Chapter Twelve in the Saga of Just a Brazen Hussy
She Is Done - Maybe

I guess I’m just another stereotypical male. I like football, beer, fishing, lying and of course, cars. Like most men, I like a beginning, a middle and an end. Beginning the Hussy was a blast – ripping and tearing everything off the frame – real man stuff. And like most men, I thought the middle was too damn long. So you can believe me when I tell you I was really looking forward to the day when I could say, “Honey, she’s done! I have finished the Brazen Hussy. We’ll never have to spend another dime on her.” (Or write another of these articles!) But, once again, I haven’t been paying attention to all of those learned men who have been there before me.

The first order of business upon our return from the Coeur d’Alene trip was to find some replacement pieces. There was a “shortened” brake backing plate and maybe a couple of axels that I needed. It sounded easy, but not a single wrecking yard in California had them. Lanny Netz said maybe Pat and I should check his “bone yard”, and there, amid the pile of rusted parts was a right side, brake backing plate, attached to a beat-up axel. So, as suggested in my last article, the “Lewiston” brake backing plate has now become the first part of my garage art collection.

I decided that the tack-welded axels would stay, regardless of the controversial nature of welding an axel. It seemed to me that having the axel stay in the axel housing was preferable to the possibility of having the axel fracture due to metallurgy changes caused by tack-welding the bearing keeper in place. The former I’d had experience with, the latter was theoretical. I can live with theories; I can’t live with wandering axels. Easy decision!

The matter of the “firm” ride was solved when Lanny suggested that my idea of adjusting front-end ride height by reversing the bottom mount for the coil-over shock would be better solved by doing it the way the manufacturer said to do it. So, Pat Carr and I put the Hussy up on the lift, jacked up the front end, removed the coil-over shocks, reversed the bottom shock mount to its intended position, compressed the coils (just like Fat Man said we should), put everything back together, and low-and-behold, the ride height was good and the Hussy’s ride was wonderful. I hate it when I’m wrong – especially when Fat Man was right.

Now it was time to do the interior. Seats were not a problem. The leather on the Lincoln seats cleaned up beautifully. The dash was complete and functional – maybe even beautiful. Many months ago I had purchased an interior kit from a company in Chico named Rod Doors. They used ABS plastic sheets as the basis of their kit. Don Day had used their kit in his 40 Ford pick-up, but was unhappy when the preformed ABS headliner wilted in the heat of the day at a car show. Their big idea was that you didn’t have to sew anything. You’d cut the plastic into the shapes you wanted, glue the upholstery material to the shapes and using preformed braces, glue the shapes back together. The panels would then be attached to the body using industrial-sized, plastic Velcro fasteners. While I’m sure that their method would work, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do it that way. It seemed to me to be very “gludgy”. The panels would be thick and would require a whole lot of fitting, re-fitting, etc. Besides, sewed material looks really cool to me.

In years gone by, Claudette and I redid the upholstery in our first Porsche. It was fairly easy. We both worked for United Air Lines at the South San Francisco maintenance base (a.k.a.: The World’s Largest Hobby Shop). The salvage shop had some beautiful, rose-gold leather pieces from the first class cabins and we were able to obtain enough so that we could re-do the whole interior of the Porsche. It was fairly easy in that we used the original upholstery as our patterns and all we had to do was cut and sew the leather just like the old stuff. But the Hussy had no patterns, and the ABS was in some flat sheets, some curved sheets and one preformed headliner that didn’t fit very well and tended to sag in the heat. And I was having a hell of a time figuring out what pieces went where. Rod Doors wasn’t very informative either. I don’t think the sales people knew what went where. They gave me a video tape explaining the process, but it wasn’t much help in figuring out what went where.

Don had had Ron Talbot do his interior and was happy; and Lanny liked his work too. My initial visits to Ron convinced me that he was going to be my upholstery man. Ron said he would help in any way possible if I wanted to do it myself. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this wasn’t going to be like the Porsche. One thing that I had learned very well in building the Hussy was that every craftsman had their special tools and special tricks that made them the craftsman that they were. (While I wasn’t against acquiring a few more tools, I would never be able compete with Lanny. You may have heard the saying, “The man who dies with the most toys wins.” Well if you change toys to tools, Lanny wins hands down. So why even go there.) Plus, one the greatest joys, for me, was working with some really talented people and learning so much. So, the opportunity to work with Ron and learn some upholstery tricks and techniques was the tipping point.

Ron is a really friendly guy, and he listens well. When I showed him the drawings of what I wanted to do, he asked some questions, brought out his sample books and ordered the material we would need. The next day we were in business.

We used a clear acetate sheet to get the pattern laid out for the door, mark locations for the doohickeys that would hold the ABS panel to the door (no Velcro, please) and then draw out my ideas for the design. This was then transferred to an ABS sheet and we cut the sheet to size. After checking the acetate sheet against the other door (it has been known that the left and right doors are not always matching patterns – especially with Henry’s cars), the other panel was cut to size. Then we drilled holes for the doohickeys, the door handle and window crank. The hardest part was cutting the opening for the arm rest. I got to do it.

Before the door panels’ material was sewn together and attached, Ron wanted to do the headliner. He promised me that we would be putting it in and taking it out enough times so that we’d become very good at doing it. He was right. He also said that the headliner was the hardest part to do, and again, he was right. The sagging issue was solved by using the original mounting bracket for the interior dome light that was welded to the roof. I also wanted to install a console in the headliner for the radio and dome light. Fortunately, Rod Doors had a very nice preformed ABS unit that we could use. With the aid of two pieces of extruded 2” aluminum angle stock, we were able to fabricate mounts for the headliner and then the console. It was a real bitch putting this contraption together, but it really worked well. Hey Don, this baby ain’t gonna sag.

Next, Ron wanted to do the carpet. I had ordered carpet material from Rod Doors. And I had done a bad job of installing it before we went to Coeur d’Alene. Ron tore it all out, glued in some more insulation, and began cutting and piecing the carpet. He bound and sewed all the edges so that each piece looked really professional. And as luck would have it, we had just enough carpet to do the job.

It was at this time that I found out about one of the special tools that upholsterers have – and Lanny doesn’t have. It’s a glue pot! It’s wonderful device that is hooked up to the air compressor and looks every bit like a painting pot, complete with hose and a spray gun, except it’s got glue in the pot. And when you’re good at it (and Ron is very good at it) you can spray a thin line of glue, with no over-spray, or a spray a huge area in no time at all, and presto-chango, you’ve got carpet attached right where you want it, and no mess. Ron even showed me how to do it and I got to be fair at it – certainly not as good as Ron – I was blown away. (OK – you think I’m getting stupid here – but have you ever tried attaching anything to anything with glue of any kind and not have it on your fingers, hands and places where it took you hours to get off? Well, watch Ron and his glue pot work and you’ll get stupid too!) Lanny, you gotta get one of these.

Next came the kick panels. We were fortunate that the only piece of upholstery salvaged from the original truck was a kick panel. Using that as a guide it was easy to cut out kick panels from the ABS, cut holes for the speakers, cover them with material and install them. Now we come to another specialty tool – the button maker. The button covers the screw. There’s a punch and a mandrel. You put the punch on the material and WHAM. You now have a circle of material that you put on a preformed cover which goes on the mandrel. WHAM! And now you have a cute cover, complete with sides tucked up into the button, that you press onto the plastic form held by the screw head. Neat! Lanny may have this one.

Before the door panels were to be done, all of the surround pieces had to be fitted, covered and attached. This is where I got lost when I first got the kit, but Ron knew where everything went, and he made it look so easy and quick. We had to make some stand-offs for the seat belts so that they would clear the panels, but Drake Palmer (DP Metal Fab) manufactured the pieces in about an hour. I love these guys – they make the difficult so easy. The impossible just takes a little longer.

Now it was time for the door panels. Ron sewed together the material to create the design, covered the arm rests, and then discovered that George had made the arm rest openings too big. No sweat – he sewed up some tube-like material, attached it to the arm rests and now it looks like we planned it that way. With the doohickeys in place, the material was then glued to the ABS sheet. Then the panel, with the protruding doohickeys, was placed on the door and the doohickeys were pushed into the predrilled holes in the door. With the escutcheon plates in place, the window cranks and door handles were installed and we were almost done.

Ron then sewed up some more tubing – as large as a finger in diameter - and this was stapled to the body frame around the doors. This made for a nice finished look and provided insulation for the door opening.

I really liked working with Ron. He’s a fun guy to be around and a real family man. He works carefully and with a lot pride. He really listened to my ideas and asked good questions. He was very honest and straight forward about his prices and time. I didn’t want a “show job”, but I wanted something that I could be proud of, and I got that. The best part was that I had made another friend.

Now I sat in the driver’s seat, played with the dome lights, turn on the radio, used the electric controls to move the seat back and forth and began to think that the Brazen Hussy was finished. So I took Claudette out for a ride. She noted that the Hussy was much quieter now, but she could still hear some “birdies chirping” somewhere around the front fenders. And, yes the ride was now very comfortable, but when was I going to finish the glove box? And why didn’t the radio pick up the NPR station? And wasn’t I going to have that body and hood decoration painted in the darker green and some striping done.

So this is the last chapter in the Continuing Saga of the Brazen Hussy. But, as you probably have figured out, she ain’t done yet. Everyone I’ve talked to who has worked on rods has, at some point in the conversation, said that it will never be done. But it was Pat Carr who said it best - “And ain’t that wonderful!”

 

 

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