that was it?

Last night spent a couple hours tinkering in the garage.

6 volt lights!

It was one of those "that was it?" moments.
Wiring is one of those chore-like projects
 that I tend to think is more tedious than it really is.

My old friend Luke "PIGPEN" Brown had done most of the wiring
during the GNRS thrash.
Only the accessory stuff was left.
The lights and switches were installed,
just needed the wires connecting everything.

Still it was a 2 night 2 weekend home project during kid duty.

last week

The hold up was a secondary fuse panel.
There is an upper fuse panel for the dash stuff,
and a lower fuse panel closer to the battery.
This keeps the wires short and minimal.

110v welding

So after about 4 months of planning,
in 2 minutes the little bracket was welded up.

lower fuse panel

I will admit to a quicky wiring job.
Usually I'll remove the plastic covers,
than throw some shrink wrap on there.
The mosquitos were out in force so that's my excuse!
Ok a couple beers helped push things through too.
I'll clean it up later...

before cell phones this was needed

It's hard to see but the overdrive solenoid is now hooked up too,
its the left switch on that shifter cover.

fog light warning light

The little dash light on the right is for the fog light.
It used to be on when the OD was on,
but it was so bright at night  on one trip I took the bulb out.

night chess

While I was screwing around in the garage,
the kids had started with the bikes, than the ball,
than the chess set?

when's dinner?

Nothing more fun at 9pm on a saturday than playing chess to a 34 watt bulb!

I do need to say the kids did help with the project.
The boys saw how the wires went from the power,
to the switch, to the lights...
Maybe one of them will take over wiring duty!

little helper

Macey made sure all the switches and lights worked afterward!

Little by little.

TP

panga hunter

You guys remember all my "Panga" posts a while back?

perich brothers (and sister): "La Chuya" - Panga

perich brothers (and sister): the Ultimate Panga - Dios Mio

Well this is the other side of the coin.

border patrol
panga catcher

This thing is crazy.
If you're in a panga trying to outrun this thing,
good luck.

 government speed boat

This thing rolled in while we were pecking away on a fishing boat.
Not sure how much need there is in the day time,
panga hunting seems like a night sport.

900 HP gas suckers

This thing is nuts.
900 HP and that is just what's on the label.
I'm sure these outboards have some tricks inside there 225 HP covers.
This is one of their small ones!

tubular

Definitely built like a tank.

"u.s. customs and border protection"

What a job,
running down drug and illegal alien smugglers in a 75+ mph cruiser!

mexican panga

Funny what it takes to chase down these old pangas.
The panga runners best chances are running in herds.
If 3 panga's are on the mission,
then the lame one can get caught while the others continue on.

Fun times!

TP

open sesame - rear entry

See anything new or different in this picture?

where's waldo?

No, it's not new speakers.
Something to do with the 40.

Okay I'll give you a bunch of build-up clues,
 and you tell me when ya figure it out.

It all started here.

my rusty hole

First of all it was a pain in the arse to remove that rear wheel.
It was a 7.50x16 and I had to actually drop the rear end to get it out.
Uh oh.
Since the transmission has the overdrive,
the plan was to use some 6.50's or 7.00's,
but I'd like the possibility of using a taller tire.
Most likely the fender arc? will get opened up a bit.

little trim

The rear fenders have been welded to the body,
but the bolt-on or flange was never cut off
(above the above pic)
I was thinking of using it to attach the inner wheel well.
Nope.
So at this point both sides are cleaned up.

front lip

While I was nestled in the rusty hole,
figured might as well do make the front fenders match.

lipless

I'm sure this will add more time to the project.
Getting rid of nasty rusty sheetmetal feels good though.

Next was making some donkey dicks.
They're basically 1" steel tubes with the tops capped.

donkey dicks

I had welded inserts in the frame during it's buildup,
and had made the mounting plates at the same time.
So the body supports were rooted in these positions.
Glad I was thinking, or overthinking back then!

sprouts

Next was attaching the body to the sticks.
The idea was to spread the load to a wider point than the tube top,
since its gonna be rigid and its basically only a sheetmetal angle.

I gotta make a little point here,
that this was all done over a periods of a couple hours over a couple days.
Also I'd have to crawl through the door and around the frame each time.
Make a measurement, crawl through the door.
Cut and weld some tube, crawl through the door.
Forget to plug in the grinder, crawl through the door.
Forget the welding mask....okay.

At this junction most everything was made using scrap.
I had made some bad test pieces and decided to go and buy some steel.

$10 pipe

This was exactly what I was needing.
So made a jig and bent some pipe.

bender jig

This stuff can be bent easily,
however it was important to be symmetrical,
so out came the swap meet bender.

tubular

In and out the car...a couple times...
This is how I left it last night.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

morning dew




This one's good too...

Grateful Dead Live at Pauley Pavilion, UCLA on 1973-11-17 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

I can listen to this whole show,
at least check #8-9, 14-20 than 24 if you want some good work tunes,
one of the best "morning dew" sandwiches.
(make sure your speakers can handle some bass)

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Not much can get me to wake up at 5am.
I really wanted to get this done before the wife had to go to work!

What was needed were some simple brackets to attach the body to the new brace.

quick and easy

Nothing special,
just a pain in the but to crawl in there and weld them decently overhead.
At the last minute,
I decided to cut out the smaller "weld-hinge" for a larger greased version,
than make the plate to fit the new hinge pivot.

hinges ready

Now's the exciting part.
Cutting off the tacks holding the decklid on.

un-tack

Very relieving that the body or decklid didn't budge at this point.
Still have some gap work on the other side though.

open sesame!

This was about 15 minutes before I had to leave.
So nice.
And it's rock solid,
way better than the old temporary hinge bracket.

1940 ford coupe gets a working decklid

Besides the fact that this opened up a huge amount of work
- skinning the inner wheelwells, rear floor, rear pan etc.
-finishing the rubber seal lip, the inner decklid skin...

stool time

More importantly,
I can now start the doors.
Most of the door work can be done with the doors fake hinged,
but there will be a time when the doors will be tacked in,
and I'll have to crawl through the back.

Yawn... looking at this I'm ready for a nap!

TP

break out the road bikes...

My brother and I played hookie for half the day,
and took a kinda unplanned bike ride up to my old school UCSD.

It was good to break him in to his new year,
he just turned 36 yesterday.
Happy Belated Birthday Trevor!

Perich Brothers & the
UCSD Sun God

Its about a 25 mile round trip,
but we took it easy with some pit stops.
We're both out of shape enough to be about equal riders!

It's funny but we have a yearly progression of this kinda stuff.
Usually we start riding around this time,
little more, little more, over the months,
than go for a really long ride that kinda burns us out.
We've ridden double century(200 miles) from Ventura to San Diego,
and other long rides.
(no you won't see us in spandex)

Than he goes into his hunting fix,
and I get in my day light not savings hot rod building fix,
and the years go by.

1972 campagnolo equipped Schroder road bike

I haven't "bike timed" this bike yet,
and will do it properly later on.

This is the first time riding it in a while.
It is a custom Schroder road bike,
I bought from the original owner on good ole craigslist a couple years back.

He had ordered it in 1972 and it was delivered in 1973,
so the campagnolo nuovo record group is all '73.
Funny cause at the time there was a long wait for Columbus or Reynolds tubing,
so he "settled" for Ishiwata tubing,
which is probably at least equal in specs.

flip side

Originally it was white,
but in '80 or '81 he had it painted by a locally famous frame builder/painter Brian Baylis.
I can't believe he gave up the bike for the price after 35 years,
but he was a one bike kinda guy and this one lost.

I changed the bar wrap for that cotton/shellac style I like,
the wheels are now Phil Hub with some Mavic open4cd rims,
and some era correct campy pedals replaced the clips.

It felt great to dust it off, fill the tires,
and jump on a bike that loves to go.
Maybe that's why I missed some photo opportunities,
it was hard to stop.

little boat sculpture

Since I used to have a kayak shop,
I had to take a picture of this crazy "sculpture".

Anyway,
go out and get some exercise.
It clears the mind to break a sweat out in the open air.

TP

let's make a bike rack!

This weekend was the "King of Clubs" car show and drag races at the Barona Speedway.
These past couple years in San Diego,
I've become a hot rod recluse - only the GNRS this year.

In Ventura you could get away with flathead powered cars.
That 200 miles of LA freeway changes the pace of the drive.
Yeah it's more mental,
we've got AAA premier which gives a free 200 mile tow,
so the safety net is a 200 mile radius of san diego!

Maybe its being content having decently running flathead hot rods.
I'd rather not prep and test them to see what they can do,
than get stuck with a broken car...

That being said,
the Barona Indian Reservation is less than 40 miles from the house,
and really I had no excuse to get my ass in gear.
After a little thought,
I decided to get the boys out to their first camp-over hot rod drag race show,
so instead of Chief we pulled out the forgotten 40.

1940 ford coupe with 16's

Last time you saw it I had thrown the mismatched 16-600 whitewalls on it.
This was another "temporary permanent deal as an easy year had already gone by.

Big and Littles
1940 ford coupe 15's on front 16's rear

I had "inherited" this set of 15's and had been wanting to test them on the coupe,
see if it helped out the handling at all.
Funny cause they are 600x15's which are really small,
compared to the huge 750LT'x16's out back.
There's almost a 5" heighth difference.

After a couple miles,
I really liked the change.
Wish they were a blackwall though.

So the night before the show,
changed all the oils - rearend, tranny and engine.
It had been a while and really needed it.

Now the kids.
What to do to keep them occupied out there?
Bikes!

bullhorn bike rack

So the morning of the show,
whipped out this custom bike rack out of scrap.
Its tough to see but it's the old hinge assembly from the tres huevos 40.

watch out

I can't believe JC Whitney didn't offer this as an accessory!

loaded with stingrays

The kids couldn't have been happier.

happy tree kids

 We were ready to go...

let's get out of here

So all packed up and ready to go.
We headed out to this crack in the earth.

road to barona
(google maps)

the 40 ran well.
It was a little warm and I was pushing it a little,
but it really needed the drive to get the juices flowing.

view from the road

Fortunately Jake had the tunes covered
with one of Papa's old transistor radios.

they're boys!

We did have to make a small pit stop,
just for a direction check and water top off.

lakeside

I wish this picture was more clear.
It had burped something fierce during a thermostat pop,
and the dirty water I had forgotten to empty in the radiator catch shot over the car.
Good times.

more views from the road

That map was deceiving.
The haul up the hill was long,
and it tested my faith in the old 221 cubic inch 59A flathead.
Yes it"s a baby.

barona speedway
google maps

Here if you look closely,
you can see why it was important to bring the bikes.
There was a ton of dirt roads for the kids to ride out.

sweet spot

Once there we were hooked up big time with a spot.
My cousin Brandon, Mario & friends like to be in the thick of things.
The bands that night were seriously 40 feet away.
Good thing the bullhorn bike rack was on there to fendoff leaners!

aftermath

This is the next day, but this was the band setup.
Creepy Creeps a burlesque show, and DEADBOLT rounded up the night.
Fun times.

I'll fill in the blanks between the last shots on the next post...

TP