Projects New Daily Driver - Squarebird

Looks mean with the blackwalls.

 

Jeff,
This is such a great picture to me - it checks a lot of boxes for me. The lighting- at the end of the day with the street lights having just come on. The nostalgia of a small town setting with an empty street and the old brick buildings in the background. And that is a fantastic look/angle of your T'bird.

If that white van and the black SUV weren't in the frame, and the picture was black and white, you might think it was 1960 in middle America. Really well done.

 

Not good enough to remove the offending van but blacked it out.

 

@loudbang made me have to try my hand at it too. I got rid of both the van and the car (sort of)...

 

Needed to go pick up a car that my brother bought yesterday, so had my oldest son drive the car back home. As is the case with most of us, I rarely get to see my car driving from a perspective other than behind the wheel. So, got a pic going through town following it.

 

So, seems my brother finally let the cat out of the bag on what he bought... So, I guess I can post it here too since anyone that has been on the HAMB for long will likely recognize it. Not related at all to this thread other than a follow-up from my previous post.

 

Schweeeeeet!!!!!

 

I,m surprised that Bob actually sold something!!

 

Yea, I was surprised too. He actually sold it a couple years ago to a friend of mine that buys and sells. The car kind of disappeared since then because of that. My brother was looking for something similar when Bob's car came to mind...so, they were able to work a deal.

 

So, trying to get the bird ready for a road trip up to Springfield, MO Friday morning to go hang out with some of my closest friends at the SWMO Hot Rod Hundred. Anyway, since I hadn’t looked into rebuilding the window motor and really wanted the passenger window to go down, I put a wanted ad in the HAMB classifieds. A couple days after I put it out there, @mr.chevrolet replied that he had a couple used motors. He made me a great deal and they just showed up today. I unpacked them, pulled my door panel back off and plugged one in...to find it works like a champ! I’m in business and may even have a spare now! Anyway, definitely thankful to Mike for getting them to me quick with just a promise I was sending payment! He definitely helped me out!!! So many great folks here on the HAMB!

 

So, seems every year at this time, I am getting a car ready to head up to Springfield. This year, I decided to get two ready, the Fairlane and the Thunderbird. Since all three of my kids still at home turned 16 and a couple are driving, seems taking a couple cars sounds like fun as well as gives us a parts runner if there is any issue along the way. Gives me an excuse to get them both cleaned up a little and fix the short list of stuff they both need as well. My brother told me I could take his Buick, but I will catch a road trip for that car in a couple weeks when we meet him somewhere between Oklahoma City and Detroit...

So, I have spent the last couple nights going over them making sure they are as road ready as possible. The only thing I really had to do to the Thunderbird was replace that window motor and clean it up good. @straykatkustoms tried to tell me that running wide whites on a daily wasn't a great idea and after a week of driving in the rain, I am starting to see that...

Anyway, I will try to get a few pics along the way and I'm sure there will be several pics around of the event itself. Sounds like we will have over 200 pre-64 cars again for the run and appears the weather forecast is about perfect, so there may be even more than we expect.



Oh, and a pic of the awards I am hauling up there since I thought they were pretty cool too. Two are for SWMO and two for Wisconsin, but you get the idea... We had Alan Childers that works at Steve Cook Creations and has become a good friend do some cool sharpie art on them.

 

ehh....if the white walls aren't dirty the car is sitting too much.

 

What a kool picture. I'm not right, I'm just to lazy to have wide whites on a daily driver. Thin whites are a lot easier to keep clean and just a little bit cheaper. The advantage of driving a late fifties early 60s Kustom.
I'll see ya this weekend.

 

Good point! That isn't the case here...

 

You want me to let you in a new addiction that I have. Painting your fender wells white. Years ago Jeff Myers got me started and it makes a difference. It also makes your white walls pop. Even when they are dirty.

 

.....and if you think whitewalls are fun to keep clean.... lol

Actually the ones on the Chevy haven't been too bad to clean...harder to get my hand in there than the actual cleaning. Ha

 

LOL...I could always do the upholstered pieces...then just replace every now and then. The Buick came with new spares. Maybe I won’t tell my brother.

 

My son and I will be at the HRH Saturday. We'll look you up.

I was doing a thrash on an OT truck that we were allowed to register that included my first attempt at rebuilding an automatic trans, but I have no reverse, so I'm throwing in the towel on that one for Saturday. I assume I have a piece of trash in the valve body based on how it is acting.

We will be running with Leevon, more than likely in his Safari.

 

BTW...that was a nice way of telling me I need to give the inner-fenders some attention Mick @straykatkustoms . Lol

 

Good deal other than having to give up on the transmission. Looking forward to meeting you in person. I didn’t know Lee had a Safari. Looking forward to checking it out too.

 

I wont tell him....

Lol! Your funny, that hadn't crossed my mind at all. But now you know why I only take pictures behind the wheel and you see nothing but the dashes. My cars are always dirty.

 

Dirty cars have the best stories!

 

Well...nothing like a last second brake job on the rear brakes that seem to be WAY undersized for this car. I just replaced the pads a few months ago after what appeared to be an issue with a slide not moving freely. I assumed after making sure everything worked good, I had the issue fixed. Anyway, I had to run to town this evening to pick up some drinks for the ice chest when I heard a dragging noise in the rear. I pulled it apart when I got back home to find one of the pads completely worn out...on the opposite side this time! Thankfully, I found the problem before we left and also thankful I happened to keep the 3 pads that were still decent I took off since they had to be ordered last time. So, back in business for now, but I didn’t have much good to say about someone taking the original drums off to “upgrade” to this tonight... Thinking swapping back to drums may be in my near future on the nine inch.

Leaving early in the morning and will try to post a few pics from the trip.

 

Looking forward to hanging out with all you hoodlums this weekend.

 

Made it to Tulsa so far..

 

Take me back to Tulsa, I'm too young to marry!

 

Made it to the world famous headquarters and manufacturing facility of Bret Chrismer Mustache Wax otherwise known as 40Fordville in Springfield.

 

A couple more pics before the work begins later stuffing bags, and eating pizza tonight, getting everything prepared for in the morning.

 

Headed home...



And, one from a breakdown during the run. The 35 lost it's electric fuel pump, but we were able to run to the store and get it back on the road to finish the 100 mile run.

 

Well, we made it back home last night. No real issues with either car other than the rigged up stabilizer mounts on the bird where it attaches to the core support. I meant to get that fixed before the trip, but figured it has been rigged for a long time and hasn't caused much issue yet. I did replace the end links on the a-frames, but need to make some better brackets and source some rubber isolators. However, during the run, my son called and said it was making a clunking noise in the front end. The one rubber isolator that was sort of correct had worked it's way out of the mount to where there was a good opportunity for it to make noise. Anyway, great trip overall and I will fix the stabilizer bar this week now. Not sure I have seen any pics of the event itself here on the HAMB, but know there are several that took pics. My oldest son took about 150 or so and only really focuses on HAMB-friendly cars, so maybe I can post some of those after I get them off the camera.

A few more pics from the trip. No one tell my daughter that I posted a pic of my co-pilot.