Forensics

Yeah, forensics...


I am not much of a fan of those CSI shows.
They depress me when I think of all of the unsolved murders and crimes against families. The reality versus the fiction, you know.


But I have recognized over the past few days how much I enjoy that aspect of hotrodding.
That might be the coolest part of building a hotrod.

There is not much in the garage that I have not actually made. The other bits that are here are things I mostly know the history of - or things that were a part of some other, past project.

The T body itself is some cast-away hotrod. Some other car that had lived it's life before I got my hands on it.
The 327 that was a block and a few boxes of parts lived in a "56 truck, as some saps upgrade, before I found it.
The "57 Chevy rear-end lived through the abuse of another few, before it showed up here.
The aluminum 'Glide transmission has pushed the power and had been tossed aside by people who thought better, before it got into my hands.
Some other small block engine breathed through the tripower carb intake prior to finding a home on my bit car.

I could go on and on...

It's all had some other hard life, loved and abused before ever knowing that life had not been entirely extracted by some past hotrod guy.
Most all of the bits that make up the T have been tortured and worked to the N'th degree - and yet I still think I might bolt them together with some lovingly crafted bits to make them live one more time.


I have been working on steering stuff, enlisting help from like minded folks.
That has led to me disassembling the front brake bits I have in an effort to get some raw parts in my hands.

Which leads to forensics...

There are "40 Ford spindles that some previous modder thought would be bitchin' with some 11" Chev disc brakes attached.
They show the signs of heavy use.
Miles put under some hotrod, before finding their way to my hands.

That is where the investigation come in.
Figuring the logic of some person before me.
Deciphering part numbers and measurements.
The fractions of inches that made things fit once before, made things work.
There are no manuals for this sort of thing. No guides, that I have found, to say how one plus one might equal two.
Only forensics.
And determination.

The same determination, the concentration of thinking that makes dissimilar whole.
The will to make beauty from scrap, and will, and hope.
The ability to draw truth from evidence.
The desire to actualize dreams from bits of the past and nothingness.