Let me start by saying I love my rusty van. I bought it for $250 with 69,000 miles two years ago from work.  In that time I have made some repairs and run the wheels off it. The van has worked flawlessly, towing and hauling all over the northeast. The only bad part is that it's rotten, and I mean bad: the front floors, rockers, door sills, rear rockers, and parts of the rear floor are gone.  I went so far as to order all new metal for it from Ford and was planning on a major reconstruction this summer. After all, the van is mechanically mint and only just flipped 87,000 last week. Continue reading...

So I banzi-ed into a swap meet this past weekend looking for parts to buy for resale at a big hot rod show I'm going to this weekend. What I found was a really dirty set of ribbed '49 Plymouth bumpers. These are a hot item on any '50s style custom and are rare and desireable. After plunkling down $60 each I had three dirty bumpers to clean up. Here's one in its freshly picked state. Continue reading...

I was out in my favorite old junkyard this weekend getting a '39 Ford rear spring crossmember for my Model A coupe project. I found a good donor out of a '39 Ford pickup. The grille for the truck was laying on the ground in a crumpled up pile so I grabbed it for some wall art.

Here is the grille after I unfolded it and started to cut off what was remaining of the fender aprons. Hit the jump to see the "after"...

I am starting the buildup of my 1931 Ford Model A sport coupe. I am going for a late 1940's style build. This will include a fenderless body that sits almost at stock ride height, but with later-model Ford axles and hydraulic drum brakes. I am using parts available before 1948 to build the body and suspension. The powertrain (2.3L Ford and T5 tranny) will be disguised in antique Ford green and hidden under a full hood.  Here is the body of the car now. Hit the jump to see more...

Get your PayPal account ready!  New York State just hucked their entire inventory of government-surplus vehicles on eBay. Over 450 cars and trucks are listed, everything from late model cream-puff sedans to rotted-out work trucks. None of them seem to have a reserve price, and the starting bid for any vehicle is 500 bucks. Follow the link to go get your bid on!

My buddy tired of his '03 Chevy Silverado and its constant check engine light troubles so he decided to sell it.  What he bought to replace it was this: a 1987 Chevy Caprice wagon!

I bought a 1998 Chevy W/T 1500 from work last week. It was a 75,000 mile truck that lived its life about 1 mile at a time. The transmission finally gave up the ghost and work didn't want to drop $2000 for a rebuilt tranny on a truck that was rotted out and banged up. So I bought it for $250. 

What does your personal junkyard look like? I need to keep mine under control due to some limited visibility to the neighbor's house. Luckily, I can have a pretty big spread with the some clever fence placement and staging. How about your house? How big of a boneyard can you have before it gets you in hot water with the neighbors or the town?

I spent the weekend fixing the passenger-side wheel opening on my 1977 Ford F-250 Camper Special.  The truck had an aftermarket dual wheel setup added to it years ago. In the process they completely wrecked the original opening. I'm restoring the truck to stock so that included adding a new wheel house and large outer patch panel. How about you? What did you do this weekend?

Rob's post from yesterday reminded me of one of my favorite living-room conversation pieces: my 1957 Desoto 341 hemi, topped with a real GM 6-71 supercharger out of a diesel bus. It runs two 2-bbl Carters on top and chrome weed burners out the sides. More pics below the jump!