I been framed!

And brake'd, and lit up, and axled and wheeled... sounds like a good start to a blues song, right? *makes mental note*

But what really happened is a fresh infusion of parts to give the ol' T project a little jumpstart. I started off trading some artwork to Roddychops, head honcho of Vintage Rods--the site logo, the official site flyer here, and a "Roddychop's Customs" logo for his personal builds in exchange for a nice F100 brake setup and some dropped steering arms. Then I found out he's an even bigger fan of the art department at the Royal Canadian Mint, and traded a few of their handy wallet-sized portraits of Robert Borden and the Queen for a frame, a dropped tube axle and some headlights... the result is this:

Just another mockup pick, but the wheelbase and front ride height should be right on...  Rear end is gonna come up maybe 4-6" since the frame kickup is actually resting on the rear axles right now, but it looks good for a classic highboy stance imho.  I'm not 100% sure I wanna run a tube axle with split wishbones though, but the alternatives are either chopping off those beautiful frame horns for a suicide front so I can run my '40 axle, Z-ing the frame in front or sweeping it at the firewall for same, or maybe adapting my rear hairpins to run 'em in front instead. 

In any case, here now for your musical entertainment is Mr. Ry Cooder, doing "Crazy 'Bout an Automobile":

I love the smell of rust in the afternoon

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle aside, the man in the brown truck came through today--as did the person in the red-and-white postiemobile yesterday--with like 100 pounds altogether of vintage Henry Ford and/or new-in-box Speedway Motors goodness. As seen in the above pic, I've now got a drilled '40 Ford axle--bought from the owner of a Canadian Hot Rods & Classics cover car, no less!--a pair of split wishbones of unknown vintage, and not pictured, another set of split 'bones, and a brand new pair of rear hairpin radius rods. I'm on the hunt for a set of early Ford V8 or F1 spindles, plus a buncha stuff that I'm probably gonna wind up getting new from the aftermarket:

• spring perches


• kingpins


• a disc brake kit


• shackels


• a front spring

Throw in whatever miscellaneous hardware I'm gonna need--U-bolts, spring clamps and the like, and I'll be ready to mockup a frame with 2x4s, then order the real deal in solid steel. Well, 2x3x.188 wall rectangular tube steel, but you get the general idea...

This will be a car someday

Now that the weather has retreated from the depths of arctic hell to the relatively balmy area of almost-not-freezing, I decided the day was perfect to play around a bit with mocking up my latest project-slash-white elephant, a '26/27 Model T roadster pickup hot rod. I've got a '52 Ford flathead V8 (not pictured, obviously), matching truck 3-speed, 8-inch rear, and the plan is to build a late-50's/early-60's style rod roughly similar in style to the Don Conley roadster: