Hi Don, finally got a chance to catch up on some of my reading tonight, the car is coming along great.

I too think you could have done it at your $3K target and still have had a VERY presentable, safe, and neat car.

Looking over your pictures one thing that really hit home to me is that you need to be congratulated for building a very high quality car on a "rat rod" budget (if that offends anybody my apologies for being blunt). A LOT of the work and time has very obviously been spent paying attention to details and taking the extra TIME required to make the components look "finished".

The major point is all this time consuming, dirty, aggravating, even boring work only really takes the time and willingness to do, not actually a lot of dollars (heck even though nice big tools make it go easier and quicker to do the vast majority could have been done by anyone with the desire and much simpler hand tools).

As far as my budget 64 Ford, it's still back burner until late winter early spring, but it's a good chance to keep an eye out for a radiator, distributor and a couple of other little pieces I'll need to finish it.