I have been lurking here for a couple of years and I finally registered so I could post this thank you for all the great information, stories and pictures I have seen on this site. What people see here is invaluable. Many of us have talents but lack the knowledge to see some of our projects through. This site has been an incredible database to me and my friends. Thank you. My name is Garran. I have had an obsession with cars since I was 7 years old. That passion allowed me to live my dreams. In the beginning I helped any friend with any car project. Then I started helping race teams in my spare time. I worked on everything from class winning off road teams to championship winning drag boats. The 90's led me to working on a Top Fuel Dragster driven by Ron Capps. When the owner stopped racing my real lucky break happened; I was hired by Dick Lahaie to work for Kalitta motorsports. It's a hard life but very rewarding. One year I only spent 20 days in my own bed, travelling for the remainder. In many years there at Kalitta Motorsports I worked on Connie's, Scott, and Doug Kalitta's car doing everything from building engines, to welding and machining parts on the car. We won lots of races and I got to hang out with the guys I considered to be automotive gods. The things they taught me were invaluable. All good things must finally end so I retired to spend more time at home with my wife. This created even more race opportunities as I started doing "fly in " jobs to help out teams that needed experienced help on raceday. This allowed me to work for Big Daddy Don Garlits when he came out of retirement in 2001 and help out Ed "The Ace" on Prudhommes funny car too! I still do some occasional work in the pits when asked but I have been very busy building cars for people. Most of these cars are things most HAMBers would hate because of the trick paint and billet stuff....but I can't throw stones at them. Thats what puts the food on my table. My love is 30's traditional coupes but I love anything nostalgic. All the guys I grew up with were twice my age and had old cars. I helped a friend with a 33 hiboy coupe over 26 years ago and never got past it. I recently worked over an old hot rod that I found on the internet. I wanted it to look like a real early hot rod. The chop was done awhile ago but I filled the roof, made all the glass operational, drilled and rebushed an old I-beam that was chromed in the 60's, converted the generator to 12V, made my own wishbones frt and rear from four different sets and angle sleeved them all, converted some original ford hubs to Buick finned drums, tore apart 2 1940 banjo rears to build one good one with a v-8 quickchange, tore down the 59AB flathead to do a quickie rebuild since the "high dollar" rebuilt flathead had .150 ring end gaps and new valveseats that were never ground after they were installed. I am currently building another to take this ones place after the summer since I just honed the cylinders, re-ringed,did valve-job, replaced valve springs (had 3 that only had 60 lbs on the seat) I did a t-5 trans conversion because the old top loader I had kept jumping out of gear and generally just sucked, I collected a ton of old original parts and pieces to put the car in its current state. The car has original Edelbrock heads (I heli arced for over 10 hours to restore them to useable) and a really great 4 deuce manifold with 4 stromberg 97's that I also had to rebuild. Most recently I built my own headers for it and put on some original guide headlights. It doesn't look like it but I put over 400 hours of labor into it in the last 6 months. Here's some pictures. Thanks for all your help.
u r full of crap i saw that car get put togather and i helped u got it in fresno ca that car had the best moter anyone can do to it "WAS" a bad ass car and the man that bilt that car is the most cooles guy i know dont get me wrog it is a cool car but thar was alot of love put into that car so wach what u say
welcome, i remember that car on e bay some time back. buy it now 15.000. john fordman i believe, fresno ca.
The Jalopy Journal
