Yep, steponthepedal, Different times, different experience, different background. I fully understand that folks may be reading my posts who have Never mastered a clutch and manual transmission. Who have never owned or driven a vehicle with a carburetor or a points distributor. Who have never even ridden in a "Body on Frame" type vehicle. Who have never changed their own oil, cleaned and reused a spark plug, or even so much as replaced their own windshield wiper blades.
I speak from the "Old School" experience. I built 2 cars before I was 19 yrs old. The first one was my HS auto shop project. Begin that at age 17. 1934 Plymouth 3 window coupe, rumble seat, suicide doors. Basically scrap iron pulled off an abandoned homestead in the mts. Missing engine, front axle, front fenders, all glass, and complete with 76 bullet holes and 4 shotgun blasts in the rest of the sheet metal. Pretty UGLY! HUGE JOB! Bought a '49 dodge 4 door wreck for the engine, tranny, and whatever else I could salvage for $30. Built it a custom wooden dashboard and mounted salvaged instruments in it from wrecks and abandoned cars. Welded my own motor mounts and altered the front frame rails to accept the front axle and leaf springs off a '47 Dodge PU. They call what I did in 1964 a "Rat Rod" these days. Got it licensed for the road, and got an "A" in auto shop.
Next build was a bit more ambitious, Got myself a '56 Ford 2 door post sedan. Ford called it a "Club Sedan" And was actually the first Fairlane. Nasty enuf in it's time. Y block 312 T Bird engine, 4BBL Holly carb, Dual exhaust ported thru the rear bumper, 3 on the tree with electric overdrive, Hot shit in '56. 225 HP or so stock and well worn out in '64 when I got it running with broken valve springs and smoking out the tailpipes like a diesel. Drove it to my local machine shop and went NUTS! Bored it to the waterjackets and pressed in 352 Ford truck cyl sleeves. Mickey Thompson Pistons and rods, Ford Truck 352 heads milled for 390 sodium valves running on GMC heavy duty rocker studs, double valve springs off a ISKY 505 roller cam. Ported and polished intake and custom tuned headers, Carb was Holly 650 double pumper with 950 jets, 2 electric fuel pumps 2 lines to the tank. Fired it up and broke it in for 500 mi or so then had it balanced and blueprinted. Mallory dual point ignition, Put it on a rear wheel dyno at the local college. Made 415 HP to the rear wheels at 7,200 rpm. Rear axle was a stock '58 F100 4-11 ratio. Need I say I hadta modify the suspension to accommodate the HP? Need I say I hadta chain down the engine to keep from tearing out motor mounts? Of course I did. Traction masters on the back, 2 shocks on every wheel, Pretty freaking fast.......10.4 sec quarter mile. In 1965. Top end on the road 154 mph. A bitch to keep running, blew 3 clutches and 5 overdrive trannys in 9 mo. Had about $3,000 into it and it would beat the showroom GTO and 409 Chevys of the day. Price similar. then sold it and went into the Navy for 4 yrs.
After Navy I bought a stock fast car.......Learned my lesson about hot rods.......Too much wrenching . I bought myself a bone stock one owner 1964 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 2 door hardtop. Big old square boat. 6 yrs old, 17 feet long, 5,600 lb of good old USA steel. Play ping pong on the hood or on the trunk deck. HUGE CAR! Had some grunt under the hood. 394 cid 350 hp engine hooked up to a 4 speed Hydramatic tranny. Was a bit squirrly on the stock 15 inch wheels so I went to wide tread 14" and slammed it on the ground. Cornered better than corvettes over the oregon Cascade passes then. Drove it 30,000 mi in 10 mo. Weren't worth a damn for going fishing on dirt roads, Traded it in on a new 1971 Chevy C20 PU truck. Little less hp, 4 bolt 350 in the PU, Not so fast, the olds 135 speedo now in the pu is 124, But Boy, that PU will tote 2 tons while towing 4 tons. Sure it drives different. It's a 4 speed granny first stick shift. U don't use first gear in town. first gear at 6,000 rpm= 10 mph. U come off stoplights in second gear. That's good for about 35mph @ 6,000 rpm, then U powershift it into 3rd......The 12 inch 5 ton rated clutch grabs. .The hood lifts a couple of feet if U have a ton of camper on the back, The engine torque twists yer frame and lifts a front wheel or 2 off the ground and scares the comprtion into submission. Nasty old truck. Doyer new Pu trucks perform like that? will they do it for 30 years? I see New 4WD Pu trucks in my snowmobile parking lots. I get there first in my 2 WD. Ya, 30 yrs old. Towing a 2 up sled trailer, Ya, NO Pwr steering when I back in. No pwr windows or locks or mirrors either.....How wussy doya gotta be in yer so called "Truck"???
