The Wreck of Old ’67
It was a typical morning commute for me, dropped the kid off at the babysitter, pop the top on my Pepsi Max, cruise into work in the fast lane. As I got to the 205/580W merge the cars in front of me panic stopped. The Valiant had good brakes, I stopped quick enough to not hit them but during the fast braking the Valiant slid towards the right, apparently enough that I got clipped by a big...
More than Parts, or How I scored a FREE 1956 Ford F-100
One cold Saturday evening I got a call from my good buddy Panel Pete wondering what I was doing. He wanted to come hang out, which was a treat as ever since I’ve moved to Tracy I’ve felt like a pariah. Through course of conversation he mentioned a junky mid-50′s Ford truck awaiting a cleanup crew on a foreclosed property. I was interested in it for the parts, after all,...
Pictures from the Past… Working on my first real musclecar… My first 1968 Dodge Charger
I haven’t really added a whole lotta pictures of my first real musclecar and since I’m feeling nostalgic I figured I’d upload some. My Pop scanned these and sent them to me a while back. I think this is around 1999, when I was nineteen or twenty. This car later ended tragically with very few miles with me piloting it, but that’s a story for a different time. Read More →
Building the 1932 Ford frame, Part 1…
I have collected all the required pieces to begin putting a 1932 Ford frame together the way I wanted for the new Hot Rod coupe. I’m a big fan of original old Ford parts, they just look right and have the right feel to them so you’ll see a lot of them on this build. Unfortunately, 70 to 80 years off use and neglect usually warrant rework and refinishing but that’s the price...
Jimmy’s Old Car Picnic 2011
Jimmy’s Old Car Picnic fell on a Saturday this year and I wasn’t going to miss it again! My little dude Cam was my copilot, my sis Stacey and bro-in-law Jimmy met me at my house on the their way in from Sacramento, and we all met up with Norm and Stephanie at the Donut Wheel in Livermore. Getting gas in downtown Livermore, Cambo is ready to go!! “Are we there yet?” The...
Slant Six Club Bay Area 2011 Car Show
I found a Slant Six car show on Sunday that sounded like hoot, so I gathered up some friends and we too our six poppin’ Chryslers to Redwood City! Steve drove his 1964 Plymouth Valiant drop-top and I took my little daily grinder the 1967 Plymouth Valiant coupe. It was pretty quiet when we got there, but the cars kept rolling in until about 1:30 or so. This is an aluminum block...
Big Weekend with Improvements and Issues for my Valiant!
Friday night after work and dinner I pulled the Super Six carb off for a rebuild, I had to put the top piece on the belt sander because Gorilla Grip McGee rebuilt it previously and there was no way it was going to seal. After that I cleaned everything extra good and test fitted all the parts. I got it mostly reassembled up when I realized I left the fuel baffle on the workbench. It was late,...
Driven Daily! 1967 Plymouth Valiant Coupe
That’s right, last Friday marked three whole weeks of driving my little slant six bomber everyday, including a rush one day mission to Santa Cruz! In those three weeks I’ve fixed a few things. During the first week it started running poorly, seemed like a vacuum leak but as I was checking all the vacuum lines I noticed the distributor hadn’t been tightened down by the...
Blown apart and Reassembled…
My Coupe came with fairly nice quarters to replace the cut off ones on the car. Upon closer inspection they’re not as nice I had originally thought, but they’ll work out fine. The new quarter panels weren’t going to jump on the car all by itself, so Friday night I started by snapping all the old mounting bolts off. They were rusty and weren’t coming off any other...
Randomly Assembled Parts resembling a Hot Rod
So after selling off the Dodge Coupe and getting the Valiant to the point where I can drive it, I had some space in the garage so I started assembling parts I’ve been collecting for years. I bolted together a hashed pair of 1932 Ford rails from an old dirt track racer with a 1932 Ford rear cross member and a Model A front cross member. The front end was put together with a 5″...