Rod & Custom Sep-13

rob.fortier@sorc.com The clocks have been set an hour ahead and the days are longer. For most of us, the weather’s warming up and, well, it’s time to end our cars’ winter hibernations. Ultimately, what’s that all really mean? It means it’s time to drive ... give or take a little late-spring snow shoveling, that is. Unfortunately, we all have a big proponent working against us: sky-high gas prices. With budget strings already tightened to the hilt as it is, are we looking at a decrease in event participation this summer? Even with the recent slight drop in prices, will there still be a decline in long-distance road trips? If I actually had a car on the road, I could probably better speculate—if I did, maybe I’d rethink my normal spending…

By Rob Fortier rob.fortier@sorc.com PETTY-LESS Petty question, but where did you get the motor mounts for the Flathead/Tudor project? Try’n to find ones like that with the chrome ring on the rubber. I’ve looked around, with no luck. It’s the little stuff that set things off. Thanks, Gary Criss Via the Internet No such thing as a petty question, Gary. While Speedway Motors offers the “biscuit”-type motor mounts, the ones we used on the Tudor—the ones with the chrome trim—came from Reid’s Rod Parts in Orange, CA. You can probably source them through SO-CAL Speed Shop as well. WHEELIE SPEAKING Your recent features and photos of ’50s rods and customs reminded me of the old mantra: “The major way to alter a vehicle’s appearance is to change the wheels.” In…

kevin.elliott@sorc.com NEW GUARDS FOR OLD SCHOOL Gravel guards get rusted, banged up, scraped, and sometimes go missing. The Filling Station has tracked down these quality replacements for ’53-54 two-door Chevrolets. Add some stainless steel trim and protect your paint from stone chips while you’re at it! These often-replaced fender shields fit nicely on all two-door ’53-54 Chevrolet models, including convertibles, hardtops, sedan deliveries, and sedans. For more information, contact The Filling Station at (800) 841-6622 or www.fillingstation.com. TOUGH BUFF STUFF Mothers introduces Professional Rubbing Compound and Professional Finishing Polish, two industry-proven formulas used in body and detail shops worldwide, but now available to consumers. Over time, all finishes are subjected to small scratches, water spots, and abrasions. Professional Rubbing Compound quickly cuts through water spots and effortlessly removes heavy oxidation,…

Metalworking isn’t always about big expensive tools, such as power hammers or even English wheels. Sometimes you can get a lot done with simple tools. This month we got to use one of Eastwood’s Panel Beater Bags and a metal-forming mallet. The 18-inch square suede top cowhide bag uses all-leather construction and is double-stitched with glued seams. Useful, as it has to contain sand or shot without spillage! The bag yields with the metal as it’s worked to minimize stretching, nicks, and gouges. Eastwood has a range of teardrop and round mallets, all with their blue, ultrahigh molecular weight heads. We used a 2 1/2-inch teardrop mallet. The bags and mallets are available separately, or you can purchase the combination we used as a pair, saving a few bucks while…

Photography by Tim Sutton What is a “real” hot rod? Don’t get off on a tangent regarding steel versus glass, ’cause that’s not what this is about. It’s about a certain look … a particular vibe. It’s about style. You can look it up in the dictionary if you don’t know, and you most certainly can buy it, but if you don’t “get it”, you never will. Like a certain family group once said, “It’s our thing.” Cliff Hansen gets it. He may not be a generational hot rodder, per se, which is quite often inconsequential, but he is a true car guy. An ex race car pilot (fast ones … of the Indycar nature), he knows the innermost workings of some of the world’s most technologically advanced vehicles—at his…

Cliff Hansen HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIFORNIA 1932 FORD FIVE-WINDOW COUPE CHASSIS Cliff Hansen’s hot rod coupe, aka the “Cliffster Coupe”, is founded on a Roy Brizio Street Rods (South San Francisco, CA) Deuce frame set up by Jack Stratton. Moving back from the ’32 spreader bar, a SO-CAL Speed Shop 4-inch dropped beam axle is located via chromed hairpins, mounting Wilwood disc brakes via Chassis Engineering forged Ford spindles. To keep the transverse-sprung, hydraulic-dampened frontend in check, Stratton also installed a Deuce Frame Co. sway bar in conjunction with a Borgeson-Vega cross-steer setup. Further back, a Winters V-8 quick-change, also placed with hairpins, features a driver-friendly 3.90:1 street gear and 31-spline axles. QA1 coilovers and 11-inch Wilwood discs complete the rear. DRIVETRAIN Underhood, a ’12 Edelbrock GM 350 smallblock was used…