Eastern Hot Rodder

We cruise up to Fields Of The Wood for the Calvary Cars Import Vs. Domestic car show. Great location.

Bill from FlatBroke Garage invited me out to help rescue a '70 Falcon from a southeastern Tennessee junkyard. His plan was to get the basics covered, you know, brakes, spark and fuel and head for the hills. Literally. There was about 10 miles of hilly mountain road standing between the yard and Bill's house. Were we able to do it? Watch and find out.

The last Saturday of the month the only town square in down town Cleveland draws in hundreds of cars. They line the streets for blocks and there is a huge variety to see. We headed over to the August event to check it out.

We took our kids to their first real rock concert. ZZ Top! They played on Nov. 9th 2022 at the Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds in Hiawassee, GA. This band has always been closely associated with hot rods, customs and coolness in general. Elwood is a fitting replacement of the late Dusty Hill, as he worked with them for years and has the beard to go with it.

Is this '57 Chevy Truck a rat rod, or a hot rod with the right patina? Either way it is way cool. Nice LS swap, nice seat and nice stance.

April sun brings hot rod fun! 80 degree weather and sunny put everyone in the cruising mood. Eastern Hot Rodder's Midweek Motoring, held the 3rd Wednesday of the month, at Comfort Grub in Murphy, NC lucked out with great weather. a bunch of cars showed up Willys gassers, '55 Chevys, Corvettes, British sports cars, traditional hot rods, chopped customs, muscle cars, vintage trucks and more! Many of the regulars plus a ton of new cars made the scene.

We had an issue with the 409" Small Block (400, .040 over) we rebuilt for our Lil' Red 1946 Chevy rat rod shop truck. Shortly after rebuilding it we stuck it in the local parade and then it started burning oil like a tired Diesel. It was also leaking at the balancer seal (bad balancer seal). I figured the rings failed to seat. I located a freshly done 383 short block. High nickel 010 1970 350 block with a new Eagle rating assembly. The flat top pistons and the 64cc Promaxx heads give it 10.5:1 with the .041 Cometic MLS head gaskets, a full point higher than the 409. Everything else from the 409 was moved over including the Howards hyd. roller cam & lifter set, Summit 1.5 roller rockers and all. It fired up with ease and held an idle without issue. But.... it started smoking like the last bottom end. It dawned on me that night that the valve covers were allowing the PCV to sit too close and right on top of the #8 intake rocker. I bypassed the PCV temporarily and the smoke cleared. I ordered a set of taller valve covers off of eBay that also shifted the PCV location over and away from the rocker. Problem solved, but not after spending $2500 on the short block, plus $88 on the valve covers and a few hundred more on oil and gaskets. Well, the good news is this little hot rod isn't leaking a drop and that 409" small block is good for another project down the road. They say live and learn. I say I hope you learned from my mistake. Always look for the cheap and easy fix first. Had I done that I could have just replaced the balancer seal and valve covers and saved at least $2800. I'm just glad it is easy to yank the engine from this little truck.

Fueling around. We swap out the fuel pump, radiator hoses and a few other things to try and get our garage find '63 Thunderbird running again. Will it run? watch and find out.

A cool 11:24th scale gasser pair up at The Raceway in Cleveland, TN.

Sam brought out his show stopping 1968 Chevy Camaro. This Chevrolet has the Rally Sport package with the hide-away headlights and a white nose stripe. Under the faux vented hood is a numbers matching 375hp 396 big block of yore. That highly detailed porcupine is connected to a Muncie row-your-own 4 speed that sends the power to a 12 bolt posi rear. The small cap rally wheels look great on a Camaro, especially when they sit this nice. Inside the car you'll find black and white hounds tooth buckets and a Hurst stick extending out of the console. What a fine example of Chevy's answer to the Mustang and the ignitor of the pony car wars.

This slot cars rocket down the 27.5' track in a second or less, so slo-mo makes being them much easier. When we were running at Peachtree Dragway I shot some slo-mo video. Watch how close some of these dial-in races are at the finish. Check out the cars fight for traction off the line. Watch John's wild Willys get twisted up and sideways as it runs after my red lighting '63 Pontiac AWB Tempest. These sucks sound like Star Wars fighters.

I've had these videos kicking around for a while now. I was planning on doing a longer in-depth video on the car, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards with the car suddenly acting up, then my dad fighting cancer and other health issues it put the car on hold for a year and a half. He has been trying to chase out the gremlins with the engine, carbs, ignition, fuel delivery... he gets closer, but here are some clips of it when he and the car were happy together. It is a 1964 Corvette gasser that he built years ago. First it was a pro streeter, but he got the gasser bug a half dozen years ago and changed it up. Most recently he built a blown 468" big block Chevy to help obstruct his view more. Solid roller, 6-71 Weiand huffer, twin 750 Holleys, TCI TH400 with a 3200 stall sending the power to a narrowed 9" Ford with 3.70 gears.

This small block equipped '55 210 sedan had some nice features. AC, nice paint, extra chrome and a good interior.

With the 409" small block Chevy back from the machine shop I started to put together the engine for the '46 Chevy Shop Truck, Lil' Red. Just a few more parts and assembly and the ol' truck will be running once again.

We took a trip to the Tellus Museum in Cartersville, GA and saw some neat cars from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Electric trim cars aren't anything new. Neither are the big inch wheels. As the sayings go: 'everything old is new again' and 'History repeats itself.' The museum had some interesting pieces from Ford's first car to space transportation. The early Indian motorcycle and outboard motors were cool too. I liked the mini steam train.

This badass '38 Chevrolet truck has a lot going on. Tunnel Ram big block, Lifted 4x4 dually chassis, neat tools added, tons of real patina, and.... Earl. Earl is Mike's way laid back giant chocolate lab who chills out in the back of the flatbed. What a cool truck. Earl makes it that much cooler.

My buddy Mike is selling some of his car stuff to make room in the garage to finish a few projects. Here is his 1971 Camaro. It started life as a 6 cylinder stick car. He put in a V8, big sway bar subframe. The car is pretty solid. New trunk pan, new fenders…. He has a lot of the trim and stuff, but no windshield. It’s a roller, but the swing pedals and shifter hump are still in place.

The Pharaohs of WNC sure put on a great car show. Over 180 people were more than happy to spent $10 to have their car be part of it. The Westgate Plaza parking lot was packed beyond the designated area with all types of cars and trucks. I dig this show because there are always some mean ground pounding hot rods and beautiful customs as well as a handful of rat rods and traditional hot rods. This year, 8 of us convoyed out from our side of the mountain over to Franklin to partake in the party. We all had a great time, met some cool cats and got to see cars we normally don't get to see. Lil' Red even won a trophy for best Rat Rod. Thanks fellas, it's an honor to be picked by the Pharaohs. Sure better than being tied to the car and dragged. The ride over and back is beautiful too. It really made for a relaxing day.