One of those once in a lifetime things "Hernia J"

I love hearing stories like this...........there are a ton more out there I'm sure.

I know I am looking for my needle in a haystack.

 

WOW Great story. Well the body is done so get er going and drive her

 

Great Story! I had a Caddy powered Henry J that I raced in A gas in Florida in 59-60. Great Memories.

 

Cool Story& Neat Car !

 

hell of a find

 

Mmmmmmmm.....Cross-Ram Wedge motor.
Lucky!

 

My co worker Tommy worked the track around that time. He remembers it. He said Tuff E Nuff as soon as I showed him the pictures. Hes really trying to remember who drove it...

 

Nice find Dave, and really nice to hear about a man with integrity. One who's going to keep to the agreement he made to the previous owner instead of going off and doing something else entirely. Way to go, Dave.

 

dave,

cool find and cool story (as if that hasn't been said a gazillion times already).

ssooooo, ya gonna rent a semi rig and bring a half dozen cars to MoKan next year? i looked for you this year and was disappointed when you weren't there.

 

this is getting INSANE. enough with these finds, people. im about damn crazy by now!!! hahaha damn nice find.

 

That's RAD!!

A friend of mine at work 'claims' to have recently drug home a Henry J ex-gasser. Straight axle, Olds or Pontiac rear, and a Hemi.
Says engine is missing the intake setup and there is a hole in the side of the block. It's stored at his dads house as he doesn't have a place to store it. I bug him about it all the time 'cause I DO have a place.
I even offer to haul it for him......I'm beginning to think he may be full of shit....but hey, ya NEVER know with this stuff!!!

Great find!!!!!

 

Amazing ....... the car looks SO MUCH like the Crosley Altered that i found a few years ago and sold it to 'SteveG' here on the HAMB.
Congradulations Mike.

 

wow!!

sounds like you will provide it a great home.......


is your father still around to look at it?

have/did you take the ole' fella a ride?

keep us posted....great story

 

well that pretty fuckin cool Dave.

 

Great find Dave!!! Hernia "J" too sugestive?? How 'bout the name of my HJ? "Hairy Cherry" I wonder what the track would have said about that.

 

What a great find. It's great to see these. Everytime a car like this pops up I wonder if it'll be the last. The way things are going.....seems everyone is chopping up history...literally.

 

same sentament but incert suedes/driven hotrod drags for hamb drags

sko

 

Man... that's COOL!

And the COOLEST thing about it is that it's not going to end up some POSER RAT OD GASSER that blub-blub-blubs around RAT ROD car shows...

You are gonna RACE it, right?
It would go against your grain to not HAUL ASS!
Sam.

 

kick ass ...nice little winter project

 

my naybor is goin to cry ;( his 63 dodge is missin that wedge...he has a 440 built and readyfor you if you want to let the broken piece's go away...we are close enough in north metro

pm me ?

oh ya i picked up a exracer henry j at the black smith lounge swap a year ago not as neato as you s...
paperdog

 

Very Cool David. Here's to hoping both of our cars are at the drags next year.

 

what a awesome car! I love J's, i'm glad that one is going to keep it's history! It looks like a real time capsule. Do you have more pics of the front and rear suspension?

 

dave, you're need a car hauler to get all your stuff down to mokan...

 

Dave, you'll do us proud. Great car with a ton of history. Congrats.

 

All Right Dave!!! Good for you! You are saving your pennys to run her at the next HAMB drags, right?

 

Congratulations man! It is always exciting to know that this still happens to people and I am all the more pleased with the fact that it went to someone who truly appreciates it for what it is and isn't going to try and make a buck off it. Right on dude.

 

The VW front end has either gotta go, or get some serious help. Rich told me the car never handled like it should have, had a nasty case of bumpsteer and wouldn't respond to the wheel moment like it should.

Its going back to "Hernia J", nothing would convince me otherwise to keep the other name.

As always when the question comes up in my mind, which is the proper way to restore an old race car like this. Back in the day, it was crude, wasn't all that fast, it's safety was questionable, and it was really outclassed even in 1968 when it was built. Don't get me wrong, I have some serious passion for this car, but I'm not going to romantisize history and say this car was something it was not.

Rich was serious about racing when he built this car, but he is the first to admit the car could have been built better and faster. In 1968 he was a rookie cop in chicago, and really didn't have the time, money, tools or skills to build a top competition car to run in A/Gas. Rich was already planning on upgrading the entire car when the motor got hurt in 1972. Race cars are in a perpetual state of change in the interest of going faster and being more reliable. I've talked it over with Rich, and the proper way to restore this car is to not restore it at all. My intention is to do just as Rich intended back in the 70s; fix what is wrong, make it better looking, cooler and faster. That does not mean updating it in any way, we can make this car go fast with technology from back then. We've had the benefit of 40 years of testing to find out how to set up a good combination, and I'm sure this car can run some damn good numbers with some minor tweaking.

I'm not really sure if Rich is in good enough shape for a road trip down to Mokan, but I'd really like to get him and the car down there next year. David

 

"fix what is wrong, make it better looking, cooler and faster. That does not mean updating it in any way"

You lost me there, buddy.

What's you gonna do to it?

Sam.

 

Ok, no modern parts on it.... Put the motor together, paint "Hernia J" on the side, put a 4:10 gear in the rear, and solve all those little issues like the tiny electric fuel pump not being able to keep up.

 

That would be cool.