I was fortunate to have the car land on the cover of Rod & Custom Magazine. Chris Shelton shot the car and made it look great. I was very proud.

Well, one reader of Rod & Custom in Germany, Marco Wenzel read about that hot rod. He contacted me and asked if it would be for sale. I told him that I already sold it but I will get him in touch with the current owner. The current owner had the hots for my current 1932 Ford Five Window. So the current owner bought my ’32, Marco bought the model A hot rod and I bought Project ’37 Ford Cabriolet. Everybody happy!

A few months later the car arrived in Germany:

Marco is showing off his all wrapped up hot rod. In order to protect the car during transport it was all wrapped up in shipping wrap. Marco and his family are true car guys, his wife Silvia drives a 1968 Impala. Not bad in a country where gasoline is close to $8.00 / gallon !! Here is some statistic for you:

Per capita daily income in Germany is $113. The share of a day’s wages needed to
buy a gallon of gas is 7 percent. Think about that!!

They seemed excited to un-wrap the new present.

Here it is at the first outing. In Germany you have to display a front license plate so Marco has no choice but hanging that big plate on the front spreader bar.

The German hot rod gang on it’s way to an event.

As you can see, as soon as the car hits the meeting spot, the ugly huge license plate goes in the trunk.

Marco and Silvia has plenty of like minded folks to hang with.

Marco, thanks for sharing, it is great to see the car getting a good home.

Photo: Marco Wenzel

My wife know them a bit heard that they were thinking of donating it as their dream of restoring it will never materialize. I had no idea if it even ran.

We popped over there and it turns out to be one owner car. Never smoked in and completely rust free. With 176K on the odometer it has traveled less than the 2004 Volvo V70 we drove up in.

After a battery jump it fired right up and I went for a spin. The turbo is turboing and the overdrive is overdriving. The transmission is smooth and quiet.

It is loaded with the usual GL equipment as in power windows, power mirrors, A/C etc. Heat works great and even the fan is quiet.

A fair price was suggested and I drove it home.

It had been sitting under the carport so it had a fair amount of dirt and dust covering the silver metallic paint.  After some serious scrub-a-dub a rather clean and straight 245GLT emerged:

Even the plastic head light bezels and grille are in great condition. Turbo emblem in the grille makes sure your neighbor knows you got the Swedish power.

The wheels can use some paint or powder coating but I love doing that stuff.

The interior is super clean and just needs a detail.

It does not move in reverse so something is going on there. I have to take a look when I have time. Right now I am finishing another project so this beauty will have to sit for a while.

More later…

I like to fix, repair and refurbish old things when possible as opposed to buy new stuff.
Old American products are usually of very high quality and all they may need is a cosmetic restoration and some inside updates. Some items look great with original patina and some lend themselves to refurbishing. Only YOU decide what direction to go…not your buddies, not the current trend, just use common sense.

This article is about how to stay warm in your vintage car or truck while still looking old-timey.

Washington state offer some great summers for vintage car cruising but we do get a fair amount of lousy and wet weather as well. While some hardy folks can drive an open roadster in the middle of the winter…I am NOT one of them. I like to be comfortable so a heater is high on the list. You can hide a modern heater unit under the dash or seat but I think a good looking vintage heater is the coolest. (No pun there…) I find these at swap meet and sometimes at garage sales. Up to the late fifties new cars and trucks did not come with heaters but there were many manufacturers that stepped up to produce add-on heathers. Allstate, Firestone, Southwind, HaDees and others made aftermarket heaters and many of them had beautiful designs.

This Hadees Junior is sporting some serious art-deco design and it will look great restored.

This one is part of a larger assembly out of a Ford and I like the crest and simple design. I just kept this rectangle box and it will contain the element and fan. I am debating what color it will be. In the 40′s brown or black wrinkle finish was used. Another favorite coating is the hammer paint. I found the stainless grid at an elevator interior company of all places. It looks like an old radio cloth. Love it! There will be a tech article on this unit down the road.

Today we are going to restore a Tropic-Aire heater:

Let’s go to work:  First order of business: Dissasemble.  Most firewall heaters are rather deep because they have the fan assembly behind it and also the tubing usually designed to go straight thru the firewall. I usually eliminate that by installing a compact brushless fan or small cooling fan similar to the ones you see on small transmission coolers.

This heater contains a round element with the fan motor in the center. This makes for a compact unit and I will duplicate this set up.

I want the heater core as deep as possible in to the unit so I removed this ridge.

I also flattened out the louvers on the side and welded them up.

I welded a stud to the outside louver to keep it in place..

Test fit…looks good.

After some bodywork and hammer coat paint we got ourselves a nice looking heater body.

A good coat of a maroon color and some polishing yielded a nice looking louver.

I polished the stainless trim piece and painted the letters in gloss black.

Hubba-Hubba !! (technical term) That looks pretty snazzy. Let’s attend to the inside components now.

This is a 12V clip on fan from that big box store. It set me back a whopping ten bucks.

I removed anything that did not look like a fan from the clip-on fan and I made a back shroud based on the diameter of the fan blade.

This is the mesh from the fan I bough. I welded it to the back shroud to protect any toes that may find themselves behind the heater.

 Here it is, all ready to go together. The fan motor squeezed in very nicely inside the core. I used some silicone glue to keep it in place.

I use a stand alone heater valve from any parts house. I like this kind with the cable bracket in the same unit. That way you can attach a remote cable without having to secure the heater valve to anything. It can just be in line with the hoses and cable operated without tugging on anything.

…and here it is. Installed in our latest project build, a 1930 Ford Model A Hot Rod.

Note 1956 Chrysler gauges, custom sub dash and vintage style Euro square weave carpeting. Look for this car at the NSRA event in Ridgefield, Washington, June 28-29th.

Some folks opted against whitewalls but…hey, this is MY car and I do whatever I want. The radial tires makes the car ride very smooth and ruts in the road are no longer a challenge.

All in all, the car is very tight and a joy to drive. While driving through town I saw the car in the reflection in the shop windows and damn…I look good driving it.

The steering box can use some work or maybe I need to upgrade to a later model box? I could use some advice on this. The box is rather notchy and not very smooth. What have you done?

The 1939 caps looks great with the ripple design.

It is a little tall in the nose, I have to bring it down about two inches.

The office: Not only does it look good, it is very comfortable. What a difference from my ’32 five window. A great start to the summer.

These are the old pipes, they look a bit tired.

I kept the flange and went to work.

Look, a 1937 Ford exhaust. What, you can’t see it?? Well, let me show you.

These are the smallest Thrush glass packs I could find.

Thrush had an ad in the sixties that said: Put a Thrush on your pipe and…smoke it! I doubt we can smoke anything with this stock flathead but I am counting on some good flathead sound emanating from the dual pipes.

I could not resist adding for the electric cut-outs. I am sure with these small glass packs I will have a nice rumble out the rear but there might be a time when an uncorked flathead will be music to ones ears. Off road of course. They come with wiring and one switch that opens both simultaneously. Yes, I did test them, they work on 6 volts as well. The switch looks like a modern power window switch so obviously I would have to hide it under the dash.

The angle iron: Your best friend when making exhaust.

It is great to line up tubes when you are going to weld them together. I tacked everything together first and then did a test fit on the car.

The exhaust cut-outs are designed for 3 inch exhaust pipes. The dual system I am building is based on 1 1/2 inch pipes so we have to be a little creative.

The mufflers and exhaust cut outs needed to be compact so I came up with the idea of cutting down the muffler and insert it in the Y-pipe.

Here is the compact solution, the world famous Super Sonic Muffler Cut-Out Device.

The last 36 inches of the exhaust is stainless so I polished it to chrome finish. Now I don’t have to worry about adding chrome tips.

 Once all welded up I coated everything with high temp paint. Yes, I wear a respirator even when painting with spray cans. Most paint spray cans contains nasty stuff. You only have one pair of lungs.

Here it is. A complete 1937 Ford dual exhaust system.

It is tight on the drivers side because of the steering box. I have to dip down below the frame and that makes part of the exhaust close to the master cylinder. I added insulation to the pipe to keep the heat away from the master cylinder.

 Here is a side view of the exhaust.

Well, here we are. All done. A drive around town confirmed a nice mellow note. Also the restored plate is in place and a vintage frame adds the finishing touch.

Ready for the up-coming Ford Meet.

However…BIG PROBLEM…for us who like old cars; They sure don’t look sexy in the engine compartment of a vintage car. It is OK if they are hidden but if they are visible in the engine compartment it just looks wrong. We need to come up with a solution. Working on our Project 1937 Ford Cabriolet we came up with the following:

Battery-in-a-box-solution

Here is my ugly but good 6 Volt battery.

Here is a plastic box and top that looks like an old timey battery that I found at the swap meet.

Here is the modern ugly battery in the box.

Here is the box with the ugly battery hidden by the lid. Looks old-timey to me.

Problem solved.

I may add some faux lead connectors on top of the box if I have time, we’ll see…

This restored Volvo Duett is beautiful. The favorite among tradesmen in Sweden when new and most of them were pretty beat up just after a few years. Even the local fish mongler enjoyed the utility of this car so it earned the nickname “Fish car” in Sweden.

Since we assume you can read, we also assume that you can tell that this is a 1957 Volvo 444 next to a 1953 Volvo 444. Both in excellent condition and driven often.

Lowered and with some wider rims this 1968 Volvo 122S wagon is sporting some attitude. Last year for the 122 in the US market.

What would a Swedish meet be without the Volvo 1800S?

While infuriating all the English auto manufacturers Sir Roger Moore opted for this Swedish sport car in the TV series “The Saint”  instead of one supported by the infamous Lucas electric system. He probably wanted to have lights working when chasing the bad guys.

All wrapped up! This Saab Sonett had been completely wrapped in vinyl media. The owner told me that it was a lot of work but now he has a very unique Saab, not to mention chip resistant.

This Saab V4 rolled in and drew a big crowd quickly. This car had been treated to a very nice restoration.

Half a V8. The V4 from European Ford did offer the Saab decent power and was rather reliable.

Please find below just an boring ordinary Volvo DL

Well, I must say it is very nice but it is still just a boring plain Volvo DL…right??

Wrong!

With an LS fuel injected Corvette engine and a 5 speed this car is anything BUT boring. The installation looks like the factory did it and that is the golden rule in engine swapping. The builder did everything right, right down to the shifter coming out of the stock location. The owner claims everything is holding up well. Sleeper City! Nice work.

This Saab 900 brings back fond memories for your Humble Editor as my first job in America was to work on these.

I got this one from that auction site and it arrived in a soft envelope stamped “Do Not Bend”.
So what does my fine post office professional do? Yup, you guessed it: They bend it.

I managed to “unbend” the brochure and all is good. However,  the astute eBay peddler stated in his description that ”they could be a reproduction but could also be original” Yeah, right! Looks like it was printed yesterday, it looks BRAND NEW, smells BRAND NEW, it probably IS brand new. It absolutely does NOT look like a document printed 74 (SEVENTYFOUR!) years ago. There is a huge difference. I think it is an insult but I pretty much knew what I was getting based on the above ”keep-my-ass-covered-description” but I wanted a nice copy basically for the content. So…moving on.

Because of our Project 1937 Ford Cabriolet I had to immediately flip to the Cabriolet page! …and look at that: I learned something right away:

Can you see what it is? Well, Ford calls it a “Cabriolet Convertible”, not just one or the other. So I guess that would not be a double negative? Or in this case double positive!

New for the year was “Modern appearance, new streamline design”

Another new feature was the lid style hood for easy servicing and under hood mounted battery also made life easier for the Ford mechanic.

Ford also bragged about a modern compact V-type engine, and “Center-Poise Ride increased by smoother action of long tapering springs” and a new worm and roller steering gear with 18.2 :1 ratio that makes the 1937 Ford easier to handle. Man, I feel like I am in heaven already.

Further features includes “Chromium Plated radiator grille and rustless steel running board mouldings and Genuine Leather seats”

How can anyone go wrong? Trade in your old 1932 Ford and pick one up today! Oh, that’s right, I just did.

Well, I will be cruising in style firmly planted on the Genuine Leather seating, barely feeling the road thanks to Center-Poise Ride springs while the Chromium plated radiator grille points the way!

Now that’s STYLING!

That includes not being cold! Cars did not get heaters installed from the factory until the late fifties in most cases. They showed up even later in trucks. Our Project 1937 Ford Cabriolet did not come with a heater and while top down cruising in eighty degree weather is…FABOULUS…but…it is NOT fun to be cold in a car. What’s the point if you are not comfortable in your favorite ride?

I really wanted a roadster next but here in Washington state you have few days when you can be comfortable without side windows. The 1937 Ford Cabriolet with roll up windows changes all that. Go with top down when you feel like it but top and windows up when it is nippy or wet out there. The best of both worlds. So how are we going to heat the cabin on those cold days?

With a cool (actually warm) vintage heater of course. These can be found on swap meets starting around ten dollars. They usually comes with a 6 volt fan motor and thru the firewall plumbing.

This is the actual heater box from a mid fifties Ford truck. I cut off everything that did not look like a heater and ended up with just the box. The heater core I also found at a swap met and is supposed to come from a Corvette. I paid fifteen dollars for it and it appears to be new and never installed.

After trimming off the tubes the core fits nicely in the old Ford box. My initial though was to install a flat brushless fan in the back but I think I need more capacity knowing this is a convertible. I will probably use an external “turbo” fan. More on that later…and when I find one.

This heater and many others needs a nice grille of some kind. I was looking on-line for some sorts of expanded metal or grid that could be polished. Nothing…so let’s put the thinking cap on. Where do we see cool materials used? Mmmm. Elevator interiors have always fascinated my as they have such cool material and a lot of it is stainless, that may be something to pursue?

I found a company close to work that makes elevator interiors. How about that?

A quick drive and a box of doughnuts later I had this in my hand. It is a stainless wowen grid. How perfect! It reminds me of the cloth used on the front of old radios.

Let’s give it a try:

Oh Yeah, Baby! That works! Looks like the material was made for this project.

Now I have to figure out what color to paint the box and front trim. I am thinking a mix of hammer paint and wrinkle. Stay tuned and you will find out.

More on this later…