The Poo Heap & 303 Special

So I was at another junk yard over the weekend with my boss/friend Jason Rock to pick up a donor car for a big project we are doing for our friend Greaser Mike. We needed so many parts to save his 51' Chevy hard top from falling apart, we decided to get a good solid donor body to start with, and seeing as how it just happened to be sitting on top of a 51' Chevy convertible frame with an extra heavy "X" member in it, we took that also. We'll set up the frame with a small block V-8 with an automatic trans, and mustang 2 front suspension etc. etc. you know the drill, all modern but looking like it could have been a factory build. I'll keep you guy's updated as things get along.





Something I spied stuck in the trees a few months earlier, in the same junk yard, that I thought was cool, was the old "303 Special" a Stude stock car! Who knows when it was on the track last! I get off on finds like this, and wish I could take them all home and make yard art or a garage guys garden around them. I love the old hand painted lettering and numbers, the plumbing pipe push bars, all reminiscent of a time in America when tracks were still around and the average guy could bang out a car to have fun on the summer weekends.








So what have you guy's been up to?
Get back out in the garage and build something!
Fritz

New DVD! Chop a Model "A" Top at Home.

It's here! The third in the series now. After cutting my arm I am back in the garage with my camera, sharing tips and tricks so all of you can do this crazy stuff at home too. The most popular custom trick of all time has to be the "Top Chop" And the most popular car to Chop has to be the Model "A" Ford. Work alongside me in my garage as I Chop a 1930 Ford coupe 2 1/4 inches, fill the roof opening with an old Chevy station wagon donor panel, and show you every step of the way how I did it, all at home, with basic tools. Window garnish moldings, the windshield frame, nothing is left out, every step is covered in this 2 DVD set! Over 4 hours long it is $25.

Get your copy here

Climbing Out of the Rabbit Hole

OK Gang this is our last installment of Alex in Wonderland. I like unusual art in unusual places, cool stuff with cool stuff painted on it. The big stuff Alex has in his back yard and outside on the walls of his garage is just that. His car is an art project in itself a 1967 Chevy station wagon painted in flying tiger colors with a P-51 Mustang on the roof, and yes, he really does drive it around, knowing full well that he is being gawked at, and that the prop is spinning at max RPM on the mustang. His tool shed is also packed to the rafters with things that fly, yup, that also includes a life size superman figure. The actual aircraft along the fence is a Republic Vietnam era shooting star, or falling star, I don't remember. The yellow wing hanging off the garage wall is hand painted with the airplane that the wing is actually from. Driving by on the street you'd never know that this wonderland of aviation history and counter culture gasoline burners was even there! Remember, this all didn't just happen over night, this is a lifetime of appreciation for a time when America wasn't all PC and made in China.
Like I always say, "You cant buy cool, You earn it!"
Now, get out in the garage and build something.
Fritz

As promised, more on "Alex in wonderland"!

Now every crack and crevice has something cool in it, but the big spaces have "AWESOME" in them! The radical Panhead chopper along the wall Alex built back in the late 60's for himself still sports the very same handmade parts and metal flake paint it did the day he finished it. It's a time capsule, It is so cool it's frozen! The other bike is a bone stock 1952 Panhead, Alex did nothing to it, it's all factory stock except the red paint job. The American Picker guys would bust a mental nut in the "Wonderland". My personal fav. is the 1957 Chevy convertible, 283 4 barrel V-8, automatic trans, and factory continental kit. Now sit down so you don't fall over, true story here gang, Alex bought this out of the local swap & trade paper back in 1969 from a guy that collected Edsels for $250.00 bucks and drove it home! It is stone factory stock & unrestored. The only non factory thing on this car is the Earl Schielb paint job! Alex has a plank of plywood across the trunk and uses it as a work bench to build model airplanes!!!! I know it kills me also, LOL. Sitting inside the Chevy is a mannequin with a full flight suite too, its just so crazy it all seems normal.
"Get out in the garage and build something"
(just not on the trunk of a vintage American car)
Fritz

I Return to the city of my Birth, ..... Or a Day with Alex in Wonderland!

Every year I try to head back to the east cost at least once to remind myself why I moved out to Kustom City Missouri. It's great to catch up with my folks and friends, Al "The Chines kid" - "Pepe" - Gary "The Local Brush" - "Poncho Bill" - "Greaser Mike" and Alex "In Wonderland"
Yeah yeah, New York City was Great. The traffic sucks, the Pizza was great, the traffic sucks, you get the idea.



I wanted to pick out Alex cause he has such a crazy collection of stuff. For this post I am gonna stick with the aircraft stuff. Which is why I call him the "crazy airplane guy". This isn't some little batch of stuff that cropped up over night. Alex has got to be in his 60's now and he has been collecting aviation memorabilia and airplane parts since he was a kid. The pics you see are from his one car garage, I'll get the the wacky stuff in his yard in another post. The model ships, planes, engines are too many to list and too many to even see the walls or the ceiling! ITS JUST CRAZY MAN! WW 1 - WW 2 - Korea - Vietnam - and private aircraft are all represented here, even a small Gemini NASA space cap still with parachutes hangs from the rafters. It's really just an amazing little winged wonderland indeed. This is just a teaser, the over the top stuff will follow
"Get out in the garage and build something."
Fritz

Viewer Mail

Does this stuff really come from outer space? Nah it comes from small garages across America and garages in other countries also. Its great when I get an e-mail from you guys and I love that I can share it on this blog. I really dig your ideas, suggestions, and seeing the crazy stuff you have going on. Mark here has Taken a VW Karmann Ghia and trans formed it into whats going to be a hip little space aged show car!





"Hey Fritz, I got your DVD (Build a Fiberglass body at home) while I was gone and watched it today on my day off! I just wanted to let you know that you solved so many problems for me with your help! THANK YOU! You also gave me the confidence to continue with my own project. Unfortunately I have already started my Dub-N-Aire in metal, but have ideas for the next couple projects! The only thing I am curious about is when lifting the ring, how did you figure out the geometry? Also, how much of a “throw” did the screw jack have on the "Rosewell Rod"? Did you do the same with the "Baja Bandeeto"?
Anyway – hope your hand/arm gets better soon!
If I was closer, I’d be over to help ya!"
Mark Gosson
Medford, OR

To Answer Mark's question. I bought an electric screw motor from "Autoloc" they list the length that the screw shaft travels. I first made carboard templets from old beer & pizza boxes to figure the shape of the hinge & area I wanted to be in. then moved on to a 1/4 inch plywood template that I bolted up to a makeshift hinge & screw shaft assembly on the car and touched the wires from the screw motor to a car battery to see how everything would travel. a hit or miss operation but it works. the further away from the pivot point you mount the screw motor shaft on the hinge the less travel you will get. Geezz I hope that all sounds right and makes sense to you guys!?!?!?!
Thanks for asking Mark, My arm is healing up but i'll have a wicked nasty looking scar.
but just ask Capt. Kirk, hot green alien chicks dig scars!

Bee's gotta buzz, birds gotta fly, I gotta sand!

I can't take it anymore! Life with my forearm in a splint just don't get it. After 6 weeks I have been sneaking out to the garage to work on whatever i can get the few moving fingers I have on! The big project on the table is the infamous "Johnny Sparkle" Model T - Ford sedan. I popped my splint off and started doing the body work on his home made dash. Its a lucky thing I am right handed or this really would be a tough job to accomplish. Most of the work is done on the sedan except the finish work on the 2 doors, and the rough in work on the dash, then it should be just a sand and paint deal!

Other little projects I have been plugging away on were a bunch of bowling pins I painted 3 weeks into my life in a splint.
The "Wingteam" pin is for a fellow high school mate Adam.

Carrol & I have finished the editing on the "How to Chop a Model A at home" DVD so it should not be too long before we can offer it up on my web site store! Sorry that the blog posts have been in low gear gang. I'm doing my best and hope to at least kick it up into second as soon as I build up the RPM'S
Keep them wrenches clanking guys!
FRITZ