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some more of the Gas Monkey Garage

Tuesday

Charlie took Don, Ron and Me to several private collections. One where one of his sons work was a huge collection of all kinds of cars, Model A's, 32's, Mercedes, just a great collection of neat cars. Another stop was his other son's collectables business, signs, juke boxes, all kind of things. Another great stop was a very private collection of 40 deuces, stored on lifts in a big warehouse. I promised not to post pictures or tell his name....sorry. I can tell you they were all fantastic hot rods, all nicely done by pro builders and all drive!! The other stop was the Gas Monkey Garage, he is a personal friend of Charlie's, so we got in even tho they were filming a new episode. That was pretty cool. Richard is just like how he is on TV. One collection had three Cobras..one in polished aluminum, one in copper, one was bronze...WOW !! Thursday morning we took off for Bastrop, Texas for the All Deuce Reunion. A nice 200 mile drive south and east of Ft Worth. I will be here until Sunday morning when I head north to go home. A very pleasant weather day. The weather man

is predicting some rain showers Friday and Saturday.....Darn.

Monday

Monday it was off to the Hot Rod Garage in Sand Springs, OK. They build real nice rods and customs there. Jim Smith, son Jason and their crew were great hosts. Coffee, donuts and a tour of the shop. They do it all there, fab, paint upholstery. The next stop was an added attraction. The personal collection of Bruce Ricks. He owns, among other rides, the 56 Ford Ridler convertable. There also was a nice 40 convert, a couple of Olds, one a wagon and one a rag top, 54 Chevy rag top, a huge collection of tether cars and oil cans. As I drove out of his collection parking lot, I heard a clunk as I hit the brake pedal. Only when the car is moving and the brakes go on the clunk is there. If the car is still, there is no noise. I rolled the car along and Don and Ron walked next to it. They heard it from the front area. So, it was back to the Hot Rod Garage to check it out. The guys found it quickly. Both bat wings were broken. The clunk was the axle moving when the brakes were applied. By chance of good luck, they had a pair in stock on the shelf. Should be an easy switch.......wrong!!! The spring perches would not come out of the axle. After trying to remove them for about an hour, we decided the answer would be to remove the axle, unhooking the brake lines, pulling the king pins, oh yea, they would not clear the 39 Lincoln upper pivot nut, so we used a cut off wheel to flatten an edge to clear the nut. The V8 medallions had to be pried off too. Finally the axle was out and on the bench in the vise, still would not budge. Finally a torch, and a lot of hammering with the air powered impact hammer they came out. The bat wings went on, perches cleaned up, anti siezed up and all was reinstalled. In the middle of this episode, the Smith's ordered pizza for lunch for the workers and us 3 guys. We then rebled the brakes and

adjusted the shoes. I took it for a test run...all good....we left about 3 PM and headed for Ft Worth. We got to Charles house about 8 PM....whew!! Made it!

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Sunday

Sunday was another gorgeous day, warm and sunny. We again parked win the special parking for the tour cars. I walked over to check out the five finalist for Hot Rod of the Year. Henry from Steadfast Mfg had his beautiful tudor there. He was next to go to the photo shoot, and asked me if I wanted to ride along......duh!! of course I do. That car is so sweet. Painted 1932 Harley Davidson greenish brown...beautiful. When he shifted the Tremac trans nothing happened !! It was stuck in neutral. After removing the tunnel and the shifter he discovered it was something inside. He did get in one gear and was able to drive to the shoot and return. Sadly he did not win the top honor, but sure had my vote. Henry drove the tudor from Mansfield, Ohio, not a trailer queen.The blue channeled roadster that was a AMBR contender last January won. He was on the Rodfather tour, so it is a driver too! I got to talk with Henry Dana of Dana's Hot Rods, I had not seen him since the Back Door Nats in St Paul in 1977. He drove a deuce delivery at that time and we had the 46 Chevy delivery. It was cool to catch up on old times. Saturday I got to ride with friend Diz in his El Camino in the autocross event. Forty seconds around the track drifting and burning rubber all the way, that was real fun. Its a 502 with a complete Detriot Engineering chassis. At noon the tour all did a parade lap thru the show area and then left for St Louis. So fun to parade thru, everyone waving and giving the thumbs up, leading the way was Rodfather Andy and Goodguy Gary....cool. We arrived in St Louis and visited George Lange's collection and then over to Jack Stiermans shop. We had a nice meal and looked at a bunch of cool stuff. A couple of neat flatheads. Checked out Jacks turbo flathead in a 34 coupe. Jack also is the one that makes the miniature metal deuces. Want a metal deuce for just under a thousand dollars?? Call me and I'll hook you up. Monday morning it was off to Oklahoma to visit the Starbird museum and Hall of Fame. Always fun to see. We made a side trip down old Rte 66 and found a neat old bridge to take a photo on. We arrived in Tulsa about 5 PM, had dinner, talked to guys in the parking lot. In the morning its the Hot Rod Garage and then south to Ft Worth.

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some more photos...........................

Friday/Saturday

We drove to the track early Friday morning and parked in the Rodfather's parking, pretty cool! We walked the swap meet, vendor building and of of course the rod parking. Many nice cars. At 4 PM we were on the Indy 500 track for our track cruise around the 2 1/2 track. That was fun. I did that also in the blue roaster in 2006, that was fun too. As we finished the track cruise it started to sprinkle, we headed to the hotel, put on the tonneau cover and in a few minutes it was pouring, lightning, thunder, the works. Saturday morning it was back to the track, got our dash plaques, Rodfathers, deuce, and you gotta drive'm......all three. It was a nice but cool and brezzy day...but it was dry!!