First of all, if you’re rebuilding an old car, whether it’s a full blown 100 point restoration, or an out-of-this-world kustom, you shouldn’t forget about completely redoing the brakes on your ride. Brakes are one of the most overlooked part of a build that can save your car and your life. Project Pile House is a full blown custom with little to be left original on the truck. It sits on a first generation Chevy S10 chassis, so the brake components on each corner are easy to get replacements for, but that’s about where it stops being easy. I recently decided to plumb the brake system on Pile House, and show you what goes into a project like this.
Tag: Chevy
How to Repair and Shorten Longbed Chevy C10 Bedsides
When it comes to classic trucks short beds rule the coop for desirability and resale value. Most enthusiasts turn their nose up to a long bed truck. What’s slowly happening though is that nice, clean examples of short beds are becoming few and far between and when they do pop up you’re going to pay a premium. Recently some guys have started shortening the bed and chassis of long bed trucks to get the same look but without the price gouge of a short bed truck. Our friend Sean Ramáge of Empire Fabrication recently took on the big job of taking an original-paint set of long bedsides and repairing the damage and shortening them, all while keeping as much original paint and patina as possible. He shared the process with us and gave us an insight into what it takes to tackle a job like this.
How to Make your barn or garage find road-worthy- Part Three Restoring the Brake System
Once you have the vehicle running and moving under its own power you’ll surely want to drive it around your property to see what else it needs. The big thing that may kill the fun is the lack of brakes. In my particular case the front brakes were partially seized on and the brake pedal just went to the floor. I decided to completely disassemble the system and show how to go through the brakes on your classic car…..
How to Make your barn or garage find road-worthy- Part One Assessing the Vehicle
In the past 5-10 years the buzz words in the automotive hobby are “barn finds” or “garage finds” and “picking”. This is just a car guy or gals way of explaining automotive treasure hunting. The dream is to find an untouched car or parts that’s been stashed away and forgotten in a barn, garage, yard, etc. and you pull it out and put it back into use. There’s practically an entire subculture in the classic car world dedicated to this with shows like American Pickers, Chasing Classic Cars, Backroad Gold, etc making it look like an easy process. I’ve been doing this sort of thing for quite a while and it can be as easy as knocking on a door and handing over a stack of cash, but the process to make these cars and parts usable again IS NOT. Any car that’s been sitting for more than a few years is going to need a LOT of work to get it ready to cruise the streets again. Not only that, there are some key steps you should take to avoid causing damage to the vehicle when trying to get it going.
Painting a 70’s Camaro Flat Black with Eastwood’s Help
In true DIY fashion these guys called in favors from friends and kept the project on the budget. They soda blasted the body and then primed and painted the paint with Eastwood Dead Rat Flat Black Single Stage Urethane Paint.
2014 Street Rodder Road Tour Impala Reassembly
The body then went to primer and paint and was covered in a lovely shade of deep red. This thing is REALLY red, reminds me of the red found on a certain Italian super car manufacturer. With the body all painted and assembled the crew married the body and the roadster shop chassis together and continued reassembly. This is where the fun (and stressful!) part of the project begins. As each shiny part is bolted to the car the Impala takes shape and we can really see how great this thing is going to look rolling down the street.
Detroit Autorama- Highlights, Trends, and our Favorite Rides!
…..”but there’s one other show that matches the abundance of high end classic cars and that’s the Detroit Autorama show and their “Ridler Award”. The “Motor City” has, and always will be synonymous with cars. While the car manufacturers may have left, this show has not and continues to grow in size.”
2014 Street Rodder Road Tour Car and Eastwood Summer Classic Date Announced
2014 marks the fourth year of the annual Eastwood Summer Classic show and shine. Each year we open our grounds for enthusiasts to come and show off their rides here at Eastwood Headquarters. It’s also become a tradition and an official stop for the east coast leg of the Street Rodder Road Tour. Each year Street Rodder Magazine has one of the top hot rod and custom shops in the country put together a new car for them to tour the country with. We’re honored that these shops use Eastwood tools and supplies to restore and customize the car each year and we’re always excited to see what they do!
Customer Car Spotlight- Rafael T. 1969 Chevy Camaro Restoration
We’re firm believers that the “Motorhead bug” runs in the family. Most times when talking with an enthusiast you’ll find someone in their family got them into cars at a young age. You can fight it, but it will find you at some point in life and you’ll be tinkering with your own project car eventually.