Wednesday, 26 August 2015

For Sale. . .D's Harley.


The name says it all! It's easy to see from the paint color on the tank that this Mongrel Hog is pure stealth with shit loads of grunt thrown in. . .

Pretty good lookin Scooter, in fact it's a 2013 Sportster with over $8000 of optional extras dealer fitted by Harley Heaven in Melbourne. . . BTW, all the original equipment is still in the boxes supplied and come with the bike, this also includes a spare seat for those who like to ride two up. . .


 This particular scooter has been set up with the Factory Stage 1 kit that includes the stage 1 filter seen here and that horny as hell set of Vance and Heinz pipes. Geez man, you should hear the note coming out of those fuckers!


Absolute three dimensional art! As well as all the previously mentioned custom features, the bike also has lowered shocks, forward control arms and custom grips to go with the new bars. . .

I just love the look of those pipes, they really set off what is one Ball-tearin' scooter. Shitloads of tread on the tyres coz there ain't been no tyre burning on this baby. . .
You want it, then start thinking about 13K and then give D a call. . . Mob # 0429 055026

For Sale. . .D's Harley.


Custom forward controls and very cool looking front wheel . . .

These bars were custom made in house and the 'gaaroovy' looking mirror is also an aftermarket item to go along with the 'stealth' attitude . . .

Confirmation of the K's travelled. The first service has been carried out and the second service is not due until 6000K's. . .

Tuesday, 25 August 2015

D's Harley . . .



For those of you who have been wondering what has happened to the pics of  D's Harley that is up for sale, watch this space for a full photo shoot tomorrow. . .a truly fantastic ride!

Cliff's F100 . . .


'D' Day at Hodgeys. 'D' has spent most of yesterday and today getting these joins right so that the lines flow and the joins butt up perfectly. Think that it is an easy job, then think again. Those rear guards are made out of pretty flimsy sheet-metal and any heat applied by the welder warps the shit out of them. Anyway, with a bit of patience and a few choice words the guards finally lined up and now look fantastic . . .

This is a pic of the matching running board and you can see that the joins and folds in the metal flow in three different directions at once, so again, not so easy to accomplish let alone match it up to a guard that has a mind of its own. . .

Simplicity is usually the best approach and on this occasion the guards butt up to the running boards and two simple bolts hold it all together so that it is an easy job to raise the tub for demo purposes at car shows. . .

Monday, 24 August 2015

'56 Ford Customline . . .

 Here she is, fresh back from the Panel Beater/Painters. It's now time for the boys to re-asseble her and then get her running again ready for her new life on the road. . .

Pictures are a little dark but the car is a gorgeos shade of maroon over white and as you can see, Dave is spending a little time down the back end installing tail-light assemblies and side chrome dressings. . .

For those of you who like to dream, this is an original photo of this exact car before she was dismantled and the restoration process began. . .

Cliff"s F100 . . .


'D' is back and straight back into Cliff's F100 and if you look closely he's decided that it's about time to trim up his rear guards? Nah, just pulin ya leg, after fitting the side steps into the rear guards that leaves a small problem. You see Cliff's tray is a 'tilter' and it's pretty hard to tilt the bastard when it's welded to the running boards that are attached to the frame and front guards. . .
From the previous pic, you can see that 'D' has made a cut throught the guard and this pic shows one of the newly fabricated brackets that have been welded into place behind the guard. Another one of these brackets will be welded into place and when the tray is lowered the two brackets will butt up together and can be held in place with a simple nut and bolt. . .

Here's one that we prepared earlier on; sounds like a friggin cooking show? But this is the LHS of the tray and you can see that 'D' had nearly finished the fabrication . . .

Salt Racer . . .


Salty's back on the menu again and this time the boys seem to have been 'off their nuts' when they installed the radiator? Pardon me for mentioning it, but isn't the radiator supposed to go in the other end, just in front of the propeller???

Close up of the custom made radiator and twin fan set-up. Big dollars and big rear mounts to hold the beast because there wasn't enough room up front for a proper sized radiator that would handle the cooling of the 'hot' little Flathead. . .

Speaking of up front, every decision that is made when doing up older style cars is usually made from a collectin of ideas. The rack and pinion path didn't work as well as expected so Hodgey had Dave rip it out and now Andrew is mounting the steering bx from a HQ Holden instead . . .

Tuesday, 18 August 2015

Salty the Salt Racer . . .


Andrew's turn this time. 'D' had previously rolled the side skirts  and fitted them to the Salt Racer and now it's up the Andrew to remove them and strengthen them for the road . . .

I used a bit of flash with this pic so that you can see that Andrew has added a piece of steel ro the whole length of the side skirts to strengthen the bottom of the skirt to prevent the skirts from deforming . . .
Outside view of the side skirts and as you can see they are coming along swimmingly . . .

Dave under the front of Salty and by the look on his face he's wondering how the 'F' this rack from a Ford Fiesta is going to fit in under the front of the Willys.Not really, it's a pretty easy fit and between them, Andrew and Dave have successfully fitted dozens of them and funnily enough the Engineers love them . . .

Cliff's F100 . . .


Thank christ that Danny has picked his F100 up now I can work out who's is who's without mucking it up for you guys. 'D' is back and is straight back into finishing the side boards on Cliff's rig. Here he has started welding the side boards to the rear guards . . .

After a bit of clean up work the side boards look as if the grew there . . .

Some really nice fabrication work carried out on the front of the side boards with plenty of moulding done on one of those machines that goes up and down like a jack hammer. I don't know the correct name for the fucking thing but in the right hands they do a great job . . .

Tandem Trailer . . .


From memory ths is about the third or fourth tandem trailer that has been presented this year for a full refurbishment. Dave has spent 3 or 4 days on this one because it really was a poor effort on the fabricators side of things in the first place. Firstly the axles had to be extended and the wheel hubs needed a full reco.

Then as you can see from the size of the holes that Dave is fitting with new metal, the trailer had very little chance of fitting a full size vehicle on to its tray, that's six inches of metal added to both sides to get the wheels running true with the outside of the trailer!

Pretty obvious from this pic that Dave has constructed a new winch mount for the front of the trailer, but what's not so obvious is the bracing that's been welded into the actual 'A' frame draw bars of the trailer. There was over half the length of each arm that wasn't supported!

Tuesday, 11 August 2015

Gary's Coupe . . .


Gary's Coupe is back from the upholsterers and now is finally finished . . .

Remember when we first saw this rod Hodgey had the unenvial job of cutting out the old doors that had been welded shut and painted over by the previous owner . . .

Doesn't matter which angle you look at her from, she is a very special ride. Please don't pic on the color  quality of the pics, as you can see the car was indoors due to the weather and I ended up with a combination of lighting that would give a nun the shits. Try combining huge tungsten ceiling lamps with natural light and then throw in very bright skylights and you end up with a very unusual 'soup' . . .

The new upholstery is all done in a very nice black. Nothing fancy or overstated, just a high quality, understated look for a comfy ride . . .

Again the lighting, geez, bloody bright orange and full on black photographed in the shadows, need my head seen to trying to take photographs under these conditions . . .

Cliff's F100 . . .


'D' is working away at fitting the newly fabricated side steps on Cliffy's F100. Due care has to be taken with the old cutoff grinders to fit the sidestep carefully to the front and rear guards. A bit too much off one end and then the other end has no chance of fitting . . .

First trial fitting and things are looking pretty good. . .

Woody's Wagon . . .


You can see in this pic the red headlight panels that I was referring to yesterday. This have to be fitted before all the chromework that is due to be fitted . . .

Monday, 10 August 2015

You Name It . . .


Yep, you name it and we will build it! Here 'D' is working slowly but steadily on a 'Time Capsule' for Jenna's school project. . .BTW, this is a cryptic photo for 'D' because he says that he's always kept in the dark, so we turned the exposure right down for the 'right' effect. . .

Woody's Wagon . . .


Nearly finished down the back, just the huge bumper and some chrome trim over the tail-light assembly . . .

This front end is structural madness. Dave is currently fitting the headlights into their mounts then he has to mount some front panels up under the front guards then the grill sections, then the huge chrome eye-brows, then the chrome head-light bezels, then the front bumber and then two huge chrome plated indicator pods mount to the front bumper. . .I think that it's fair to say, Fuck Me???

Thursday, 6 August 2015

Woody's Wagon . . .


Today it's all hands on deck with the final fitout of Woody's wagon; probably shouldn't say final fitout because it still has to go for exhaust and electrical work before it's finished. But as you can see the interior is all in and Dave is inside the cabin fitting the massive amount of dress 'chrome' fittings . . .

Down the back and Andrew has had the unenviable job of trying to fit new locks and winders to the tail-gate as well as the tail lights etc. . .

After a full day of fitting the boys are still faced by this table full of dress fittings and this doesn't take into account the huge pile of stainless steel dress fittings that have been sent away to the polishers. . .

As you all know, when it comes to restoring old girls like this Dodge, good old parts are few and far between, especially when the car has been imported privately in to the country. Here the headlight mounts were in very poor condition and they had to be re-structured using a fibreglass compund with metal fibres mixed in together for a very tough finish . . .

Tough allright, 'D' is seen here very busily grinding away with the dremel tool, reshaping the surrounds so that the new glass will fit snugly into their new home. Does it take time? Sure does, because you have to wait for the compound to dry overnight and then the grinding starts. 'D' is on the first of three mounts bezel mounts that had to be repaired . . .

Wednesday, 5 August 2015

FE Holden . . .


This grand old gal is going back to its owner and as usual, before any car leaves the shed, it gets a thorough going over to make sure that nothing has been missed during the final assembly . . .

'47 Pilot . . .


Before pulling this old girl down from the jig, 'D' decided to give her a good coat of etch primer and I can tell you, nearly every car that I see that gets a coat of etch primer, it nearly always looks sooo much better in black, basic black. . .yeah baby, have you got anything blacker?

Tuesday, 4 August 2015

Danny and Chris' F100 . . .


Just a quick look at the finished door locking system that Hodgey has installed into the F100's doors. The last time I saw Danny's ride it was off the stands and all the air was out of the air bags and she's sitting on her front guards and I'm sure she is getting gravel rash on the cheeks of her toosh . . .

Bob's Burger Flipper . . .


Dave had fun today pulling out the fuel tank to install the fuel sender that has just arrived, long after the custom fuel cell was installed into the boot. . .