Gas, tires, oil.

I had some Doss turn signals that came on my ‘89 sportster daily driver, but they didn’t work with saddle bags or the windshield so I put the stock ones back on. I decided to use them instead on the trike, here are they are mounted on the rear.

These are actually the fronts, on a 2 wheeler the fronts are running lights and turn signals (so either 2 filament bulb or 2 bulbs) and the rears are just turn signals. But on the trike, I want tail lights on either side, not just in the middle (so someone passing at night doesn’t run into my fenders). I just traded the amber lenses for the red ones. Now I need a stop light/license plate light. And to finish the wiring.

After I got my NP 833 transmission installed in the ‘55, I needed a shifter knob; the 3/8″-16 threads were pretty sharp. I went to the flea market and some yard sales looking for some likely canidates, I even eyed some of the kid’s toy’s. Then I found a nice antique glass doorknob at the flea market, it even had the right threads in the shank (some older door knobs used threaded shafts). I used it for a while, but the glass was a bit loose, so I removed the nut I had below it lock it in place and ran it down until the threaded end the the shifter touched the glass, thereby imobilizing it. Then one day I found that the top part of the glass had popped off from the pressure.

It was disapointing to wreck something like that, but I found an almost identical one at a yard sale. Mean while I had settled on green for the interior color (see here for the construction of the door panels) and had found some green glass knobs for the window winders. I would have loved to have had a matching green glass shifter knob, but I came close by painting the underside of the glass green with model paint.

So what’s next for the ‘55? Finishing the rust repair in the floor so I can put the carpet in, maybe giving it a new coat of flat black on the exterior (or maybe flat green). Modern suspension and brakes would be nice… and sensible… and responsible, but let me just say that in my garage there is something on an engine stand with nice, fresh crosshatching on its cylinder walls just waiting for assembly.

A real hot rod is about the engine, everything else is window dressing.

So what are you waiting for, google “Gee Bee” and read about these amazing race planes.

I was looking though some old pics and these of a ‘74 Duster that wife used to own. She bought it for only $900 in the mid ’90s. It had a 318 2 bbl., bucket seats, floor shifter and factory sunroof.

It was a great car, unfortunately it got banged up on a Montana road covered with black ice. I put a junkyard fender, hood and left side suspension on it, but by that time she had bought a ‘74 International Scout II. We were moving to a place without much parking, so we (sadly) sold it, thinking a 4x4 made more sense in MT.

Now I wish I had it back, but I feel that way about most of cars I’ve sold. (And I wish I still had a forklift, as seen in the upper pic.)

I have previously shown the construction of new door panels for my ‘55 candian pontiac. I like the theme of having a scary outside and a classy interior. I found these green glass knobs at Dixon’s Auction in Crumpton, MD (nice story on a recent “Antiques Roadshow FYI, Program 124 | Premiered Wednesday, August 24, 2005). They’re really just drwer pulls, I drilled out the rivets that held on the stock plastic knobs and attached these with stainless screws and nylock nuts.

I think they match the color of the carpet nicely. But why glass? To match the antique door knob I found for a 4 speed shifter knob (for a later post).

How can you tell it’s rainy season in California?

Your car sprouts!

A neighbor gave us a big bag of lemons and my wife asked me if I wanted anything made with lemons. So of course I asked for a lemon merengue pie. With making everthing from scratch it took her several hours on saturday. I looked great, but it never set up. The filling was very liquidy, about like thin maple syrup. After some analysis, we decided that the ingredients were correct, but that the double boiler didn’t have enough water in the bottom half and the filling didn’t get hot enough. We thought about semi-freezing it, but I decided to tear it down and fix it.
First I coat a plate with some spray oil, merengue is very sticky and tears easily. Using two people and three oiled spatulas we lifted the merengue off in one piece on to the plate. Then we poured the filling into a heavy bottomed pot.

I felt that we were going to loose some filling in the pot and utensils, so I made up a little cornstarch with the juice of another lemon and added it in.

We brought it up to a boil, then let it cool. The reassembly was fairly straight forward, we just poured the filling back in and slid the merengue back on. Sorry about not having a pic of the finished product, but I’d been looking forward to pie for a long time…

I have previously shown how I put together a new drivetrain for my ‘52 chevy pickup: a new frame made out of 2″x4″ rectangular tubing, front suspension from a ‘79 formula 400 firebird (with disc brakes and a 1 3/8″ swaybar), a 9″ ford rear from ‘76 Lincoln Continental (also with disc brakes) and it was powered by a built 455 pontiac and 400 turbo trans.

This combination yielded amazing performance, but in spite of lowering the truck about 6″, it was still taller than my boss’s dodge dakota. So how did it go from a daily driver to a 10 year project? Listen and learn.
Eventually the trans started making a whining noise, I think this was because it wasn’t downshifting at stops, but the 455 had so much torque that I didn’t notice. I decided to take the cab off to remove the trans (I had had bad experiences pulling transmissions from underneath). While it was off, I decided to replace the floor; the PO had patched some holes with sheet metal from old appliances. Plus he had cut through the main floor brace to install a floor shifter. This went nicely and I decided to replace the firewall also, both to smooth it and to use heavier metal. The firewall was not made hold the brake master cylinder and would “oil can” when the brakes were used. Then one fatefull day, the cab sitting on the shop floor, I started gauging how hard it would be to chop the top. It started as just some lines with a grease pencil.

As you can see, I took the plunge. The back of the cab was almost vertical; it could be lowered straight down. Next time I’ll show the cuts and how it went back together.