My '25 Ford "T" Coach here at home.....progress report....

I don't usually do blog posts on my projects...I usually leave that to my facebook page however, I've had several messages asking how the "T" is coming along.  At one point I was going to do a complete build photo series, but I have over 200 photos of this project.  I may do another on how the body was chopped and shortened.  Anyway...I will start with a photo of where the body was found.  The one with primer on the right is the one I chose, but had to buy two bodies to get the four doors the seller had plus other parts.  

As I always say in these posts...be sure to click on all the photos at least once and if you get a + sign click again for super large.

This is how the body looked in June and early July of this year(2015).  I had some health issues and had actually started to lose interest in the project somewhat.   As I was contemplating this, I decided I would actually have to hire someone to help me with some of the body work, in particular adding a bondo skin to the whole car to get it ultra straight.

This is the rear 3/4 shot.....most of the difficult metal work was done, but it needed the bondo skin which I could not do due to the back issues I was having.

Here's how we got a huge number of the small dents out....using a pin welder and pulling them out...What a great tool for doing this...I had done the same on my model "A" project about 10 years ago.

As luck would have it....I met Kristofer Reiner, as I had known his father Kevin from local cruises.  Kristofer is a young and very talented apprentice body man who has great hands on experience working in a local body shop and doing rust work...and not just gluing panels on like so many shops do today.  Kristofer and I hit it off quite well, so I hired him to help with the project.  Kristofer not only helped me with the block sanding and skinning, but gave me the incentive to finish this project to the end and not give up on it....I owe him a huge bout of gratitude for that alone.

Here's Christofer looking quite happy that he took on this project!

Here he is again checking on some of "my" work.

The body is starting to look pretty good here........

....and here too......    ......NEXT...Primer!!

Here it is after a coat of Epoxy primer and three coats of high build primer.......

...and now the doors and dash....

doors and dash

Here's Kristofer looking pretty proud of himself after the job was finished...and so well deserved.  From raw metal to this in about 5 weeks part time.  Great job Kristofer.

Having our beer toast now that all the "HARD" work is finished.  Thank You....

Coincidentally we both had Canada Day shirts on....☺

....Now with the doors on........

I don't do any garage work in the winter months anymore for health reasons...so getting it this far was more than I had hoped for this year.  My fabulous painter Shaun Hopkins suggested that I paint the firewall my colour and put the body back on the chassis in primer, as he will paint the body on the chassis after all the block sanding is done next spring.  

I  completed all the undercarriage including brake lines, fuel lines and the exhaust system before we put the body back on the chassis as well.  So here is the custom colour....it's called "Thai Teal", and very similar...well maybe a bit richer than the '55 to '57 Chevy colour "Sea Foam Green"

The Chassis ready for the body.

Here is my favourite view of the car.  There will be no red wheels in the end...they will be painted the body colour, or maybe Chrome Reverse will be added later.

Nerf Bar and twin tailpipes...

Passenger's side....

Now...the best story is here at the end of this post.  

I built the custom dash from a 1941 Chevrolet dash......cutting an molding it to fit....however in January of 2014 my friend Dennis Winko and I attended the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona California....which had been #1 on my bucket list for years.  Very talented guys were pin-striping panels to auction off and raise funds for Ronald McDonald House in Cali.  They also said you could bring a panel of your own and make a donation....so I had Shaun Hopkins quickly paint the glove box door gloss black so I could take it with me.  As you can see in these next two pictures that the glove box door is pin-striped and also autographed by none other than "George Barris" (RIP) George just passed away early last week.....and another famous hot rod and custom car builder Gene Winfield.  We also documented the autographing and so glad we did as you will see.......

The '41 Chevy Dash narrowed 7" and shortened 8" front to back.  That's not the final steering wheel....it will be a two tone black and teal Corvair wheel.

Closeup

The first picture here is Rick Malicoat who did the beautiful striping job.  Thank you Rick.

Here is Gene Winfield signing the glove box door at his booth at the GNRS in Pomona, 2014...with some very interested onlookers.

Thank you Gene........what a great guy!!

Dennis and I found George Barris and his grandson out judging cars and I cornered him to sign the dash piece.....he was very gracious about it.  Thank you George.

Finally....Dennis and I spent part of a day after the GNRS was over back at George Barris' shop for a tour.  We enjoyed being there very much and meeting George for the 4th time for me was quite a pleasure.  We'll miss you George....RIP.  

NOTE: thanks for watching HR&J....the next post will be more CLE racing in Fort William, Ontario

BUCKET LIST #1 NOW CHECKED OFF - My Good Friend Dennis Winko and I were in Pomona California Jan 22-30th 2014 for the 65th Annual Grand National Roadster Show.

This post is a little diversion from what I usually do on my blog but feel that it would be nice to share.

To go to an event of this magnitude and to take over 1300 photos, it was extremely difficult to decide which ones to use and which ones to leave out.....so to help things out, I grouped a number of them together which are of common interest, but sadly reducing their clarity.  Be sure to click on each of the photos and groups of photos twice to get a full screen or larger, then you can scroll around to view them all. 
My good friend Dennis Winko and I spent an incredible 8 days in the Los Angeles area, not only to attend the 65th annual Grand National Roadster Show, but to visit some hot rod shops and automotive museums in the area and take in some of the local sights as well.  These photos however are all from the show and taken by myself.
...oh...a little side note "AMBR" means America's Most Beautiful Roadster.

This is the main hall and largest of 9 buildings.  The photo was taken from the center of the building so it only shows half the length of the hall.

We were there on set-up day and these two photos show the contrast of what you could see and everything in between.  That's Dennis beside a very cool deuce roadster barn find and the one on the right is an AMBR contender owned by Ron Goodwin.  Ron's car was one of our first choices to win.

This is a full restoration of Ed Roth's Surfite by Rick Rawlins.....it wouldn't be a California show without a surf mobile!!

 Bizarreness was the order of the day and this "Blitzen Benz" by Bob Burman was a great example.

Love the California "Horseless Carriage" plate

The theme of the show this year was 100 years of Bonneville, and there was a huge representation of Bonneville cars from over the last 100 years.  Heading to Bonneville for speed weeks is another thing we have to do to check off our bucket list.  The only photo that wasn't actually in the show is the Challenger 1.  It actually resides in the Wally Parks Drag Racing Museum just adjacent to the fairgrounds.  We did attend that on Thursday before the show, and felt that it was the best automotive museum that we had seen on this trip including the Peterson Museum.

Check out this film of Mickey Thompson breaking the 400 MPG Speed Barrier.  This is the same car we saw in the Wally Parks Museum.

Next we have Ron Main and his Flatfire engine and Streamliner.  Dennis was in his glory talking to Ron about flatheads and I just stood there and tried to take it all in.....one's never to old to learn something new.  Read this poster about his very fast flathead Ford.

The following group of photos are vintage drag cars, and we had a nice chat with Bill Corbett (originally from Victoria B. C.) who owns and restored the purple 1948 Fiat Topolino shown in the following photo group....the car is also the cover car for this months Rodder's Journal.

Exotic engines and actually mostly flathead Fords were the trend here in California.  Chrysler Hemi, Studebaker, Cadillac, Buick, Ford 4cyl and Flathead Fords were the most popular engines seen in cars at the show, many of which had McCullough Superchargers.   There were very few Chevrolet V8's, especially in hot rods and if there were they were nicely disguised as something else.

Next, you could buy a pair of deuces here....beautifully done real steel replicas.  The one from Sweden was interesting at $15,000. US dollars and we felt left a lot to be desired in detail.  The real deal as far as we were concerned was sold by SoCal and was extremely nice looking, more like an original body, but the price tag was near $28,000. and that was just for a body shell.....way over my head!!  I've had my own deuce back when but now I'll stick to the much more reasonable model "A", and having just as much fun as they are.

The one from Sweden is on the left and the already chopped SoCal one is on the right.

Next, we have some hot rods and custom cars scattered around the buildings and some even outside the buildings on drive-in day which was Saturday.  The body work and paint schemes were absolutely incredible....giving any gear-head some great custom ideas.

Next, we have some hot rods and custom cars mostly from the "Suede Palace".  My own car would have fit nicely along side some of these.  The vehicles in the "Suede Palace" had their own judging and awards program.  Some of the most interesting ones were the original barn finds of cars built back in the '50's or '60's which have survived the test of time and left in their patina state.  The one we liked the most was Greg Hopkins '31 model "A" roadster of unknown origin shown top left below.

We couldn't pass up the trophy girl contest that was held in the Suede Palace on Saturday night.  It was very interesting to say the least.  A few good Rockabilly and Blues bands also graced the stage there through the weekend.

One of the things I had planned to do was to get my friend Shaun Hopkins here in Thunder Bay to paint my glove box door from my custom '41 Chevy dashboard that I'm using in my next project a nice gloss black and bring it with me to have it pinstriped and autographed by George Barris and Gene Winfield.  The pinstripers would volunteer their work and you would then make a donation to Ronald McDonald House.  Other pieces of art by the stripers were auctioned off.

Well as you can see by the photos below that it all came to fruition.  Two pinstripe artists did a great job and George and Gene did sign it as well as the artists and "Deuce of Spades" film maker Faith Granger.  Thank you Shaun for painted it for me and getting this plan started.

Top left is myself with George and his grandson, top right is Gene signing the piece, bottom left is Gene with Dennis, center is Gene shaking hands, and bottom right is the artist Ric Malicoat.

Here are a few more pictures pretty much self explanatory!

They gave away 100's of trophy's and awards and we were very fortunate to have great seats for the awards and closing ceremonies.  Even though we didn't agree with the judges on their final pick for AMBR, all the cars were incredibly beautiful, and I could never afford one damn one....but Dennis and I still have tons of fun with our Model "A" Fords.

Dennis and I were very fortunate to have been able to attend The 65th Grand National Roadster Show, an event I've wanted to attend since I was in my teens.  Hey Den, aren't you glad I waited until you retired...Dennis is a great travel companion.  We had a fabulous time that we'll talk about for years.  Also thank you to my old friend Bryan Howland who was our tour guide for a day to the Peterson Museum and throughout the Hollywood area.  Bryan is a childhood friend of mine and lives in Woodland Hills, a Los Angeles suburb and we've only seen each other 3 times since 1958, but talk often and email often....great time!

Dave and Dennis in the Suede Palace.

This final group of pictures reminded me of the old Fort William Gardens car shows....at the end of the show you would stand outside to see the guys coming out of the Gardens and rapping their pipes and smoking their tires.....wonderful memories.

I hope you enjoyed this sort of unusual post on this blog !!  Thanks for watching...D.