The last Grasp Special '34 3 window build

didn't load an image of my vurtual cake for you, sorry...

 

Me too! If you just told me you wanted to put a '38 Willys hood on a '34 Ford coupe, I would have told you you're nuts, but seeing it, it looks great! Has a very racy, competition look, I really like it.

 

Happy birthday Tony. Hope you have a great day mate.

sent via classroom note. pass it on

 

Happy Birthday Tone, relax chill and have nice family day...

 

yeah like GaryD says enjoy your special day

 

Happy birthday Tony....feels like yesterday when we had the campout for your big 50...All the bast...Jeff

 

Happy birthday Tony.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

Thanks guys I am very grateful to have friends, that stick by me through thick and thin . I had a real nice afternoon with my grand children coming over. They all gave me gifts it was a special time for me, the pain just went away for a few hours. Geoff the boys loved the 1940 coupe, they also loved the cards that Margaret gave them. Spencer Jude and Zoe said thanks . I also want to say thanks for looking after me Geoff and Margaret I had a good time............Tony

 

Glad to hear you had a great day, happy birthday........(Late as usual!)

Doc.

 

Another late one to say glad you had a great day and good to ear the pain went away even if only for a short time.

 

Hey Tony, I am glad you had a nice time on your birthday with all your family.
I have uploaded a number of images, but still a lot more to go before I am ready to do the posting from the last couple of weekends and last week.
But here is a couple of shots from around '59.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

Are the mags still on the roadster? Not sure if I like it or not (I thought it was perfect the way it was). I may have to see it in person to appreciate it properly.

sent via classroom note. pass it on

 

Tony,

Happy Belated Birthday, seems to me you spent the week before celebrating and enjoying life.

 

Happy belated birthday Tony, it was good to chat briefly in the campsite at Newstead last year, we were camped not far from you, maybe we'll cross paths again,

Cheers

Glenn

 

I know Tony checks this thread out every morning.
Hey Tony, this time last week we were hanging out at the gas station in Macedon with a whole bunch of neat old hot rods and their owners. It doesn't seem like a week.

Hey Mitch, no the 5 spokes aren't still on Tony's roadster. I took them with me to primarily see how they looked on my 3W. Seeing as I had them there, we tried them on the roadster. The whole wheel change thing will be shown soon!


Geoff aka whodaky

 

I had talked to Tony a few weeks ago, asking if it would be OK to come down for 4 days. He said that would be fine by Rita and himself, so I told him of my plans; as regards me going down there and Tony travelling back with me on the Tuesday.
On Saturday morning ( 8/3/14 ) I pulled out of our driveway at 3.50 a.m. It was quite a pleasant morning even though it was a bit overcast and day-break would occur a little later, since my last trip to Port Fairy around 4 weeks previous to this trip. It was around an hour the other side of Geelong before it was really daylight. I could now clearly see how dry the country-side had become down this way. There hasn't been a lot of rain down here for quite a while.
I drove on and had my usual stop at Derrinallum for a pastie and a coke. I had a break from driving for 20 minutes and read some of the book I have on the go ( 'General Motors Parade of Progress and Futureliner Returns )! I pulled into Rita and Tony's driveway an hour and 1/4 later at 9.05 a.m. Going into the house we all had our usual catchup over a coffee. I also got to see Zoe as Rita and Tony were looking after her for Jodie and Brad.
By now it was around 10.30 .a.m. Some good friends of mine ( Jenny and Ted ) were visiting from Perth and staying with family an hour away in Hamilton. Jenny and Ted had met and visited with Rita and Tony last year. Anyhow this time Ted was hoping to catch up with me also. Long story short, I was at Rita and Tony's when Jenny and Ted were in the area. We all had a great day together, there was a lot of talking in the house and even more when us guys went out into the garage. Ted's day was made when Tony took him for a cruise around Port Fairy in the roadster.
Jenny and Ted said their goodbyes at around 5.30 p.m. It was great seeing them, as I hadn't seen Ted in around 3 years and probably hadn't seen Jenny in nearly 8 years.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

After Jenny and Ted had gone, I said to Tony I wanted to try something on our 3W that I had brought down with me. I had brought along with me the '37/'38 Willy's hood that I had recently got with a bunch of parts I had bought.





So we got the hood out of the pickup and roughly mocked it onto the front of The Last Grasp Special.
Before coming down this time I had suggested to Tony that this may well be worth trying. We had nothing to lose, as we weren't getting anywhere fast with what we had been trying with the '37 truck grille shell/custom insert.
Anyhow, we sat the hood on. I liked what I was seeing and could definitely see it's potential. So I described to Tony the vision I had and how we could go about making it really work.
So that would be our plan for tomorrow.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

I got up early Sunday morning. I headed for my walk on the beach. About 20 minutes later I could see Tony and Lucy walking down onto the sand. Tony has got into a new routine of getting up early, walking to the beach and in the water with Lucy. So we met up there and talked as we walked.
Getting back to the house we had breakfast. Rita told us that Renee' had rung and they were all coming over. A while later Renee', Sam, Mabel Rose, Spencer T and Jude arrived. As usual it was great to see them all. We all sat and talked a while. As we talked I got the model car wheels out. The last time I was down I said I would bring the wheels for the model '32 3W, Spencer T and I worked on the last time. Spencer T got the model and we both started messing around with it. Thinking how we would go about fitting the front wheels. I would need to do a bit of filing and cutting to get them to fit. However we stayed in the house a while longer, talking. Spencer T then said, lets go out into the garage. So all us boys, except Jude went out in to the garage. As soon as we got in there, Sam spotted the Willy's hood on our 3W. He just shook his head and said, no no, don't do it; you don't want it to end up looking like a VW.
Any how Spencer T and I worked on the model, whilst Tony and Sam talked.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

By this time Jude had come out into the garage. He and Spencer T was just zipping around in the garage. Although Jude was very wary of Lucy.
In between all this Sam, Tony and I had rolled the 3W out of the garage and down to the bottom of the driveway. I wanted it down here so we could mock up the 'new front' and be able to stand way back and look at it.
We placed the Willys hood into position and put some wheels in place. Stepping back and looking, we could immediately see that the front was to high in relationship to the front wheels. Sam came up with the idea of raising the front wheel, for a quick fix; to get an idea of how it will all work together. With it set up like this I would able to play with the images in photoshop!

Geoff aka whodaky

 

Anyhow with the 3W down there mocked up, I went back up into the garage to finish working on the model. I would end up making a dropped axle to fit the wheels to and to get the model sitting right!
Between working on The Last Grasp Special and messing with the model 3W we had lunch. Then early in the afternoon Renee', Sam, Mable Rose, Spencer'T and Jude went home. But we would see them all later, as we were going to their house for dinner that evening.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

For the rest of the afternoon, Tony and I played around with The Last Grasp Special at the bottom of the driveway. I am not sure what people thought as they walked or drove past. But we were not worried about that.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

We then got a '34 hood top half and set it on the Willys hood.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

We then took to the Willys hood with a cut off wheel. This would allow the ''34 hood to sit better. We cut the Willys hood up, because the roll on it going from it's top around onto it's side is a much bigger radius than that of the '34 hood and cowl.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

With the section cut out of the Willys hood, we mocked things back up again.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

As I had said in a couple of previous posts, I had brought along with me a couple of 5 spoke mags to try on my 3W. I said to Tony, maybe we could try them on his roadster; so an hour or so was spent doing this. The change to Tony's roadster was simply amazing and the time spent was well worth it.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

While we had a couple of the stealies off Tony's roadster. Tony suggested we try them on our 3W. I also suggested that we could take off the temporary dolly wheels off the front to get the front of the coupe down.
This all worked pretty well.









When I got back home I did a quick photochop, to brings things together a little better!

Geoff aka whodaky





PS that will do for tonight

 

By this time it was getting late in the afternoon and Rita came out to tell us to get ourselves organised as we needed to get going to Renee's soon. So it was a bit of a hot rod whirlwind putting the roadster back in the main garage and getting The Last Grasp Special back up into the workshop side of the garage.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

At Renee' and Sam's we had a beautiful BBQ meal out on their deck. John had joined us and as always it is good to see and talk with him. Whilst dinner was cooking Spencer T, Jude, Tony and myself were all drawing on the blackboards that are on the outside wall of the bungalow. I also got to have my first nurse of Mabel Rose.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

Of course after we had eaten us guys headed out into the garage. Sam's garage has always got neat stuff happening in it and he also quite often has the hot rods in different positions in there.
It was good to see the covers of Renee's 'cool as can be' A sportcoupe that Sam had built, along with a lot of guidance and help from Tony and others.



Sam is in the process of getting his roadster pickup ready to get licensed. It was the first hot rod Sam built and has been completed for a number of years.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

Sam is also in the process of building a '27 T roadster for Jude. It will be built in the very early style, just the way Sam loves to build them.
Unfortunately I didn't get a real good shot of Jude's roadster.
Only this general garage shot with it in the foreground.

Geoff aka whodaky