20 October 08

Went to a friends place this weekend for a club chop party. Club member Sally had a birthday this week (19th or 20th I can't recall) and when asked what she wanted as a gift, said she wanted her Morris Minor chopped. So, her clubmates got together and we had a chop party.

Pikesan has asked me to write a little article about this for the homepage, so I'll just give you a little teaser here for now.

We started with this...

Gave Sally the honour of the first cut..

..and ended up with...well, you'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I will show you a couple of pictures of Hosts Kelvin and Becky's lovely model A.

And something that came by to see what was happening.

Look out for the feature as soon as I can sort through the 150 pictures I took of the weekend.

October 5th 08

Spent the weekend with my Friends Paul & Jane at their place on the South Coast.

Paul is the owner of a beautiful F100 Panel truck. Due to Paul's confinement to a wheelchair and his great sense of humour about his situation, the truck has been named 'Krip Fink'. Some time ago he asked me to design and paint a Rat Fink cartoon on the rear door.

This weekend I spent a day working on Jane's runabout. It's a Hillman Super Minx convertible that has been nicknamed 'Naughty Minx'. To make her look a little more kustom, Jane asked me to add some scallops. Nothing too over the top, just a little kustom touch. Also, to reflect her name, I painted a cartoon on the rear panel.

 Thanks to Paul & Jane for the opportunity to work on their cars again and also for a great toga party!

The engine bay

OK, so here's how it looked before I began

Filthy and with an untrustworthy 2 litre Pinto motor set way too far back. I believe that the autobox is about 6 inches longer than the manual so I'm hoping that this will solve a problem or two. Since the motor needs to move forward anyway, I'm thinking that the longer auto, used with the propshaft that is already there will move the motor forward for me. Some new or repositioned mounts and that will be that.

So, the old motor has been removed and sold on and the cleanup began today. I tried the POR15 Marine Clean for cleaning and degreasing and it worked pretty well. I have also removed the old shock absorbers (I have nice shiny new ones to go in) and the springs while I was at it.

So, here's what I have after today's efforts.

Hopefully I'll be able to get some more done tomorrow. (Bearing in mind that the car is about 3 feet too long to fit in the garage and so I'm working outside!)

EDIT: Hmmm, can't seem to add pictures to the blog, so will put them into the gallery

Hey all, tootall here.

I'm a UK based pinstriper and hotrod artist. I mention this so that you will understand that I'm not a mechanic or an engineer. My mechanical skills are slowly improving and likewise my welding, fabricating and general bodywork skills. However, I'm an artistic type, so it doesn't necessarily come easy. Luckily I have a great bunch of friends and clubmates (I'm Chairman of UK Kustoms) who are always willing to help and advise. Unfortunately most of them live well over 200 miles away so the help they can offer is generally not 'hands on'.

As if all that doesn't make life difficult enough, my ride is a 1960 2-door Falcon wagon. An American car in the UK and not only that but a pretty rare one over here. In fact I believe that it's the only 1960 wagon over here (though of course I may be wrong - with a Wife and 3 Daughters I'm used to being wrong). This makes finding parts, especially body panels, pretty tough.

The fact that I live right down in the bottom left corner of the UK also means that everything is a long way away. This means that with the ridiculously high price of fuel here, economy is vital. To this end, I am fitting an English Ford Pinto motor and gearbox of 2 litres. The car had one of these in it already when I got it but I didn't trust the motor, so have a new, freshly rebuilt motor and autobox to go in.

I have already started on some of the bodywork as the old girl is pretty rotten.