Fords All -GONE- ! Hey now ~ calm down ! I didn't say I have any currently , I sold that last one off nearly 20 years ago and the only reason I bought that one was : I'd just bought this house here in the Ghetto and it had no fencing 'round part of the property so I hadda get busy hauling cement , cinder block , re-bar and etc. PDQ ! I did look for a Chevy but none were available cheaply When you're poor , you go with what you find or what falls in you lap , knowhatImean ? .
Thank God for Henry I did start this thread after all so I'm gonna chime in on the "F" word. Last car I restored was a '66 Mustang coupe. I was going back to school and needed something cheap to repair and insure. I had been rebuilding Mazda RX-7's. would buy them at auctions recovered theft. It was the number one stolen car in the country at the time. Buy it, build it, drive it, sell it. These cars were so well engineered you could put a engine/trans assembly in them in ten minutes while wearing a suit!!! But just try to insure one of them when you're 25!!! Decided to go back to school to become a chiropractor and looked at 20 old mustangs. Bought the first one that still had the frame and the floor in it. Started looking at rag tops, then fastbacks. Settled for a coupe with a 4 barrel 289 in it with over 100 K on the motor. When I took the valve cover off there were impressions in the sludge on the underside from the rockers hitting the crap that built up in the motor, but it still ran. Had the local shop that builds most of the racing engines for the local circle track do the motor (friend of my uncle). Freaking car flew!!! worked the auto trans and it would break the wheels at every shift (and a couple of U-joints). Put 80 K more on the motor and had it freshened up just as I was getting out of school. What a great car with four wheel drum brakes that you had to stand on with both feet after you got done blowing away some jerk in a porche that thought he could take on American iron. Got hit in the left front side as I was leaving the clinic one day. Had it fixed and painted, but it was never the same as the unibody frame got a little too twisted. Car handled great up to then with one inch front sway bar, urethane bushings, export brace, heavy duty springs and little tiny Goodyear GT's that were so sticky, you just couldn't spin it out no matter how hard you tried. The car was just SET UP. Man, I miss that car. Was gonna build one of those with my kids, but then I thought about how I used to DRIVE it. I just DON'T want my kids driving ANYTHING that powerful until they have some experience. Hence, our Great Chevy truck project. The boys are already fighting over whose truck it will be when it is done. Looks like we will have to build more than one. What a shame!!!! Andy
Ok, I admit it before the press put it all over the front pages, my elder brother is managment in Fards research center in England, there its out now, they say that the first step is to admit the problem! On a serious note, Chevys, love em, had loads of all ages, Fards, quite like them, had quite a few again of all ages, jap crap, ok for your kid or your grandad, french cars, metal waiting to be recycled, burn them, german cars, over engineered, over priced, italian cars, should stay in italy, brittish cars, the best! ________ BLONDE VIDEO
Funny " Ferign " Cars O.K. , the cat's out of the bag now I owned and loved , a 1959 Citroen 2CV AZ ~ (go look it up) , it had the centrifugal clutch and some other really wierd features , gave me little trouble and was 100 % reliable but I like to tour and it didn't like 55 MPH so I sold it sad to say . Dad had Peugots when I was little , a 304 sedan , it was good but rusted out in Boston . I bought a 504 sedan from a crackhead for $100.00 , bad paint but simply the very best seats I've EVER had in any car and the world's best manual sunroof . it was just too damn silly / funky in it's design tho' (two carbies on an inline 4 banger ?!) so I sold it to some Barrio Babes who loved it although they took zero care of it so it died a couple years later . Italian cars ? feh . I had to work on a Lambo , it was like a kit car assembled by a drunken 14 year old kid ~ NOTHING fit nor lined up , what a POS . Then there was this sweet '56 Lancia foor door sedan , suicide rear doors and NO 'B' pillar ~ wow what a cool ride , I had to run away before it followed me home.... You all know I'm a German car mechanic so no surprise I like old air cooled VW's as they're reliable and increidibly cheap to run -if- you keep 'em stock and know the tricks . Mercedes too , I own and love 'em , parts are cheap and they'll run forever if you take care of them ~ German cars seems to like lots of manual tune up stuff like out StoveBolts do , then they just keep on plugging away , I have Mercedes Diesels and a nice old Euro Spec. 350SLC (W-107 Coupe) with a romping stomping DOHC V-ate (uh,oh) and manual tranny ~ one of maybe 3,000 ever built according to Ma 'Benz . British cars ? old ones , oh God how I love those leaky , quirky little things ~ I've had and worked on , many over the years , I still won two Metropolitan Nashes , just sold my cherry 1967 MGB GT all rebuilt with overdrive ,. for pennies . C'est La Vie . As you may devine , I'm a BMC/Austin lover , don't care for those awfull Rootes Products (think Hillman) as they're like Fords and BMC is more like GM in thier aproach to car building . too bad your auto industry killed itself . So , where they're made isn't so imortant if you get a good one and it suits you . Even Fords I guess .
Hillmans!!! the hillman minx, first car i ever rolled on the public highway and got out laughing, now theres a story! Austin A30 first drivable car i owned, put midget suspension on it and a tuned A series lump and how much fun did i have with that little puppy! could leave anything and i mean anything at the lights and could corner like a go-kart! AND i only filled the tank up every other weekend even though i used it every day! Ah, memories ________ Td2
I had a Hillman Husky , good little truck all in all . I paid $75.00 for it including the various owners & shop manuals .
A few more items back from paint shop Here are a few pics of parts brought back from the paint shop, the rest are covered with quilts in a trailer. (YEP, that was my wife's donation, she just don't know it yet) below is a couple of pics of my next project, hopefully in about 2 months. It's a 1963 F... Falcon Futura four door. Not one item has been coon fingered from it, it's all there and all original. It has all of 101 hp 6 cyl 170CID, 2 speed f...omatic auto trany, heat and 2 speed wipers (that was an option). The Boops Dad
Let me tell you a short story about a 63 Falcon and my step mom. She and Dad married in '70. She had a 63 Falcon station wagon and he had a 68 Chevelle SS with 325 horse 396 engine. We had a carport where the cars parked end to end and one day Dad's car was in the back. She told him not to worry, that she could move it. Well, (if you have ever driven a Falcon like that you know that you have to nail the gas to get it to move out of its tracks) she hopped in the SS, put it in reverse and hit the gas like she would the Falcon. NASA would have learned from that launch. The drive was gravel so when she hit it (in reverse) she through gravel at her Falcon then, when she cleared the post the car fishtailed until she finally let off the gas and found the brake. I was 14 so it was quite a show for me. Let's just say she didn't know how to "feather" the accelerator.
Heh , heh , heh I only have _ONE_ slushbox car and SWMBO doesn't drive it either She doesn't drive any of my cars or my truck guess why not ? no sense fighting over a dented fender ~ I went through that with my ex who totally destroyed a cherry '63 Chevy II Nova.......
Latest pics of the Kid's truck. It's good to have friends with heavy equipment. Beats a hernia operation every time. My oldest being a goofball and exhibiting the proper "give it some muscle" face with appropriate accompanying grunt when drilling out mount plate for early type front engine mount Andy
It's good to see young folks enjoying vintage tin You're right about having acess to heavy equipment , somewhere I have a picture of me doing just this with my 1946 Chevy , we were using Billy Bob's 197? Dodge tow truck from when he worked for Verdugo Valley Tow... It sure beats the hell out of hernias , I've had two and one recurrance , they suck .
Looks like youse guys are having some kinda fun. Did the little one ever get that headlight bucket out?
Yup, She got the headlight bucket out. She also turned five today. She has also helped us remove the front clip off the junker truck (she had two hand under the grill, my boys and I on either side of the nose---too funny) Andy
