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.
Tag: kustom
Project Pile House Shaving and customizing the original dash and glovebox.
While I had the column out I decided to start cleaning up the dash and sort out my brake pedal dilemma on the truck. In order to get under the dash for fabricating the new brake pedal setup and to shave and smooth the dash I needed to pull it out. ….
2014 Lonestar Roundup Coverage
What was once described to me as the “Best Little Show in Texas” has grown into one of the largest traditional hot rod and kustom car shows in the country. 2014 makes the 13th Annual Lonestar Roundup in Austin, TX. For the 4th time I made the 1300 mile round trip from my home in central Kansas straight down I-35 to the Roundup, for the 2nd time I took my own ride. The show has grown considerably since my first trip, it’s quickly finding the limits of the Travis County Expo Grounds.
Leading a Body Panel The Gene Winfield Way.
Only a few guy from the golden age of kustomizing and hot rodding are still with us, and even less are still working on cars. One of the best is Gene Winfield and even today, well into his 80’s he’s still traveling the world kustomizing old cars and teaching classes about metal shaping, leading, and anything you want to know about custom cars. I was lucky enough to catch up with him at one of his recent metal working seminars to get the process he uses to apply lead to a panel.
Leading a Body Panel The Gene Winfield Way.
Only a few guy from the golden age of kustomizing and hot rodding are still with us, and even less are still working on cars. One of the best is Gene Winfield and even today, well into his 80’s he’s still traveling the world kustomizing old cars and teaching classes about metal shaping, leading, and anything you want to know about custom cars. I was lucky enough to catch up with him at one of his recent metal working seminars to get the process he uses to apply lead to a panel.
Learn from a legend- Gene Winfield Custom Metal Working Class
I decided to make a trip to Harmony, PA (about 35 minutes outside Pittsburgh, PA) to Hahn-Vorbach & Associates Collector Car Restoration to visit Gene and become a student of “Windy Winfield”. The metal shaping classes are always small in size and very intimate. This isn’t a class where you’ll be sitting in a chair listening to a lecture and just taking notes, Gene gets EVERYONE involved and is happy to take on any and all questions. The classes are commonly two day events starting promptly at 9AM and lasting until whenever everyone is exhausted. If you want to attend these classes, be sure to get plenty of sleep ahead of time because it’s high paced with little to no breaks.
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.”
Shaving the Column- Custom Steering Column Mods
I had previously covered in a few steps how I had come up with the steering setup on the truck. To make it short, I’m using a Packard steering column housing, a custom column shaft, and a Ford steering wheel. To make all of this work together took a bit of work, but I’ve got it all bolted up and it should all jive pretty good when done. Now I need to finish up the small details that will make the column not only look good, but also work smoothly together. I’ll be covering the latter in another post, but for now I decided to show you how I went about shaving the unneeded holes from the column housing.
2014 Grand National Roadster Show
This past weekend was the 65th annual Grand National Roadster Show (GNRS) and it proved to be one of the largest and most memorable yet. With the feature exhibit this year being the “Century of Speed” celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Bonneville, high profile show cars to be debuted, a live charity pin striping auction, new Americas Most Beautiful Roadster Contestants (AMBR) and a forecast for perfect SoCal weather, we knew it was gonna be good. I decided to skip town and get out of the record cold temps in Eastwood-Country to check out the show.