Baltimore Garage

[hrm2k]

We have been in this garage for about 5 years. It is actually an 800 sq ft commercial space in a tough part of town...but the doors lock and so far, nothing has happened. We did have one mishap with a homeless guy going through our dumpster...he left and didn't take his cart...and we are always short of money......so the photo is of our " homeless racing" welding cart. As with most car guys, we have our favorite form of intoxication. The problem was we would end up spenmding far too much time going through old magazines trying to find a specific car showing a change we wanted to make. We cut every size car photo we could from all the magazines. We ended up covering the wall as you can see in the photo so there is not one inch of drywall showing in the entire 45' long by 14' high wall....we call it the manic wall. Now when someone stops by to see how we are doing on the car, they spend their time staring at the wall...
Any comments?
JOhn Dayton
Parkville MD

 

[JMURiz]

Excellent! Coolest wallpaper around!
BTW what is the car in the first 2 pics?

 

[bje31]

cool...reminds of the good ole days...

 

[C_F]

Looks good!

 

[hrm2k]

Excellent! Coolest wallpaper around!
BTW what is the car in the first 2 pics?

That is the 51 Chevy Fleetline. It will be a radical custom when finished...to recap work done:
Mid 80's S 10 front clip to 51 Frame. Rear frame clip custom to move the leaf springs outside the frame.
body dropped 4' over frame.
firewall set back 10 inches.
motor moved back 9 inches
from scratch firewall, firewall recess cut from Harley Fatbob tanks
everything inside the car is from scratch....
suicide doors, hinge buckets and door jam from scratch
inside of doors from scratch
( from scratch in all these cases means from 1" x1" , 1" x 3" thickwall tubing, 16 guage sheetmetal, 14 guage sheetmetal, NO EXISTING PARTS )
chopped 1 3/4" from top
rear fenders from scratch with 99 Mercury Sable tailights
That's 5 years worth. We are working on the rear pan and trunk lip area currently. When we finsih that area, time for the front end.
motor is American Speed 383 Satuirday Night Special, 385 HP, 430 lbs torque.Thatwill all be needed as this will end up being a heavy beast...built like a tank ............Thanks for asking

 

[hrm2k]

To give a better look at things from scratch, attached are 2 shots of the passenger side fender " from scratch" sort of before and after...would love some comments

 

[B.C.]

I LOVE IT!! Please post more pics.

 

[hrm2k]

Thanks for the good comments
I knew I had a better pic of " THE WALL", I just needed to find it. IF you look close enough, you will notice naked ladies on some of the cars. The naked ladies were part of the calendars from the local welding supply house...(wink wink, nudge nudge). We found we could cut them from the pics and find a close scale car to help out....and "whola !" **** and hotrods......ain't life grand.

 

[BoCRon]

I'm going to totally ignore the **** and move on

JK, love it. But like others have said, we really need more pics to thouroughly critique your set-up .

Annette

 

[thammel]

Hey hotrod man,

I'm a Baltimore guy too, but really live in the way northern Balt county suburbs. I was in the city tonight helping my pregnant daughter who lives in the Fells Point area. Yep, there sure are some tough areas of the city!! I love your garage and the car work. I presume this is more than a hobby for you guys - are you doing all kinds of custom body/paint work? Any non-custom work? Looks great. Yep, we need some real close-ups of those photos!!!


Tom

 

[hrm2k]

Hey Tom, thanks for the comments. We are on Bel Air road just south of Erdman. YEah, it's a bad neighborhood but no one bothers us....much. Your assumption of what we are doing was a little off. This is strictly fun for us. Wednesday night has been hot rod night for about 10 years. We get together and talk and enjoy each other's company...and sometimes people we know stop just to get an update on what we are doing. The only other vehicle that ever gets worked on is my friends 1999 Heritage Softtail Harley.
I have over 800 pics of the work from the first day until this past Saturday. They are complete detail shots of everything we have done so far. Is there anything special you would like to see? Better yet, why don't you stop down and take a look. Drop me a message and I will give you a phone number so we can arrange a visit. It's dirty but it is a fun place to go.

 

[Hands to War]

HotRod,

Thats a awesome car. Im about to start on a 50 fleetline myself. How did that front clip work for you. Did you keep the steering compents?

 

[hrm2k]

HotRod,

Thats a awesome car. Im about to start on a 50 fleetline myself. How did that front clip work for you. Did you keep the steering compents?

I think if we had it to do all over again, we might have done something different. We got the entire S10 clip for free. We rebuilt most of the components and put the thing together. I think in hind sight, we would have used maybe a Mustang II frontend with rack and pinion. The clip we used has a steering box ahead of the front suspension. I am attaching pics of the splice and the finished piece. We do think the change over from the original to the S10 clip probably saves about 100 lbs of dead weight.

 

[hrm2k]

By the way, the shots above show what that 9" setback on the motor looks like. The thing should handle like a go-cart.
John

 

[burger]

Hands to War,

I have a '84 Cutlass clip in my '54 Chevy truck. The Cutlass clip is pretty similar to the S-10 clip (same spindles, steering, brakes, etc) and the '54 truck is also similar to the '50 Fleetline.

Like hotrodman, I'd use a MII setup if I were to do it over again. The front-mount steering box make radiator clearance a PITA. I ended up using an early Mustang radiator, as it's narrower and taller than the stock one. The radiator support had to be substantially modified both to fit the new radiator and the clip; new fender and bumper brackets had to be fabricated, etc etc. The factory engine mount locations couldn't be used as they placed the engine too high and too far forward.

After modifying all those parts, the truck no longer looks "factory" when you pop the hood. I installed a small block, but did it up in a period look so that if you didn't know better, you'd think the general put it there. A well done Mustang II is pretty much hidden.

On top of all that, the Mustang II still has more advantages -- rack and pinion steering and a better selection of brake components. For a 50's car you'll need a narrow clip -- F-Body clips won't work. That leaves you with the S-10/G-Body clip, which has small dia brakes unless you want to convert them to F-Body brakes, but that's a whole 'nuther mess.


Long story made short, go with the Mustang II.


Ed

HotRod,

Thats a awesome car. Im about to start on a 50 fleetline myself. How did that front clip work for you. Did you keep the steering compents?

 

[Hands to War]

thanks for all the info. I have been debating this for a couple of months and
looking for a cheaper way out. But when you taken the time,and mods, needed to make something else work it think the m2 is the way to go.

 

[hrm2k]

Burger is correct.....use the Mustang II front if at all possible. I believe that you can buy a bolt in. I know the original front suspension unbolts from the frame very easily. The rack and pinion would also offer more options. The S10 clip is actually a total of 8" more narrow ( bearing cap to bearing cap) than the original. We will jhave to run very deep offset wheels at least 8" wide if not 10" wide. Itwill look like a steam roller coming down the street.

 

[burger]

Chassis Engineering has a bolt-in Mustang II crossmember for your '50. They have adjuster cups that allow you to adjust the suspension 2". It's a little more expensive than the weld-in Econo crossmembers, but there's so much less to screw up as it uses existing bolt holes to line everything up. You'd have to try pretty hard to get it in crooked. Buy the crossmember from CE and get your Mustang II components cheap from Speedway Motors. You'll have about $1600 + freight ******* in the whole deal.


Ed

PS- If you want to keep your stock steering column and still connect it to the MII rack, PM me and I'll let you know how I did it in my '54.

 

[burger]

Here's the link to Chassis Engineering's website: link

 

[burger]

Also, check out Walton Fabrication for a bitchin firewall mounted master cylinder setup.

 

[hrm2k]

Burger, I am impressed, you seem to know your stuff on this old chevy ****...thanks for the good information. MAybe we can keep someone from all the extra work you and I had to do...........

 

[ThrashN]

That's a great garage and car, nice job on both.

 

[hrm2k]

Thanks ThrashN. I went to your Penn Mustang forum. Lot of nice vehicles there as well. Our garage is a just for fun place.
John

 

[ol55]

Well, a local guy......I grew up in Parkville. I live in Glen Arm now. Neat shop you got there. I like the Chevy. Maybe I'll see it around this spring / summer.

 

[hrm2k]

Another local...

I live over by Double Rock Park. I know the Glen Arm area fairly well also. I hope we have the 65 Corvair on the road this year. There is a large contingent of cars that hang out on Friday and Saturday night in the K-Mart parking lot on Bel Air road just outside the beltway. Where do you normally hang?
Always looking for a new spot.

 

[ol55]

Another local...

I live over by Double Rock Park. I know the Glen Arm area fairly well also. I hope we have the 65 Corvair on the road this year. There is a large contingent of cars that hang out on Friday and Saturday night in the K-Mart parking lot on Bel Air road just outside the beltway. Where do you normally hang?
Always looking for a new spot.

Places to hang out......that's been an ongoing problem for over 35 years that I have been cruzing around this area. Sometimes the proprieters of the shopping center don't want us there. But even if we find a place where they will let us hang out,there's always someone to screw it up for us. If its not the idiots who leave their trash all over the lot,then its the knuckleheads who like to do their burnouts at the wrong place/time.
I was busy building my new garage last summer, so I didn't get out locally much. I went to the K mart a couple of times, but more often than not, I don't see anyone I know and I just cruise on through. I know where D/Rock Park is. I grew up on Avondale Rd. above the beltway. I used to ride my bike down to the park back in the 60's. Now that the weather is breaking, I'll have to go down to K Mart and see what's going on. I'll keep an eye out for your Corvair. What are you driving now?

 

[ol55]

Chassis Engineering has a bolt-in Mustang II crossmember for your '50. They have adjuster cups that allow you to adjust the suspension 2". It's a little more expensive than the weld-in Econo crossmembers, but there's so much less to screw up as it uses existing bolt holes to line everything up. You'd have to try pretty hard to get it in crooked.
.

I too used the CE kit to put the M2 front end in a 41 Chevy and I would recomend this kit too.......for what its worth.

 

[Bib Overalls]

Chassis Engineering stuff is first rate.

 

[hrm2k]

We do wish that we had a better view of the finished project earlier on. The S-10 got used because we had it and it was supposed to work. I know that CE does great stuff. At the time, great stuff and no money ran hand in hand. The Corvair should be on the road within the next month. Bright yellow, not too hard to hide.
A friend finally built his garage....50 X 50...really nice. My partner in our garage is kind of artsy and decided to build "fuzzy", the friend with the new garage, a sign so anyone entering would know where they are. Pics are attached.
" STAND " 3 60 year old wrenches built to hold up the sign.
" SIGN " 3/4 inch plywood and a lot of talent.....enjoy

 

[ol55]

Hey, I got one of those derelict Rat Fink guys hanging around my garage too...... I'll have to get down there and pay you guys a visit some night.

 

[hrm2k]

love your rat fink !!!! and the moon stools are cool as well. Any wednesday night you want to stop down, let me know and I will drop you some directions.
John

 

[ol55]

love your rat fink !!!! and the moon stools are cool as well. Any wednesday night you want to stop down, let me know and I will drop you some directions.
John

I will do that, maybe next week. I'll PM you.........