Nigel's back . . .

Remember that nutter from South Australia with the 700HP Firebird? Yeah the one who kept breaking it and then his next trick was to stuff a blown 400 chev into some Hillbilly's moonshine rig from the depression years and called it a Gasser, well the clown's back! This time he's gonna go completely nuts and drop a 50's FTruck onto a piss-ant Hilux ute chassis, bag the thing and then use it as his delivery vehicle. If you live in Adelaide, I'm givin ya six months notice, leave soon!

Donor vehicle in for major break-down, motor and gear box already gone. . .

Instead of break-down, maybe I should have said break-up? Her skirt is lifted leaving the tub and chassis. . .

Look at the fat face on this nose heavy cruncher. No wonder they used it for breaking down road blocks in the back woods, selling their 'Hillbilly mouthwash' . . .

'55 Mercury . . .

This car seems to be getting a bit of 'air' time lately? Diff is finally back from the bloke in Geelong, he's certainly not worried about taking his time, but geez he does bloody good work. . .

Cracka of a diff but it's gonna get a pounding when the twin hair driers start spinning. Good way to dry your hair girls, let your man put twin driers on his motor and all you have to do is put your head out the window at 200 and it'll be dry in 10secs. Either that or rip ya bloody head off, win, win, fellas. . .

Cadillac Fleetwood . . .

Have a look at the size of this mongrel, geez talk about boat people, you could house a family of them in here and no-one would know, except for the lack of life jackets!
Cadillac Fleetwood folks, she's in to be lowered and how the fuck Hodgey is gonna do that is anyone's guess and he's also gotta get rid of that purple roof, much to Johnny's disgust, coz purple is his favorite color . . .talkin about Johnny, nah better not, he'll kill me if I tell you. . .

Baby Steps . . .

Alright people, obviously small steps were waay too quick for some of you so we are going to slow things down to Baby Steps. . . hahaha geez, I crack myself up. Settle down you lot, someone rudely asked "what the bloody hell does Hodgey do all day?" so apart from telling him to mind his own business, I thought that I might let you all know how busy the big fella is and then you lot fire up with all these conspiracy theories and start panicking. . . .madness, but remember that we can't upset Fat Toe!

'55 Mercury . . .

Front end to Joe's Merc as I promised. The boys have worked really hard to piece it all together and mount it onto the rack in roughly its right position. Looks the goods and certainly has superb workmanship. Worth the money? I certainly think so. . .

 Details of the outer assembly with tubular arms, Air-Ride system and power steering rack. . .

Another view of the Merc with front guard positioned to check placement of the new front end and how it runs with the classic body lines of the Merc. This car is avision and certainly looking the goods at the moment. In the rear you can see the newly rolled flooring by the Hodgeman himself. . .

'55 Mercury . . .

The new front end arrived from Rocket Industries today after being ordered and custom made in the States, with a six week turn around. The boys were just starting to unwrap the pallet load of goodies when I left, so pics to follow on Monday. What I saw certainly looked good quality workmanship, so that will put a smile on the owner's face. Now we just need a certain diff builder from Geelong to pull his finger out and make good with his promises and the Merc will be flying along and be able to be taken off the rack and onto it's own four feet. . .

Bert's Drifter . . .

Dylan havin' a real go here folks. Fair dinkum, this kid puts out exceptional work, any time any day, as long as it's not Monday or Friday, or if the wind is blowing coz that upsets his hay-fever. And don't even mention work if he's sister is in a bad mood coz that completelu unravels his planets. But today seemed to be a good day and the planets were all lined up, but we're gonna have to ring his mum to buy him a belt for his shorts because we're sick of looking at the crack of his arse all the time. . .mum please ???

Now Bert decided that he wanted reversing lights and a low-profile number plate 'fitted' to his new bumper bar, so luckily for Bert, Dylan's planets were good to go and job's done. . .

After a few minutes with the grinder and files Dylan was more than happy, elated might be a better word, to climb in under Bert's Drifter and re-fit the bumper bar for only the fourteenth time. . .Good onya D.

Just another day . . .

Just a normal day in the car-park at Hodgey's, these rigs are what the worker's ride and drive, so can you imagine the shit that get's dragged in to be worked on? Except, of course, the really nice EH wagon and the bad-arsed HJ Prem that's just waiting to burn rubber and blow decibels and shit everywhere at its first chance. . .they're two really nice cars owned by two very nice and law abiding citizens with only 16 outstanding arrest warrants and convictions between them.

Bert's Drifter . . .

 New full width bumper bar is now being closely fitted to the rear and the contours are amazingly close to original side bumperettes. . .

You can see where Dylan has cut the bumperettes down and welded them to the ends of the new bumper to complete the system. Just a bit more grinding and a lot of polishing and this thing is off to the chrome platers for that added bling. . .

FE Holden . . .

Dave's finished re-routing the tail-pipes and given them a nice flat black coat of paint. When I left today, Dave and Andrew were modifying a Harley fuel cap and new hand-made inlet for the fuel system and this refurbishment is just about finished. Looking reeal cool . . .

FE Holden . . .

After getting the FE back from Griff's Upholstery yesterday, Dave put the car straight up on to the hoist and got rght back into it. Only things left to do are cut up the tail pipes and re-route them around the new four-link suspension and coil-over shocks. You can see here that he has one done and is in the middle of grinding up all the new welds before painting and fitment. . .

'55 Mercury . . .

After all his hard craftmanship yesterday, Dylan remounted the dash into the Mercury this morning. It's been a very productive day so far. . .

Bert's Drifter . . .

Dylan had been woking hard on grinding, sanding and polishing this newly profiled length of plate steel that is going to be Bert's new full width rear bumper bar. Andrew has had the steel plate put through a 'brake something" machine, which is basically a very large and heavy metal profiler that does a very good job of copying the profiles of certain bumper bars and makes it easier for sme of the larger custom jobs, Dylan has been filing, etc., all the creases to give them a rounder, fuller look instead of the squarish appearance they have when removed from the press . . .

FE Holden . . .

 FE arriving back from Griff's Upholsters, big Dick can be seen unloading. I didn't say he had a big dick, I said it was big Dick, I didn't say he had a small dick either, FN hell, I haven't even seen his dick, so let's just say it's Dick and he's a bit big?

Inside rear compartment and seats have been modified to allow for the new tubs that were installed. . .

The new materials used in the rear match the front perfectly. . .

Inside the boot loks top notch and the panels, although filling spaces, still leave the boot looking spacious . . .

 Pull down back panel hides the boot mounted battery and windscreen washer. . .

On her way to the back door and straight up onto the hoist for the rear ends of the exhaust system to be re-fitted. Due to the massive custom job carried out byAndrew and Dave, the exhaust is now going to have to be re-done from the mufflers back . . .BTW, Griff did a bloody great job with the upholstery! Kudo's to you mate.

'55 Mercury . . .

Dylan started replacing all the unwanted holes in the dash with fresh metal today but Andrew thought that it was looking a bit patchwork, so he got Dylan to cut the whole area out and shape a new section to fit into the new gaping void. This included carefully rolling the new section with a tight curve to match the old curve on the bottom of the dash. Nothing's easy in this game . . .

Bert's Drifter . . .

 Bert's new project. A few people think that Bert is a man of vision, you just have to remember his 300C installation of the Charger and then there are those that are beginning to think that Bert might be drifting around in the top paddock, if you get my drift? Yep he's taking the gas axe to this pristine Drifter van and looking at it from outside the box, it's getting major external upgrades. . .

 First job is to hack off the rear openings and basically throw 'em in a heap. The rear end is to receive a Ford Territory style door in door that raises from the bottom and the glass section can be opened seperately. Now if you don't understand how that works well you're just plain stupid!

 To accommodate the new rear opening, Hodgey has had Dylan remove all the rain channel from the area and from the amount of rude words that I have heard over the last couple of days, either Dylan has learnt how to swear or all the grinding has pissing him off . . .

Next order of business was to lengthen the flook section out to match the two walls so that it is now all one square surface that the door butts up to . . .

'55 Mercury . . .

No pictures of this car today folks because it has been a hectic day of welding and grinding to get all the floor seams lined up and welded together inside and out. Then there was considerable time sent trying to work out the best location for the airconditioning internal unit and the outlets, not an easy job with most of the space in the dash already allocated to other things. This is the sort of day when all the little, but very necessary, things are carried out and you look at the car at the end of the day and feel that you have achieved nothing. . .

Big Red Val . . .

 Driver's side of thebig Val and you can see 31/2" tail-pipes and a pretty big fuel cell and very large tyres. This thing is set up for service, hard service. . .

 LHS is much more of the same with extra leaves in the springs trying to handle the power. . .

This is where Dave comes in, have a look at the metal craft in those chassis connectors running from front to rear. Take a long look at the work, coz it speaks for itself. Again, these new structures have been installed to handle horsepower in excess of 1000 ponies. . .Dave has carried out incredible work with the installation of these chassis connectors. . .

'55 Mercury . . .

 There's been a lot of banging and gringing from the big fella today in the boot area of the Mercury to finish off the boot back to the rear panel and fuel inlet. Note also the new swaged lines through the flooring to add extra strength to the metalwork. . .

This is the pic of the under dash braking system that I previously told you about. Note the heavy square tube structure running full width of vehicle to support the braking sytem and take the pressure off the firewall . . .

Dave put in some hard yards today and got the dash back into shape and refitted into place in the cabin area. . .

New Arrival . . .

You will remember this new arrival from last week, so no, it's technically not a queue jumper, it's a 'new arrival' even though it hasn't had to wait in line like a really nice HJ Prem. Anyway not much has been let on about the big old Val but she's in for some major structural support. Kinda like sticking a finger up ya coit to tighten the cheeks of ya bum right up. . . 

 The big old girl is going to get something along the lines of a 502 twin-turboed power plant poked down her throat so she needs some decent chassis connectors to help her hold things together when the lunatic in the driver's seat jumps on the 'go' stick and all friggin hell breaks loose. These aren't your ordinary chassis supports either with these works of art running close to the full length of the car. Dave has carefully cut out and crafted the connectors so that they fit in every nook and cranny to provide as much support as possible to the total chassis system . . .

Here he is, Dave the Photobomber himself, just jumping into the pic to make sure that we get to see a good angle of his chassis connector and getting the better side of his head in the pic, because the other side looks like it's taken a couple a knocks, if you know what I mean?
Good onya Davey . . .

'55 Mercury . . .

As you remember this is how we left the Mercury the other night, tubs in and waiting on some more sheetmetal . . .

The big fella working hard in the small space to pull the sheet metal down hard into place across the new diff and suspension set-up . . .

Pulled down and tacked in place, the new boot section looks good and carries on over to just under where the rear seat will be sitting. Starting to look like a car again, AND if you look really hard you can see the new brake assembly under the LHS of the dash. Dickhead photographer didn't get a pick of this new assembly, but I will because it's a huge beast and a cracking bit of machinery . . .

Nice ride . . .

How cool is this Stealth Ride? Ten months of money and modification and this is the result.
Harley 'Sporter' with an 880 motor and heavily modified suspension and exhaust system has resulted in one of the nicest bikes that I've seen in a long, long time . . .

New Work Ute . . .

 This work ute is turning out to be one rad little ride, it's like a Morris Minor on steroids. Hodgey and Dylan have been working flat out on the tray section, or is it a tubbed tub, who knows, we'll have to keep watching. . .

She's certainly flowing with the graceful lines and The Stylemaster, Mr Hodges, is certainly getting the little rod looking mean and clean . . .

'55 Mercury . . .

 Driver's side tub ground up and painted. . .

 Shit hold on, this thing is left hand drive, so that makes this the driver's side, anyway who gives a shit? Driver's side tub groung up and painted . . .

Both tubs have been fitted and welded and then hodgey has taken the time to fine grind them to a near mirror finish and then sprayed them with a quick coat of quality etch primer so that n surface rust can start and end up getting in under the paint work. Quality job on a massive set of tubs . . .

Look who 'Bobbed' up . . .

Yami Bobber that we did is back in for a quick fix on the clutch system. Bike looks good with a bit of sign writing, still waiting on the white walls though?