We have floor, and lift off!

Lots happening around here lately. The floor is all done and looks amazing. Nearly perfectly flat and oh so smooth. Sweeping will be a breeze.

The framing started today. Those 12 foot walls sure are tall! I'm guessing the framing will be finished up tomorrow and siding will go up until the roof trusses are ready.

We decided a while ago to move our electric meter so it isn't directly in front of the front door to our house. It will be moved the far side of the front of the house. I also obviously need power to the shop so today I made a huge mess of the front yard/driveway preparing to lay conduit tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get that all buried soon and get the driveway usable soon. I only have about 75 more feet to trench, but at least the rest is just across the grass. Then the water line comes in from another direction. Carlos loves all this fresh mud to play in. More updates to follow.

Foundation today, floor tomorrow!

Much progress in the one week.

The guys are going to town on this shop for me. So far we have been relatively lucky weather wise, considering the quantity of rain thats been falling.

All the footings were dug, perimeter formed, and poured last week.

This super trick material flinger truck was brought in to spread all the rock and sand for under the slab, since it is sooo muddy and the bobcat would make a giant mess.

Today they readied everything for the concrete trucks coming tomorrow morning. 22 yards of mud will be here in the morning. I'm excited if you can't tell. More to come

New Shop Coming Soon!

Finally! Yesterday our building permit was approved and completed. The wheels are in motion for my new shop which will break ground next week, weather permitting. I am SO looking forward to having a work space again. I have several repairs on my own cars I've been putting off and I can't wait to get back to doing side work.

The new shop will be a 30 X 40 with nice high ceilings for a future vehicle lift. Construction should take around a month, but is dependent on the early spring weather Humboldt County is known for.

The next few posts on this blog will most likely chronicle the building, but after that, expect to see lots more hot rod related stuff.

Reliability Run! You missed out!

Another Rusty Nut event in the books. Yesterday morning several of us gathered at the Park and Ride just South of Eureka, ate a few donuts, and decided where we should go for the day. Eventually it was decided we would just head South on the Avenue of the Giants until we found sunshine.

We meandered through Fortuna, made a coffee pit stop in Rio Dell, stopping to stretch legs in Myers Flat. Then we continued on to Garberville to get some lunch supplies and headed to Redwood State Park Headquarters near Weott for lunch.

The park Headquarters has a neat museum with a Nash Quad turned into the first 4wd camper made from a hollowed out redwood log and a short movie about the big Humboldt County flood of 1964.

In all, it was about 120 miles 'o smiles. The more I go to car shows, the more I feel like the best part is getting there.

Although I had a great time, I missed the more remote, challenging route we took last year. After some discussion, next year you may be invited to two different Reliability Runs. One leisurely, easy fun run and a more hard core, remote exploration of Humboldt County. Here is a virtual car show of yesterdays cast of characters.

Hope you can join us next year!

My daily

Rod Anderson's beautiful '32 Ford

Rick Lermo's street/strip '39 Ford

Ken Suiker's '57 Ford 300

George Scott's '37 Ford

Larry Medez's '4? Dodge

And our chase vehicle, Tres O'Brian's '68 Ford Flatbed

Reliability Run!

Finally! My crazy life is slightly less crazy these days and The annual Rusty Nuts reliability Run will be October 2nd @ 9am. We are meeting at the Park and Ride at Hwy 101 and Herrick Ave, on the South end of Eureka.

Plan for having a great time driving your old heap and don't forget to bring a picnic lunch.

Last year was a ton of fun. We logged over 100 miles of back roads through the redwoods and along the lost coast of Humboldt County. I was the only one to have car trouble, and I still had a great time.

Call me with any questions you come up with. 707-599-2315

Matt

Hot Rod Happenings

We are getting settled into the new house. Unfortunatly, their is no shop space to speak of yet. I have just enough room to park the Model A inside with some of my tools. The rest is in storage until we get a new shop built.
This month I'll be going to Cruzn Eureka and selling some parts and inherited model cars at the swap meet. Stop by and say hi or better yet, buy something so I don't have to take it back home with me.
The Reliability Run the Rusty Nuts were hoping to organise in August didn't happen due to various reasons, however I still want to put something together. I will keep you all posted.

Last weekend I drove up to Crescent City with a couple fellow Rusty Nuts, Ken Suiker and Larry Mendez and their hot rods and went to the Northern Knights Car Show at the harbor. It was a fun time with about 90 cars in attendance. I got a couple rides in some friends hot rods, gave a few rides in my car and was given a shop tour of a friend who lives up there. He is building a Model A Tudor. The chassis is done and he is moving on the body work.

Thats all for now. Rock on.

Hey, a shop update!

Life has been crazy lately what with all the new house remodeling, packing, and so on. But I have a shop update. After my recent trip to a car show in Lakeport I crawled underneath the car to check something out. On the trip I had 2 other adults with me. Usually, it is just me and Carlos or if I'm really lucky it is me, Carlos, and Tamara.

Well, carting around 2 other dudes illustrated that my rear tires were rubbing a touch on the inner fenders. I was going to just add another inch to the ride height, but when I went investigating I fond some disturbing things.

A couple key components of the rear suspension were starting to bend. This turned into a full on repair instead of just a simple upgrade.

I needed to pull the whole back of the car apart.

Here is a picture of some of the damage. It is kinda hard to make out, but the plate that bolts to the rear end is a little twisted.

So, I reinforced the attachment plates on both the trailing arms and the rear axle. I added 1/4" plate all around and welded it all up nice and strong.

While I had the car apart I went ahead and put in some spring liner in between all the leaf springs to improve the spring action. And back to what started it all, I also put an additional 1" in ride height in the rear suspension so I can give lard asses rides.

True to my typical M.O., I fixed all the parts, painted everything up nice and put the car back together.....without taking any more pictures. But, it looks just like it did before, only now it is approved for use with a whole car load of adults.

Matt