Post your cars!
- Thread starter Strigoi
- Start date
Nice Joe! The beginnings of a Hirahata Clone???
Pictures dont do this car any justice once you have stood 3 feet from it and just took in all the beauty that it exsudes. It was an emotional experience for me as I never in my life thought I would get to see it in person. I had admired it for decades and read everything that was ever printed about it. This is supposed to be the first 51 to get chopped. Barris had already done a bunch of 49's and 50's. Which they have a better back window to lay down with out the square lower corners of the 51's
Pictures dont do this car any justice once you have stood 3 feet from it and just took in all the beauty that it exsudes. It was an emotional experience for me as I never in my life thought I would get to see it in person. I had admired it for decades and read everything that was ever printed about it. This is supposed to be the first 51 to get chopped. Barris had already done a bunch of 49's and 50's. Which they have a better back window to lay down with out the square lower corners of the 51's
I understand the one that got away....
I have had a few of those too. Some that were special to just me and some that were unique enough that they were the only ones I ever saw in person. I had an advantage. I was in the used car business after I graduated. My Father opened a Used Car lot in December of 1969. I remember bidding on a 1971 Plymouth Road Runner with all the gooddies including the Hemi. Oddly it was a bucket seat car, no console and automatic on the column. It must have been late 1978 or early 1979. I got off of it at $1,500.00. I thought that was all it was worth... Got suspended my senior year for saying "damn"in class with a substitute teacher. Just so happened that it was an auction day. I bought 2 cars, a 71 Mustang and a 71 Cougar. Just run of the mill variety but both were very nice. Paid $800.00 a piece fopr them and sold both of them inside of the same week for 1,600.00 each.
Your car would be an absolute joy just to cruis around in just like it sits! Now you need my personal plate that is on my 56 F-100. CRUZIN I have had that plate on a lot of vehicles over the years. I got it in 1979. Had it longer than I have been married by a year. Got married in 1980. An even year so it was easy to remember as it went along. Now I just have to try and remember what the current year is so I can count it up.... Getting old aint for sissies.
I have had a few of those too. Some that were special to just me and some that were unique enough that they were the only ones I ever saw in person. I had an advantage. I was in the used car business after I graduated. My Father opened a Used Car lot in December of 1969. I remember bidding on a 1971 Plymouth Road Runner with all the gooddies including the Hemi. Oddly it was a bucket seat car, no console and automatic on the column. It must have been late 1978 or early 1979. I got off of it at $1,500.00. I thought that was all it was worth... Got suspended my senior year for saying "damn"in class with a substitute teacher. Just so happened that it was an auction day. I bought 2 cars, a 71 Mustang and a 71 Cougar. Just run of the mill variety but both were very nice. Paid $800.00 a piece fopr them and sold both of them inside of the same week for 1,600.00 each.
Your car would be an absolute joy just to cruis around in just like it sits! Now you need my personal plate that is on my 56 F-100. CRUZIN I have had that plate on a lot of vehicles over the years. I got it in 1979. Had it longer than I have been married by a year. Got married in 1980. An even year so it was easy to remember as it went along. Now I just have to try and remember what the current year is so I can count it up.... Getting old aint for sissies.
I haven't really been doing much with my mini bikes because of this '78 F150. Finally got plates for it yesterday and today it's getting tires. Really only gotten my 212 built and on my small bike and the 107ss installed in my Briggs model 13. It's been a desire to have a truck for truck things for a long time and it's been taking up most of my free time.
Thanks, I'll post an update picture down the line when it gets repainted and the interior finished. It doesn't even have door panels right now, just the bench seat, belts, and bare necessities of driving. Except the drivers side blinkers, those don't blink. That's 99.99% likely a ground issue I haven't tracked down yet though since the light does get brighter when the signal is used. It's not the flashers, both have been replaced with LED compliant flashers. I'm going to run the grounds back to the battery ground at the inner fender and that will probably resolve the issue.
Things done to it thus far are new brake lines (thanks for the help with that part Dad), replacing rusted and corroded sockets for exterior lights, LED exterior lights and fixing the hacked up wiring that was done for previous wiring fixes and replacing the trailer harness. There's been a lot of marine grade shrink tube/self-soldering connections put in to fix things so they don't corrode away again.
Things done to it thus far are new brake lines (thanks for the help with that part Dad), replacing rusted and corroded sockets for exterior lights, LED exterior lights and fixing the hacked up wiring that was done for previous wiring fixes and replacing the trailer harness. There's been a lot of marine grade shrink tube/self-soldering connections put in to fix things so they don't corrode away again.
Well, this thing turned into quite a project just to get it fully rolling reliably. It has gotten a new aluminum radiator, new v-belt water pump (the one that was on it was for a serpentine belt and pushed the wrong way), temp sensor, thermostat and housing, and temp gauge. Which means the entire cooling system has been replaced and it hovers in the middle of the N on normal of the temp gauge when driving now instead of attempting to overheat after a few miles.
The exterior lights all work as well now. I ended up running grounds from the lights ground connection points on the body back to the inner fender on the passenger side with a ground wire back to battery negative. I've also replaced the signal switch in the steering column since the one that was in it had been hacked on and was corroding apart at the crimp connectors. Both flashers were swapped out to timer based grounded types with polarity swappers, since Ford apparently wired the fronts weird and requires them for the signals to work with an LED swap.
As of writing this it has travelled a good 90ish miles without issue going to work and back once as well as the yard waste site a couple times.
The exterior lights all work as well now. I ended up running grounds from the lights ground connection points on the body back to the inner fender on the passenger side with a ground wire back to battery negative. I've also replaced the signal switch in the steering column since the one that was in it had been hacked on and was corroding apart at the crimp connectors. Both flashers were swapped out to timer based grounded types with polarity swappers, since Ford apparently wired the fronts weird and requires them for the signals to work with an LED swap.
As of writing this it has travelled a good 90ish miles without issue going to work and back once as well as the yard waste site a couple times.
