Thread: Project $ 3 K Is Underway

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Don---Well---even with the friggin exchange rate (it takes $1.17 Canadian to buy $1.00 USA.) I'd a still been way over $10/000.

Oh, see, I thought it was like the Yen, 20,000 = one dollar.

Don

Hey, by the way, started bending up the bed last night for the '39. Used alot of your tips to do it. Thanks again.

i built this car for less than 1500.00 useing stuff i had laying in the floor. i had 700.00 in the motor, including the blower. it ran 11.0 sec. 1/4 mile, stock short block, 200.00 heads, stock conv. shifted at 5,000 rpm's. best i could tell i had about 2800.00 in the car. raced it 3 yrs. and sold it for 3700.00.

Mike: really great looking drag car. Bet you upset alot of guys who had mega-bucks in their cars, when you beat them. Of course, how could they tell, because your car looks high buck.

When I was a teen, there was a guy in our town who had a '55 Chevy. He had only $ 400.00 in the car, and he was beating everybody around. Of course, he had stolen a brand new 409 Chevy off a dealers lot and used the entire drivetrain in the '55, but that is another story altogether.

I heard a few years ago he was found shot in the trunk of a car, so I guess his ways finally caught up with him.

I agree with the comments about starting with a donor car. Every once in a while I take a bicycle to the local industrial park and start peddling around. It enables you to go slow, and see things you would miss driving a car. I carry a tablet and pen, and when I see some interesting car sitting next to a body shop or garage or business, I jot down what it is and where I saw it. Then I can call them later, or stop in, and ask if the car is for sale. I find that most body shops and garages have little interest in old cars sitting around (by old, I don't mean '32 Fords, just cars of the '70's or '80's) so you can pick up one of these for a song, and sometimes score a good running engine and drivetrain for very little money. When you strip the car to it's bare bones, just call the local junkman and away it goes.

By buying the entire car, you get a much better deal than if you went to the local junkyard and bought each component individually.

So far with the bicycle routine I have scored numerous cars, like an Olds with 455 engine (the one my kid is using in his '29) at least 6 Fox Mustangs, a van that I fixed up and sold cheap to my girlfriends Son, some Grand Marquis Mercs, and some I can't remember. The average cost ranged from $ 50.00 to $ 400.00.

And, the exercise is good for you too !

Don

Itoldyouso, capitol garage(it was a wrecker serv. in richmond) gave me that pont. body and a pinto car that i used the front clip off of when i started building the drag car, to get it off of his lot. i used the clip, brakes, steering, master cylinder and paddles out of the pinto. that thing would fly for what i had in it, but with the blower on it everybody thought it should have been faster. i couldn't make them understand if i run it 100 more rpm's than i was running it it wouldn't stay together. the motor and trans. was a motor and trans. that i had left over after installing a low millage used one a few weeks before and i put a set of bearings and rings in it, bolted a blower on it and went racing. i paid 300.00 for the blower, and it was so wore out you could see day light passed the rotors, but it would pump 4 lbs. of boost and thats what i wanted. i think the only thing on that car that was new was the shifter, it had a th350 trans and the shifter had 3 levers, i wish i still had that shifter, you dont see them no more, and i forgot what it was called. if anybody knows i'd like to know.