Fiberglass for the ‘55 or those mischievous leprechauns
Turns out that St. Patrick’s Day is now a school activity staple (google “Leprechaun traps” to see examples), so my wife pulled a few pranks on the kids and blamed the leprechauns. Now the kids blame leprechauns for everything (the 5 years got a bug or spider bite one night, I asked him what bit him while he was sleeping and he said “It was a leprechaun!”). So one night after the kids went to bed, we pulled the front sheet metal off the ‘55.
The next morning we had the kids look out the window and said “Look what those leprechauns did to the car last night”.
But the next night, they were good and replaced the front end:
The new one is a one-piece fiberglass front end I got off of Craiglist.
How much did it lighten the front end? I haven’t weighed it yet, but the suspension is at the top of the travel, you can see the rubber bumper against the upper A-arm in the pic above. Next I have to mount the headlights, turn signals, radiator and bolt the whole thing down some how. If the suspension hasn’t come down, I’ll have to cut a coil off the front springs. Now I just need fiberglass trunk lid to balance out the rear (of course then I’ll need ‘glass doors to even out the middle).
I put a glas trunk on my 63 Galaxie. I use a bungy cord to keep it from springing up too hard. With that and a glas hood I probably shed 30 lbs.
Comment by Rick — September 27, 2007 @ 1:34 pm