Accessories
Call ’em tech tips, building tips, details or whatever you like, but this is the stuff we see at events and shows while shooting features or doing shop tours, not to mention things we’ve discovered while working in our own shops. It’s like when you’re foot-cruising an event with the boys and pointing things out to each other, or when you have a stroke of genius while working on your own project.
We always find it amusing when a bench racing session turns to building street rods. It seems there is a huge contingency of rodders and observers of street rodding who believe that every car in the fairgrounds area was built by a professional shop. We’re not about to argue the point that a lot of people now pay to have work done on their cars, whether it’s chassis work, bodywork or upholstery. However, there is still a large group of people who spend evenings and weekends out in the garage forming brackets, repairing rust, blocking panels and wiring hot rods. In short, they are building cars the old-fashioned way—at home with the help of a few friends.
Jack Fuller has been at this hot rod game for a long time, and while he builds hot rods for a living, make no mistake—this is a man who loves his work. As a matter of fact, the mantra of the garage is, “When the fun stops, the doors close for good.” It’s pretty simple stuff, and oddly enough, that seems to be the specialty of the house—basic hot rods that look cool and work well. Jump in a Jack Fuller hot rod, and you’ll know it was designed to be driven. Jack’s own ’32 cabriolet has seen untold miles over the years, as have most of the other hot rods he has built.
Fluids are the lifeblood of the vehicle. We need to contain those fluids yet still be able to monitor the fluid levels. Our older readers can remember the days before aftermarket flexible dipsticks or silicone caulk were available. The only option in those days was to use an OEM dipstick and dipstick tube. If you needed to shorten the tube, a hacksaw was the tool of choice. If you cut 4 inches off the tube, you then cut 4 inches off the dipstick and ground a couple of notches in the side of the dipstick to note “full” and “add.” Gaskets could be sealed with Permatex, but they had to be used as there was no such option of placing a bead of silicone caulk on the mating surface and assembling the parts.
If you are going to connect anything automatic to your car, especially when dealing with electricity, lead and acid, you owe it to yourself to do a bit more research rather than pulling just any super-discounted, off-the-shelf item and connecting it to something as potentially volatile as a lead-acid battery. But we have, haven’t we?
Always hard at work in the never-ending pursuit to do something just a little different, Darryl Nance and the crew at D&P Classic Chevrolet in Huntington Beach, California, recently added a pair of Chevy Cobalt taillights to one of the mid-’50s pickups that they have been working on. The Chevy is a frame-off project that was completed to exhibit all of the tricks that the D&P team can throw at it, and we were on hand when they installed the late-model lights to the old-time treasure.
The relentless progress of technology is a difficult topic for those of us captivated by the cars and lifestyles of a bygone era. As technology advances at an exponential rate, we now find ourselves clamoring to keep up with the latest and greatest products that simultaneously render many of our old favorites obsolete. Just about the time you figure out how to use your new digital camera and multifunction cell phone, you find out that someone decided it was necessary to combine the two. The struggle to balance the conveniences of modern technology with our nostalgia is especially difficult for many street rodders.
Until now, rodders have been severely limited by the battery-charging alternators they’ve had to select from. Rodders either utilized an OE or an OE-style alternator for their custom engine applications, or they selected one of the aftermarket units that were polished or chromed. Now, with the introduction of MSD’s Advanced Power System (APS) alternator, that’s all changed for the better.
The showroom is what every auto parts store dreams of being: diced in checkerboard black and yellow tile with a heap of pegboard. Up front, the sales counter is the hub of business, fueled by eager customers that keep the phone ringing off the hook. Bob, Sam and Robin deal one-on-one with customers, keeping all 50 states Moon-equipped.
There was a time not all that long ago, between station wagons and SUVs, when big conversion vans were the family transportation of choice. In the beginning, the Big Three considered vans to be commercial vehicles, fitted with rubber floor mats, vinyl seats and short (if any) side windows, not the decked-out, posh family transport they would become.