Next up on a tour of my “pride and joys” is… The Rat!
Few quick facts:
– Year: 1932 (sorta)
– Motor: SBC 327, .30 over
– Trans: TH350
– Trim/body: Pickup
– Suspension: Front = Suicide mono leaf; Rear = Coilover
The Backstory
First things first: HUGE thank you to Alan J. for all the help and teaching me everything i know, and to Brian J. for the countless hours of help turning wrenches!
This is my first true hotrod and the first car I build from scratch…. i didn’t intend to build from scratch, butttt thats what happened.
I found a ‘running/driving’ project car waaayy up in Maine. At that time, it was a Model A Roadster body on a ‘custom’ box tube frame, with an all Ford power train (289 + Cruise-o-matic). I was young and dumb and didn’t ready any of the ample warning signs (and didn’t want to drive hours home empty handed) so i paid the man and we loaded it up… pushing it b/c it wouldn’t start.
After an epic drive home in a massive snow storm, i unloaded and showed by close friend and hotrod mentor, Alan. It took him all of 5 minutes to figure out that ‘running/driving project’ needed pretty much scrapped.
The Roadster body was hand made (which i knew) and done in the most epicly shitty fashion possible. JB Weld would have been better than any of the ‘expert’ welds (seller told me he was a ‘certified welder’) on the body. Beyond that, the rear suspension was a mess of coils and random tractor hitch bars from Tractor Supply…. and it was 100% bound up. It was so bad it wouldn’t flex an inch. The front suspension was not much better… made of a standard Model A axle/leaf spring, but the spring was an off the shelf (Tractor Supply again) model meant for ~100lbs. So it was 100% sacked out and doing nothing.
Beyond that there was 0 wiring, 0 interior, 0 mounts, 0, 0, 0. I could go on for days about how bad it was and all the blaring warning signed i got from the seller.
Either way, it was time to scrap everything and start new.
Initial Build
Here’s where i wish i took better pictures… and/or knew about Google Drive back when i built the rod. I only have a few build pics from waaay back then, after losing the phone i had at the time.
After locking it up for a few months and pretending i didn’t buy the pile of crap i had, Alan convinced me it was time to dig in… and dig in we did. We decided to yard sale the while roller, stripping it down to bare frame and reassessing what i had. We quickly decided nothing but the frame was worth saving… the frame was built well, Z’ed, and all be it longer than i wanted, already had motor mounts. We rippled off the rear suspension (cut every tab, grinded every guset) but kept the front split wish bones and suicide mount.
From Roadster -> Pickup
After a few weeks of searching on CraigsList, I found a 1932 Ford Pickup cab + Model A frame + 4in drop axle roller in (again) bumfuk Maine. So the fellas and i loaded up and pulled home rev2 of the Rat. The cab was in bad shape and had been used for target practice for years (you can see the holes in the back in pic 1), but it was 100x better than what i had! We got to work fixing up the cab, building a floor, cleaning up a botched chop from a prior owner, bending up bed sides, building a rear suspension, wiring, etc.
<Insert ‘Chevy in a Ford’ jokes here>
After a few months of weekends and week night, it was dropped off jack stands and ready for a test drive! I was giddy as a school girl… for about 10mins. Pretty much immediately we realized the Ford Cruise-o-Matic was trash and had nothing but 1st gear drives.
This hit a hard ‘pause’ on the build as i was about out of money (so-to-speak) and i couldn’t find a shop in all of New England that was willing to try rebuilding an old cast iron CoM. After a few months of pouting, i noticed a ’90s built 327 SBC + TH350 for sale on Craigslist… it was .30 over and, supposedly, made 400hp at the crank. The price was more than i wanted to spend, but it was doable… So i contacted the owner. 5 mins after pinging the CL email (during work hours), my boss came out of his office laughing… turns out it was hit posting/motor.
We struck a good price and called it a deal. I then went home and sold my popup camper to fund the new drive train… i still feel a little bad about that one (oops). Part of the price we negotiated included me helping him pull the drivetrain from the car it was currently in… his beautiful ’60s Nova (a 100% win win for me).
After that swap, it was pretty much just buttoning up some odds and ends, as well as paint and exhaust work.
The final product / Present day
Fast fwd some 7 years, the rat has been nearly flawless and become a part of our family! Aside from your standard tweaks, the only ‘major’ issues have been a blown head gasket and hashed Corvair steering box. My wife and i have put thousands of miles on this beast; its been used for a daily driver in the summer and been on multi-hour/multi-state road trips. This is a build that i have 0 qualms about just jumping in and driving where ever!
Recently, the big drama in my life has been getting this registered as “street rod” in PA. It took over a year and a lot of help from Watts Truck center (THANK YOU GUYS!), but i’m happy to report that she is 100% PA legal and free to cruse the back roads once more!
For anyone interested in a dump of all the Rat pics, here ya go!