want to ride in the car.

There are bound to be a couple of guys headed to the steel yard this morning to get the tubing for a frame now that they spent a few hours yesterday studying the section on how to lay out a frame and make the cuts to get the most out a stick og tubing. For less than 150 bucks at today's prices and a day out in the shop you have a frame ready to go. In 1973 I think I had less than 50 in my frame including the cost of a half rack of Bud for my buddys who welded it up for me while I was working swing shift.

Good stuff and maybe it will get some of the "I can't afford to build a rod" guys thinking and doing.

 

I just got mine.Section alone on Radiator sizes is worth the 10 bux!!
JimV

 

I've caught a lot of flak on the radius rods. I originally made them as a temporary alternative to Hiem ends and cold rolled steel, the brackets and batwings are designed to accept either My idea was to get you rolling for under $3000 and let you replace the 'alternatives' when you could afford it. How many people have facilities in their home garage, or say, in the outback of Australia, to thread cold roll steel with an impossible to find tap? They would have to be farmed out to a machine shop where six radius rods and a drag link with 15 heim ends would set you back over $1000. I was fighting to produce a roadster for under $3000, an unheard of, unbelievable price even in 1986. My radius rods could all be built for under $20. We've gotten spoiled here in America where all things are easily available. My book was written for people all around the world who wanted to build a car with what they had on hand. In the outback of Australia, or down here in Mexico,or Siberia, cold roll steel and heim ends are about as available as a used rocket engine from NASA. But wherever you find a junk car or indoor plumbing you'll find tie rod ends and water pipe. Theadore Roosevelt once said: " The credit doesn't go to the critic who says 'it would have been better if this had been done like this... it goes to the man who is actually in the arena". The real problem with these radius rods was that they worked so good few people ever changed them. To my knowledge none of them ever failed. Like my dad used to tell me,"If it works, don't 'fix' it!" As far as the taper goes, I had a tool special made in a machine shop that I used to taper the holes on the rods I built. In the book I mentioned you could use a rat tail file to taper yours. You must have sneezed or something when you passed that part. Chester

 

I have that book and the plastic rings made it easy to take apart and get the pages photo-copied at the library. I used carbon paper to make several pattern copies so I could ruin some without damaging the book.
I built a T and enjoyed it for years thanks to the book.

 

There is a guy at the Autorama swap meet that has a fiberglass t-bucket body for $300.00 bucks!!

 

Just bought it. Cool stuff - I might even build a T-bucket just to do it.

And how much is Chester loving the HAMB?

 

I've already gotten my money's worth, just from this phrase: "Everybody says they're an expert arc welder, but most of them look like they're stacking chickenshit with chopsticks when they try to do it."

That's 10 bucks, right there.

 

Took some staring but it finally popped into view. I gotta believe its a cowinkydink!

 

Amen brother!

 

I love it when the original authors get rewarded and their readers do, too. I just ordered a copy.

 

I LOVE the HAMB! Did you see the post from 'Spooky' with a picture of his PINK garage? If that was in my neighborhood, I wouldn't walk past it unless I had a cork in my ass! I remember California. In 1962 I took my Army pysical in San Francisco. Remember that guys? Where they marched you in a room in your shorts, then told you to drop them and grab your ankles. Then a doctor with a silly smile on his face, rammed his finger up your ass. I bet he had a pink garage! Chester

 

If you stare at it long enough and try focus past it, you'll see a 3-D image of a T-Bucket come into view.

I just bought a copy. It's well worth the 10 bucks!

 

scanned it yesterday, maybe a few people will see it that hadn't had a chance to before. it was a winter 97 special issue.
http://wheelbilly.com/docs/budgetbucket.pdf

 

Thanks wheelbilly! More fuel for the fire!

 

thanks for the scan! now i'll re-read the scan another 1000 times.

the winter 97 is a reprint of the sept. 96 issue with 'predator' on the cover. i think it was a 39 chevy street rod with a chick model in 'safari' gear and a stuffed lioness. corny. i'll have that cover in my head for life.

 

i found that issue on ebay while looking to see if i could find what happened to the "budget bucket" haha. definitely corny. I have a stack of American Rodder's and stuff from the 80's-early 90's that dad's friend gave me, a lot of funny stuff there. I wish I'd have kept the older stuff.

 

If it's so "corny", why'd you buy 2 issues!!! Ha ha!

I'm stoked you guys remember the car, even if you don't recall "who" did...t'was me (Sep '96 SRM and the aforementioned one-shot from '97, which had that smog-legal '37 phaeton on the cover). I loved that little plastic T, despite the fact that it almost killed me...more than once, and it wasn't due to builder error (more like driver error!). It's in Japan now--and no, I didn't sell it to an exporter. A friend of mine traded me a couch and a few bucks (literally) for it about 2 years after it was finished. He threw a turtle deck on it, built an aluminum hood, and swapped out the oil-spewin' junkyard drivetrain.

R&C will be running a release on the E-release of Chester's book in an upcoming issue, by the way.

 

Thank You!

 

Just ordered mine.

 

The cover of the original issue is corny looking back, nothing about the car. That was "it" for me when I first got my hands on the winter special. I wrote a letter begging for a coupe/sedan build in the same vein, even got published in the 25th anniversary issue.
A couch and a couple bucks for a rod huh? I think I've got a couch in the house I could stand to get rid of, anybody want to trade?

 

funny,
i wrote brennan a number of years back to give kudos on the turn the magazine had made and referenced RF's article in that letter which was also published.

looks like i'm not the only one whom it had an impact on.

 

Ok I feel better now, that's my favorite car mag too! What a great issue that was. I learned how to do C-notches from that one too. I still have the same worn out old copy of that mag kicking around the house. My folks thought I carried it around 'cus the chick on the cover (that didn't hurt either!) but it was really because I read and reread that article so many times, and still do to this day. I still think that was one of the best magazine articles ever how cool was it to see a car built from the ground up in one magazine and not drug out over a year or more. I still get bent when I think about magazine car builds that just end with no warning or conclusion lol.....