Well..... I haven't been in the garage much the last couple weeks. My dad health is failing. The guy who taught me everything I know about building hot rods from start to finish, the man who was not only father of the groom when I got married 30 years ago but also stood by my side as Best Man is not doing well. It has been coming on slowly for several years. In November he fell and broke his hip, which led to surgery. That has led to a permanent move into a rehab/convalescent facility. In mid January more decline, and then two weeks ago I as POA had to make the difficult decision to enter him into hospice. He now has only weeks or months to be with us, and that is tough to come to terms with. It struck me on Saturday when out in the shop working on this truck that he will never see it run or drive, never see the finished product. For two hot rodders that have built many cars together that's a difficult pill to swallow. For now he hets to hear about it and I show him pictures of updates, and that will have to do.
Here is some shop therapy from this past weekend.
I started with several pieces from Speedway of mandrel bent tubing to make an upper radiator hose for my truck. I'm sure I could find a rubber hose that would work, but with the odd contours it needs, and me being me I just decided to make one. So here is what I came up with. I like it, but part of me doesn't love the contours and think I could do it better. But that would mean buying more tubing and doing it again, and in the end is it bad enough to really go through all that? I know myself well enough to know that at times I can over think things and over analyze.
After I did that I took the time to throw the passenger fender on so I could verify I ordered the right size/backspacing on the front rims. I then dropped the truck on to the ground to check clearances and see how the truck sits, stance is everything! I'm loving the overall look for sure. The truck is not as ass up as it appears. It does have a healthy hot rod rake to it, but this exaggerates it for sure.
And lastly I installed the Snowden seat one more time and bolted it in place to check for shifter location before drilling the floor for it.
