Thread: My 15 week rat rod build or bust.....

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It's great !!! really nice project and it works !!!

you sure look like you are having a lot of fun, reminds me of when i was working on my '36 chrysler. When do you plan on having it on the road ??

We will dive the car in 156 hours..............

Ok back to it, I got the roof sound proof and insulated. Then I made the head linner. Yeah I know.....sound proof. Donny got the tail lights done, as well as the rear floor. So I will be covering them this weekend. Not with anything real fancy that is.............!

That wooden headliner looks pretty sweet. It's like driving your own ski lodge...only with more patina

looking pretty cool! keep em coming

Saturday came and went, we did not get to drive it. The oil is changed, the tranny is filled, we have gas, the inside is all together, the wiring was being finished when I left. Donny had a few things going on saturday, plus I had to stop him and ask 10,000 questions about everything I was doing. But he said not to worry. We did crank it over with the key! THere are a few little things like tabs to mount the grill shell, and tabs to mount the head light to the buckets, and Fab up some sort of air cleaner. That is really it. I am going to stop on my way to work and see what he got done. Funny thing....he goes so much faster when I am not there!!! LOL ! I asked him if he ever felt like a shop teacher....he just laughed.

more pics....





And yeah that is a sandwitch tooth pick for a spedo' nedo'

Looking good. You are going to owe Donny big time when this car is done. Unbelievable that he has devoted so much time and work to helping you. He must be a really good friend and nice guy.

Don

Yeah there is no question to what kind of guy he is, He is a ture hot rodder. Yeah he is mostly building this car for me, but he is also doing it to teach me, and to add one more to his list. On top of that, I think that he is having fun with this too, to build one that you dont have to send countless hours on finishing and painting. He would fit in as my 2nd dad.




We still did not drive it today, but we are even closer. I have to put a few finishing touches to it Monday and I do belive donny will take it on its 1st trip in the after noon.

Video on the burn out soon

Zach

Every once in a while a rodder like him comes along. When I was growing up most of the older guys couldn't be bothered, but one guy, John Holbrook, treated us like adults and would let us hang around his shop. He was a real craftsman and had a '32 roadster, a '34 pickup, a '35 Caddy, and a bunch more.

Sounds like Donny is cut from the same cloth.

Don

car looks sick man!! i love it!!!!!

Congratulations Dude, you've got a cool hot rod there. We kinda feel like Grandparents........been there all through the pregnancy and got to see it actually run for the first time.

Thank you for including us in the process.


Don

Never really liked "Rat" rods in the past....guess I was turned off by the unsafe, shoddy workmanship and general lack of concern for the lives of others on the highways that is so often seen among the "Rat" folk.
You and Donny though, have shown that a high quality, safe rod can be built and for very little money. While you haven't given us the final cost figures it looks like you brought it in very close to your budget. You have stayed true to your stated goals and not been tempted to turn it into a show rod. (Unlike some others here who threw the budget out the window once they got started.)
Congratulations on a fine job and thanks so much for sharing it with us.

Thanks man, we still have to add up the cost. I will have it this week.

Well I have a little update on the car. I have just over 250 miles on the car now and it has been a blast. We have a oil leak from the front seal....who cares, and the speedo cable broke. Thats it. It goes down the road with one finger on the wheel. It rides so smooth, you forget that you are in a 31 rat. I think that out of all the cars I have had, this is the funnest to drive.

I went to back to the 50's this weekend. This is the biggest show in the state, just over 15,000 cars and 300,000+ people over the weekend. This was the show that we made a dead line for. I rolled in Friday at 8 am and was parked in 10 mins. From that point on I was swarmed with people till I rolled out at 6. I was parked between two 40+ thousand street rods and they had little to no lookers. But there was my rusty little rat in the middle of a crowd all day.

I talked to everyone I could, they all had ?'s. There was one point that I was talking about the build and I looked around and there were 15 guys standing there listening to me talk. I had one guy and some lady tell me I had the coolest car at the show. I thought that was huge. Don't get me wrong, there were a few that did not understand it, and some that did not like it. But hey I knew that would happen.

I talked with several guys, normal blue calor guys, too guys with 150 grand street rods. And they all agreeded that the look of a street rod was getting old. The one color body, billet directional wheels, and 18's and 20's wheels and tires and "custom" inteiror was getting played. The guy I was blown away by had a 55 chevy. 100% perfect all custom, he and his wife were millonairs. He had the car built 4 years ago, he had never driven it...not ever. He said that it won a ton of shows and he loved it. But he started to feel like his passion for cars was dying. All the work in that car and it never drove under it's own power. This guy looked over my car for a hour the 1st time, then brought his wife by, then his buddies and family. He asked for my e mail to help him find and build a rat. His wife was so pumped that they were going to have a car to go drive around in.....

I hope this guys goes with this and makes a car. Seeing this happen makes me wonder if a change in the rodding world is coming? What do you think?