Custom Hudson Street Rod Build - Part 2

[Music] even with the top now sitting two inches lower there's still far more metal work to be done on this old Hudson we lay this out in four weeks with a built metal weak body where you paint week and assembly week so when you're slicing the top on anything you got to get guys that know what they're doing no rookies so I did a lot of research a lot of these guys I've known for years or respected their work or seen pictures of their work and magazines and online I've got the right crew this week these guys are amazing and Sun Grace actually had like almost 50 people that wanted to come for metal work week because I wanted to help chop a car so I kind of had to narrow it down and the metal Wizards Tim chose bring some amazing skills including voodoo Larry Grove Pat Keating Zach horn Daniel Val javac brad Westergaard and Brad starts along with his protege they call matchstick who gave the rear some uniqueness what I've been doing to the bumper is working in a set of bumper guards from mid 50 Chevy and also a license plates around late forties Chevy as well that has a huge shave look to match the front bumper which is already that way we're fortunate that jet tools of Laverne Tennessee donated a variety of metal machinery to the Tech Center their 24-inch planishing hammer is perfect for another custom touch Hudson's came with what many thought were unattractive running lights on the grill and since the owner provided these wooden bucks eighteen gauge steel is used to form the extensions for a smooth look real since we took some metal out of here we chopped the top brought this down not only do you got to do everything on the outside and all the window mechanisms and tracks you got to do the garnish moldings this is a car nice moldy cherry your trim doesn't fit quite right anymore so I'm gonna cut it I'll screw the top piece on cut out and start welcome back together of all the metal masters Tim has picked for this build voodoo larry has the coolest name I'm a top chopped guy and I like to chop the tops on cars I've done close to 50 cars now and all the way from Model A's up the 60s cars of course I like chop and radical I like five six seven eight inch chops and cars I like them will make looking hammered in my opinion I think every fifties car should have been windows they came with them from the factory and a lot of guys they kind of either get lazy and they don't want to cut the wing window cuz this is a lot of work you got a puzzle them back together but if it's done right it's well worth it you see what the Hudson looks like up there were a couple inches taken out of them pivots out Davidson so here's the artwork of the car again you can see the artists we had him just draw this stock parking lights on there here's what Brad Stark said he made these pieces from scratch to taper this off you can see how big the original parking lights were and then once he built this since that parking light was so big this was short so they added this on metal finish all that well does this onto here and that'll be all taken care of when it's chrome pretty awesome next more custom touches for this 51 Hudson Hornet stay tuned three days into the bill tim strange and its volunteer team have already logged over 500 man-hours into chop in the top and smoothing over this rare 51 Hudson Hornet coupe I think the amount of work that we're doing to it and the amount of time we have mr. president because there's cars that get this much work and it takes someone wants to do so we've got so many guys here that it's taken you know a couple of days to do this much work to so a lot of work can be done in like three days another thing we're doing to make this thing custom and really safe is Scotts hot rod sent us this underneath the de right-angle master similar power booster and brake pedal assembly that goes underneath the dash it doesn't come through the firewall at all and to check it it's got a remote reservoir so you can check and fill from the engine compartment that's the only thing that's can be on the firewall pretty custom now one of the most labor intensive jobs is next the guys have to grind down every part of this Hudson to get old paint and residue off the car to make sure it's ready for next week when filler primer and paint are applied but this certainly doesn't signal we're done there due the fact that we chopped the top on the car the car does not have a finished edge around the windows the molding does not fold around the win the rubber molding so we have to cut down the factory stainless to make it fit the new openings they're two inches shorter and we leaned the b-pillar so now all the angles have changed too so what we've done here is made a little jig that it's going to hold our mouldings flat as we try to bend them because the moulding tries to fold over as it's put a sharper bend in it will clamp this down we're gonna heat this edge and we can pull it under here and we'll pull more Bend into it and it'll keep it from folding due to the gap that we've measured out the same as the molding on a scale of 1 to 10 this is probably a 9.8 on difficulty there's no no room for body filler or anything cuz it's all got to be polished so everything has to be welded hammered straight fouled out I don't know why Kim chose us to do the job sorry cuz he didn't want to do themselves today you got to build the exhaust we'll finish the rear suspension make the shock mounts to lower air bag mounts put the dash back in final I think that's about it I don't know if it's kismet karma or just plain luck but Brad used to run an exhaust shop and he's the guy really kind of masterminding this exhaust system so we're gonna have an awesome exhaust system yeah that's the one I had over here that we're gonna have to use I didn't today we've got to complete flowmaster Universal exhaust systems between the two we're gonna fabricate one system for the Hudson and install it today from the headers back through the mufflers and out by the back bumper helping Brad out as Daniel valjoux back Daniel just celebrated the open house of his 6,000 square-foot hotrod shop in Huntersville North Carolina he's a native of Serbia who left his homeland when he was 12 for a better life in a good ole USA it is perhaps Daniel who has traveled farther than anyone to get to the tech center cars over there mostly hatchbacks Diesel's 4 cylinders just whole bunch of different European cars so needless to say Daniel seemed very pleased with our big American 51 Hudson and the way it was turning out yeah missing the supporters Paula Velma dobra emailed over Linea eyes data you Velma classic now through you too severely sadly too soon Velma daughter in my study [Applause] the Hudson is a unibody so we cut a C that's hence AC notch tilted like this we cut out of the frame for axial clearance to go up pops it all in and welded it up ground it down we're one of the exhaust up and over the rear end so we cut part of the floor out built the exhaust and then build a new pan make like five and a half inches we raise the trunk floor the custom touches don't stop with an air ride suspension part of the thing of a custom car it's it's kind of an artistic expression of what everybody thinks their dream car is an old day from Brad Stark's place they know him as matchstick he come up with this really cool thing to do on the bumper I made the license plate pop the trunk pretty cool so week one with all this custom metalwork we done we're just shy of 600 man-hours man that is insane we started out with a stock body 51 Hudson horn at the beginning of the week the end of the week five days custom lights custom bumpers custom part of the grille a few inches out of the top and man AK really cool ride height there's not a straight sharp angle anywhere on the car everything on its round we got so much work done this week we had nine guys in here all total pros and whatever they do building custom sled sleds hot rods awesome metal man I did good homework because these guys were unbelievable I think we'll pack up and go home new week means new crew as the Hudson is prepped for the paint booth stay tuned [Music] with the start of a new week come new volunteers Tim rounded up some serious fresh meat from across the country and even a guy from New Zealand to assist in bringing this Hudson Hornet out of retirement what we'll do first thing is we're gonna take the grinders most of the grinding and metal works already been done on it it's at over the weekend with a little humidity oil from the hands is Rusted it up a little bit so we're just gonna take the grinders over it rough it back up some 36 grit and then we're gonna roll it over the prep station I like to do is mix up a little the Uppal it's a fiberglass bondo mixture and just skim over every place where there's welds bodywork week on week two is the most labor-intensive hardest working a lot of sweat and man we work our butts off so we spent all day body working this thing and we skimmed coated it with body putty it looks like a lot to some of you guys at home but you can see there's a lot of metal cut throughs that means it's just a skim coat really really thin we spread it we sand it we spread it we sand it we spread it we sand it get it really really smooth and flat getting ready to put it down wielding a booth and put some primer on it because this is the most labor intense week build leader Tim strange combed through dozens of volunteer applications the eight guys chosen came from all parts of the country the crew from Michael's precision automotive from Las Vegas New Mexico they drove up all the way from New Mexico anything you want him to do they'll do it it is a true family business we built the shop from nothing to probably it's the most recognized shop in Las Vegas they will not sit they won't stand still anything hey boss what do you want to do hey boss what do you want me to do you guys from New Mexico quit calling me boss other volunteers this week include a pair of gearheads from Indy and another from Daytona Beach who took vacation to soak in the search and restore experience best part really just getting to work with the guys and those some cool just watch it evolve quickly we get a lot of satisfaction we got Ronnie he came down from Indianapolis Ronnie came to me the beginning of the week and kind of says I'm not that comfortable doing bodywork but I can do it you got some fab work that I can do so once the radiator showed up and the fans from all-star I put him to work on that and he nailed it all-star provided us with this universal radiator and I will be creating a radiator mount to install under the 51 husband Ronnie cuts the steel and the shroud starts to take shape right now I've got the the main structure built and I'm just tacking it together once it's welded and sanded Ronnie snips the shroud for proper radiator fitment nice comfy home for our radiator first day with a new crew sometimes it's a little slow they get used to cameras where the tools are and everything and just the amount of hours that we put in yesterday with the crew that we had was somewhere between 120 and 150 man-hours in one day man I think this is the fastest hardest working crew right out of the gate that we've had yet coming up we'll connect with our owner and his wife via the Internet and provide a sneak peak at the power plant for his Hudson beast stay tuned in a little over a week Tom's 51 Hudson has undergone a full-body treatment from a two inch chopped headlight taillight and bumper transformations and subtle modifications that cry full-on custom if you're used to like collision or late-model jobs where you ding a shopping cart hitch or whatever and you got a little bitty spot that you bodywork these things it's a 1951 so it's gonna have some ripples in fact then the stampings from the factory weren't all that awesome so there's some factory waves and ripples in it anyway if you had to metal finish that till it needed absolutely no filler work you would be here till the cows come home which is why Tim and the team spent the last 24 hours body working the Hudson to fill in the imperfections everybody always asked us what kind of primer we use well here it is Clawson makes a Zee chrome rusty fender it's a polyester primer it's got some zinc in it so fights to the bare metal and it fills like unbelievable all of our paint and body supplies other than the color and the clear comes from auto body color here in Nashville I told him that we're gonna bodywork this thing and we're not gonna go to sleep until it's in first primer I kind of got that look like what like man we had it in the booth before we even stop for pizza last night so we baked it we're pulling it out this morning we're gonna sand it again we're gonna prime it again we're gonna sand some more and then we're gonna prime it again and send some more I said you can send if you want to believe you're standing behind get this guy named Tony he emailed me like a hundred times wanted to come be on the show what did it come be on the show so I plugged him in and he's been awesome Tim trains bought these 3m blocks that are mainly for marine use and he's adapted em to automotive use they're real long fat wide there wait and they really give you a good long blocking service to do a nice X pattern and it really saves time and does a great job as far as the overall appearance of the bodywork itself the team had to use a dummy engine block for maka that is until the real deal arrived now we wanted to honor the history between Chrysler and Hudson stick with a big-block 440 based engine Indy cylinder head got wind of how we're helping at a power block fewer and this is how they decided to lend a helping hand it's their 500 inch street wedge crate engine based off the legendary Chrysler 440 it's been fully tested dyno tuned run in and it's ready to run right out of the box aluminum heads dual plane intake Eagle crank and this puppy runs on pump gas at nine and a half to one compression kicking out an awesome 525 horse and 575 foot-pounds of torque with bodywork nearly complete and our big block in-house it was a good time to check in with our owner from his home in Michigan good morning how you guys doing today this is Tom and Lisa Moore they own the Hudson that we were working on are you ready to see some little teasers for your car yeah I'm Paul we had just a little bit of problem with the car and we got some leftover parts I think that came out of the doorpost and this might have come out of like the b-pillar so are you still okay with us finishing it yeah yeah I trust you a hundred percent yeah we got this guy here you might know him he's from trucks Kevin's helping us tell him I got to ask you I can't imagine what it's like not having your car with you and just trusting somebody else sending it all those miles away what does it feel like it's been like a whirlwind to walk out to the garage and have the wide open space there and I have different dreams every night about what it could possibly look like we got something else that we want to show you Kevin bring it in okay this bad boy is from our friends at Indy cylinder head we wanted to stick with a Chrysler based motor this is a 440 based 500 inch block it's got all the best stuff this thing will carry you down the road my friend 525 horsepower 575 foot-pounds unreal so this means quite a bit to both of you we've been waiting so long and I found that little note I wrote to him years ago that I promised his car would get done no matter what and we just found the note that's awesome it just brought it all back you didn't really pay close attention the whole time we did all this now I'm hiding my hands if you would have paid attention you might have got a glimpse of what color the car is but now you can't see my hands any longer okay I'm gonna get back to work thank you so much no problem man I gotta get back to her that's it yeah you take here Tim thank you thank everybody [Music]

Channel: POWERNATION 2

Views: 271,291

Keywords: powerblock, howto, powernation, classic car, restoration, automotive, custom, hudson, hudson hornet, volunteers, diy, car content

Id: 3i-tO75tWfg

Length: 17min 19sec (1039 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 23 2020