Heavy Metal

Jesus Christ Superstar, Ritchie Blackmore, Steve McQueen and Mickey Mouse. Nuff said.

Larry Watson

I just had to feature a few photos exposing the work of Larry Watson. The man had an eye for detail, style, and color. He definitely paved the way and pushed the boundries. Photos are courtesy of Rik Hoving. Enjoy!

The first known lace paint job done on a car

One of the first veiling paint jobs

The Master himself. RIP.

BORN FREE 4!

I am looking forward to riding out for this next year.

Updates

I have been spending the last few weeks taking care of all the small parts and trying to sell some more stuff to keep the ball rolling on this project. 

Welded in the mounts for the oil bag.

Started working on the foot peg mounts. I started with two bent original Harley mounts. Here is what is left of one of them. Then I bent up some 5/8" solid rod to mount the pegs off of. 

Here is my jig to make sure each side was level before I tacked them in place.

Here is one side all done. I will have more pictures later.

 Then came the tank. I stripped the paint not knowing what I would find. I could tell there was a little bit of damage but I never figured on this much. There was lead and thick bondo all over. And where they used the lead it was warped. So I figured if I was going to put some life back in this tank I had to do it the right way. So I preceded by cutting out the bottom of the tank so I could access all the damage better.

Looks like they were chasing a leak here? There was a bunch of lead, brass, and porous welds right here. From the inside it almost looks a factory outlet here? Did they ever come equipped with a fuel gauge?

Looks like they were chasing some leaks back here with some MIG weld and some brass.

Can't make sense of this one. There is a bunch of porous welds and brass back here after I stripped the lead. This will all be cut out.

Melting all that lead out.

This is after I did a lot of work on the tank. It still needs some metal finishing and some patches welded in. The exhaust mounts are done and I reversed the lever for the rear brakes so I could mount it on the bottom.

I also mounted up the Triumph front end after some machining. I am looking at lowering it around 2".

I am looking at lowering the tunnel on the tank slightly to get the tank to sit a little lower.

I finished the backbone and mounted the oil bag along with some gussets. 

Fender mounts are coming up next and finishing up that tank.

MAD FABRICATORS!

MAD FABRICATORS Volume 6 from Piero de Luca! It looks like it will be well worth the wait.

Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant

West, Wes what's the difference anyways. Its only Rock N' Roll and I like it.

Racing in Baja!

Well this last weekend the wife and I headed South of da border to spend the weekend with some close friends just outside of Tecate, Baja California. You can read a more detailed account of our weekend here: losbryants.blogspot.com. I am going to focus more on the motor sports highlights of the weekend. 


The place where we stayed at all weekend was a church camp about 10 miles off the highway down a windy dirt road out in the mountains. Some close friends of ours take care of the grounds there. So on Saturday morning my wife and I get to talking to our friend Israel and he mentions he has a motorcycle with small wheels, as he describes it that has trouble running. So before I know it I am taking it a part(with what little tools he has) to figure out the problem. A little side note, I love working on vehicles in the middle of nowhere Mexico; you constantly find yourself having to improvise with what tools you have and your lack of parts. After a few minutes tinkering around with it I got it running like a champ. He then offered to let us take it out on some of the "roads." It was some of the most fun I have had in a while. It just goes to show it doesn't matter what you have to ride to have a little fun. Oh and it helps to have your favorite little lady to hang on for the ride.

Road block

On our way too and from we passed by Laguna Salada. It is a dry lake just Southwest of Mexicali. I remember reading in Hot Rod Magazine that in 1967 the SCTA ran a meet there as many of the dry lakes in Southern California were being taken over by the government. Since getting back in town I have not been able to find the article Hot Rod. If anybody has it please email me some scans of it.