Good point! A rapidly accelerating, expensive hobby - but yes... a hobby. These guys have said over (and over) how much they're enjoying this wag: it seems to be that rare blend of very little body work, an involved - but not micromanaging - client, and major puzzle pieces that will fit without much drama. I think there's also an admiration on their part that they're not building a museum piece trailer queen: from time to time there'll be an oily wrench on the floor, a sheet of plywood on the roof, muddy dogs jumping in, and maybe a chocolate malt in the upholder. In other words, if it ever gets to Pebble Beach, it'll be in the parking lot... not on the 18th green. Thanks! Would love to know where things stand with yours, too. It felt like I was standing around waiting for a long time, but man: once you get to the front of the line this process has the steady clanking and stomach-in-your-throat feel of a roller coaster heading up that first hill. Little updates: '54: After lots of phone calls with both, my project manager has backed off Art Morrison, and plans to order a Fatman front end on Monday. He feels we can save $3500 or more by going with the latter - Fatman even has the blueprints of my chassis on file to ensure everything fits right out of the box. There's a five week lead time, but all this kind of stuff does. This kit will have additional toys as well, that eliminate the need to find other sources for brakes, airbags, etc. Pretty cool. '53: Completely apart now, interior safely in storage. We've already found someone in southern Wisconsin whose wagon was vandalized and may want the hood, doors, etc. That's a far more attractive option than a scrapyard, of course. Airstream: Picked it up last weekend and it's home, safe and sound. Tons of work to do on it as you can see, but that's why God made portable heaters and halogen work lights. Exterior is waterproof and it sports our custom window layout, rain-sensing ceiling fans, a huge skylight that wasn't available until the 60's, new holding tanks and a new subfloor. Should be a fun winter project. That's the latest!
Brad - If you could get some pics of the shop setting up the frame of the T&C on the jig, and then attaching the Morrison front end, that would be great. We don't get to see an installation like that too often.
I plan on spending a couple days documenting most of it, actually. Hell, maybe they'll let me weld so I can tell people I did a little bit of the work. Other than paint and seeing the Hemi lowered in, this subframe should be one of the most visually dramatic stages of the build. Cannot wait. Thanks, I hope you can too! There's a '52 for sale in the St. Louis area, currently - just a thousand bucks. But I'm warning ya... you may need a couple of these things to cobble together one great one.
Hey all, time for a mini-update. All body work has been completed! Very little bondo was needed from what I saw during my visits, and the only real hammering was where the rear bumper seems to have been pushed into the areas below both tail lights. Everything was pounded out, and the two little rust areas in the floor were patched earlier this week. Since all that was out of the way, today they hit it with the epoxy primer! With this done, it's sealed in and we don't need to worry about moisture, oily fingers or rust for the remainder of the build. It will receive one additional coat of a 'high build' primer - which provides a coat for sanding to the perfect smoothness for final paint. The shop reps Sherwin-Williams. I didn't even know they made automotive paint, but they do and not only does it perform on par with household names like House of Kolor, it's often a similar cost to their house paint, gallon for gallon. Two long-roofed examples in Sherwin paints below. With the concerns of rust over, we'll likely hit "pause" for a bit now, to work off some of the debt we've accrued. Post-holidays, we'll tackle the subframe and the other big, fun items. Meanwhile, I've assigned a couple projects to myself: swapping the 4X4 5-speed trans for a 2WD version; finding replacements for the few pieces of broken exterior trim; nailing down decisions on how best to modify our stock gauges; and finalizing which company's wiring harness we'll buy. Perfect jobs for the winter... and mostly done from the comfort of a laptop.
Hey Bill~ Thanks for the interest. After putting the project on pause since Thanksgiving to catch up financially...we got back on schedule this week. I authorized the shop to get started again at a pace of 80 hours per month, for now. That'll fit our budget, and keep things moving. In parts news, the Fatman front end was ordered this past week! Very excited about that, it'll be a major change from the original - ahem, mushy steering and suspension. Total came to $4500 including the pallet, shipping, and all the add-ons. It'll be five weeks before it arrives, but they should have the body in high-build primer by then (they left off with all bodywork finished and the epoxy sprayed). Before we went on break, I'd gone over every step of the process and had them estimate each part and the time to install. I'll go up next week and run down the list again... further narrowing down the bottom line now that another chunk is crossed off the list.
Great to see the progress is continuing! I can't wait for the Youtube of the first time you drive the old girl, not to mention the first time she heads out with the glorious Airstream behind her!
Thanks Mike, me too! Speaking of good video shots... I was out in NE Ohio around Thanksgiving, at our family's private "live steam" railroad, which they're building on their 100 acre blueberry farm. It's dirty, sooty fun - and it was particularly interesting this time as my brother-in-law's brother brought along his quad-copter video setup. It can film HD quality video from hundreds of feet away (he can see the footage streamed live to a small monitor). Here's what he shot that day, while we rode the trains below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni_WswtcLs4 Of course, my mind is exploding thinking of the cinematic shots this could take of our wagon and Airstream: sweeping panoramas from 25 feet up... as we pass by with bright orange Utah canyons in the background.
That was great. I'll never complain again about mowing our lousy five acres. Before you get to those orange canyons of Utah, and Dewey's famous red rock canyon concentraite on those dismal grey canyons of downtown Chicago.
That is fantastic. You are right, the shots that could be taken of the wagon and Airstream are amazing to think about. I have to say, having a live steam train is quite the accomplishment! I've always love steam engines, and to have my own is a truly impossible dream!
Ha! After our little polar vortex last week, I'll be happy to see the Windy City in our rear view mirror for a while. Maybe by August, if money keeps coming in and the trailer restoration keeps up with the car. I've seen what goes into running these things - never mind that most of the hardcore guys build 'em from scratch over a period of years! A whole day of stoking the firebox, getting filthy and then maybe 30-60 minutes of actual time on the track before you have to do it all in reverse, wait for everything to cool down... and then roll your 400 lb. beast onto the track (permanently bolted into your pickup bed, of course) and take your toy home for the day. Crazy. As I say, this one's a private hobby farm but if you find yourself near Cleveland, OH during the warmer months - look up Penitentiary Glen and see when they host free public rides on their thousands of feet of track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Oxx90hS38 Well, this has probably gone far enough off topic for today. I'll post after I visit the wag sometime this week.
Like the car, which will be a '54 wagon with '53 interior and an '05 power train... the trailer is also a hodgepodge. It's a '57 Airstream "Custom" model with our own unique layout, and all the exterior trim and windows to visually "backdate" it into a '54 Airstream. I hope to title both vehicles as 1954 models.
