Customs Project creep, is it just me or does it happen to everyone?

Yep. I would rather have stock unmolested car vs. a recent street rod overhaul.

 

^^^ This-I have done many 40 Fords over the years and have learned the hard way on some. Try to buy an unmolested roller and go from there. Lots of work but no shoddy stuff to redo. Have passed on some that looked OK until you really started looking deeper. Have seen a few that guys bought and brought over for me to help them with minor issues. Lots of substandard work etc. Some were complete off the frame redos to make right. A couple had M2 front ends that were scary! Bubble gum welds,cobbled steering shafts etc etc. Some were done by supposedly competent shops. Out they came and back to an axle done properly.

 

Here is how it works for me, in 2000 I found a 64 Fairlane 500 two door sedan 289 c4 with 50 k on the clock, I had wanted one for 25 years and this one was in a garage across the street. It had sat for so long that I did a rering heads mild cam headers shelby intake etc along with a set of 3.80 gears and a Detroit locker for the axle. Over the next three years I did a paint job and took it to the track, my sixteen year old daughter raced it off and on for three years.
She ran 14.0s @ 99 mph.
Over the next ten years I collected parts for a good motor and it started with a crankshaft I perchance working a the Ford dealership, its was a 289 crank with only a parshal part number identifying it as a Ford crankshaft, it had been at the delarship since before 1972 and it was mine for 25 bucks. Over the years H beam rods 200cc RSH heads a 83 302 block custom 360 gram pistons Comp rockers and a Comp mech flat tappet cam were collected and finally assembled then dynoed, the snotty little stinker made 455hp and 445 ftlb of torque. This was in 2012 so now for the last seven years I've been collecting the parts to support my 292 CID monster. I dicided to use a 8.8 rear axle and had Quick Performance in Ames Iowa do the work 3.73 gears track lock 31 spline 9" ends strange yoke custom axles I'm all in for a grand. This will have 11" disks and be bolted to Calvert monoleafs, the front is basically stock with 11" disk brakes, wheels will be 15x8 and 15x4 painted body color with the stock dog dish caps. It took me ten years to put the motor together and another seven to collect the parts for the chassis so hopefully next year its balls to the walls and it can be rolling again.
If and when the car gets done it goes to the daughter that made her first pass down a drag strip with her dad sitting next to her, he made her where a helmet and it messed up her hair, but that has to be one of the best days of his life.

 

In 2003 ,I started a "6 months " quicky build on a lakes modified.....8 YEARS later ,in 2011 , I finally got to drive it..

 

When I bought my Comet, it was going to be just a cheap car to have some fun with. Its by no means any kind of restoration, but still, one thing lead to another......three years later, it's back on the road. I bought a slightly OT International pickup a few months ago and I told myself, and my friends, that this isn't going to be another Comet. What was supposed to be a couple weeks worth of work to get it going, and not much extra money, is already adding up, time and money. Pulling the pan off tonite, that'll lead to who knows what......

 

Check the pan for Babbitt metal, the V-8 cam bearings will shed the Babbit metal.

 

My car was a blank canvas when I got it, untouched from the day it rolled off the assembly line except for the rat-nest wiring it had... RIPPPPPP... gone. It was missing a lot of stuff that I was able to track down, so everything went back together clean and painted, done right. Not much worse than inheriting someone's cob-job and having to make it right again.

 

One of mine started out as a small repair to the steering box on a '29 Model A. I removed the wheel, column, & steering box and made the repair. With the column mast was out, I decided to repaint it. After the repaint, the rest of the car looked crappy and I decided to fix up a few other things. Four years later and several thousand later, I fell out of love with it and sold it, managing to lose my shorts in the deal. That was the one & only time I get slowly sucked into a build.

Unfortunately, NOT the last time I lost my shorts in a car deal, but that's another story........

 

The creep thing never happens to me! I usually get it half done and up and running, and it never quite gets finished. If it breaks down then I'll fix it right. Makes no sense to me.

Next time I'm going to get one somebody started and maybe I'll get 'er finished.