Midas Touch

I've been an ebay fanatic lately.
Surprisingly with all the fees ebay tacks on,
 ebay sellers still have had the best deals
on most of the missing parts for the 40 ford project.
Even with shipping costs.

usps packages

There is a method of recycling,
as I'll post a couple things up,
which fills the paypal account enough to reuse it for what's needed.
Great way to clean up as well as load up.

junk

The drawback with any internet purchase is the shipping time.
It takes a huge amount of patience waiting for the goods to come in.

$300 fuel filter

While searching around I've found out I'm in the wrong business.
Most of us know there is a way to sort out the ebay list,
by lowest price, highest price, nearest distance, completed items etc.

Usually similar items are within a relatively close price gap,
however every now and there are auctions which blow my mind.

$600 for 5 fuel filters

This guys listings were crazy.
Somehow he is able to sell one plastic fuel filter for $300!
His great deal is selling 5 plastic fuel filters for $620!
I guess that's like getting 3 for free but what the heck!

12 fuel filters $40

That means this other guy is giving these things away at 12 for $40.
In the UK this pile is $1500!
How can the overpriced guy actually have sold dozens of these filters?

$600 pull starter

Out of curiosity I looked at his other items.
Here's another great deal - $600 for a $2 pull starter!
This guys definitely got the Midas Touch when he resells his junk!

$2 pull starter

I'm thinking there must be some kind of glitch in the program or something.
If he's able to sell $20 worth of pull starters for $6000,
like I said I'm in the wrong business!

TP

juggling the queue

It was supposed to rain last night,
so the boys and I figured this was the perfect time to wheel out old rusty.

1940 ford coupe - chopped and channeled

It's been 8 months,
and I've pigeonholed most projects that could be done on the side spot.
Maybe pigeonholed is not the right word but it sounded good!

barn find 1940 ford coupe

The car had been on jackstands,
so the tires weren't squared up and sunk in the dirt.
Still the kids and I couldn't push it out with our massive strength.
No problem,
there was just enough room to pull it out with the van.

holey chit

Wouldn't you know it,
I ended up wedging the van too close to the neighbors garage.
Stuck!
Guess we could have pushed the coupe back in and adjusted the van,
but that would have been too easy.
Instead we pivoted it around with the jack.
No problem.

1940 ford coupes

It's not ideal as the garage is packed with junk on one side,
but at least I can reach the welder to the unfinished gaps,
and get the body finished up,
including pie cutting the hood.
I forgot this somehow ended up being a taildragger!

The secondary reason was to get Chief off the street.

The poor thing was stuck in the elements for a week now.

Of course it didn't rain!

TP

hand lathe

If I had foretold the turn of events of the past year or so,
I probably would have kept a couple more shop tools.
However,
most likely I'd end up doing certain things the hard way any way.

whittling tools

The big 40 projects must seem like they are on the back burners,
and they are other than some behind the scenes parts scrounging.
The other day while cleaning up
I happened to find the scrap of black plastic that had been evading me.
What better reason to dust the cobwebs off the green 40.

In no time a sloppy steering column bushing was whittled out.
No problem the second one came out almost too perfect.
Amazing what can be done with simple tools and time.

weld u-joint

That bushing was the key to wrapping up the steering.
Instead of going street rod with a splined or double D shaft,
this build is old school with a welded u-joint.
In a stroke of genius,
I actually remembered to slide the bushing on before welding this up!
(there's a lock ring on the other side)
I've learned my lesson using the flare tool and not putting on the nut first!

crude but effective

The column was also trimmed a tiny bit,
and this was the almost final outcome.
I'll probably put a small set screw through the bushing and column tube,
so it doesn't slide out.
Now that I look at this picture,
maybe it will be easier to hammer the tube a bit to tighten it up.

Whatever the case,
at least now I can steer the car instead of forcing the wheels by hand!
Talk about a pain!

TP

macey's wiggly tooth

Hi!
This is Macey.
My mom just pulled out my tooth!

Macey and Jakob Perich

My tooth was loose forever.
I let my Dad try to pull it a bunch of times but he was too chicken.
My Uncle Steve said he would put a string on it.

Macey's loose tooth

Since my Dad wouldn't pull it out,
I couldn't eat anything too crunchy.
Well I did eat some hard stuff but only on the other side.
My Dad said he would chew up the food first but that is gross.

Macey's dangling tooth

So I wanted to play games on my Mom's phone,
but Jaxon and Jakob were teasing me cause of my tooth.
My Mom said I would get a treat if she could pull it out.
She pulled out Jakob's teeth
but not Jaxon's cause he likes to pull his own out.
She got a paper towel and pulled it out.
I cried a little bit but not that much.
The end!

MJP

labor of love

Okay so I'll admit that I post pictures that I've ripped off the internet,
but very rarely do I post pictures of projects that I've got nothing to do with.

1932 ford 3-window - ran when parked

Last week I found one of the most amazing transformations,

and it is well, amazing.

rear support

Looking through the pictures,
I can relate to how much work this involved.
Is this some weird Italian thing?

metal finished

The thing is his finish work is way beyond mine,
for a personal project anyway.

primed

So the story goes,
the body was found in Washington,
and was shipped out to Italy a couple years ago.

1932 3-window for sale - cheap - needs work

In America most guys would buy patch panels to fix all that distortion.

rust

Over there it seems like he hand hammered most of this.
Mr Nuvolari must have one huge arm!

metal finished II

I would be happy to keep it metal finished just like this!

paint prep

If you've got some time here's a detailed build log...
Hot Rods 32 Ford 3 windows ex hypotetical deuce - THE H.A.M.B.

And you'll notice on the sidebar a new blog link...
Nuvolari Garage
It's crazy the guy is even folding his own 32 grille bars!
Cool stuff!

TP

vintage stealth

Something happened this year,
and I'm in big-time scrounger mode.
This past friday I hit the SD swap meet early morning,
and picked up these little gems.

1972 - pioneer cs-05

When I first saw these I took a look,
gave them a double take,
and gave them a pass.
As you can see the wood was a little rough.

beater pioneer cs-05 speakers

After my quick walk through all the aisles came up empty handed,
I went back and set a deal for these crazy things.
If you haven't read the picture titles yet,
you're wondering why I would want a matched pair of beat up end tables.

pioneer cs-05 cut away diagram

Oddly enough these are some stealth 1972 era speakers!
They're called omni-directional,
as each has an early version of a subwoofer,
with the downward pointing 10" woofer,
in addition to THREE tweeters,
positioned evenly around the column.
The next model up (cs-06) also has 3 midrange speakers.

I've seen these on craigslist and accidental research online,
and wondered why anyone would want speakers for style not sound quality.
However,
another change I've gone through is my listening style.
My old ways were 80% cranking -  20% background.
Now it is about 25% cranking - 40% ez listening - 35% background
Yeah times have changed!
These were on the fine line of being too cheap not to test out.

restore-a-finish

I snuck them into the house and of course the wife was like WTF!
We don't need random end tables!
Even with the almost perfect lattice-work all she saw were the scratched tops.
Fortunately this resto-oil stuff was left in the garage,
I think the landlord used it to freshen up the floors.

fresh -pioneer  cs-05 omnidirectional speakers

That resto-stain freshened up that old wood in minutes.
After a good dry in the sun,
the residue was buffed out,
and Holey Moley they actually looked presentable for 40 years old.
Now I want to use it on all my beat up JBL's and Klipsch speakers!

stylish not quite kabuki speakers

I had jumped the gun and did the clean-up before listening to them.
My expectations were very low,
as I've had old kabuki speakers that looked cool but sounded tinny.
These blew me away!
These aren't the "in your face" monitors like the JBL 4311's.
They've got an ambient "where is the clean music coming from" sound.
Even the wife was impressed,
so much that they may become fixtures in the living room!

TP

viva mexico

We just got back from a long awaited trip to our TJ dentista.
Not bad timing too,
the round trip from our house took 3.5 hours.

peatones a Mexico

Since it had been a while,
we actually left earlier than usual,
so we weren't rushing to get across.
Gave me more time to take some boring pictures!

otay border crossing

On the walk across the bridge,
I must have felt for my passport and cash a dozen times.
The gates are a bit intimidating,
they are the doors to another country.
That's what happens when a couple months go by.
Next time I told the wife we're riding the tandem!
Yeah right...

taxi to gato bronco

Once across everything was back to normal.
It's that comfort in familiarity.
This poor taxi had absolutely no shocks and ball joints left!

TJ Dentista

Again nothing had changed to the storefront.
Not like it should it's only been a couple months.
This time only the wife had her orthodontic adjustment.
I just went as a bodyguard.

muffler shop

There was so much traffic,
the taxi driver took us on the scenic route back to the border.
I tried to get some good pics but my cell phone sucks for that.
There was some serious yard art going on at this muffler shop.
I'll try to get a better pic next time it was crazy.

OTAY border crossing

The last time or second to the last time we went was around christmas.
We were stuck at the pedestrian line at about this point.
It took over 2 hours!
Walking over is a gamble as sometimes there is no wait.
This time it took about half an hour.

worn

Of all things this metal rail was so interesting to me.
Over time the two coats of paint had worn through long ago.

The welder had smoothed out the welds,

and the bare steel had been hand rubbed by thousands of hands.

patina

Yeah it must have been a slow line!

bacardi stock

Forgot to mention but we did restock our rum supply!

TP

how to make a shoe shredder

A couple weeks ago Jakob picked up a new skateboard deck.

pickin

This was a swap meet special,
and the guy had some plain black grip tape.

Jakob installing grip tape

Jakob's a hands on kid,
and instead of putting his laundry away,
decided to put the board together in the living room.

scrapin

I tried not to watch too closely
as he trimmed the tape with a razor blade.
No blood!

trimmin

Like the boss he is,
the skateboard came out perfect.

Jakob Perich

I couldn't resist recycling the grip tape scraps for a much needed project.

smooth

Last time I had a long drive in the hot rod,
the most uncomfortable part was my feet sliding on the slick floor.
It took more energy holding my heels in those 2 shiny spots there,
and dang it if that wore me out!
I had imagined attaching some wood or metal strips to that area,
something to hold my feet in position.

stepping stones

Hmm - perfect use for the leftover grip tape scraps!
After some quick trimming,
the river rock look was formed.
Way more comfortable to drive now,
but there is a huge drawback.

Jakob - skate rat

This is some sharp gritty grip tape.
Over the past few weeks,
Jakob's been relentlessly practicing the basic Ollie.

holey chit - worn supra's

These Supra's were new for Christmas,
and still had tread before this new deck.
That new grip tape is a shoe shredder!

After driving the pickup around,
alot of the edge of my shoe had turned to white powder too!
That's what I get doing it the easy way.

TP