The "Appalachian Engineer" seyz Hey!

[Appalachian Engineer]

Hey,
I’d like to introduce myself and first off I’d just like to say:
I really like what I’ve been seeing as I checked out this board for the past few months and decided, “What the heck” I may as well join this cool little site you have going on here! In my humble opinion, this site reflects what true hot rodding really is. Hot rodding started out with motor heads from all corners of our country who built/altered their cars themselves with their own skills and imagination replacing the greenbacks needed to hire a “coach builder” to do it!
A little about me:
I’m currently in the Army stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC and have about another year until retirement. My experience with cars ranges from clobbering up “next-to-no-dollar” runners as a teen to joining the Army , working on the M-977 HEMITT, http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/arfacts/blm977.htm and the multi-million dollar M270 http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m270.htm eventually becoming ASE certified, working for a few of maintenance chain stores and dealerships, (Good-Year, Midas) and another garage I don’t care to mention!

[Appalachian Engineer]

My first car was a 1942 Packard that my older Brother abandoned in the front yard. The car itself was cool considering... The previous owner butchered the heck out of the chassis in his attempts to make what he called an “old style drag car”. He ousted the flathead 6 and put in a Chevy 265 V-8 with the front style motor mounts. This would have been kind of okay, but he also decided to use a 29 Packard transmission with the big, long “rat-fink” style shifter. This would have been okay too except he used mounts bolted to the sides? After driving it for a while my Brother found out only one of the rear brakes actually worked! It was then that my Bro remembered that the previous owner told him he disconnected the front brakes to reduce the resistance at the drag strip! Outstanding, huh? My Dad referred to the Packard as the “Ralph Nader” car as it was truly “unsafe at any speed”! In spite of its tiny discrepancies, it was really cool and tested your professional driving skills to say the least. Stopping was an adventure and had to be pre-planned to ensure success. Steering was also exciting as the 28” steering wheel made even the slightest curvy road feel like going through a slalom with a town bus. The wiring was original, that was upgraded with the occasional wrap of friction tape where the cloth insulation was tattered. Some things were 12 volt; some stuff was 6 volt with step down converters that were always scalding hot to the touch. No gauges worked. The lights were hooked up to a toggle switch and dimmed every time the car stopped. Whenever you pushed in the clutch, it tested your shifting skills as the whole engine/tranny assembly moved forward and nearly disjointed from the drive shaft. My Brother didn’t discover this until it actually happened! He had it tached to around 3½ grand trying to test its top end when the drive shaft spun through the floor and chassis like a giant deranged egg beater! This caused the chain reaction that also made the engine come loose from those pieces of all-thread holding it to the cross-member. It’s a good thing there was also a small turnbuckle and chain also installed to hold it in place! (I was told that the 55 Chevy’s had these on the in stock form?) After a few days of sitting along the road, my Dad pulled it home with his pick-up truck and it sat for several months as repairing it was far beyond my Bro’s skills as a mechanic.

[Appalachian Engineer]

At 16 it was all I could do to convince my reluctant Father to let me keep the thing and fix it up. I spun my wheels for weeks, just trying to figure out how to fix this thing up with next to no money until I convinced my neighbor to sell me his 1970 Chevy Impala 4 door (that had some minor body modifications done to the roof by a 30 foot oak tree) for $75.00! I made a swag “scientific wild -a$$ guess” and figured the chassis would fit under my Packard and just knew I’d have it on the road in a few weeks. With a huge grin on my face, I kicked out the windshield and drove the Impala up the road to our house as soon as it got dark. As soon as I got it in the yard my Mother came out and threatened to have the junk man tow both the Impala and the Packard away. My Dad convinced her to let me keep them as they would keep me busy and out of trouble. She gave me a month to get the “two pieces of junk” out of her yard. Fearing my Mom’s threat, I dug right in and commenced to make my Impala/Packard hybrid. I traded the Packard’s 265 to my Dad’s buddy who was restoring a 56 Chevy 210 for a “buzz box” electric welder. Our garage wasn’t wired for 220 so I used my Grandmother’s stove outlet to plug it in! I didn’t have a torch, so everything was cut off and cut out with a jig-saw, hack saw or a low-speed grinder.

With more time than money, more enthusiasm than sense, I actually got the Packard body on the Chevy chassis by mid-winter (4 months later) only to find the Chevy’s wheelbase was an inch too short. At the time, a strong “bubble-gum weld” was the extent of my welding skills so I wasn’t going to attempt chopping the chassis. Instead, I took a jig saw to the front fender, cutting the whole radius out and pop-riveting it back on an inch back so it lined up with the wheel and then filled the gap with sheet-metal scarfed from the Impala’s doors. I bolted the steering column to the dash only to find it didn’t line up anymore with the steering box. So I connected it back to the box via a John Deer green power-take-off shaft with 2 u-joints on it (taken from some farm implement, I’m sure!) that I found at a yard sale! Much to my Dad’s surprise, the Pack was actually running again! He was shocked that I was able to figure out how to combine the Packard with the Impala. I basically cut the Impala down to the rockers (with a jig-saw, a hacksaw and a grinder remember!) and placed the Packard on top of the Chevy floor pan from the fire-wall to the rear bumper. I used angle iron and 2x4’s with all-thread through them to brace the body up while I cut the floor out to match up with the Impala’s. There were holes and gaps where things didn’t quite mesh, but I cut pieces from the Impala’s hood and trunk and bent & trimmed them to fill the spaces. I guess things moved slightly here and there and my amateur welding kind of warped a few things, but I shimmed the new body mounts until the doors would open and close again. The gaps weren’t perfect, but I figured I could always correct that later. I fabbed up a tranny cooler using the Impala’s air-conditioning condenser and used the Packard’s stock radiator. The original Packard door handle on the passenger side was broken, so I got some ¼ square stock and ¼ plate and made my own “coffin-shaped” handles! To save money, I used everything I possibly could from the Impala or the Packard. This included stuff like the Impala’s wiring, which I thankfully had the sense to take apart and not cut it apart like my Brother told me to do! Everything connected back up without a hitch. Even the wipers worked as I combined the Impala motor with the Packard’s linkages with a connector piece I made from a hardened steel bottle opener! The exhaust was rusted and since the y-pipe and singles weren’t cool anyway, I bought some department store flex-pipe that resembled a flexible straw and put straight pipes from the cut off y-pipe all the way back to the bumper with no mufflers! I couldn’t afford them anyways...

[Appalachian Engineer]

It’s alive! It’s alive! It moved under its own power, the 250 hp Turbo-Fire 350 V-8 sounded like rolling thunder through the open pipes. It also steered and stopped. Now to the interior...The original Packard interior was long gone and replaced by shag bathroom carpeting by my Brother! The front seat was a non-operable power unit out of an Electra 225 that was also a 4-door, so it didn’t fold to gain access to the back-seat, which was also absent. My Dad brought home a broken 2-door GM seat he said he found in a dumpster at work. I combined the 2 seats and wired it up. Just like down town! It worked and I could now get into the cavernous back seat area. Next I pulled out the shag carpeting and replaced it with ¼ inch plywood scrap pieces I got from my wood-shop teacher. A friend of mine traded me an old Mustang back seat for 2 years of “Car Craft” magazines. I fabbed up a mounting bracket out of some shelving angle and bolted it in. I painted the plywood door and side panels with grey bridge enamel along with the floor and dash.

Now to the body...
Okay, this is the part where my shame/ingenuity shines through. The Packard’s left-side grille was busted as was one of the tail-light lenses. The bumpers were embarrassing as they were fabricated by my Brother out of 2x4’s! I got some ¼ plate and cut them into what resembled 4 fat, fish shaped pieces with a jig saw. I welded them onto the Impala brackets. On the front they were simply kind of like nerfs but on the back I connected them with some rebar to look more like a bumper and have something to attach the license plate/light to. I fabricated 2 new side grilles using shelving and the grille mesh from a 1958 Ford. I found some rectangular Vega tail-lights that closely resembled the Packard’s and wha-la! I Bondo’ed everything smooth and then I promptly painted the car with a silverish light purple paint I custom mixed using everything from acrylic enamel bridge paint to Rustoleum. Okay, remember the shame part? I applied this custom mixture with a very short napped roller and a sponge brush! Yeah, it had a little orange peel, but most people thought it was sprayed as I buffed it out nice after I color sanded it.

Two years from the build start date...
Okay, it was loud, ungodly loud. But it stopped, power front disc brakes with a dual reservoir master cylinder. It steered, with a more modern short arm/long arm and re-circulating ball steering box. It had safe wiring with a fusable link, an actual fuse-box and modern switches. The lights worked, the wipers worked, the horn worked and of course so did the $5.00 garage find “under the dash” FM/8-track player complete with a Beach Boys Endless Summer tape! I constructed a bracket out of an erector set that would tuck the player underneath the dash when not in use. All this and when the totals were tallied, I had a grand total of $250.00 and a bunch of barter skills put to use invested including the cost of tags! I couldn’t wait to put them on and take my “Packala” down the road. It was then that I realized all of this caught my Dad off-guard. He stopped me dead in my tracks before I could even get out of the driveway. I quickly figured out he honestly didn’t have any faith in me pulling off getting the car even running again, let alone get it to its present state. He told me he wanted to drive it for a while to make sure it was safe before he let a new and inexperienced driver behind the wheel. I was dumbfounded and pi$$ed off to say the least! What do you mean unsafe? It used to have one working brake and a drive train that was a combination between a tornado and hand grenade! For all practical purposes, it was truly a modern and safe car now! Arguing with him was pointless and it wasn’t as if I had a choice, so I gave him the keys so he could evaluate the car before I could get it back. He drove it to and from work the next day. On the way home he hit a deer, totaling out the Packala!

[Appalachian Engineer]

I’ve never gone this much in depth when building a car since. The closest and most recent was an old Triumph Spitfire I “Americanized” with a Pinto engine/trans and wiring. I’m dying to dig into building a car again but am living in government housing (they aren’t too accommodating concerning having an unregistered project car in the driveway/yard!). Also I’m attending college readying myself to get a grown-up civilian job when I retire. I’ve got a lot of varying experience I am more than willing to share and would be glad to help if asked. I also have a lot of automotive ideas some would think “off the wall”. Right now I’m planning up my new rat rod. Picture this:
An S-10 chassis/running gear
A 1941 Willys fiberglass front clip
Volkswagen Beetle rear fenders/body section mounted on a, now get this, a Geo Metro convertible body! I’ve got an image I pasted together using PowerPoint if you’re interested in seeing what it would look like. I think you’d be surprised that it doesn’t look all that bad. A cool convertible made out of modern and cheap parts and not “bastardizing” an actual old car to do it! I figure I could paint it a dark flat gray with fluorescent green accents? It’s all a dream for the next few years anyway! Good luck on your dreams/build and I’ll be seeing ya on the boards!

[31RATRUCK]

Well after reading your book, I have to say that your story is pretty funny, and goes to show how much can be accomplished when you are willing to jump in and just do it, learning along the way. I would be interested to see that contraption of a car, and your new idea too. A friend of mine owns a shell of an old Morris Minor and he was talking about tearing down a geo metro convertible to blend the two bodies together and build a SSR truck version rod. I kind of thought he was a little crazy on that idea, maybe not.

[LordMaximo]

Hey, welcome to the rope yard..........that shure is an impresav name fur a shade tree monkey man....lol.......:eek:

This is one of the better rodding sites on the web. There are others that have you going either way.:rolleyes:

Now get some pictures up on your rides and builds.

Maximo

[Appalachian Engineer]

Thanks for the welcome! The nickname is via my skills in "Appalachian engineering", MaGyvering or whatever you want to call it! LOL Hopefully I will have something in a year or so...:cool:

[LordMaximo]

Cool...nothing wrong with using whats between your ears.....lol....:eek::D