3k-One Year-30's Ford-Rat Rod Build Thread
This is my first post ever, and my first car project ever. Yes, i have a welder. I like the the 3k project attempts. Building a car using whatever you can find is going to be fun. I have had some other cars, nothing very old. This will my first true hot rod. My attempt will be a 1930's Model A Ford Truck Rat Rod build. I was planning on buying all the parts on E bay and Craigslist and wherever and THEN start the build this fall so i could work on this project during the cold MN winter, but that idea lasted about 6 weeks. I couldnt wait so the build date started 6/7/08. I will try to keep the thread updated weekly so i can ask questions and get feedback from the experienced guys. This should be fun. I am a bargain hunter, but now that i have started, i hope i can still shop for deals and build this car for 3k. It will be a custom frame, airbagged, chopped, channeled, 350 SBC/350 turbo tire smokin hot rod. sorry if that offends anyone. let do it :) Here is pic of the cab and box i bought on E bay for $630 bucks.
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donor vehicular -Ambulance/camper/redneck special
Someone had the great idea to make a camper from a 1978 ambulance. I bought this P.o.S. for $300 and drove it home 90 miles...hey....it had the 350/350 combo i needed. If the engine can push around 3 tons of sh*t, it will move the 1 ton rat rod....i hope this old motor will have enough nuts to smoke the tires off the ol girl....we'll see...i promise pics too. The camper/ambulance ran good....i had to put a new battery in it to get it to fire and put the doghouse back on the engine. The interior is wall to wall carpet...nice touch.
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washing motor-greaseball Donor 350
:D The engine was a greasy mess. It had a tough life in the ambulance but i am told they are well maintained during the ambulance life...it didnt smoke when i drove it home so i hope it has some power..kinda hard to judge the power as it was running a bit rough due to sitting so long. It was Sunday and i didnt have a nearby store for engine degreaser so i used a $1.00 can of oven cleaner, that stuff is potent (this is the old good stuff that makes your eyes water, not the new "water based" stuff)...i loaded the engine in the truck and took it for a pressure wash =-only 2 blocks away...back to the shop to unload the clean engine. It was black, blue and rusty...needs some flat black stove paint.
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Off to the JUNKYARD-scrapping donor vehicle
Time to recoup some money on the donor vehicle..!!:LOL:
Cost of donor=$300.
price for scrap =$190 (it weighed 5000 lbs with no engine/trans)
engine/tranny cost=$110
Plus i got a bunch of other goodies.
My wife towed me 10 miles with a stretch rope to the junkyard! that was a trip!...at the junkyard the ambulance donor POS rolled into my truck and dented my thin Titan bumper...not good. The dude in the big loader fork lifted the beast like it was a toy vehicle.....off to the crusher...but first they needed to remove the insulation etc..I only got $75 per ton due to the "camper" additions of carpet, foam insulation etc...$190 is till better than this ugly beast sitting in my driveway!!!:)
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Front suspension-1941 FORD CAR
Hello,
I put an an on Craigslist last month looking for a 'wishbone' front suspension...a guy abuot 20miles away from me called and said he had one for $100. I basically got the entire front frame section. it has no brakes, but my friend informed me that the 1953-56 F100 brakes will work on this and they are the better "energized" type drum brakes. I thought of going to discs for safety reasons, but i am told these F100 brakes are pretty good, especially if my car will weight half the weight of the F100. The guy i bought this front end from is recently retired and is building a cool rat rod too. He has some shiny stuff too, but lives on gravel so he can now use the rat rod for grocery gettin'..:D
Jeff