Table of contents for Volume 4, Issue 28 - January 2023 in Modern Rodding

When scanning classified ads, seasoned hot rodders can usually sniff out untruths, like “ready to paint” or “90 percent complete” or, the old standby, “Corvette engine.” It’s almost always a red flag when these statements are presented in the ad, but sometimes curiosity gets the best of us. Such is the case with Todd Nelson, a longtime car guy from Land O’ Lakes, Florida. He’s bought and sold quite a few cars and trucks through the years, and that list of previously owned vehicles includes a ’58 Chevy Biscayne. He sold that car to his brother-in-law, Doug Peterson, and that car created a new appreciation for the one-year-only body design for both Todd and Peterson. Todd’s hankering for another ’58 led him to the Internet where he stumbled across an…

If you’ve been following the construction of Colin and Sue Radford’s ’57 Ford Del Rio Ranch Wagon so far you’ve seen the installation of the Art Morrison Enterprises (AME) front bikini clip, a Ford Performance Coyote, and an AME four-bar kit with their 9-inch rearend housings. This time around we will get into the whys and wherefores of selecting the components from Strange Engineering to make the rearend complete. Ford’s 9-inch rear axle was produced from 1957-86 (the 9-inch reference refers to the diameter of the ring gear). So, yes, our wagon did come with a 9-inch, so why did we change it? There were a number of reasons for the decision. The new housing came from AME with all the necessary brackets for the four-bar and Panhard bar welded…

Customs have long been a part of hot rodding. As much as any other build style they are a focal point. While we have seen any number of body styles customized it seems like we always come back to the ’49-51 Merc as a standard. Such is the case for Kevin and Meridith Anderson’s ’50 Merc custom. It looks great by today’s standards, but it should be known that this ’50 Merc custom has been around for a long time. The ’50 Merc custom you see before you has its roots in its initial build dating back to the late ’50s. It’s been in Kevin’s care for the past 30 years and has undergone a complete makeover, as well as continuous upgrades since the five-year makeover. This ’50 Merc has…

SOURCES HEIDTS (800) 841-8188 heidts.com HOT RODS BY DEAN (800) 362-9709hotrodsbydean.com WILWOOD DISC BRAKES (805) 388-1188 wilwood.com Leaf springs are commonplace in the old car world. We’ve relied on them for more than 100 years but they’re not always the ideal platform for performance. In the case of this ’56 Chevrolet Nomad project car, it had a nice stance and already had a selection of aftermarket components, but the owner wanted to make big improvements. He commissioned Hot Rods by Dean (HRBD) to revitalize the suspension with a Heidts four-link rear suspension kit (PN RC-151-K). The new suspension eliminates the leaf springs in favor of an adjustable four-link system, coilovers, and a sway bar. Additional options include a new 9-inch rearend housing, complete with pre-installed brackets. In addition to the…

Art Morrison Enterprises Surpasses Chassis Milestone The team at Art Morrison Enterprises (AME) just turned a milestone page as they celebrated a major chassis milestone. We here at Modern Rodding can remember the original phone call and email when Art Morrison first revealed they were thinking about doing the C1 chassis. As of August, they have shipped their 500th C1 GT Sport chassis. Nearly 70 years later, the sleek lines have withstood the sands of time, but the chassis technology that helped propel the Corvette to new heights handles more like a bus than a sports car, which is where AME engineering and development comes in. Recognizing that combining beauty, brawn, and performance is the foremost goal of most hot rodders, AME’s engineering team developed a true bolt-on C1 chassis…

Dealing with the hot rods from the ’50s and ’60s is a lot easier nowadays given there is so much reproduction sheetmetal. This month we are going to look at a ’64 Ford Galaxie and the replacement of its firewall using an Auto Metal Direct (AMD) firewall (PN 370-8964). The work for this project was done at The Installation Center (TIC). It should be noted that while our installation of our OE-style firewall (factory firewall is PN C4AZ-6201610-A) is on a ’64 Ford Galaxie, the AMD firewall shown here will fit the ’64 Ford Galaxie and the ’64 Mercury Marauder and Monterey. AMD stamps the firewalls, and other sheetmetal, from a high-quality 19-gauge steel. The firewall itself weighs 65 pounds. According to AMD, each firewall features the correct shape, size,…

Bob Bauder was what you’d call a “real hot rodder.” The look and performance behind the cars he built for himself and his select customers was not necessarily for the faint of heart. These cars were “drivers,” in the purest sense of the word, and Bob drove the hell out his hot rods. Bob died in 2017 but not before making a mark in the industry and hobby he spent his life pursuing. Involved with nearly every major well-known car builder in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s you could think of, Bob preferred to be more in the shadows, unconcerned with the trappings of celebrity (of which he could have easily qualified). He had developed a build style that was identifiably his and, in the early ’90s, he had turned…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZE4RoNW3Fw Sometimes a plan goes sideways. The first step to turning a tech article on how to stop rust on a mangy old Model A frame into a how to restore a 20-year-old car trailer is to temporarily redirect one’s priorities. Originally, I was gearing up to use POR-15 products to stop the rust on “East Coast Graffiti,” my ’31 Model A. On the day I ordered everything I needed from POR-15 to begin the Model A project I mentioned to friends on Facebook I was thinking about thinning out my collection of classic trucks, starting with my favorite, a ’79 Chevy C10 Big 10. The trick to shedding a collection of vehicles without any regrets is to get rid of your favorite one first, then dumping the rest should…

How much television do any of us watch nowadays? I’m talking about weekly sitcoms or some form of television drama. I’m thinking not nearly as much as we once did. Nowadays it seems to be a lot of TV specials or shows we “cast” from our smartphone onto our “smart” TV. But there was a time when popular hot rods made their way onto regularly watched TV programming. Three that come to mind are Norm Grabowski’s T-bucket on 77 Sunset Strip (1958-64), another Grabowski creation was the made-for-TV-Touring in My Mother The Car (1965-66), and the Tony La Masa ’32 Ford channeled roadster that appeared now and then on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952-66). One of my favorites was Route 66 (1960-64). The Corvette was the center of…

1. SLIM-FITTING UNDER DASH LOUVER KIT Vintage Air now offers its all-new Under Dash Slimline Universal Louver Panel with Brushed Aluminum Trim Kit. The kit includes a two-piece louver panel, all four louvers, and 2.5-inch hose adaptors. The louver panel comes with brushed aluminum trim and can be painted to match the dash and interior. The underdash panel was designed to minimize intrusion into the occupancy space, with the louver bezel only protruding 3-1/2 inches below the dash. Engineered for installation on any vehicle with a flat underdash area, the Under Dash Slimline Universal Louver Panel Kit includes four louvers with 2-1/2-inch hose adaptors to easily pair with Gen IV or Gen II evaporator systems. The passenger-side panel is 34 inches wide and incorporates two 3.8x1-1/2-inch louvers and a 2-1/2-inch…

Exclusivity can create something very iconic. When GM’s chief designer, Harley Earle, introduced the Nomad as one of his very special Dream Cars for the 1954 General Motors Motorama in New York, it created an incredible buzz among the public with its ’53 Corvette nose artfully melded to a sleek sport wagon body capable of carrying six passengers. Its success on the show circuit led to the design being massaged for introduction into the freshly revamped ’55 Chevrolet passenger car lineup. The sleek ’56 Chevy Nomad laid out across our pages belonging to Jeff Calley of Franklin, New Hampshire, has a perfect balance of performance and handling. With the Nomad’s style evoking that of a hardtop sedan rather than that of a standard station wagon, its two-door body featured a…

In the Dec. ’22 issue of Modern Rodding, our pals at Hot Rods by Dean (HRBD) started to show us a clever way to chop a top. To chop a top, most of us cut a band of metal from the entire top perimeter then tune the parallel edges to make a tight, consistent welding gap. And welding gap is everything in a top chop. While time-honored and effective, the technique takes time. Nobody has a perfect hand, so the cut lines never line up perfectly for a tight weld gap. Tuning those parallel edges takes a long time. Nick Sinioris chopped the windshield posts, doorjambs, and rear window with parallel cuts. But he made only one cut around the rest of the top. Then he slid the top section…

Hot Rods and fighter planes for as different as they are also have a great deal in common. Both are compatible. There are pilots and some fly using wings while others “fly” piloting hot rods. They both feel the “need for speed.” Virgil Winland has long wanted a hot rod with a vintage fighter plane theme. Garret Kitchen of Garret’s Rod Shop (GRS) presented it to him in this ’33 Ford Speedstar roadster known as the “P-33.” The basis of this ’33 Ford roadster is the Speedstar body originally manufactured by Rat’s Glass exclusively for Alloway’s Hot Rod Shop. While the body supplied the foundation for the build, Virgil still wanted the vintage warbird look to tie in the overall theme. This is where Kitchen and the remainder of the…