What's up at Ironworks Speed & Kustom.
 

I try to send out a newsletter to the all the customers and vendors we work with on a regular basis to show the progress of some of our build on a somewhat regular basis. But A good portion of our work may not fall under our the umbrella of "Pro-touring", But I have gained alot of great friend through this website and thought a updated thread about different project we are working in our shop large or small might be of interest. We do a lot of different work beyond the Chevy Muscle cars that seem to fill a majority of our shop space.

So here we go. A local Customer that I met a small local show just about a year ago that owns a large engineering firm down the street from me started talking to us about building a 1947-54 chevy truck. I informed him that one of my magazine editor buddies had an older chassis with all the suspension and such set up was for sale for a really good deal. Well after purchasing the chassis, he went to a local truck auction that was selling 47-54 chevy truck stuff. This is the really ironic part, He bought 2 cabs, 2 hoods, 6 doors and 1 set of inner fenders. He had some bed sides and a few other NOS or really solid truck parts in storage already. So this is what we started with.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010079.jpg
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010080.jpg

Well after some time of discussion we decide to chop the top 1.5", section the cab 1.75" and lengthen the cab 3". We had big plans. So after some major planning, some precise lay out and cutting and some retacking of all the parts back into position. This is what we had.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010036.jpg
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010034.jpg
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010033.jpg
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010022.jpg

Well if you remember back to the beginning of the story my customer bought a big pile of parts at an auction. Well a little ways into the build we realized he bought some ton and half stuff. Now the ton and half trucks we found out have longer hoods, which we thought might help us have less welding when we would have to section the hood to fit the cab buy joining the stock half ton hood to the ton and a half on top. Well yesterday we started layout the hood on the mocked up front sheetmetal to start the surgery and realized the ton and a half hood maybe longer but it is also sectioned 1.75" from the factory....... It fits like a glove. It is just a bit to long, but it fits like we wished we could have planned. Just dumb luck. Here is pic of the stock hood next to the sectioned hood.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010075.jpg
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010074.jpg
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010066.jpg

Like Hannibal Smith from the A Team says, " I love it when a plan comes togther".

I can't wait to see how this one turns out. :thumbsup:

That hood looks way better!

Well we also started on a 1955 for a another local guy. We wants just a bad ass black cruizer 1955 chevy with a big horsepower Big Block. We put Prototype #1 of our tri five chassis's under the the car and and have begun mock up. We have to do floors and trunk. We will be mini tubing the rear to run 335/30/20's and have 275/35/19's on the front. The car will sit about 4.5" to the bottom of the frame. We are looking at possibly debuting this at SEMA this year. Carter Hickman did a nice quick rendering for us on the direction we are looking at.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...evy/round2.jpg
The as it came in on a Thursday
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010150.jpg
Monday afternoon we had the body in the main shop ready for the chassis
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010052.jpg
Tuesday Morning we are setting the big Block in the chassis
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010059.jpg
Enter the 540
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010065.jpg
Prototype #1 of the chassis
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010030.jpg

Eric's 62 Finds a new Home..... On the ground
 

Well We finally got Eric's car to the point we could pull the body off the table and set it on the ground. It does not have the control arms back from him yet as he is digitizing the mock up arms we made. But man it looks good on the ground. The very tall camara man makes it look even lower.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010072.jpg
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010073.jpg
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010071.jpg
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010074.jpg

This Nova may not seem normal for us considering what we have done to a few other Novas. But Man is this thing cool.

66 nova, Blown Hemi with tons of real magnesium parts from EBAY. Altered wheelbase, straight axle in the front, Olds rear end. We built the chassis in just a few days. That Miter cut stuff is pretty easy. The customer wanted us to set up the big important stuff and he would take it home and bring it back when he needed help with things. We have worked on 2 other gassers for this guy in the past. They are on our website somewhere.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ber2009078.jpg
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...ary2010068.jpg

Love the work you guys do. Nice variety (it's the spice of life).

Good people doing good work
 

Rodger; Keep up the great work.Having a guy like you in the hobby is great for us all.You inspire some of us. And having a good rep. lets customers w/ money to spend know not every shop owner is just out to make a quick buck. Scott.:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :hail:

Nice man....I need to get over to your shop one of these days.

Nice work Rodger. It's good to see some different types of builds. I really like the gasser and also the direction you are going with the truck. The mods to the cab have made a HUGE difference in how it looks.