Albert's Jeep (lite)

Well proving that guys can't leave well enough alone, Albert has decided to redo his jeep project and make it ....( Green! )so he's getting rid of the V-8 and is powering it with air !! Something he is full of ,hot air !This baby is really light, now it just floats through the mud.

installing the front cap

Here we go installing the fenders and hood for its trail fitment .It seems as if these parts have a mind of their own one side fits well but the other is jinxed !these parts often times have to be removed and installed several times to make it all correct and make the gaps on the doors and hood appear right!The L-88 hood is a steel one that will really make the nova bad ass!!Once all the ftting is done we'll blow it all apart and then i'll paint the fire wall so we can install that beasty 427!

nova undercarraige and assembly

Well lets get back two the big Nova Ive, finally got the front sub frame and under carriage painted with POR-15 and their chassis black product.It is a nice satin black, similar to the factory look.I got all the new ball joints and control bushings installed and painted,and got all new brake parts.Mike and I installed all of these and it looks sharp! The big boy also sprung for the good Russell stainless steel flexible brake lines a really nice touch , no more spongy rubber lines! The rear mono leaf springs were re-arched and new big block coil springs , so the pig will ride nicely.Mike decided to get rid of the 10 bolt rear axle in favor of a 12 bolt with a nice posi -unit and he just had to have nice shiney c clip eliminators to help make it safer when applying gobs -o-torque .Now some new shocks to round out the whole picture and soon we will have a roller again !In between all of this mike has been trying to insulate the trunk floor with a rubber foil backed material .

Drag racing @ Memphis Motorsports

A cool time was had by all at the NMCA races in memphis ,we saw some Bad boys and Gals ! The event draws cars from all over the country ,its really good for this area and the track.Memphis Motorsports just recently hosted the national NHRA event so the track was in good shape.Muscle cars of all kinds dominate this show and although speed is the issue here, most cars could compete on the show circut too .Watching all this racing gives me the itch !,maybe i can con Jill into giving me a ton of cash to step up the program and put the "PONY" back on the track.My hats off to all the participants here cause i know they spend a lot dough to have their fun!!

Mike's 427

Well its about time the lil Nova got a bit of motavation,the transmission a turbo 400 was built by Bobby and has been awaiting a meeting with the big block! This motor is reciving a lot of nice goodies such as a BIG...BIG..cam w/roller lifters, roller rockers, forged pistons and Arp bolts to tighten it all up.A nice big Moroso oil pan will hold a bunch of Amsoil to slick it all up, Mike got all of his oil and atf from his friendly neighborhood Amsoil man ...ME! And you can too !e-mail me through this blog .All the machine work is done and now it just awaits the attention of its builder!

Custom Engine Service

Just a brief shout out to my ole bud Glenn Martin owner /operator of Custom Engine service in Dry Ridge Ky.Glenn and crew build fine motors for most any calling ,street rods, drag cars ,mud boggers , truck pulling you name it he's built it! Chevys ,FORDS,Chrysler it don't matter ,from mild to wild just build em right !!Custom Engines has a great reputation for quality and customer satisfaction, so think about them for your next project or rebuild!!Hey they have a bunch of core motors ,cranks,heads to build up or sell as is,and most of the time he has several motors built for sale ,or can custom build one for ya! Glenn also has quite a nice little speed shop set up for all those little goodies like cams , intakes ,etc,and he sells stuff on Craigs list also.Glenn introduced me to Amsoil many years ago and he also sells a bunch of it, ....but most people would rather buy it from me!! ha ha ! Give Custom Engines a call @ 859-824-9727 .....Thanks

Andy's Impala

This Impala was a lot of work ! Unfortunately it had quite a bit of rust throughout the car ,both quarters had to be replaced,some patches in the floors, fenders and doors were completed. Then the hardest parts were the inner fender wells and the window frame areas rear and front! There were no patch panels for these areas and they were made by hand .

While the frame was off the body all the bushings ball joints and front end parts got replaced,as did the brakes ,brake lines and fuel lines. POR-15 coated the frame and under body as well as the rear end and all components. I am very proud of how good the car appears underneath.The new fuel tank,lines and new 2 1/2 inch aluminized exhaust system with Flowmasters really stand out against the semi gloss finish.

The interior was all painted in rust preventive Valspar paint and inside all the door and window areas received Por-15. After that we installed a material similar to dynamat to insulate and quieten down the noise through out the floors ,doors and trunk areas.Hot Rod Air supplied a nice heat and air conditioning system that was all contained with in the car .This enabled us to clean up the firewall and smooth it out , man it really helps the appearance of the motor box! Andy found a console from a 66' Impala and got the bucket seats too! We made it all work, and had the original controls for the air customized by Hot Rod Air to retain the stock look on the dash.Black on black interior with pleats give this car a classy hot rod look.Thanks to Pleasant view upholstry for installing the headliner and fixing many problems concerning the door panels,heck he did the top also.Andy took most of the bright work to have it chrome plated at Advance Plateing in Nashville, pricey but looks great. All the paint related prouducts are from Sherwin Williams Automotive , and I'd like to personally thank the whole staff at the Mount Moriah store for their professionalism and all the fun ! The color is a chevy truck metallic with simple understated ghost stripes to give it that SS look ,Nice Huh! I sincerely hope Andy and his wonderful famliy enjoy this car for years.

kirker paints

ALBERT ,CURTIS AND MYSELF were happy to hear that our work on the jeep was recognized on the KIRKER Paint web site. To view this check out their virtual car show on the web at Kirker Paints. It's really nice to be selected and we would like to thank the good folks at Kirker!

da women an da jeep!

Alberts boss ....Shirley/ wife was't real happy about my graphic design work on the jeep,the skull on the back was a bit much,she said, why couldn't i just put some lady bugs on it or sumpin!Ok one lady bug coming up !
















I put it on the glove box so she can see it while hang on for dear life with Albert! The old glass packs have got to go too,so Albert can hear Shirley tell him where to go!! Their going to have tons of fun in this ride......and maybe one day Curtis can drive it too!

alberts cj-5 jeep

This is Albert's Cj it started life as a rusted out piece.Albert and his talented son ,Curtis whipped this dude out,and its real nice!A fiberglass and Kevlar body now adorns the chassis that was boxed in stressed areas and fitted with tougher parts so Curtis can hammer it with a little abuse from time to time.Calm down Albert ,that's what jeeps are for getting dirty!heck yeah!The underside of the body was shot with Speedliner bed liner with Kevlar,black in color,while the inside of the tub was shot with Speedliner to match the paint.This will make the interior easy to clean and make it durable too.Curtis "son of stinkin genius" prepped the body with epoxy Kirker primer and blocked it up,then shot it with Kirker Omaha orange, then water sanded the pig! I had the fun of puttin down some simple graphics and when that was done Curtis slathered it with clear kirker for that slick smooth look. Throw in some new seats , fat rubber on chrome wheels,fresh trim and it's time to cruise.Future plans for this neat jeep include a warmed up Chevy 327 that's sitting on the stand waiting for some mud to churn or rubber to burn!

waz next?

Still trudging along with the body work issues and when i finish that phase I'll get the last coats of primer done .Then i will start the under side of the car.Most of it has been sand blasted and now needs all the welding ground down and i will wipe some of those areas with "kitty hair ",a fiberglass product with small hairs of glass in side .This stuff sands like bondo,but will not absorb water ,just in case it gets it gets exposed in the future.This should not happen because I'll be using POR-15 and their chassis black paint which is very tough, i like this stuff but it gets all over me I'm a bit of a pig ! Albert hates it cause hes a pig also!You must clean it off quick because if it dries on your skin you can't get it off.We're gonna put 2 coats of POR-15 and one coat of chassis black ,semi gloss .But first the front end is going to be taken apart and painted before reassembling with new parts then Mikes Nova will start looking good !Next on to the rear end , which now has a mini spool and steep gears,we want a posi -unit and more street able cogs.For the axle rebuild we turn to KENNY GAINES ,of TWO BOBS RACING ,he's da main!and a great drag racer who just needs a bit more funds to better his racing program,don"t we all!!So any one out there who would like to sponsor us in a" Dixie Door slammer"come on down.Kenny has a great start on a tube chassis 55 Chevy that will be a bad tubbed drag /street ride with most of the slant to the drag side as it will be stuffed with a big cubed Chevy by Glenn Martin at "Custom Engines ", but i digress! Back to the Nova, we got some tubular sub frame connectors from Chassis Engineering that we hope to weld in before we POR-15 the bottom side of this pig.These will help keep the body from flexing when the right foot gets heavy!

Thanks Mom and Dad

Hey just gotta give thanks to my dear ole dad, W C ,"SWEET WILLIE WINE"!!Who sacrificed a promising country music career to have a family with his love ..Betty ,the glue of the family , with out their love and support things wouldn't be possible.They learned me well!!!Mom put up with a bunch of car crud and late nights in the garage ;ya see my dad was quite the mechanic and paint and body man!! Love yall, thanks for teaching me all you could!

One other member of our band of misfits needs to be mentioned here,the G-MAN..Garrett,shown here with the sand blast helmet on , this is to keep the traffic down on this site.If all the young honeys found out he was on here the total number of hits might over load the capacity of the system, and ID hate to have to call Al Gore and ask him to restart the whole Internet that he created!!Garrett is good help when ya can tear him away from guitar hero,the web games or his AXE, he is a pretty good picker.Also he has shown some interest in air brush work hopefully he will be a good addition for us. So when he is fabulously rich and famous maybe he could take a little time off from jet setting around the world to help us airbrush some goth skulls or something.

priming and blockin

Hopefully all the major body work is done now and the House of Kolor kd 2000 epoxy primer is applied and has cured for a few days.Now its time to set out to blocking it all flat ,which is soooo 's much fun!It"s labor intensive and dirty,but it is absolutely positively a basic must do.I like to use SEM spray guide coat or 3M dry guide to give a contrast while sanding the gray epoxy.This insures that all the lil dips and humps git smoothed out.We're gonna use 150 or 180 grit paper for our first block out, keep in mind we may have to do this more than once depending on how good the bodywork is ,or at my age how good my eyesight is!Three coats of the Kd 2000 were applied with two extra coats on the mud work, so we can get at it hard .If bare metal is exposed STOP! and add more primer so ya don't go too far and waste all your good work so far. PS. use the largest size block the panel will allow,and when your satisfied ya done the best job possible.... do it again !then squirt a few more coats on and get ready for the wet sanding action.

Heart to Heart

Some people will do any thing to get out of a little work !! And although "THE STINKIN GENIUS"is tough as nails he is no match for a little arterial plaque.He thought he could just tuff it out ,but we finally convinced him to go to the hospital the sorry dog is hard headed! MAN! my old partner had a heart attack!!remember blockage is not your friend !Well it could have been much worse and thanks to the big man upstairs, Albert's ok.So now i reckon he'll want to just sit around and watch Oprah ,eat" lite" bon bons for a couple of weeks to re coupe.I really hope the recovery process heals him up fast cause we already miss him!But he does look nice in in the hospitial gown.

Funky Firewall

The firewall had been previously been readjusted by the first owner with a sledge hammer to achieve room for a HEI distributor, we felt like it might look a little better if it was shaped up a bit .The big block would make the clearance issue a bit worse. The wiper motor poised a little problem we had to work around ,but we took what GM had provided and improvised a bit.As we discussed earlier the firewall was patched up where the heater box and fan were and all the was worked with filler at the same time.To make the recess for the distributor pieces of metal were cut and welded in to make each angle at the top and one piece was bent for the rest.Once again we brain stormed together and got "er"done, that plus Albert is a stinkin genius !!!!

quarter panels

The panels as well as the rest of sheet metal came from R&N Auto and Truck in Lexington Tn., really nice folks!,and a real hot rodder/drag racer too.The quarters are not full panels they don't extend into the sail panel area, but do go over the top edge of the quarter.We will trim these panels to fit and try to have them come out on a edge,so we are not welding on a large open flat area that can have more effect on warp age from the heat of welding.The welding will be done in spot weld form every couple of inches and then we will come back and weld small amounts at a time allowing the metal to cool in each area before continuing.We use clecos to hold the panels for fitting and panel clamps as we weld the butt joint it in .These clamps give the proper space to weld up and keep the panel joints flat to each other.As we cut out the old quarters it became apparent that outer wheel houses were needed too, what a pain !Alignment is very critical so they meet the wheel well opening , so we used clecos from Eastwood to hold it all together an proceeded to spot weld the wheel house in.After all the welding POR-15 was painted to the metal to prevent future rusting and all welds and seams were seam sealed. Its so pretty, its a shame to cover it with a fender!

Fixin the Flintstone mobile

The 69 had a little problem ,your feet would drag on the ground! This problem had been fixed by the previous owners , they had applied bathroom caulk and galvanized metal patches to cover up the rusted out holes ! Well at least they used galvanized stuff ! Were gonna approach it with a bit more stable materials!The process will be the same as the trunk repairs making sure all the braces are welded up good and they are painted with the Por-15 because you cant get to them later.We are going to do one side at a time so there is less chance of any body sagging or shifting, i'd hate to weld it all in and the doors not fit any more !!I just hope that poor ole chevy 427 will have enough power to make the Nova get up and go , cause welding up them holes will keep Mike's feet from helping with the go power!!If not maybe Miss Sindy Mike's gal, will have to just push it!!!.....Oh yeah thats happening!!

Trunk Resto'

this Lil' pictorial Will give ya a bit of whats involved with Mikes Nova, there was a lot of rust in the trunk so welding in a complete trunk was the best fix.






We used Goodmark brand sheet metal through out the whole project they fit well and are like the factory panels.After the old trunk floor was cut out with the trusty plasma cutter and ground smooth to fit the new panel in , it was then MiG welded in and ground down a bit to smooth it up.The brushable seam sealer was next, but it turned out to look rough and a bit globby, is that a real word? I fixed that by squirting a little lacquer thinner to thin and soften the sealer and smoothed it with a small brush.
The "Por-15" was applied to all the welds and previously to all the braces and finally the Valspar to coat it all this will give us a nice surface to add the sound deadening material to before the carpet is installed !





If i could just get Albert to help a little more we might finish!!!!

Thanks to the Amazing Emo

As bloggers go i'm rank amature and need all the help i can get ! Lucky for me JOCK or his alias EMO has been a wealth of knowledge in this new process for me . So hats off to him for all his help! Please check out his "Kwel" site JOCK MUSIC

DA" Women

Lets face it, behind every successful man is a smart good looking woman, that's what my girl friend always tells me !!! The truth be known shes right , and Albert and I are blessed to have two fine women that allow us the space and time to get all this rusty junk looking good ! So thanks to Jill and Shirley,p.s. Jill sez her 66 mustang convertible is next in line !!

ALBERT IN ACTION

This is the man himself, big ALBERT,full time industrial heating and air man,part time welder, body man and all round Genius!We have a bunch of fun together, and get a lot of work done too!,Well at least Albert does!

rust bucket,lives

We have to repair a bunch of rust damage in the trunk and floors,we"ll start in the trunk by taking the trusty plasma cutter and removing the bad area taking into consideration the size of the new trunk patch panel.Then drill out the spot welds to all the braces, all these areas will be sand blasted then coated with Por-15.The new trunk will be marked to indicate where the braces are and drilled so we can weld them ,(plug weld) .I like to weld the trunk and floors up solid but many people just stitch weld or spot it in; which is fine but i take the extra time and feel it is worth it. These panels are lapped over each other not "butt welded" .Underneath the car i"ll weld the seam every few inches to insure a tight gap,and seam seal or use fiberglass bondo to cover this after it is coated with Por-15 ,later the entire bottom and sub frame will be painted . The welds will be lightly ground smooth, coated with brush able seam sealer, and then a couple of coats of Valspar rust preventive primer is brushed to the trunk,floor and all interior metal. The seam sealer looks a little rough but we will be installing insulation and sound deading material to all these surfaces so not to worry!The very same proceedures will be followed for the floors, making sure all fitment issues to braces etc. are noted! Now if i could just get a little work out of Albert this car might might roll again ! Just kiddin big boy!

Hey All!

hey all ! well we're going to start a new project and thought it would be cool to blogg it up a bit !

This 69 Nova belongs to a good friend , he's owned it for a few years , but has done nothing with it.It will require quite a bit of work to restore it,there is a lot of rust and bad earlier bodywork. The plan for this job includes many new panels, trunk, quarter panels,floors, outer rear fender wells ,fenders,and inner fender wells,man I'm tired already thinking about it.
My good friend Albert will be invaluable in helping with this undertaking ,because he is a stinking genius!,man this dude can do it all !
We will be sand blasting the under side of the nova and adding competition engineering sub frame connectors,then Por-15 and chassis black will be sprayed to seal her all up and make it real durable.Since we're putting a big block in this pig, a firewall set back is also in order to clear the electonic ignition.The heater box will also be removed to slick up the firewall as we will add a Hot Rod air system