Projects Building My First Roadster in San Francisco

I knew there was a name for that! It reminds me of when I was writing about Chuck Gauge's Model A roadster pickup for TRJ #73 and I couldn't for the life of me think of the name for that piece of wood that wraps around the rear of the interior. I actually called up Brookville to ask them. "Tack strip!" they replied. It's stuck with me ever since.

Hahah I love it. Good advice. That said, we'll be doing a little bit of put it together/take it apart before I fire it up again. We still need to disassemble it to finish weld some pieces on the bottom side of the frame and rear axle.

I have a pair of those that I bought at an estate sale during my first year in California. My roommate and I actually played the owners in a game of darts to lower the price, but we lost (barely) and had to pay in full. During Covid, we tuned up our dart skills to make sure that never happens again.

Thank you! We want you to stick around!

Hey Mike! I should have checked the thread before jumping into the action. What a fun day in Pasadena.

 

I was planning on just using a rubber hose to extend the top fill on the other tank into the tulip panel, but this looks like it could allow a little more flexibility if I could get the hose at the right angle.

 

My birthday is coming up, so my girlfriend Gen and I celebrated with a trip to LA. I'm going to be sharing my full coverage from Pasadena on The Jalopy Journal, but I'll include a few highlights here.

First stop>>>Randy's in Inglewood before Gen's flight landed. My choices? Chocolate old fashioned and cherry iced cake.

San Francisco is home, but I've always loved Southern California. The sun, the food, the landscape, everything.

 

Sunday morning, we woke up early and headed towards the Elks lodge. My face actually hurt from smiling as I caught up with old friends, soaked up the sun, and showed Gen some of my favorite machines in the lot.
It doesn't get much better!

Naturally, I took a bunch of pictures—including a handful on my new-to-me Nikon F2. I'm dropping off the film this week, so stay tuned for shots from here and the G.W.H.S. car show in a future article.

 

With any luck, I'll be there next year with Version 2.0.

 

The past two days have been busy back at home, but I made a little bit of progress tonight.

I hit the dashboard with a little bit of self-etching primer, and then painted the inside cove white. Once everything dries, I'll do some detailing and mount my SW gauge panel.
The big news, however, is that my mom is in town from Michigan! Her flight got in after dark, but that didn't stop us from taking the roadster out for a spin. From the Cliff House to Clement Street, we had a blast buzzing around the empty streets on a cool San Francisco night.

And that's all for tonight. We have some more big updates, small updates, and updates that land somewhere in between on the horizon. Thank you everyone for coming along for the ride!

 

They sure are! And I love the Balboa Theatre. Their sign is getting some restoration work done on it this week, too.

Great tip. I'll make sure to do that!

Hahahahh the exact same thing happened to us on the first test run of this car out on Turk Street. We just had the bus seat resting on a piece of plywood. As you can imagine, it didn't stay on the riser long!

That's so cool that the garage still stands. Next time you're in town, you should come by my place for a ride in the roadster!

Thank you, Dennis! The film got dropped off today, so hopefully we'll see how it all turned out by the end of the week. And P.F. Flyers are my all-time favorite shoes—especially for driving vintage tin.

 

Sidebar 501: Paused

In the past three and a half years, we've been through a lot on this thread. Bent frames, stuck motors, bad drums, broken rears, chipped gears, plus plenty more that I've conveniently blocked from my memory. Every one of those challenges seemed huge at the time but, looking back, they helped move me one step closer to being on the road.

Well, last week I took on a challenge that we haven't seen yet in this thread. And it's not with the car—it's with me. On May 1st I had knee surgery. It was something that needed to be done, but that doesn't make it any easier. This is my third one, but first one in a long time.

Four days after the fact, I'm remembering how long of a road I have ahead of me. Ice. Elevate. Try to crutch around. Then hobble around. I'm off work until Wednesday, so I have some time to try to relax. Then it's WFH.

"All this rest is making me restless," I said to one of my friends on Friday. It's true. I don't ever sit around. I'm extremely grateful that my mom is here to help me out, and my roommates are too. I don't know where I would be without them.

I'm sharing all this on here for context. We had such great momentum on the project leading up to this, and I don't want to slow down. We're so close.

The day after surgery, I figured out what I could do on 2.0 while I was out of commission. Remember when I primed and painted the dash? Here I am getting it ready for the next round of color(s) at the Loyola paint booth.

Since then, my mom and I have been working away on the dash and the insert. I have a few more updates for tomorrow, but just wanted to keep you in the loop.