Newbie from Seattle

[Travis Talbot]

I suppose my first post could fall into three forum categories… Please Introduce Yourself, Muscle cars, and Need help identifying an item. I live about 12 miles north of Seattle and have always loved building and restoring cars. I do mostly all my own work and I’ve mainly stuck to 60’s muscle cars. My last few were ’67 Mustang Fastback, ’65 Factory Five Cobra Kit car (with '04 Mustang Mach 1 engine, trans, & suspension) and my current project, ’65 Corvette Coupe Restomod. The ’65 Vette has a SRIII frame with C5 Z06 suspension & brakes, and LS2 crate engine with 4L65E trans. I’m almost three years into the project and it just went off to paint (Black) last week. Hope to get it back in June and finish up by mid-July. Here’s a pic of my Cobra and Vette…

I hadn’t really been all that interested in Rat Rods until I saw a couple trucks online that I absolutely fell in love with. They just look like beautiful works of art to me. I don’t even have any idea of their make or year. I know nothing, and I mean nothing about Rat Rods. However, as soon as I saw those trucks, I knew I had to build one as soon as my Vette was done this summer. I’m not really sure where to start other than poking around the forum. Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated. These are the two trucks that got me hooked…

I'm leaning more toward the second truck because I love how the front windshield opens at the bottom. Both have a great front grill. Anyone know the make and year? Between now and the time my Vette is done in July (hopefully), I plan to research and narrow my search to the model and year I want to build. If I get lucky, I will even have bought a solid truck just waiting to be reborn. We’ll see …travis

 

[actionjackson]

Im not a ford guy but i think the first truck is a 30's model and the second truck is a model A I believe.

 

[Sam_Fear]

Welcome to RRR! You definitely have good taste in vehicles. Nice rides for sure. The rats are to fine looking trucks too.

 

[skull]

welcome

hi from just south of ya

CL is a great place to to start looking for a project.

l see ya got the pics thing figured out[P

Later

 

[Dirtyrat]

welcome to RRR. looks like you can build the shiny stuff, the rusty should be a bit less work at least on the paint prep =)

 

[Old Iron]

Nice stuff
Welcome to the site

 

[sgtpontiac]

Welcome to the RRR..

Very nice rides.....great pic's....

 

[Gus]

Hello

Welcome to RRR....... the second truck is a 33/34 Ford the first one is around 38/40 Ford ? I'm a Chevy guy. Your other cars are Saaaaweet [cl

Don't worry I don't know anything about rat rods either [S and they haven't kicked me out YET

 

[MercuryMac]

ages

Hi and welcome to RRR from northern Alberta. Building cars gets in your blood doesn't it? Anyhow, the ages of your dream trucks is something I can help with. The first one is a chopped '36 Ford and the windshield cranks out on it also. The rocker panel reveal swoops down and back nicely from the firewall to the middle of the door on '35, '36, and '37 Fords. '37's have a split windshield and '35's have a liitle bit sharper curve at the bottom of the A pillar to the cowl junction. The grilles are all different on the three years, but yours has a '34 Ford car grille. The second one I'm not as sure on. It could be a '32, '33, or '34 Ford, also with a '34 car grille. Model A trucks would look a lot like this but they had a gas tank filler in the middle of the cowl. Here's why I can appear as if I'm a know-it-all. The second pic is a '36 grille, it has 6" or7" sides on it.

 

[26Troadster]

welcome to rrr.

 

[Bonehead]

Welcome to the site.

 

[Travis Talbot]

Thank you everyone for the welcome and information. I'm not a mechanic and don't have lots of money so its car forum's like this that have help me build my other projects. MercuryMac, you know your cars. Thanks for the info. Now I can start the long search for the perfect project truck. I feel an addiction to Craig’s List coming on. At least I have time on my side right now. Not sure how I'm going to explain to my wife that I would take a one year break from building cars when the Vette was done. Maybe flowers would help.

There’s so much to learn with Rat Rods. My first concern was the title. So many of these project cars no longer have titles. In my preliminary research, it looks as though you can buy titles? I hope that’s the case. I would really like the car titled in the correct make and year. I also discovered Auto Tempest yesterday. It’s a search tool that searches all Craig’s List ads, Auto Trader, eBay Motor, etc. from around the nation with one click of a button. That’s going to make my search so much easier. Let the search begine...

 

[skull]

link

can you post a link to the search tool that searches all Craig’s List ads, Auto Trader, eBay Motor, with one click of a mouse for us computorally challenged folks[S


Later

 

[rainbow lungs]

Welcome to RRR

I just was in Washington this past weekend.....ISSAQUAH to be exact.

In the old downtown section of Issaquah they re-did a Shell gas station probably back to the 40-50's era. Would be a cool place for some pics.

As you can see in pic it was typical Seattle weather......Wet!

Lungs

 

[earthman]

You can do a search on titles on this board to learn about the pros and cons,
pitfalls and mistakes to avoid. Without a clear title and VIN the next important thing is at least a VIN. Sometimes these are on the body or on the frame if you use it. The last legal resort is usually a bonded or in some states a homebuilt title. Every state has their own process. Now it isn't something the local DMV handles every day and unfortunately you can get different info from different people in the office. In my opinion the best advice is from rodders in your area who have actually done it and know which DMV offices to deal with. It gets done in every state the key is correct information.

............................................................

 

[MercuryMac]

#

Hi Travis Talbot, I just got lucky, and looked smart about the trucks you fell in love with. I happened to have been intimate with a '36 for quite a few years now. Sorry about that cab picture that I posted, It doesn't really show that swoopy rocker panel like I wanted, but I haven't got a real good picture of that. And I'm one of the computorially challenged dudes.
If you get a '36 truck, you can find the VIN # on top of the left hand frame rail below the firewall, just behind the steering box. Superman wearing Clark Kent's glasses will not see it until you do a lot of wire wheeling and hand brushing, but it's there.

 

[MercuryMac]

picture

Hi I am going to try yet again to send you the picture I want.

 

[Travis Talbot]

Skull,

Here's the search engine website link that I was talking about: http://www.autotempest.com

...travis

 

[Got Rust?]

Welcome Travis, from just up the road a bit. nice rides, been thinking about a colbra myself.

 

[Travis Talbot]

Looks like I got lucky. I found and bought a '34 Ford truck off Craig's List. Picked it up today in Hayden, ID. Only service rust on the cab. Doors are in great shape with complete channels, door, and window handles. Comes mostly complete minus fenders. Frame is in ok shape. May need a new one. Also comes with an original '59 title.