Thank You Very Much

I need to take care of a couple of major thank you's to a few folks already. I am sure there will be more as I go along. This list continued to grow until it needed to become its own webpage

First of all, there is my wife (Chris). She is allowing me to spend a lot of time down at the garage with this project. She is not really into "The Shop," but she does prefer a happy hubby and knows that there is a price to pay in putting up with a knucklehead such as yours truly. I am a very lucky man to be associated with her, nuff said! I love you BIG TIME, moi cheri!

Then there is my best friend ever, Kevin Feissner. Also a German, it is amazing that we don't bug each other to the point of oblivion. I told him about this truck and I was looking to maybe borrow his trailer to pick this thing up. He immediately replied, "Let's take my truck." With 152,000 miles on mine, this made a lot of sense, but he was in essence volunteering to start out at 4:30am in the morning to help a friend with over 800 miles of travel with a trailer. Kev is a real artisian with metal and projects such as this. I put together a page with a couple of pictures of a Pro-Street 1959 Corvette Convertible. It is an awesome project and he is definitely not "Poor-Boying" anything on this puppy.

Then there is a guy at my office who is proving to be a wealth of information to me on this project. He keeps bringing in books on how to chop bodies to Chassis Engineering and Chassis and Suspensions Handbooks. Scott Reed is obviously a restorative buff who is quite a colorful character and really is proving to me that he knows more about this stuff than his jovial nature projects. Scott has a lot of cars in various stages of restoration. He has a 29 Ford that was put out by the Ford Motor Company in the late 70's. He has a 1970 Olds 88 that his daughter calls "Clifford, the Big Red Car." This is a really cool 2-door coupe that he drives to work sometimes. Scott has a 64 Vette that he is going to update with a mid 80's Vette suspension system. I saw those suspensions one day on the back of a trailer. He should not have let me see those. I have been bugging him for them ever since. Everybody knows he should leave his 64 Vette stock!, right? Then there is his dream of a 37 Ford Woody. He has the front end and chassis and luckily, he is capable with wood working and is taking this on himself too. Everybody in the whole world is virtually "my buddy" as he puts it and it does seem that he knows a ton of folk who play with old cars.

Next there is a rather sharp Electrical Engineer of a neighbor of mine who took an absolutely beautiful Harley FXR and turned it into a radical, but extremely high-end chopper. He set up a complete CNC controlled, 3 axis mill in his garage next door to me and he is now turning out custom parts for Harley Davidson motorcycles. His name is Joel Harrison and his business is JH Choppers and his website is www.jhchoppers.com. On that site, he takes you completely through his deconstruction of his FXR and re-construction of the chopper. You have to admire someone who does good work, but Joel did it all on this bike. Nothing was subbed out in its construction and yes, he is winning awards at shows for his first effort. Quite impressive!!!! Joel is providing encouragement and helping out with my bonehead fabrication questions.

Now, there is a man who basically who is living my dream life. A Chemical Engineer who turned Air Force Pilot and Trainer, "Trees" (as he is known) is now retired and living in the Smokey Mountains. He has several cars that he has done, but most notably he's done a 36 Coupe and a 36 Pick-up. I picked up on this guy from a article where he completely re-worked his 36 Pick-up from a 1981 restoration after about 115,000 miles on it. You can see from his website where he pulls boats with this thing and basically uses it like you and I would use an everyday driver. The former version of this truck looked eeriely like a retso I did for my brother on his 37 Ford PU and at first, when I saw this page I thought it was Bob's truck. It wasn't. You need to go check out the project website for this truck on www.hotrodder.com. His update has some great information on how to do this kind of work and I have been in contact with him several times now with subjects such as welding, chopping the cab, etc. He is really good and I highly suggest the project website of his 36 Ford pickup at http://hotrodders.com/projects/006/01.html.

Then there is a mechanic at the place where I worked named Bob Schmidt. If you go to watch stock car racing in the St. Louis Metro Area, watch for old number 36 (what a great number to have!) racing around the track. He's humble and doesn't crave sponsers (loves doing it on his own) but I am told by others who have seen him run that he is good at what he does. Folks at work who knew that I was building this project and knew that I wanted a Chevelle rear end. They also knew that Schmitty had one and was looking to sell it. We hooked up and what I bargained for and what I got were 2 different things. Usually that is not a good thing, but when you deal with good folks, they take care of you. He gave me the rear end and tranny (as we agreed) but then he also gave me the 4 bar suspension and a Chevelle frame with all the connection points, some safety brake hardware and a driveshaft for it all. This is huge and worthy of mention on this page. Later, Schmitty came all the way up after work to help me weigh my old truck so I would know what to get for springs on the rear of the new 36. I wanted to give him some money for gas...he wouldn't take it. Quality people folks!!!! Thanks Schmitty .....BIG TIME!!!!

I want to mention a guy in the Parks Department where I work. He had a Mustang II IFS cross bar that he was not going to use and gave it to me for free. Love the price and many thanks to another fellow backyard car enthusiast, Eddie Jones.