1963 Ford Falcon Build Update   In case you missed the last story, I'm rebuilding my 1963 Falcon Wagon. Originally, I just planned to put some paint on it and re-do the interior, but after inviting a bunch of friends over (here's the story), my wagon's now a stripped hulk sitting in my garage. Borderline panicking but not quitting, I've still got great friends helping out. We're making progress. It'd be easier to get out to the garage if it wasn't 112 today!   First off, I have to mention the tireless help I've been getting from my friend Ken Ford. (perfect name for the project, right?) Ken's a body guy and was looking for a reason to get dirty on a project. He's got a Harley at home now has built several VW's in the past, including a few vans, so he knows how to get body panels looking good.   It's a good thing too! We've been moving around the car looking for disasters. We really only found 1. The previous owner decided to fill the cowl vent. I guess it looks a little smoother, but I'd...

1963 Ford Falcon Wagon Project Start   A lifelong family friend told me, "The funnest part's over." On Saturday 6/7, I had a "Strip Party" at my house. Sounds more fun than it was cause we were stripping a 1963 Falcon Wagon. Including me, 12 guys took apart this wagon Overhaulin' style. (Chip, are you seeing this?)   Imagine a guy with big dreams about a cool cruising wagon that can carry his family to cruises and shows in style. That same guy has said family out of the country, in Japan, for 7 weeks. What to do? I got the idea to invite my buddies and fellow MyRideisMe.com members over for a party to kick-off the disassembly of the wagon. I supply beer and pizza and my friends, new and old, got to dive into some 45 year old dirt in my garage. Sound like fun? Then you're in the right place. This is My Ride is Me at it's finest.   The tear-down thrash started when my friend Mike Schnur showed up. He was early, but I was thrilled to see him over. Mike's the undisputed "Falcon...

You're walking around a show and when you see a car cruise in that makes you stop in your tracks. You're stunned and instantly curious. You're hear it and feel it as it drives by. Time for a closer look. Cars that make you feel that way have alot to see, but it's all skin deep. What'd he do for the rear axle setup? Are those custom engine mounts? Unless the builder took great pics and brought them, it's tough to fully appreciate what it took to bring that car to the show. That's where Build Book comes in. BuildBookUSA.com has published 5 books covering 5 cars built by some of the top builders in country. I met Scott and BJ Killeen (long time auto journalists) at the Grand National Roadster Show and they were kind enough to let me preview the complete series of books. You gotta check these out! The first book, and my favorite, is about Joe Rogan's "Sick Fish" 70 Barracuda. Built by the legendary Troy Trepanier & Rad Rides by Troy, this book oozes coolness page by page. What do you want to know...

Somehow, I found another Kustom Kaiser! When I found Keith's Kaiser (Click here to see his Garage) I instantly thought, this is one of a kind! Well, it turns out it's not. Keith and Ron (Click here to see Ron's Hot Rod's Garage) have taken different approaches to customizing their Kaisers, but both will be equally cool because of the clean and near-custom finishes on the stock Kaiser. Ron's writing a blog for Blogger.com (Click here) that I stumbled on recently. He's let me run this blog to see what he's up to for the interior. I'm checking it out just in case I get to work on my Rambler Amercian wagon project again some day! Check it out: The priming of the miscellaneous parts for the Kaiser went well as the weather was nice and I was able to paint outside. I used PPG self etching epoxy primer DPLF and prepared the bare metal with "metal Prep" a 50/50 mixture with water then wiped the area down with a 50/50 mixture of PPG Dx330 wax and grease remover and lacquer thinner cleaning a 2' x2' area at a...

2010 Pin-up Girl Wall Calendars Instead of working on my projects in the garage, MyRideisMe has me spending most of my free time on the web, working, or sometimes just surfing. I caught a (insert nifty surfing metaphor here) wave when I found David Perry's website, DavidPerryStudio.com. I contact David when I saw this picture: I recognized the the lovely Heidi Van Horne and I recognized that's the cover from a book for sale in the MyRideisMe.com Amazon store. The book is: Hot Rod Pinups by, none other than, David Perry. Here's the description of that book: For as long as young men have been channeling, chopping, and hopping up rods and customs, women - whether loyal girlfriends or trouble-seeking "bad girls" - have been integral to their scene. In this unique portfolio evoking great 1950s pin-up artists like Vargas and Elvgren, talented photographer David Perry depicts models in and out of cherry-picked rods and customs wearing painstakingly chosen period dress and hairstyles. More than 100 photos present these modern-day pin-ups under three themes: Garage, Cruising, and Race. In addition, essays explore each topic and are also accompanied by...

Thanks to Autorama, MyRideisMe.com was able to attend the World of Wheels show, take a ton of pictures (coming soon, right Paul?) and give away 10 tickets to the show. A great deal for everyone. I'm going to save comments on the show for another blog. Right now, I just want to say how great it was to meet one of the guys who inspire me when building my cars, Jimmy Shine. If you think you're into the hot rod and custom bike scene, but you don't know Jimmy Shine, then maybe you ain't. If you want to know more, check out this bio (Click HERE) written by Pete Chapouris, President of the SO-CAL Speed Shop (and I guess Jimmy's boss). That bio must be kinda old though cause it doesn't mention the TV show Pete and Jimmy did for TLC called, "Hard Shine". That show's where I learned more about what Jimmy Shine's been up to and the way he builds. I saw a self made guy that's worked his ass off to get where he is now that's totally into the hobby. He's living the dream so...

Just to wrap up the header I built for my car (Pikesan's garage) I thought I'd post a few pics and the video of the car running.. you can hear what it sounds like! I build the header with help from Schoenfeld Headers and my friends at Nissan with the TIG welding skills. When I finally got it assembled, the next question was what do to for a coating? I media blasted the header and it was a shining clean silver color that looked really cool but I knew it wouldn't last. So I took the advice I got from Schoenfeld and used ATF, yea, Automatic Transmission Fluid! I'd never heard of that, but they said it would turn the header a really cool BLUE color. Hmmm... Here's how everything turned out. Here's the header I had on it before... I tried to paint this one red... I didn't do a very good job and it turned black then white, quickly until it looked like this (Click on any image to see it full size): Here's the 1st video of me running the car for the first time with...

Welcome to Squeeg's Kustom out of Mesa, Arizona. The shop that started doing custom paint back in 1964 now has about 18 (or more!) giant projects going on right now. I met with Doug Jerger down at the shop so I could see what they're up to and follow up on the pictures I took of their new roadster. Doug gave me the grand tour and introduced me to his crew. I hope you aren't misconceived by the American Hot Rod show with Boyd Coddington... not all custom, high-end builders are miserable asses that treat their crew like crap. To the contrary, Doug gives all credit to his crew and reminded me more than once that it's the SHOP that turns out the great work. Doug quickly stepped into the background more than once. It seems to me, the team attitude and hard work are just the way things are done at Squeeg's. Doug explained how he bills by the hour and keeps meticulous records of what's been done. He also NEVER takes a deposit, so there's never the Unique Performance-style risk that's left a few rich suckers pissed...

Written by MyRideisMe feature Member: Mr. Freeze Let me start off by saying that I didn’t think that Goodguys Scottsdale would be the premier show for this build or that the truck would set new standards in the hot rod world. Goodguys was only a time goal for this build. The 40 Ford Cab was purchased for some parts for another project and then it was to be discarded or sold. The more I looked at it the more I thought that it would be a neat build. A friend and I started building the 2x3 box frame Z’d 6” in the front and 14” in the rear and after only a week we got it rolling. We chose a 292 Y-block and for that eye candy factor topped it off with a 6 deuce intake. After some deliberation we decided that this ride would be much cooler with a three speed. Out back, we chose a 56 Ford 4:11 truck axle with 56 front brakes. But it was soon pushed to the side for another project. Here's where we sat so far... It sat for a while and...

I'm not sure when I started working on this project, but it was at least 4 years ago. I wanted to build a trick intake setup for my Pinto Powered Roadster called Bonnie. Bonnie's always turned heads, even parked next to MUCH higher dollar rods. I have to admit that I like that. The intake design is from a tech article I read from the Inglese website. It explains why individual runner intakes and weber carbs are the hot setup. Now, with the new intake finally on, I'm gonna get more people asking, "What engine is that?" So here's where I left off... the last thing to do was weld the flange that would hold the throttle cable: My Friend Aaron welded everything up for me. It came out nice, then I took it to the sand blast cabinet. After, it looked like cast aluminum, but it weighs less than 3 lbs. These are the before and after blasting shots. Then finally, here's what it looks like all mounted up. I can't wait to spend hours trying to tune this thing! But, I'm gonna wait to fire it up...

From Lincoln Electric A Guide to Aluminum Welding Reprinted courtesy of Welding Design and Fabrication magazine. Equipment Selection, Material Prep, Welding Technique... A Guide to Aluminum Welding Reprinted courtesy of Welding Design and Fabrication magazine. Follow the rules of thumb offered here for selecting welding equipment, preparing base materials, applying proper technique, and visually inspecting weldments to ensure high-quality gas-metal-and gas tungsten-arc welds on aluminum alloys. Even for those experienced in welding steels, welding aluminum alloys can present quite a challenge. Higher thermal conductivity and low melting point of aluminum alloys can easily lead to burnthrough unless welders follow prescribed procedures. Also, feeding aluminum welding wire during gas-metal-arc-welding (GMAW) presents a challenge because the wire is softer than steel, has a lower column strength, and tends to tangle at the drive roll. To overcome these challenges, operators need to follow the rules of thumb and equipment-selection guidelines offered here... Gas-metal-arc-welding: Base-metal preparation: To weld aluminum, operators must take care to clean the base material and remove any aluminum oxide and hydrocarbon contamination from oils or cutting solvents. Aluminum oxide on the surface of the material melts at 3,700 F...

It was my pleasure to meet Kirk Wright of Scottsdale, AZ at the Scottsdale Pavilion's show. We started talking about my car, a 27 Ford Roadster and the the 2.3L Pinto motor I run. Then Kirk started telling me about some of his cars. After hearing about the Model T 'banger motors he was building, I set up a meeting at his house to see what he's up to. His card says AAA Typewriter Service on it, so I didn't know what I was getting into. I got into this: If you're into nostalgia racing or old-OLD time hot rodding, or just really into Model T's, then you just spilled your beer. You're looking at a one of kind Hemi headed model T engine. The valve cover is also a unique piece. It's a modified original Ardun valve cover. Kirk added extra room to clear the custom made aluminum roller rockers. Displacing 190 cu. in, Kirk expects this engine to put out about 320Hp. Don't believe it? Kirk's basing that number on another T engine he's built and dyno'd. That's in another T pickup that Kirk's owned since 1951...