Thread: A little road trip to gather more poor financial decisions

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Many of you know I like projects. Growing up my dad worked constantly and it was always on everyone else's vehicles. As I got older I was building things at shops I rented or places I worked as we didn't have a shop on dad's place any longer. In 09 I built the shop at Dad's place but he was still working. He had begun to have medical issues and has been retired for about 4 years and is still plagued with medical issues. With that being said, I always wished we could have built something together. We have worked on plenty together, and he has helped me a lot on my builds, but we never really built anything start to finish together. I decided I'd like to build each one of my kids a car or truck by the time they turn 16. They can pick what they would like and we'd find something in that realm. So far I have a 40 Ford for Izzabelle, a 70 Camaro for Clint, and now we have Colt's car. Here is the story on it/them so far.

My first car was a 39 Chevy sedan that I worked off/bought from my Uncle Jerry. That car never got finished and I got discouraged and sold it. Fast forward to last year and I thought I had a 72 Nova trade arranged for Colt. That deal fell through and we began looking for something else. My wife told Colt he would look good in something pre war. I thought ok great. Those are so easy to find these days. I then remembered the guy I sold the last 2 39 chevys I had to, still had them. He has the nicer body panels stored in a barn and the cars are still setting outside behind an old service station. I drove down to see if they were still there and they were. Unfortunately he wants about triple what he gave me for them and now one of the frames are bent and someone stole the dash out of one. I decided to just look around for something better.

One night I was cruising marketplace and up popped this 39 Olds coupe for $500. I thought no way, that's too could to be true. I showed Colt it and he was pretty excited about it. I told him we would just put a 39 Chevy front clip on it and we could make it cool. I went ahead and bought it but I told Colt it was sold. He didn't believe me so I showed him the add that said sold. He didn't take it well at all. His birthday is June 6th and I had planned to give it to him for his birthday so I wanted to keep it a secret. A couple of weeks had passed and Colt started to develop some behavior issues and was in a bad mood all the time. He wouldn't say what was wrong with him. One day we went to my parent's house and he saw a 72 GMC I bought for parts on the trailer and he asked where it came from. I told him and he instantly snapped at me yelling, " Oh you can buy that piece of junk but you couldn't get my car." I told him he better watch his mouth or he'd begetting nothing talking like that. At least we knew what he was mad about now.

I had been planning my trip to go get the olds though. It was in Sedalia MO but there was a catch. The guy that sold me this one had a guy reach out to him and let him know that who ever bought it, he had a front clip for the car he'd sell. I got in touch with this guy and he for sure had a front clip. It was on another 39 olds shell and frame. He said $200 for the front clip, and another $100 for the frame and bare shell. I thought about it and was trying to come up with a plan to get both in the same trip. Luckily my aunt's trailer was at my parent's place since we used it to haul hay. It's around 30' long and I figured I could get both on it hopefully. I borrowed a tow rig since my truck wouldn't haul 3 kids nor be as comfy and I set the trip up. I didn't tell the kids we were going either.

The day finally came and we left. For what ever reason, I selected economy on the nav, but it switched to fastest and I didn't catch it until we were getting into southern Iowa. It literally took us down recently paved goat paths. I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't nervous on that first road in Missouri. It was barely wide enough for 2 semis to pass and the hills were insane. Some were straight up with not much top and back down and some had curves in a hill part way down. Not cool when you're as long as we were and not knowing whom is coming around the corner. We made it alright though. We stopped at a Casey's in Brookefield? so Ivvy could go to the bathroom. That was roughly an hour from Sedalia. Setting across the street was a pretty cool 51-53 Chevy sat on top of a square body 4x4 dually frame. Colt got out and took pics and we kept going.

We finally arrive at our first destination. The whole time I was trying to convince Colt i was going to pick up an old Dodge Longhorn semi with no axles in the rear. We pulled into the place and he immediately saw there was no semi. He failed to see the olds clear in the back. It took the guy a while to come outside but he finally did and he told me how to get where the car was. I saw it when we pulled in but I knew this guy didn't live at the property and I didn't want shot so I waited for him. As I was pulling back to where the car was, Colt screamed, what? No way? That's that Olds I wanted. I told him yes it was and we were taking it home. He was pretty happy. He wasn't as happy when I told him he had to crawl under the car to hook the winch onto it so we could winch it on the trailer. I did it for him and when I got down to do it, I noticed the rear suspension had trailing arms like a 63-72 chevy truck. I thought weird, someone switched out the rear suspension. Then I saw the coil spring pocket on the frame and knew that was original. The car also had IFS which I knew was a master deluxe thing only on chevy and just assumed it would be the same on the olds. We got the car on the trailer and strapped down the loose front end. This guy was going to graft on a 41 Chevy front clip as well as the 41 deck lid. He gave Colt the hood as well but we forget to get the RH olds fender. More on that later. The boys asked why we had to put the car clear up front on the trailer and that is when I told them we had one more car to go get. They thought I was full of it.

I loaded the address into the nav and we headed to KC. I didn't pay much attention to the route as I didn't know where I was actually going so I decided to trust the thing. We stopped at a Steak and Shake outside of Sedalia so I could feed them and Colt was excited that older couples would go over and check out his car. I told him I'm sure it brought back memories for them. It's not often you see pre war cars out and about especially ones straight out of a field.

The trip over was pretty uneventful. I found out the hard way the next guy lives near Cabela's west of KC. Oh cool. What else is there now? Oh, a baseball stadium. What were people trying to get into and I had to drive through? Fan traffic. I'm pretty sure there was a racetrack by there and there was something going on there too. I finally get to the last 4 lane to get to this guy's neighborhood and oh, there's an amphitheater. Cool, now this road will close. I kept going hoping I could get to his house. Nope, figures. Luckily I got the rig turned around. We got to spot #2 at 7pm.

The place is loaded with car nuts. I saw a C2 Vette and a 72 swb setting in a drive way just down from this guy. Who has a C2 setting outside these days?

I started talking to the man about the car and his stash. He already knew what I was doing with the car and he offered to sell me the deck lid, doors, and RH rear fender as long as he could cut the top off of Colt's LH door. He's making a custom 39 3 window coupe using the front half of a 39, sedan doors, and the roof and rear quarters from a 37 coupe to give it a more sleek look like a willys coupe. I agreed knowing how hard good coupe doors would be to find. Now we had most of the pieces for a body for Colt. The frame on this car has had extensive good work done to it. It has a possibly camaro or g body stub grafted on to it and has ladder bars with coil springs in the rear and a TA rear end. The bad is some one cut out the floors and it will need floors and braces etc. I could care less as it is another coupe shell and we have parts.

Saw a teaser post on FB, maybe an Olds page? Don't recall, but knew that you were hauling a pair of 39's back to Iowa so expected to see something about it here. Gonna give Cole something to work on for the next 5 or 6 years!!

This guy is a true hot rodder like us and is a great guy. He was showing me the 39 chevy coupe body he has and it is very tempting for the price he offered it to me. I might go back for better rear fenders and that shell..... IDK

We finally get it all strapped down, tires aired down on the back car to help eliminate it from moving, and I test the trailer lights. Of freakin course! No bleepin running lights! I tested the lights with my truck when I brought the trailer to my house and they were on then. I didn't check running lights when I left home because it was nice and sunny. I already knew I didn't have any fuses so we trucked back to a casey's I saw by the amphitheatre. Yeah sweet, there was a concert goin gon and people and police every where. About 20min in I figured out the fuses were ok. There were 2 wires pulled out of the trailer connector. The RH turn, and the running lamp wires. The turn wire was touching and working but the running lamp wire was mia

The only thing that saved my bacon was Clint went inside and asked to borrow a screw driver. The male cashier had no clue but the female pulled out a little screw driver kit and let us use it. If it wasn't for her we would have been stuck widdling something to use as a screw driver. I bought her dinner for the help.

I bought DEF and filled up the truck and put in the addy for home. I70 was close to us and I jumped on there to avoid the concert traffic etc. Just my luck I noticed the dam nav wanted me to take I70 for 70 miles and I said nope. I had Clint pull up our addy and we used it's directions to get us to I35. Of course after the off ramp for I70 traffic stopped. They were prepping for construction and had 4 lanes bottle necked into 1. Yep, perfect. I won't cry too much because nothing fell off and we got home at 2am. The kids have lots of memories and Colt has a lot to learn now. He's already been researching the oddities of the 1939 Oldsmobile. That car actually had a lot of hype due to it's suspension. Pretty cool.

Originally Posted by rspears

Saw a teaser post on FB, maybe an Olds page? Don't recall, but knew that you were hauling a pair of 39's back to Iowa so expected to see something about it here. Gonna give Cole something to work on for the next 5 or 6 years!!

Yes sir. I was hoping to find some good parts sources for trim etc. I've gotten no good bites yet. Oh yeah, back to the RH front fender deal. The guy from KC asked me when we got to his house if we got the RH front fender the guy had with car 1. I told him no, as the guy said he didn't have it. The KC guy said weird because he told me he had it and I figured this front clip would be a perfect fit because the RH fender is pretty rough. I messaged the guy with the 1st coupe and he finally agreed he had to have it some where and would look for it and we can have it if he can find it. I hope he comes up with it.

Colt will definitely have a lot of work to do. I told him he can go tinker on it when he has free time but I also told him it would be a good bit before we start major work on it. He definitely wants a V8 in it. I'm guessing a LS but who knows. He wants a manual trans too so we shall see. I was thinking a 4.8 LS and possibly I'd let him buy my chevy T5 from me. Hopefully he isn't like me and wanting to change his mind every other month.

Awesome. even if you spent a couple grand, the time with the kids and their smiles equals priceless! Good for you Dad!

"..... I decided I'd like to build each one of my kids a car or truck by the time they turn 16......"

I see a lot of very fulfilling moments for you and your kids futures. Also some frustrations but they will be well worth it.



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That is a great story Ryan, thanks for taking the time to tell it. I break too easily, I would never been able to keep it a secret from Colt that long��. I'm happy for him, I couldn't help to put myself in his shoes during the story. ��

That was a great story.

You're a good man Ryan Lusk.

cool story an awesome pics.
thanks.

And another adventure begins. I've had a couple '39 Chev coupes over the years, one of my favorites. I was surprised to see the IFS on the Olds chassis was the more conventional A arm style. The independent option on the Chev chassis was that abominable knee action design they had in the '30s. That was the last year it was an option. BTW, that very nifty AD truck on the later chassis is a '54 or possibly an early '55, the one piece windshield is the tip off.

Here's a pic of my last '39 Chev..............might give your boy some inspiration..........if it's not too much of an "ol' guys" style.

Thanks guys. It was a very fun, long trip. It's going to be a fun journey too. Good news the guy that sold the 1st one to me does have the rh front fender. I'll have to make a trip there again. Is anyone else going to Sedalia?

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

And another adventure begins. I've had a couple '39 Chev coupes over the years, one of my favorites. I was surprised to see the IFS on the Olds chassis was the more conventional A arm style. The independent option on the Chev chassis was that abominable knee action design they had in the '30s. That was the last year it was an option. BTW, that very nifty AD truck on the later chassis is a '54 or possibly an early '55, the one piece windshield is the tip off.

Here's a pic of my last '39 Chev..............might give your boy some inspiration..........if it's not too much of an "ol' guys" style.

Bob, all very good points. I should have caught the 1 piece windshield. I had a 54 Coe once. The grill is different too. And that is a sweet 39!It sure doesn't scream old guy to me! I'm still not sure what direction we'll go yet. I halfway think keeping the original suspension would be an option just put a 9" in it. I might try to make a grill using billet grills. Or even new flat aluminum. They want $700 on up for good used ones.

Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

Good news the guy that sold the 1st one to me does have the rh front fender. I'll have to make a trip there again. Is anyone else going to Sedalia?

Ryan, you might check with your local Fastenal store and see what they'd charge for a store to store transfer of your fender. I've not used it myself, but have heard of several guys who have and it was cheap compared to shipping LTL.