'51 Chevy Pickup

And so… the work begins.

THE DASH

1947-54 Chevy pickups are pretty on the outside but soooo painfully boring on the inside.

1950 Chryslers, on the other hand, are drop dead gorgeous inside, but got nothin’ on the outside. Guess who wants the best of both worlds?

After collecting parts for a while and never having all the right pieces, I came across a guy selling a whole Chrysler dash. Perfect! I was bummed I had to spend so much for it when I’d already spent at least that in parts, but it was worth it having the actual metal dash with correct bolt holes to work with. Only one problem- it was 6″ wider than the stock truck dash!

Luckily, the speaker section is exactly 6″ wide and really, who wants to use a crusty 60-year-old speaker? But before I could start cutting and pasting, I had to fix some rust damage from a leaky windshield gasket on the old dash. The Chrysler dash had a very different shape on top, so I plan to use the top of the Chevy dash to make installation and installing stock windshield moldings easy.

The rust was bad. I had to make patch pieces out of a 90-degree angle bent piece of steel. A tool called a shrinker-stretcher made the nifty end curve. Ask me how it works some time. It’s cool.

Measure twice, cut once, and always TEST FIT.

These are special-shaped welding vise grips I got at Harbor Freight. Welding is easiest when the pieces fit tightly together, so the clamps help a lot. After I was happy with the fit, I made some tack welds to hold things together just enough for me to test fit the dash in the truck. The clamps would have gotten in the way. Never make more tack welds than you’re willing to grind off in case it doesn’t fit.

Turns out the patched dash fit great and so did the molding. Now it’s time to make a scary cut!

This tool is called a Shear.

It’s basically a 3-blade scissors, and the center blade moves up and down to cut leaving a curly ribbon of metal. It’s designed this way to prevent warping the steel and is very balanced and easy to use. I now have a perfectly good stock dash in two past-the-point-of-no-return pieces. This better work!

I also had to cut the Chrysler dash and split it vertically. That way I could telescope the pieces together once they were installed. Even though I measured a hundred times (6″ too wide, every time), I still only cut once, leaving the rest to overlap where it wanted. Tape measures aren’t are reliable as you think, so always leave yourself a safety net.

A test fit of the old dash half and left new dash half shows a scary gap on top. Patch metal is needed to smooth it, but I came up with the better idea of bending the old dash so it could sit on top of the new dash. I liked the curve it had, so why not use it?

The old dash had a peak in the center, so I couldn’t just bend it as-is. I made a cut down the center so each half could bend easily. It will get welded back up later. I also cut most of the top of the Chrysler dash off, leaving just a small folded edge. All bends and folds in metal add strength, so leaving that edge will help keep floppiness in check while I test fit and make the dash stronger to support the 40-pound radio that the Chrysler came with (ok, maybe it’s not 40 lbs, but it’s HEAVY). It will also give me room for error in case I cut the old dash too short.

These bullet-looking things sticking out of the dash pieces are called Cleco (klee-co) clips.

They are spring-loaded and can be put into drilled holes to pinch sheets of metal together. By compressing the spring with the Cleco pliers, the feet draw together. Insert. Relax the spring and the feet spread out. Clamped and aligned. Pretty smart!

Next pic is of the dash pieces all in place and clamped for welding.

What is the quote? “It is better to be lucky than good, and baby, I am both.”    The small square clamps with wing nuts are called intergrips- another brilliant invention that holds side-by-side panels in alignment for welding.

Last pic shows the side gap I will have to fix.

The ends have a complex curve to them so I will be slicing the dash again, moving the top end into place and then making a patch for the gap. I can do this after I make some tack welds to the rest of the assembly for strength.

More to come…

___________________

Next up? Look for Kristin’s My Ride Is Me reports from the Grand National Roadster Show!

Always being a proponent for not out casting certain cars because they’re not in our scene (Gasoline Girls don’t have any year/make/style distinctions in our membership bylaws,) it was encouraging to find an article expressing “we’re all in love with one thing” on a site that is a bit outside of our niche.

Go check out the well written article on Stance Works – including some very cool old pictures from LIFE Magazine.

While you’re at it, check out the amazing build and pictures there of Nic Jiminez’s Ford Roadster.

Let’s spread the love in 2012…

Our January Meeting!

You see… it’s not just CARS the Gasoline Girls love, it’s also MOTORCYCLES. Lori has been riding for years and has several two-wheeled beasts… okay, maybe a FEW more than several.

Lori and her '04 1200 Roadster dubbed the Chromester

Last summer, she loaded her Honda TL125 into Bondorella and headed to El Mirage.

Kristin had been interested in bikes for a while, but once she hopped on, she really became hooked. And she was a natural! The seed was planted. One of her goals this year is to complete the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s riding course.

Kristin tearin' it up at El Mirage!

Our girl Rosa has a passion for bikes, too. Harley-Davidsons to be exact. She has visions of screaming across the pavement on a hog, all stemming from her wee-bit of an obsession with Sons of Anarchy. She even got to meet the star last year!

And because Lori needs another bike, she’s taken on a little build project. She recently traded her ’77 Bonneville T-140 to her feller for a ’69 Triumph Trophy 250. The reason? The 750 Bonneville was kickin’ her butt in the kickstart realm.

1977 Triumph Bonneville T-140

Sure, he got the better deal considering the Bonnie is in perfect original shape and ready to be ridden, but Lori is excited because the 250 is a project!

The engine has already been rebuilt and put in the frame, but everything else is in a bin ready to be reassembled, and Lori is going to do it with the help of the 66 Motor Palace! Stay tuned for updates on her first motorcycle assembly! Here it is roughly put together.

Click to see project pictures!

This just in! After posting this blog, we learned our girl Adele also has a motorcycle history! She was sick for our January meeting and couldn’t make it, but we just found out she used to ride dirt bikes at her grandmother’s house in the desert, and loved it. She considers Sophia, her ’53 Chevy, her first mid-life crisis, and wants her second to be getting a motorcycle! Who knew??

So because motorcycles have crept their way into the club (they’re sneaky little devils!) we voted for a change. We are now the Gasoline Girls MOTOR Club! Recognizing that just because a vehicle might only have two wheels instead of four…gasoline still runs through its veins.

Watch out as we don our One Stars and boots and raise holy hell on the streets! Lock up your men! Hide the hootch! The Gasoline Girls are coming to town!!…. Okay. So, maybe we won’t turn into some hoodlum gang or anything, but sure sounds fun, right?

Coming soon: Falcon Fun!

This past weekend at the monthly Girls in the Garage event that Pati hosts, we all got a chance to learn a little more about weatherstripping. It just so happened that Lori needed to change out her windshield. After putting this job off due to an attachment to the history of her front windshield…Lori decided it was time for a change. Read all about it on Bondorella’s blog (that’s right…Lori made a blog just for her car!)

We’re constantly working on learning new things in the Gasoline Girls – and that includes skills for every level. All of us could use to learn more about tuning engines. To make a start with this, we decided to begin with the basics during our October meeting – changing spark plugs, reading spark plugs, and compression testing our engines.

Pati’s been needing to do a tune up on her Datsun 240Z, so she’d brought a set of new plugs. Pati taught, as newcomer Pat learned how to change spark plugs.

Meanwhile, Rebecca was due to read the plugs on her ’55 Chevy. She and Kristin have the same motor in their cars (Chevy 383,) so they had previous experience wrestling to reach the plugs in tight quarters underneth and between the headers.

Upon pulling one, it was wet – but not too bad. The girls compared the plug to their handy-dandy spark plug reader chart.

With images and explanations taken from NGK spark plugs website, Kristin compiled these onto a toolbox-ready laminated handout.

They thought getting to the plugs on the 383 were hard! Next, Kristin and Rosa ventured to pull the plugs on Kristin’s Explorer…if only they could find ‘em! Situated way down at the bottom of the engine block, Kristin eventually got a distributor wire pulled, but there was no way that plug was coming out unless they took the front tire off!

After trying to reach the plugs on the Explorer, turning to the straight six on Pati’s Datsun was a cinch! Kristin and Nancy learned how easy it was to do a compression test…

While Pati had fun just turning the key! Unfortunately the results weren’t so fun! The first three cylinders were in the 90s (already too low) while the last three read 70, 100, and a whooping 25 psi respectively! So Pati is going to have to decide what to do next on the Datsun, because its going to need more then a simple tune-up!

All-in-all, we had a fun time together learning and exploring our cars. Next month at our meeting we’ll be diving deeper into tuning lessons – we can’t wait!

Other happenings of the weekend included:

• Lori and Kristin headed out to Gene Winfield’s for his annual Winfield Watson Car Show. You can check out the story Kristin wrote about it on MyRideisMe.com. Lori also wrote about this special landmark trip for her truck Bondorella. Read all about it!
• In other parts, Adele and her friend headed out to Palm Springs for the Casual Concourse de Elegance. Check out that and more pictures on our Facebook album of the weekend.

Until next time…

And how to fix bad brakes… the slow way…

I came to appreciate something a few Saturdays ago.

BRAKES!!

We take them for granted, assuming when we press the pedal, we’ll stop. But… OH HELL! When you press the pedal and it goes to the floor?? That’s a frightening thing, especially in bumper-to-bumper Southern California traffic.

I’m not the first in our club to go through the terror of no brakes. Kristin had total brake failure last year, and only now can we laugh about it, (and it IS a funny story–you can read all about it here).

And now, here we go again with Bondorella. En route to our August Gasoline Girl meeting in Oceanside, with freeway traffic crawling (thankfully) at 20 mph, my brakes failed.

Thankfully (again) there were no great catastrophes when the brakes failed. I got off the road, and—after continuing to Oceanside in Rebecca’s ’55 Chevy for our G-Girl meeting—had Bondorella towed to my hobby shop, the Orange Motor Palace.

The symptoms (pedal to the floor, pump up then sink back to floor) led us to believe the master cylinder had failed, so I bought a new dual reservoir MC from ABS Power Brake  just as Kristin had a few months before for her Studebaker. We hit some rough spots with the Stude job, so I questioned whether we should mess with brake systems again. But hey… we’re all about learning so… here we go.

After a crash course in master cylinders from the Internet, we gathered the girls to the garage. If you’ve changed a master cylinder before, you may want to skip ahead—although you might get some good laughs at my newbie stupidity. If it’s new to you, read on! Maybe some of my mistakes can save you some pain.

The master cylinder on the F1 is located under the driver’s side floorboard. A couple days before, all connectors got a good squirt of penetrating oil to make removal easier. We sucked the fluid out of the old MC, unhooked the brake pedal (damn cotter pin took forever—TIP: leverage, baby! Pry that sucker out instead of simply pulling), disconnected the brake lines, brake light switch, and took out the three bolts connecting the MC to the cross-member. Simple enough. The area where it had been mounted was filthy, so it got a good cleaning to make sure no crud would land in the new one (TIP: wear safety glasses to keep all that crud from your eyes too!).

Problem number one: Putting the new MC in the old position wasn’t going to work. The old one used a bolt top accessed through the floorboards, the new one, a flip lever. Once in place, the lid couldn’t be unlatched (something I checked before bench bleeding and mounting in). For a fee, the guys at ABS swapped it for a remote reservoir unit. I also had to change out the  brake light switch and add in-line residual valves since the master cylinder is lower than the wheel cylinders. I had new brake lines made too… and good thing I did! The rear line disintegrated in our hands when we tried to undo the rust-frozen fitting.

Here’s a handy TIP ABS shared with us regarding measuring new lines: Use a wire coat hanger to bend the lines into the right shape first. Another TIP: Don’t do as I did and measure EXACT. Too long can be rectified with a bend here or there; too short… uh… nuttin’ you can do but buy new line.

We bench bled the master and hand tightened into place. Next problem? While trying to bend a complicated S turn into the rear brake line to meet up with the new MC, we… broke it.

Yep. The new line. And ABS had closed for the day. Rebecca’s guy Ed stopped by and helped us out, reusing one of the old (but still solid) lines, and giving us a little lesson in line bending. (TIP: Don’t use pliers of any kind, it will kink the line. If it’s too thick to bend by hand, get a line bending tool.)

BUT… our problems weren’t over.

We ended up with connector issues at both Ts—Male/Male, Female/Female. Sadly Pep Boys didn’t have the right couplers (and no one else was open), so we had to call it a night. TIP: I haven’t verified this, but my pal Nathan suggested Ace Hardware for the fittings!  ANOTHER TIP: There are several seating types, so make sure you get the right one. I needed inverted flare seat on one end, and pipe thread on the opposite.

Monday, with the needed couplers, I continued on, solo.

Here’s where I really humble myself. I went to reconnect the pedal, and quickly figured out—and this is embarrassing—the plunger needed to be in the MC before we bolted it in, otherwise, you can’t get it into the pedal clevis. Boy, did I feel stupid when I figured that out. And damn those bolts are hard to get to! At least we’d just hand tightened them.

Solution? I pulled everything out. Yep. Undid everything we’d done on Saturday and started over. I didn’t want to half ass the job (and it was headed that way). I also decided to replace that one line… you know, the one we first broke then Ed recreated using one of the discarded lines. Why? There was way too much extra line under the truck (even though Ed did a great job coiling it).

Then there was the issue of the plastic reservoir. I hated it. I’d asked about alternatives when I bought the remote reservoir, and the guy said no, they had only plastic, but I knew that wasn’t the case. I’d seen the options in the catalog. Not that I’m blaming him. He was very helpful. But I should have clarified I was willing to PAY for an alternative. ABS did in fact have an aluminum reservoir (which I bought). TIP: If you know something isn’t right, persist.

Next problem: the plunger between the MC and the pedal clevis was too long with the extension in, and too short without. ARGH! That’s the problem with trying to do a job like this at night after work. Nothing is open, so the job had to, once again, be put off. The next morning when I showed up at ABS, the guys told me I should “punch in.” Yes. I was THAT regular on my morning visits.

With the weekend rapidly approaching, I knew I wouldn’t meet my goal. Unlike some of the other G-Girls, Bondorella isn’t my daily driver, so I never have to rush to get a job done, but I did really, really want to go to Ventura Nationals. No such luck. Saturday morning, instead of meeting up with the crew for six a.m. coffee and donuts and a drive up the coast, I installed the MC with the new plunger (yay! Perfect length!), got all the brake lines in and tightened, mounted the remote reservoir to the fender wall, and started to bleed the brakes. Uh oh. Pedal pressed, fluid squirted out at three different points. ARGH!!! And I thought I’d tightened everything so well! Back in there with the wrench. Okay. Fine. Ready to bleed again.

I wish I could say we bled the brakes and I went on my merry way… but… no such luck.

Clearly, air had to be getting into the system somewhere, because even after four bleeds using both a Vacula (vacuum sucker… don’t you love the name?) and manually bleeding the system, the pedal still felt spongy. There were no puddles or drips anywhere, but I went through and tightened all of the brake lines again and discovered the brake light switch, although not dripping, was coated in brake fluid, so I changed it out to an old Harley-Davidson one, and that fixed the small leak. BUT… the pedal still felt wrong, so on to the next course of action…

I’d never taken the drums off of my truck and had no idea how to do it, but I realized there must be something more going on in there. A quick briefing, and I got the left hub off. No issues inside. It looked great. But when I pulled the passenger side—holy hell! What a mess! The adjuster spring had broken, so the spring and adjuster were just rolling around in the hub, the wheel cylinder had clearly been leaking, the drums were grooved… in other words, I’d finally found my problem.

Rather than buy new, Chinese-made wheel cylinders, I rebuilt my Made In USA cylinders using a rebuild kit—which was super easy to do. Hone the cylinders, insert new innards. Simple.

I also got new springs, new brake shoes, new bleeders, and had ABS turn the drums. Things went together quite easily, other than fighting with the shoe return springs using a Matco spring tool. Turns out my old swap meet Proto tool for drums worked much better. I’m sure the Matco is good for something… just not my brakes.

Finally, after a month on jack stands, I fired up Bondorella and went for my first test drive under the pink strands of the setting Southern California sun. But the brakes, while significantly better, still weren’t quite right. First press, a wee bit soft, next pump hard as can be. So… back to the shop again to pull the rear drums, which really, I needed to do anyway. Why do a job three-quarters of the way?

Next day I pulled the rear drums, and they looked  fine, although the adjuster on the passenger side was frozen, so I took that apart and cleaned it, put the drum and wheel back on, bled the brakes again but STILL the same problem. ARGH!!! I was so insanely frustrated I told my guy I was going to take it to the brake shop in the morning and have them fix it the rest of the way. I was done.

But then I had lunch and cleared my head. (TIP: When you hit a wall, walk away.) I thought more about the problem. It didn’t seem like air in the lines because the pedal didn’t sink to the floor, it seemed like something else. So I went back to the shop and posted on the H.A.M.B. and on Facebook, laying out my problem. Universally on the H.A.M.B., they felt it was a drum adjustment issue, but Rich B. is the one who really drove it home for me! Several people had asked if I’d adjusted my drums, and I had, BUT… turns out I didn’t adjust them correctly. Rich explained how he adjusts his drums (tighten all the way to a stop then back them off) and that’s when I realized how far off I was. I had tightened until a slight drag then backed them off. So I did it his way, and what do you know? PROBLEM SOLVED!!! The brakes were firm as can be and stopped like a dream.

Yes, it took me three weekends (and a few weeknights) to do the job, but I can now look back with pride knowing I did it all myself (with advice from lots of great people) and I didn’t have to bring someone in for the rescue. That is a mighty fine feeling.

So what is the RIGHT way to do this job? Can’t really tell you that, but I can tell you what this newbie would have done differently:

1. DO A FULL INSPECTION: I have a feeling it wasn’t my master cylinder that failed, but rather all of the problems in the right front hub. Had I pulled the hubs from the beginning, I would have had a better idea of the real problem. (Although I don’t regret upgrading the master cylinder).
2. ADJUSTING: Before doing anything, make sure your drums are adjusted properly, that way you’re not chasing a problem that has nothing to do with your new parts!
3. MEASURING: I should have taken measurements of everything, like the piston to pedal clevis length, the full length of brake lines, a measurement of where the residual valves would be in the clear rather than ending up on bends or behind brackets (as both of mine are).
4. PRE-TIGHTENING: I should have made sure every single fitting I could get away with pre-tightening was done, like the brake light switch onto the T, and the brake lines coming into the T, and even the rear residual valve. I could have probably slid that entire piece in without too much hassle rather than piecing it together under the truck.
5. BLEEDING: If you bleed the system over and over but the pedal still doesn’t feel right, check your brake adjustment. Here’s the key: If you press the pedal and it pumps up on second pump and DOES NOT SINK TO THE FLOOR… it’s probably an adjustment. If you pump it up and it GRADUALLY SINKS to the floor, you either have air in the system or a DOA Master Cylinder.

Thanks for making it through this lengthy post. Big thanks to each and every one of you who offered advice, and to ABS for their continued patience. If you’ve come across this post because you’re about to tackle a brake job, I hope my tips help make it a success!

And now… I’m going to confess something very girlie. When I went for the test drive post adjustment, and the brakes felt so… PERFECT… I actually cried. Like a fool. Sitting behind the wheel with my eyes welling up. After such a frustrating couple of weeks, I could hardly believe I’d done it. I fixed my brakes, and that felt really, really good.

Until next time… Happy Wrenchin’!

Later gators…

Here’s Callie’s story.

At six years old, Callie fell in love. Not with some cute boy down the street. Or with a new doll. She fell in love with a car, a pale yellow ’65 Impala convertible driven by her dad’s friend. “He took me for a spin, and I was overwhelmed with excitement and a rush that is not easily explained in words.”

Yep. She was bitten, and her passion for cars and hot rod culture didn’t fade over time. It grew.

Callie is an extremely driven young lady, graduating high school at 16, and being the youngest to enter her college where’s she’s studying to be a court reporter—so it’s not surprising that she tackled her first classic car project at fifteen. “My Uncle Mike was the one who really put the idea in my head.  A member of my church, Hot Rod Church for Sinners, had a red Falcon convertible, which got me looking into Falcons, then Comets. After many weeks of frantically scanning Craigslist for a car that spoke to me, I found a listing for a 1963 Comet. When I saw my “Lolita” in person for the first time, I fell in love with her and all her potential.”

The car wasn’t in ideal condition- the interior was non-existent, it didn’t have paint, and the engine had obviously been sitting for a long time. But her dad Brian really wanted Callie to have this car. “She’s an amazing kid. I’m so very proud of her on so many levels.” So he let her buy the car with money she’d earned waitressing, and took on the challenge of helping her restore the car, something Callie says has been an experience. “It has been the source of a few fights, but more importantly I think it has given us some common ground.  We don’t see eye to eye on everything, but it’s really nice to be able to come home after a stressful day and work away on the car while listening to music with my dad and be on the same page.”

Lolita has gone through quite a transformation since her purchase in 2009.  She now has beautiful two-tone bench seats, door panels, carpeting, paint, and a new 200 engine and a C4 transmission out of a Ford Maverick. 

But… Callie says, “…it seemed like I was taking a back seat.” The restoration had become more of her dad’s project than hers.  And Callie wanted more. She wanted to know what was going on inside her Lolita, what made her run, what exactly made that vroom noise that gave her chills. Plus, she wanted to be able to fix things that would go wrong along the way. “I always wanted to be the one under the hood. The Gasoline Girls gave me the courage and inspiration to stop asking permission, and start doing.”

Our kinda girl, right?

Before getting Lolita, Callie didn’t know the first thing about how an engine worked.  But things are changing. Her dad told us, “I was barely out of bed the other day… and Callie was in my face asking if we could work on the car together.” She’s since learned the basics of what goes on under the hood when she turns the key.  She can now install a radiator, as well as a starter, change the oil, adjust the knobs on the dash, check for leaks/cracks, tell when the spark plugs need to be replaced, and connect the battery—all very important things if you’re going to drive a classic.

The best thing for Callie about driving Lolita? “The feeling she gives me.  I have more fun driving, and I love when other people get excited too.  I enjoy standing out on the road.  Even the force it takes to turn makes me happy.”

The worst thing? “Never knowing when something will go wrong, as well as worrying about the many fix-it tickets I have often risked.”

But for Callie, it’s all worth it. Like all of us, she can’t imagine driving anything different. “It’s not easy, but it makes me smile.  I have my own tie to the hot rod culture, and I enjoy sharing that passion with others.  I really can’t see myself ever giving it up.”

Next up for Callie and her Lolita? The transmission isn’t working too well, so she needs to get that straightened out, along with all the little shake out things getting a car back on the road entails, like brake-lights, speedometer, fuel gauge. Most of all, she’s just thrilled to finally fulfill a childhood dream, and be behind the wheel of her very own classic, her ’63 Comet, Lolita.

In case you haven’t noticed, our summer has been packed with social activities: going to car shows, volunteering for the Rosie’s Girls program, making a trophy for Tiki Highway, buffing all of the cars to show quality, but behind the scenes, there’s still a whole lot of work going on under the hood—part and parcel of owning a classic.

Like Kristin for instance. She recently had a power loss issue on the freeway and posted a Facebook question looking for answers. Many great suggestions were offered: Fuel pump, coil, distributor… she explored them all and solved the problem.

And these are just a few of the responses!

And Lori. Bondorella’s flathead didn’t have much vacuum, so she traced the problem and found a T between the crankcase ventilator and the vacuum port to be the issue, and by bypassing the PCV, brought the vacuum up to what it should be.

Adele’s working on diagnosing her Chevy’s illness…

Michelle has a pesky carburetor problem she’s dealing with…

Pati’s been hard at work on a customer’s Merc…

And Miss Callie frantically worked with her dad to get her ’63 Comet on the road for the Tiki Highway show, and succeeded!

Each and every girl involved in the club has ongoing issues to deal with on their cars. So while we may not have been chronicling every turn of the wrench, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been happening on an individual basis.

In the beginning, we dreamed of group wrench days where we’d solve problems together. However, much of the day-to-day care for a classic is easier done in one’s own garage or driveway in whatever hours can be managed rather than organizing a time when all of us can get together at an equally convenient location.

But that doesn’t mean that we don’t still learn together and work together. Often times maybe only two or three Gasoline Girls will get together – or maybe it’s just a phone call – or the added courage you get by knowing you’ve got back up. And yes…as all Gasoline Girls are still learning (and really, isn’t everyone!?) we aren’t ashamed to go for outside help when its needed either.

For example when we were upgrading the brakes on Kristin’s Stude. ABS Power Brake had provided her with a new dual-reservoir master cylinder so she would never lose her brakes again.  We completed the job – switching out the masters and running new hard brake lines…but upon testing the car, knew something wasn’t quite right. Deciding not to risk it on something as important as brakes, Kristin had Stude towed into ABS Power Brake in Orange so they could help her finish the job correctly.  It ended up that some of the geometry was off with the rod in the new master and the guys at ABS taught Kristin a ton more that day as she stood by as they fine tuned her brake system. (We’re still waiting on Kristin to write the full article!)

Even though we needed help with this job, we still learned a ton: pulling an old master out and putting a new one in, installing and routing new brake lines, bleeding the brakes. In our eyes, there’s no shame in asking for help. The Gasoline Girl’s mission is to learn as much as we can and encourage others to do the same. Much of the reason for becoming a club is to share knowledge, lend a hand, and encourage one another in learning…and of course to have fun together along the way!

To that effect…the Gasoline Girls are headed back to school! From the beginning we’ve wanted to pull in experts who can school us on various automotive aspects….however we’ve found that a lot of our time has been eaten up involved with shows and being social butterflies. Not that we haven’t enjoyed every minute spent, but it’s time to refocus on our learning mission! For instance, we’d all love to become better tuners. So how about a carburetor class? A timing session? All about distributors?

If you or someone you know in the LA area think you would be good teachers for a learning segment and would be interested in hanging out with the Gasoline Girls for an evening and teaching us a thing or two, please let us know. We’d feed ya… and maybe even scrape together some funds from our coffers. A T-shirt? Sure! What about an oil rag and pressure gauge?

Our goal is to become as proficient as we can, and who better to learn from than our peers? If interested, drop us a line at gasolinegirlscc@gmail.com.

And as always, thanks for your continuing support.

Everyone knows that girls like shiny things and the Gasoline Girls especially like shiny cars!  Take Lori’s sparkly bare-metal ’48 Ford for instance! So, when it came time to polish our rides for the Tiki Highway Show in Huntington Beach, CA our buffer of choice was the CP7269P, CP’s pneumatic polisher with a 7” buffing pad.  With the help of this little power house we were able to make Bondorella extra sparkly and brought Becky Sue’s 50 year-old paint to a mirror finish!

The CP7269P is light weight and powerful.  The Gasoline Girls have found this to be the case with a lot of Chicago Pneumatic’s tools.  Besides being a worldwide leading manufacturer of impact wrenches, Chicago Pneumatic develops many other tools that are comfortable and powerful.  Take their cordless drills (CP8335 ) for example, these little puppies have enough power to get the job done but they are practically a paperweight!  Kristin had a fun time walking around  ISN tool expo with this tool and encouraging people to feel for themselves how light it was. (Stay tuned for the event coverage piece from ISN)

The CP polisher is ergonomically designed and has a very low vibration, which made it easy to operate even on low quarter panels.  The pressure sensitive speed control took only a few seconds to get used to  and quickly became our best friend as we slowed down to carefully work around the more delicate trim pieces.

The soft rubber-grip handle kept the palms of our hands from wearing out from hours of polishing.  When polishing with some heavier electric models that do not have reduced vibration our arms and hands are trembling in pain by the end of the day.  With Chicago Pneumatic, at the end of our polishing session on Saturday, us gals still had the strength to wrap our hands around those big vintage steering wheels of ours and cruise our shiny old beasts into the sunset!  (God forbid we would  be too weak to put on a fresh coat of red lipstick and wave to passing cars!)  Thank you CP for continuing to help the Gasoline Girls Car Club make our rides even better!

Give a girl a hammer and dolly, and she’ll bang the heck out of a dent and love every minute of it—something we learned after spending a day with the girls of the Rosie’s Girls Summer Camp! I tell ya, camp for preteen girls sure wasn’t this cool when we were kids.

During this two week program, the Rosie’s Girls (yes, named after Rosie the Riveter!) get hands on instruction in skilled trades and technical fields, learning things like basic carpentry, welding, and yes, discovering all the joys of our hobby… CARS!!

A major component of the Gasoline Girl mission statement is to inspire and encourage, and from the beginning, we wanted a “cause” that would fit with that mission.  Kristin came across Rosie’s Girls and we immediately knew it was a perfect fit. The program is all about encouraging young girls to think beyond the boundaries; to try things traditionally only boys would get to do; to be hands on and get dirty. Sound familiar? You see why we love this program so much!

Vermont Works for Women founded Rosie’s Girls in 2000 because they wanted to expose girls to a variety of trades, but more than that, they wanted to build the girls’ confidence. The program has since expanded to Ohio, South Carolina, and yes, to Southern California!

We were honored to participate in their summer camp this year, a full day of sharing our passion for classic cars with nine to thirteen-year-olds, teaching them things like what makes a car move, basic car maintenance, and even a little body work.

The girls got to be a human motor complete with pistons and spark.

They learned to check oil and tire pressure.

They took hammers in hand and pounded dents out of fenders.

They even got to hitch a ride in the back of Bondorella!

Keeping a love of classic cars alive into the next generation is important in order to preserve an era of American steel and muscle not likely to be replicated. For the most part, these girls had no prior exposure to anything other than their parents’ modern cars, but by the end of the day, a classic-car-spark stirred inside the hearts of a few, that’s for sure, but more importantly, we hope each girl walked away with the desire to be independent, strong, and self sufficient, and to appreciate what’s been here for so long. And for us? We got to see the world through the eyes of a young girl again and simply play.

To see the full photo album, click the pic!

Thanks, Rosie’s Girls!

For more information on Rosie’s Girls, go here!