1960 Plymouth Woody Screamin' Down The Drag Strip
Took the Screamin’ Woody for three hard blast down the road in front of my shop, bringing back for adjustments in between. I think its ready to race after the brakes get bled again, as they suck. The quilted interior material came in, and I’ll recover the door panels next week. Then I’ll detail it and take to the SHRA race in Denton Saturday 9/14. If all goes well there, then I’ll head to Indy for that race. If not, I’ll swap the Wagon for The Thug and run it in Indy.
It’s been about three weeks since I’ve posted any update on the shop goin’ ons. There have been quite a few, actually so many is the reason why I’ve not been able to post much. I’ll post what I can remember, but I doubt it will be half of it.
The motor is finished and installed with the fresh transmission. The car is about 15-18 hours from being Race Ready.
All of the trim is on. I bought a 10-circuit wiring harness to replace the 60-year-old stock wiring. I also bought a Competition Engineering aluminum dash to give it that NASCAR look, and a plasma cutter to more easily trim to correct fit. I’ve not yet decided on the gauges, but have bought the switches. The motor is ready and a Passion Performance Hemi 4-speed overdrive transmission ought to be here in another week or so. I found some rattle can blue-green that comes close to matching the vinyl of the seat tops, and I’ll remove and spray the metal interior trim soon. I’ve made a decision on the wheels – but not yet ordered them. This is a car that will stay on the lift of the stacker, and go to the races with me for off track duty.
The Mohawk is a very neglected 30-year-old project, which has spent a lot of time at a couple shops rotting. It has been back in my hands for a couple of years now, and I’m starting to give it my attention.
To refresh memories, it started life a 63 GT Hawk. The “Mo” part is that it will be Mopar powered. I have a 25-year-old “Fresh” Aluminum head 340ci motor. That’s to say that it was built by the first shop 25 years ago. Pulled a head and the pan for an inspection, and turned the rotating around a couple cycles. All looks and feels well, but the outside needs a wire brushing and paint. The first guy also grafted on some fins that look horrible. I bought a fiberglass front sheet metal clip from a 53-54 Commander about 25 years ago, but I’m going to see if I can find real metal. I have a pair of fins from a 1960 Plymouth that will replace the ones grafted on.
At the second shop, the body stayed outside with the windows open for a couple of decades. The floors are shot and the body has a lot of surface flash. I’ll take it to get Dustless blasted, and then primered, so I can see exactly what body work needs to be done. The second shop convinced me that I needed to make a tube chassis for it, and grafted on the Fat Man Mustang II front end that I’d bought for the original frame. I think the problem was the first shop butchered the frame and the Fat Man front clip was far from on straight. The rear end is a Mopar 8.75″. All of it was rusty from so many years sitting in the weeds at the second shop. The chunk in the 8.75″ was locked up to where it had to be removed to move the car. I don’t know what is salvageable on the new brakes and front end.
Everything was stripped off the tube chassis frame, some added strength welded in, and I did a little grinding and smoothing. Then I took the frame to get blasted and Powder-coated semi-gloss black.
I picked it up from the powder coater and it looked good, so I took the axle housing and leaf springs for same treatment.
I’ll pick up the axle and springs tomorrow and set up an area to reassemble the chassis. I ordered a blasting hopper, and will bead blast the axles, which have a lot of flash on them. Like all projects before (the 46 Olds, the Thug, Screamin Woody, my Magnum, and the Petty Tribute – this will most likely take a year of two. Stay tuned for Updates.
My racing season is pretty much over for this year. I traded my motorhome in on a 2020 that I ordered. It won’t be ready until October some time. I sold my stacker and ordered a new one to match the coach, and it won’t be ready until November. The new coach is three feet longer, so the new stacker will be three feet shorter. The Thug is ready to go, and I might take it to the next SHRA race.
I bought an early 90s Aluminum trailer off Jim Bailey. It appears to have been well cared for. I’ve done some work, like mount a 12000# winch and motorcycle chalks. I bought the Screamin’ Woody back from Indiana; and took my Son’s and my Harleys to ride in Colorado in it. Nice light trailer. All of the bearings now have new grease.
It’s in the process of being stripped and repainted White with Red/White/Blue stripes on from three sides, and the Texas Flag on the rear door. I’ll outfit it more to my needs as I have time. Already painted the A-Frame replaced the electric jack – twice. Need to mount a jack pouch, radio, a couple roof vents, and a few other conveniences, but after the inside is painted.
I suspect it will be finished this next week, before I take a week to stay at lake to get some work done there.
I have a man in his early 70s who is my “Shop Rat”M-F 8-4. He keeps the place clean, does the yard work other than mowing (which I do), accepts deliveries on the days I’m not there, washes cars, etc.
I also have a racing bud working there about two days a week on the race cars and the cars I’m getting ready to sell. It is my plan to sell off about 2/3 of my stuff (cars and parts), and then build a smaller shop close to my lake house (100 miles) away. I want to move to the lake full time instead of commuting. That’s why there’s the thrash to get shit down.
Anyway, with three of us running around jumping from project to project, stuff doesn’t get put away well, and is often lost or put away dirty. Last week I spent three days solid, taking stuff out one of the four containers of parts, cleaning and wrapping; throwing out any junk and making sure everything gets put into the proper bin.
I’m about 7/8 finished with the one that was the biggest mess. I’m going to wait until it is cooler before tackling the others, as I about keeled over a half-dozen times working in the container on 100 degree days. I’m not taking the heat as well as I use to.
I put bed saddle bags in my Ram, like I’d done for my daughters F150 – back when it was mine. I bought a ladder that mounts on the tailgate, to make it easier to get my fat ass in the bed. It wouldn’t work with my rollup bed cover, so I mounted it on my daughter’s truck – so her 7 months pregnant ass can get in the bed. I found a side mount ladder that works for my truck and installed it.
The Magnum GT, Viper GTS, 67 Marlin, 78 Diplomat, 86 Grand National, 67 Barracuda, Sixpack Superbird and Genesis are all ready for new homes.
Been spending a lot of time on the business end of things with that. Yesterday I went on an Installation with Dallas.
I’ve had a ton of other time consuming stuff happening. And convinced this retirement is going to kill me. I’ve worked hard all of my life, but never this hard!
To be honest, I didn’t get as much done at the shop as usual – as I spent a week at my lake house.
And then it was family time for Memorial Weekend. My wife was across country visiting her sister, but my kids and grand-kids came by to keep me company.
I loaded up Petty Tribute car to take to get a gallon of high fill primer sprayed on it. It goes to the wrapper in Indiana when I race in Bowling Green (Hot Rod Reunion) in about 10 days.
Got my stacker trailer and a couple of cars ready and listed for sale.
Other than that, it was mostly routine car maintenance, like getting my daughter’s truck washed and oil changed today.
I’m selling a highly optioned 32′ Aluminum Stacker Race Trailer that I had custom built by Intech Trailers about 4 years ago. It will cost about $100K to have this exact trailer made. Features, in no particular order, include:
Admittedly, the floors are a little dirty when I took these photos, once a year I use Aluminum Brite to make them look like new. I’ll post photos after I next clean up.
I’ve pulled this stacker all over the country with a 43′ motorhome with a 450hp Cummins. It tracks real well behind the coach and I pass trucks going up the mountains. My deal is that I’ll be ordering a 45′ Coach and as such, I need to step down to a 30′ stacker to stay legal. This trailer was built to last for decades with good care and annual axle greasing.
My opinion is that Intech makes the very best aluminum trailers, and they have not experienced the quality/welding problems racers have experienced with trailers like ATC. They do cost more — but are worth it. A trailer with all of these important options (extra height, 17.5 H-Load (and 86 MPH Speed) Rated wheels and tires including two spares, thick skin, extra roof and attic bracing…) will cost you around $100K to order. This trailer is ready to go. will last you years. I’ll sell for $60K. I believe it is a 2015.
If interested — email me at davetheoldhippie @ Gmail.com or call me during reasonable hours at 713-899-7704.
Selling the NSSRacing.com domain with the forum and Registered membership list.
Frankly I haven’t been doing a good job with promoting the site, soliciting advertisers, adding race dates to the calendar or promoting the Classified Ad section. It was once a very active forum for those interested in Nostalgia Super Stock Drag Racing. This might be a good opportunity to for a NSS Group, vendor of a product or service of interest to NSS Racers, or a computer Geek willing to build the site and sell banner ads.
I feel the the domain name, membership and Vbulletin license is worth more than $1000 as-is, Where-is – but I’ll accept the $1000. Any of my help or domain hosting would be extra. If the site doesn’t sell within a month or so — then I’ll list the domain name on an auction site, sell the Vbulletin license and delete the site. If you are interested in the site, domain name or Vbulletin license — contact me via email at davetheoldhippie @ Gmail.com.
I created a Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/nssracing/ that appears to be taking up a lot of the slack for NSS Racing — although a Vbulletin board is far more efficient with regards to categorizing posts by topic, calendars, searching, and income opportunity with banner pay for view or pay for click ads.
The first week of May 2019, I raced in Memphis. See the Memphis Recap for that story. After I returned from the Memphis Race — here’s a few of the items accomplished at the shop, in no real order.
First we had a butt-load of rain here. I actually had more flooding coming closer to my home and the shop than the last two hurricanes and the last Tropical Storms.
Moving to the topic of cars, the following was part of the happenings.
While on the subject of dye, 48oz of Evergreen Dye has been applied to the interior of my 64 Imperial. Still needs more so I ordered another 16oz this morning.
And while on the subject of my 64 Imperial, I took it for a 60-mile shakedown ride yesterday. The goal was to identify what problems I still have to address after all of the work (new brakes, power steering pump, complete exhaust system, major motor tuneup, leaking transmission fixed, odometer fixed, convertible pumps fixed, carb rebuild, new shocks – and a ton I’ve forgotten). The below is the first of five videos I took, which documents the repairs I still need to make.
None of the problems were really major — and two actually corrected themselves. However, about 29 miles into my trip I kept getting smoke looking like it was rolling out from under the dashboard. I stopped the first time and looked under the hood and under the car – but could find nothing. When I started driving again the smoke reappeared only thicker. I stopped again and looked under the dash and found nothing. As I was getting back in the car I noticed smoke coming from the back seat — and that’s when I saw my carpet was on fire. Fortunately I carry a fire extinguisher in most of my old cars — as I was way out in the sticks and had no water. After I got the fire put out — I found that the brand new exhaust was too close to the floorboards and set jute on the back of my 56 year old carpet caught fire. I order a fire mat made for Turbos and catalytic converters, which I’ll use as part of my repair — but I will have to get a new carpet. You can see the other videos of the test drive on my You Tube Channel.
Moving onto Race Cars, The Thugs now has Wheelie Bars as twice I was surprised with Wheel Stands far higher than I was expecting.
Yesterday I picked up the block to my wagon, the Screamin’ Woody, from the machine shop. After a thorough washing the crank was sent in, and then the rest of the rotating.
Also on the wagon, the cage was painted hammered gold to blend in a little with the Maple wood on the pillars.
I intend to leave the carpet black — but will make new interior door cards in a red vinyl that will match the seats going in.. The car is on the home stretch to getting finished.
I’ve had a 63 Studebaker GT Hawk for about thirty years now. It’s bounce around a couple of shops to get converted into a Mopar Powered chassis car with a 53 Commander front clip and 60 Plymouth fins — called the Mohawk. It’s come back worse from each of the shops its been to in the last 20 years — so I bought it to my shop to try to tackle the job. The body has been separated from the chassis.
A good bit of work has been accomplished since these photos. The body is wrapped in a tarp at the moment, but the chassis has been reinforced and the welds smoothed. It is about ready for paint – and then will be brought into the shop to get the all of the chassis components right. On the body — it needs to have those nasty home made rear fins cut off and a set of 60 Plymouth fins I have grafted on — and then blasted, repaired and primed.
A lot of wet sanding has occurred on the 60 Plymouth that will be my Petty Clone — but I don’t have any photos of that.
I took my Magnum XE for a shakedown ride, and it’s almost ready. I’ve had this car for a very long time and love it. Ought to be the fastest Magnum out there.
I putting a cactus garden at the entrance way of my race shop and so I picked up a couple yards of a sandy soil mix at the local dirtyard. Photos of the cactus garden to be in the next shop update.
Finally, I’m thinning my cars down from 31 to about ten. I have a lot of real nice ones for sale. The list includes:
So that’s my story — and I’m sticking to it!
So in my last post, I was racing in Atlanta – and there was a rain delay. When we resumed and I completed the third of three Qualifying passes — I had qualified 4th of 25. On the ladder that put me up against Jim Netherland in the first round. A little humor was Jim wearing my T-Shirt.
Jim was gracious enough to give me lane choice and I took the Left as I swear the roll out on the Right lane was quicker and had me red-lighting. Jim runs a 10.5 Index and I run the 9.50 — so Jim got a 1-second head start. I caught Jim too Quick meaning I must have had a much better light, even though I had bagged a couple of numbers. I blipped at the MPH cone and took the stripe by a few feet. I saw my win light come on and when I got the ticket it was a RT win – .039 to .110. Jim Broke out with a 10.497 and I had a 9.550 at a slow 133mph.
In Round two I had the points leader Mike DiChicco. We both wanted the left lane — so we flipped – and I lost. The weather turned on us hard, and I had to take any extra weight out of the car. I removed a battery, the weight box lids and the passenger seat — to shake about 80 pounds.
Neither of us would lift at the stripe and we had a double breakout when Mike took the stripe by three feet.
For the next round I had Kurt Neighbor. With just having a .028 light in the right lane — I felt I’d figured out how to wait — and now wanted it. So did Kurt — so we flipped – and I again lost the flip. The weather was really getting tough and I had nothing else to take out. While Kurt didn’t have a great light (.05X) — mine truly sucked (.090). There wasn’t enough steam left in the Thug to catch Kurt and my time was 9.58 to Kurt’s 9.55 on the brakes.
It was 7:30pm Sunday night and I wanted to get on the other side of Atlanta while it was still Sunday — so I rushed to load up and get on the road at 9PM. At about 11:30 I stopped about 50 miles west of Atlanta to spend the night. Up at 6 and back at the Shop in Beasley, TX at 9PM. Tim Frees won the next round against Kurt, and then against Corky Bumpus in the Final. Congrats to Timmy.
Here’s a before pick
So that’s going to be it for a while. Deb’s and my 40th anniversary is coming up — so we’ll be leaving for a couple of weeks in Europe, only to return just in time to make it to the Memphis race.
So we’re at Atlanta Dragway, and it’s raining – so its a good time to catch up on what;s been goin on since last week’s post.
I’ll start with racing. I loaded up Tuesday morning and Deb, I, Smith & Wesson left at half past noon. That’s 12:30pm for digital Snowflakes. We drove to just north of Hammond, LA (350 miles) at about 7pm, and spent the night in a Walmart parking lot . We left the next morning at 9am and drove the remaining 550 miles, arriving at the staging area of the track at 8pm. The track started letting us in at 7:30am. By 11am my pit was setup, credentials established, and car teched in.
On Thursday you can buy two test hits in the afternoon, and I did so. The first was a 9.48 off the trailer. While that’s normally OK to run the 9.50 Index, the weather is going to be all over the map and I need to bag a 10th. So I took one of the 37 pound batteries out.
I made a second hit and got a 9.45. I have another trick or two up my sleeve if I need it. So I put the car away for the night. It drizzled and light rained most of the night. It is still 1pm, and they claim that we’ll all hit the track at 2pm – but I’m not thinking so. Still light drizzle, track still wet, and this track tends to seep.
We were suppose to have a time trial in the morning, then two of the three Qualifying passes today. Now its down to one Qualifying and no test hits – if that even happens. It needs to stop drizzling and the sun and wind needs to appear for that to happen.
The track went hot at 5pm, as they were havinf problems getting the timing to work. They finally gave with right lane not getting an accurate MPH and neither lane getting a 1000′ time. We were called at 6pm, but it was almost an hour later that we finally ran because of a lane cleanup.
I went a little more “go for broke” than usual. I usually just try to get in the first Qualifying, then go for perfect in 2nd and 3rd Qualifying. I’m not sure if we’ll get another qualify, so I went for broke. It appears everyone had that plan because my 9.510 on a 9.50 index was only good for 3rd after first round. Pretty amazing everyone did so well as the weather was all over the map, the lanes are way different and you can’t plan which lane you get, and we sat in our cars for and hour.
Last week, Son number 1’s wife gave us Grandson number 4. The wife of his younger brother went into labor a couple of hours later, but Grandson number 5 didn’t arrive until the next day. Everyone is doing well.
My youngest daughter is due in October. We’re hoping for Granddaughter number 2.
I have a 1960 Plymouth that I’ve been building to be a Petty Tribute, that looks like its been sitting out in the fields for 50 years. Click Here is you want to start at the beginning of this build. The latest news is that the motor and transmission has been test fitted and mounts made/tacked in. I’ll have a professional come in to weld the mounts in purdy.
Engine is coming back out and the car , and the body will get about 80 hours of wet sanding 400/600 grit; and High Build Primer and more sanding – until the body panels are as smooth as a baby’s ass. In June, it has a date with the lady in Indiana to wrap it. I ordered the clutch assembly last night; but I’m still needing to find a decent shifterless steering column and a 4-speed shifter.
So the wagon is getting there. I’m pretty sure my last post spoke of the new red paint under the hood. My shop Rat and Assistant Shop Rat spent the week getting the over spray off the brand new Lexan, and polishing it up. I took the headers to get blasted and recoated.
After blasting, a ton of pin holes were discovered, so I had to go bring back to the shop to get wet welded up. I’ll take them back to the powder coater when I get back home from racing.
Still finishing up the leather on my Imperial convertible. Repaired and dyed the front seat, but the the tint was off a little so we had to coat with adhesion promoter and dye all leather, plastic and vinyl. I had to order more Top Coat last light, so the gloss will happen when I get back.
Well that pretty much catches me up, and just in time as they just came over the squawk box saying that its time to get cars ready, as they project they’re going hot in an hour.
The NMCA race in Commerce, GA is coming up, so a lot of the focus has been on getting ready for that. Today, it was on the lift having the underside inspected and tightened. The torque converter bolts were pulled and had some Locktite applied, and then the death grip applied. A couple of small leaks were addressed, and all nuts and bolts tightened. The passenger seat was pulled and weighed (36 pounds) and thread-certs pressed in the floorboards so I can quickly remove the seat without help, and without having to climb under the car.
Last week the oil was changed, slicks swapped sides, valves run, the vacuum tanks puke tank relocated, the hood repaired and dropped of to the paint shop. I pick it up tomorrow and put it on Thursday. The car will get washed Friday, and loaded up Monday. We leave Tuesday mid-day.
Late last week was Spring Cleaning in the shop. Everything was moved out, the floors scrubbed and as much of the red paint over-spray from painted under the wagon’s engine compartment cleaned off the floor. Today the cars moved back in.
My Shop Rat washed the motorhome and stacker last week, and while he was reroofing the shed today, my youngest daughter Hope (she goes to college during the day and works late afternoons as my “Assistant Shop Rat”) polished the wheels on both.
The wheels and rear bumper found their way onto the Screamin’ Woody. Hopefully the engine assembly will start soon. Waiting on rotation assembly still. The pistons and rings are in, and their weight sent to Molnar to balance the crank. Some over-spray from painting under the hood got onto the new Lexan. The “Assistant Shop Rat” spent some time today clay barring it off, and will finish tomorrow. I bought some Gold hammertone paint, and she’ll paint the wagon’s roll bars with two coats of that while I’m racing.
A couple years ago, I made a strap rack out of some scrap metal. I mounted it and a Pit Pal fire bottle holder with some #10 self tapping screws. On the last trip both unmounted themselves. Today I drilled some bigger holes and filled them with rivet style thread-certs. I then applied Liquid Nails to the backside and screwed them down.
A little cleaning left to do in the stacker before loading up for the race. I bought some closed cell foam rubber (Yoga Mats) that needs to be mounted under the Strap Holders.
Finally, the 60 Plymouth Post car I’m putting together as a weathered Petty Nascar got the underside of the hood painted Petty Blue.
The next report will be the race report.
No, no motor yet. Still waiting on the rotating to get delivered to the Machine Shop. However, some progress was made to prepare for the engine’s insertion.
Stay tuned to this site for further updates.