History Making what you have work!

Yep, re-purposing is so much more important than recycling!

 

Hello,

Being in a hurry always has consequences. My wife and I were in our 20s and those times were known as the beginning of our simple lives and being together. That was what was important then. We have played with that concept for all of these years and it has worked. Do well with one another and the rewards are for the taking…

When we had finally fixed up the 327 powered 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery for full ease of driving and safety, we were all over the So Cal area. Visiting places and friends as well as our own families when there was a “family event.” But, we were the only ones interested in surfing, beach lifestyle and hot rods. Throw in a custom motorcycle and we were considered “weird” and sort of outcast

No one wanted a hot rod parked outside of their new suburban home, let alone a custom motorcycle on the curb. But, for us 20 somethings, that was fine. We lived a distance away from our old high school friends, the local cruising grounds and farther away from our own families, which was a good way to start our own independent thinking, lives.

Jnaki

My dad was always a stickler for being on time, as a matter of fact, my wife chuckles as the picture of my dad pacing out in front of our old Caspian Avenue house, when we were a little late in arriving at their house one time. She could not get over the concerned look on his face. 5-10 minutes seemed like a whole century away at the time, as we just held our laughs at the concern. Of course, our mom thought we got in an accident, etc.

What happened was that I had just finished detailing the sedan delivery. In haste to open the hood, check out any water drips on the motor due to “louvers” on the hood, I grabbed the chrome hood lever and raised the hood up. In a split second, the snap of the lever and hood crashing back down was an explosion heard around the quiet neighborhood. Now, what?

I could not get the hood open with the small left over chrome lever. So, I grabbed a small channel lock pliers and clamped it on to open the hood. It worked, so we were now ready to go and have access to the hood. No, I did not leave the channel lock pliers clamped on the broken lever. But, knowing that if I needed access to the hood or motor, there was a way.

Use what was in the tool drawer and make it work… we have been doing that ever since, with good results… YRMV

 

Funny, My grandfather used to buy buckets of nails. They were new but completely mixed. Start every project by dumping out a bucket of nails and sorting enough to do the job.
We set up a big table one winter and sorted them all.

 

Not mine, just saw it on the internet! But thought it was….funny…..cool…..dumb…not sure, but definitely different!




Bones

 

Used 40 chev taillights left over from my old 40 chevy coupe.

 

I ran a jobber welding shop for 25 years. Lots and lots of repurposed steel, and sheet metal over the years. Short pieces of cut metal can almost always be useful.
I've been retired for 4 years now, still using up some of the saved scrap, the pile is finally getting smaller.
Just a few things:
My shop fan is a blower motor & squirrel cage out of an old home furnace.
The legs and frame structure for my big work bench came from an old JD garden tractor delivery cage.
Helped my buddy recycle a $50 old flatbed trailer with a screwed up axle to be used as a flatbed for his pickup. The only thing he bought was new wood for the floor of the bed.

Recycling (repurposing) is a hot rod tradition, always has been. Hot rodders were the were among the 1st recyclers.

 

"Necessity is the mother of invention"

 

There is a wrecking yard outside of Forest Grove (at least it was still there 20 years ago) that has an old yellowed Polaroid pinned to the bulletin board of me and the missus. I actually had my own tool box there. The old guy took it because everyone always said he did not like hot rod kids.

We did not have much money back then and a 3 dollar fuel pump was closer to out pocket book than a 30 dollar one.

I do not do it much any more but scrounging the wrecking yard for hot rod parts was once a way of life.
As for using what ya got, I am not proud of it but I am the worlds worse to modify something in the shop to use it on a whatever car or bike.

 

My old Sedan Delivery...

SPREADER BAR; Stainless handicap bathroom grab bar (Home Depot)

HEADLIGHT BAR; Threaded rod covered with chrome sink supply line (Ace Hrdware)

TURN SIGNALS; 1950s Schwinn bike fender lights

HOOD ORNAMENT; Novelty pen, chrome cat

AIR CLEANER COVER; 1938 Ford hubcap


TAILIGHT HOUSINGS; Stock taillights mounted inside cut down desk lamps (Lowes)

HEADER PANEL made from section of vinyl rain gutter (Lowes)

 

Yep, those bed frames are HARD

Ben

 

That reminds me of back on my farm. I had a double snowmobile trailer that wound up with a bad axle. I used the trailer bed as a flatbed on a truck I had, it worked out great and my son used it to haul his quad to the dunes.

 

bed frame metal is a valuable commodity among DIY'ers

 

Where I worked I was in charge of "getting rid of the old junk". Being a university, with a mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and physics department, you can imagine all kinds of neat stuff came home with me. A lot of stuff got used by me, or given away to mates with projects. When I started running out of steel, I had to think about where to buy a length, it seemed strange to not have a piece that I needed in the pile. My Grandpa used to keep everything, bent nails, bits of wood, the lot. I don't think he went to buy anything from a store very often.

 

"Necessity is a mother..."

 

Use it up , wear it out , rebuild it , repeat

 

I can remember my grandfather straightening out nails on a cement block, back when I was a kid! But to his defense, he did raise eight kids through the Great Depression!




Bones

 

Not an example of re-purposing things but more about DIY stuff in general. I know on many occasions I've spent most of the day making a bracket or two that I could have bought for $8 or $12 out of left over material lying around. Reduce-reuse-(and if all else fails) recycle.

Years ago someone asked me if my T roadster was a "kit" car from somewhere. Before I could say anything a friend quickly said " No, he built it from the ground up, like it's supposed to be done" No doubt, one of the nicest compliments I've received.

Lynn

 

Horse shoe welded into the fender strut to gain clearance for the second carburetor.

 

I have a bent trailer axle that I've used for years to roll cars around when suspension is out. Chain it to the frame or springs and use a bolt to tighten the chain.

 

I haven't had to put my MacGyver skills to the test yet, but I remember my dad used to work at a place that made thread gages. When he made a trailer from an old Coke machine he made the fender and rail mounts from aluminum hexagon gage handles.

 

First time ever working with them. I replaced the edge bed strip using a bed frame rail.

Then I made another small project & needed to drill some holes .... found out how hard they are.



When I assemble the bed, I still need to drill 7 holes on each bed frame to mount the sides.

 

Sometimes making something else work is the only option. Not always about saving money, or wanting something hand made. Sometimes it's the only way you will get the part you needed!
When I bought my '39 Chev I got all but one garnish molding. I figured no big deal until I also discovered my coupe had sliding 1/4 windows, and the openings were smaller than all other Chevy '39 coupes are! And impossible to even find! I ended up having to buy a standard garnish molding for the driver's side, and then cut it up into pieces, and section it to shrink it 1" in height, and length! Then cut the relief for the slide operator to make clearance also.
It was sort of a fun project, but tedious to weld back together with my mig welder, and keep it all straight, and not blow holes.






And my latch mechanism for the trunk lid was gone, and couldn't find one. So salvaged an old truck canopy latch and operator, and built adapter plates to make it fit my '39. Works great, and lockable too.

 

Brooks rods out of a friend of a friends Super modified pulling tractor, for steering box mounts, my friend Tim machined the big end to fit.

 

Steering column to steering wheel transition made out of a desk lamp shade and a tach cup made from a stainless Q-Tip dispenser and some scrap steel:

 

As an extension of this thought, I went to work for Rockwell in late 1984 on the B-1B production flight test program. I was interviewed by the department manager, he read my resume and asked lots of questions. He also mentioned a shift manager that I might enjoy working for. They hired 20 of us mechanics initially to start the production program. Within a week, I realized that all of us were hot rodders to some extent or another. I talked to the shift manager and asked him if he deliberately hired hot rodders. He, himself had been a hot rodder since the early 50s, ran at the lakes, drag raced, and raced sprint cars at Ascot until they mandated roll cages, ( quit then, because he and his partner thought cages were for sissies!). He replied that he picked hot rodders because they could take parts that never belonged together and make them pass for factory. He and I became best of friends that lasted for some twenty years, until his death. Built and ran our hot rods everywhere. Just one example was when we had two days to deliver the first airplane to the Air Force and found a torn drain hose on one of the retractable fuel cooling scoops on the backbone. It was a cheap hose that looked like someone had cut a long finger off latex glove and clamped it on. Real junk. We ordered one and it arrived the night before delivery. Opened the package and the new cheapo hose was torn! So, I went up and looked at where it had to go, and the size of the hose nipples it connected to. No time to order another one and hope it was okay. I was the mechanical supervisor and the electrical supervisor and I went into the parking lot to look a hoses on our cars. Viola! It just happened the the electrical supervisor's Honda Civice had a PCV fresh air rubber hose the exact diameter and curve we needed. Off came the hose and back to the airplane we headed. I gave the hose to the mechanic I assigned to the job, told him to wash it very well and trim it carefully to fit. Then see it to inspection and install it on the airplane. He said that inspection would never buy it because it wasn't an aircraft part. I told him to give it a try since this was a new airplane and most people had never seen a fuel scoop water drain tube, and we sure weren't going to tear apart the other side of the airplane to compare. Sure enough, he cleaned up the hose, trimmed it to size very carefully and presented to inspection for an okay to install. The inspector looked at it and since it looked right (and didn't have any Honda identification on it) gave his okay to install it. Once installed, the same inspector signed off on the installation. The airplane flew off the next morning to Dyes AFB. That was 1985 and if that airplane is still flying, I expect that hose is still functioning! Although it would be funny if it wore out in service and the mechanic replacing it found a cheapo latex glove finger hose in the package and complained about what a crummy replacement he got! Just another "use what you have" situation and a couple of hot rodders saving the day, maybe even a few decades. Who knows.