I just picked up a load of new Bass Kustom T-shirts hot off the presses! The shirts were designed by talented Southern California based hot rod artist Keith Weesner, and feature the “Wade Coupe,” which is currently nearing completion here at Bass Kustom.
I’ll have them up for sale here on the website very soon, so check back often!
New T-shirt logo, designed by Keith Weesner. Available April 2012!
I’ve been whittling away on the Wade Coupe over the past weeks, and Im finally getting close to finishing the major fab work! Here are a few detail photos of some of the areas that have gotten attention lately…
Progress is being made on Lindsey Wade’s Coupe. I’ll post some detailed photos here on the blog soon, but for now here’s a “dog’s eye view” shot of the car on the ground:
The Wade Coupe
I’ve collaborated with Tim O’Keefe on multiple bike projects, and they’ve all turned out really cool. Earlier this year he brought over this Knuckle that he and Bill Mize from Iowa had started putting together for me to do some fab. work on.
I built the sissy bar, finished the exhaust, and mounted the seat among other things. A couple months later, Tim had changed the fork over to a VL springer and I made a headlight bracket for him.
I think Tim was going for that “found in an old barn and got it running” look. In my opinion…he nailed it.
George filmed this test drive video back in February as I was checking the clutch linkage adjustment. From the sound of the grinding gears in the ’39 trans, I’d say it still needed a little more adjustment.
The little Duntov-cammed, high compression 283 runs like a champ! Enjoy!
So I suppose the logical place I should start for the “great November blog update” is where I left off back in January, the Ernst Roadster aka: The Texas Playboy.
When we last joined our hero…uhh, me…I had just dropped the car off at Fatlucky’s Upholstery in Austin. We were rapidly running out of time to get the car ready to go the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, but Sean agreed to give it his all to put the interior in the car in just a few short days….10 to be exact.
While Sean was doing the interior, I was handling detail stuff at the shop, like getting the headers and exhaust ceramic coated, and painting the dash. Once that was done, I made the trek back down to Austin to retrieve the car and do the final assembly.
Upon returning to Dallas at around 4 in the morning, I went to work on trying to get the car fired up for the first time. After a long frustrating day, I finally got the car fired up around midnight with the help of Eric Carter, and his son Tayden. The 283 sounded pretty killer, but the clear spark plug wires were arcing out badly, and needed to be replaced. I had some cloth-covered wire from the Hot Rod Company on the shelf, so it went on, and the clear stuff went in the trash.
Next Crackerhead Mike came over and helped me bleed the brakes, which turned into another ordeal. Once all the leaks were shored up, we finally had brakes…and it was about 4:30 am. I locked up, went home, and packed. I was back at the shop by 5:30.
About this time, I drove the car for the first time. Once around the block, and it was in the trailer…and we were headed for California and the Grand National Roadster Show. There were four of us taking the trip, and we drove straight through to Pomona. It took 26 hrs. We checked into the motel, and headed over to the Fairgrounds to get in
line. Once inside, we were directed over to Building 3 where we unloaded the car.
The car came out of the trailer, and moved for the second time under its own
power.
All in all, it was a success. The roadster ended up coming in a very close second place for the prestigious Jalopy Journal “Best Roadster” award. We made a very icy trip back home to Dallas without a major incident, and I went back to work on the car, mounting the hood and working out some of the bugs.
The car is now finished, and has been since the beginning of March. It was also photographed by Steve Coonan for The Rodders Journal at the Lonestar Roundup, and I’ll be posting more about that shortly.
So it’s obviously been a while since I’ve updated the blog, so I guess it’s about time I post up some of the projects I’ve been busy with since the last update.
Watch this space.
Please Stand By.
I guess I should have hung a “gone fishin’” sign on the front door of the ol’ blog for the last couple of weeks, because I haven’t had any time to keep ‘er updated.
What’s been keeping me up at nights lately has been assembling the Ernst ’32 Roadster in preparation for the Grand National Roadster Show out in Pomona, CA at the end of the month. A few weeks ago I was a little skeptical that the car would actually be finished in time, but with a little over a week to go before departure I’m feeling pretty good about my chances.
It’s been a tough couple of weeks getting the car ready to send out for upholstery. I didn’t get the front and rear springs back from chrome until I went and chased my chrome guy down, so that severely set back final assembly on the chassis. Before that, I had to do a little “quality control” to get the kind of paint job the car deserved, and that also set things back a little bit. However…in the end, both the chromer and the painters went above and beyond normal expectations to deliver the kind of detail I was looking for.
So now, the car is currently down in Austin getting upholstered by world-reknowned upholsterer and award-winning beard farmer, Sean Johnstun of Fat Lucky’s. I am super excited to see what Sean conjures up for the car. Even though I wasn’t able to give him much time to spend on the job, I know he’s burning the midnight oil to turn out the perfect interior for the roadster.
For now, I’ll leave you with some photos of the results of all that thrashing and sleep deprivation. Check back in soon for more photos of the roadster after it comes back from upholstery.
The parts for the Ernst Roadster are steadily coming back into the shop from paint, chrome, and beyond. Things have been moving so quickly, it’s been hard for me to stop and take too many photos, but I do have a few I can share.
I think the black paint, chrome, stainless, and assorted cad-plated hardware look really good together.
I was pleasantly surprised to see a small photo of my Coupe used in this month’s issue (Feb. 2011) of Street Rodder Magazine. The article is called “Heir to the Throne” and talks about the current and continued popularity of the Model A. They use my ’29 Coupe as an example of removing the visor from a Model A. It’s pretty neat to get credit for one of my ideas in a print/mainstream industry magazine.
