Making Shit

I don't often think to document my weirdo processes here, when it comes to building a car.

I did remember to, while I was making a gas pedal, though...

I looked at a bunch of versions in catalogs.

I coulda spent $30-$50 and just ordered one, but that is no fun.

Right?

So I rummaged through the scrap bins.

I had that rectangular tube left over from building the frame.

The rod thing is just here, probably some bit that a restorer needs for something. I don't remember where I got it. Maybe a shift linkage for a cast iron Powerglide?

The plate is some leftover that the Crazy German gave me years ago, when this project was just an idea.

The orange tube is the handle from a jack that my pal Eric left, when he abandoned a car at our place more than a decade ago. It rode aound in the Impala's trunk for a while.

The bolt just happened to fit inside the jack handle tube.

So I started by making the pivot out of some of that rectangular tube...

Some holes delineate the basic form.

Trust me, it is in there if you look hard enough.

See?

Then weld some of the jack handle to the odd piece of rod to make the pivot.

Along with some of that plate, that will connect to the linkage that will go to the center carb, like so...

Add some more of that jack handle to the end of the odd rod, for the shoe to press against, after squishing it in a vice to fit.

Put some more holes in shit, because hot rod parts have holes.

Tweak on the whole thing for a while, to make it fit around the tranny hump.

Voila, gas pedal...

That is most things happen here, with the T.

I think about shit forever...

I look at some catalogs and fifty year old magazines...

I do some not to scale sketches...

I half-ass measure stuff...

I look at the crap I have laying around...

And figure out how to make what I need.