Rags to riches: Tom restores a Country Sedan he found in a junkyard | Ep. 60 (Part 1/4)

(static) (upbeat music) - We were back in Midland, Texas, where we were about a year ago. This will not be a normal episode of Barn Find Hunter. It will be better than that. This will be the best Barn Find story ever told. It has so many moving pieces to this story. It was just a year ago, you may remember our Midland, Texas episode from last year, but if you don't, skip to episode 34 of Barn Find Hunter. We were in this yard looking at this field of pretty solid cars and I actually really fell in love with this one, a 1960 Ford two-door pickup truck.

You know I'm a Ford guy, you know I'm a truck guy and two-door pickup trucks. They are even better. But there was another cart that was around here that caught my attention. I think it was probably right here. Yeah, that's a solid body, you know? How many cars can I have? I have to pass. And I kept coming back to that wagon and there was something solid about it. Then the owner, Tom Cross, said, "Tom, do you have compound and a rag?" It was kind of dingy like this, you know, like kind of dingy desert land.

And I polished a little bit of the fender, you may remember, I polished a little bit of the fender and it shined. So the 1962 paint on this truck still shined like new. And I said, "Tom, I wish I had a shock absorber here, I'd like to polish this whole fender." And Tom said, "Well, I have a shock absorber, but I don't have that long of an extension cord, but let me think of something." And (makes acceleration sound) he starts his forklift and he comes and moves a car there and moves a car there, picks up this car and takes it to the shop and then we connect the shock absorber and polish it. this fender.

Oh my god, this car is too good to throw away. And Tom was getting ready to smash these cars and said, "I've had them here for 30 years." So, you know, after having spent time polishing this little piece of the fender and after having spent time polishing the entire front fender, this car was speaking to me. And this car had good bones. And this car, I couldn't get it out of my head. So on the way home and for the next few days I thought about it, we decided we would just make a project car out of this.

We'll take a car we

found

on an episode of Barn Find Hunter and take you for a ride, showing you that cars can be

found

, bought, worked on, and enjoyed below market value. So we came here during the winter, now it's spring and it's warm, it will be 92 degrees today. We were here when it was 20 and 30 degrees in winter. Fortunately we were working inside a store. The useful thing here is that everything we needed was in that yard. We hardly had to buy anything except, well, new wheel bearings, new brakes, tie rod ends, ball joints, that sort of thing.

That's why it's useful when you have your own spare

part

s de

part

ment. Here's one of the '62 Ford Galaxy parts we used for the dash wiring harness. Here's another car we used for some brake parts. Fortunately, these '62 Fords are around. So a project like this, you know, can't even be attempted unless you have really good partners helping you. And we have a good partner, Mr. Tom Cross, whom we just met by chance. Driving down the road in Woody, right on that road, I saw a field of cars and he knocked on his door and said, "Yeah, come in." That's why Tom has been an active participant and partner in the project of taking that

junkyard

car and turning it into something very special.

How many people helped you with this project? - Well, with all the sponsors and everything, we probably had 12 to 15 people. I had two of my good friends who spent many hours on this with me. You know it was just a group effort. It went very well. - Well, let's show these people what this has become. (upbeat music) So this is original paint from 1962. But you could tell this car now has wheels. It's got wheels, it's got an interior, it's got an engine, it's got a transmission, it's got refinished floors, it's got shiny chrome, and most of the parts were sourced from the yard here.

Look at this thing. Great? These are some of the sponsors. Many of whom are good friends of Tom who helped with radiators, batteries, wheels and tires. These people gave their time to this project. It wouldn't be like this without your help. To review this engine now, if you remember, when this car was in the field all those years it had no engine or transmission. Show you what it looks like now. Now this is not a factory part, this wooden post, it's just helping because the springs holding the hood in place are a little worn. But here's a very well built 390 by a friend of Tom's here in town, and it makes about 325 horsepower.

Sweet idling, sweet running car Tom gave us one of, and it was cracked, he gave us another, and it was cracked, he gave us another, and it was cracked, and this is the fourth one and it wasn't cracked. and run sweet. It has a four-barrel holley, what five? - 650, he has a 650. - 650 holley. Tell us about your friends from the street rider club, what they gave us. - The West Texas Street Ride Association donated the front disc brake conversion kit with master cylinder. One of the guys at the club donated the Billet air filter. Basically, from axle to axle, this car is new.

Bearings, brakes, engine, transmission, master cylinder, we had all the wiring in the car. Everything in the car works, all the accessories work. It's an old car that runs well and goes down the road. (The door slams) - A lot of glass, we had to take out the windshield. Those things weren't even inside, those window rooms. A couple of guys from McPherson College, Austin and Dalton came here and made their own gasket, which looks like some kind of factory, out of black silicone. And they did a great job putting them up. They are dyed. And these are from a '64 donor car that was in the back.

That car donated quite a few parts, including, fortunately, the glass. We had the back part outside. It has new rear brakes. - Bearings, seals, everything. - The entire back has been redone. - Everything, all the bearings. - Is it a nine-inch Ford? - It's a nine-inch Ford, 356 gears. - Yes. Now we made no attempt to fix the body. It is what it is. It's a '62 Ford, so I'm guessing it's 57 years old. The tailgate was very dirty when we got it. The window was broken. - Oh, yes, dusting. Yeah, you have that video on your phone too, right? (engine revolutions) - You have a very nice spring load in there right now.

Now, if I'm not mistaken, there is a spring on the other end of this. - Two springs. - Alright? Now look at this. This is the original Ford part. That's how you kept the spare tire cover open. These weren't hydraulics or little clicking mechanisms. It was made by Ford to attach to the rain gutter. Simply amazing things. So you can see how solid this all is right now. Tom did an amazing job, it's all Rust-Oleum. It has Dynamat, soundproofing and heat prevention. And then we covered it with the same fabric we covered the seats with, a Mexican blanket.

Wonderful. - I had to put a Texas touch on it, you know? - Texas touch. - I just had to do it. But all the glass in the back of this car is from a '64 truck, which was a donor truck for the floorboards, for the spare tire part, and the rear glass, because this car didn't have rear glass in neither. We had to make some modifications to the tailgate to make it work, but everything turned out fine. I was able to find a set of entries, basically Fairlane, because this is a

country

sedan

and we were basically able to do it. -So if you remember the original episode, this blouse was pretty rusty.

When we came here in the winter to work on this car with some students from McPherson College, who volunteered for a week to come, our intention was to paint this top white, which is how it would have been painted originally. So we sanded it down and then the students said, "This is great, why don't we clean the rust off?" And here it is, a rusty hood that has been cleaned. It is a kind of satin transparent. They mixed: - Cornstarch. - With cornstarch, which is apparently an old trick to keep it more opaque. So it's a little more boring.

It almost looks like leather. So it's a nice compliment and shows that the car is not too nice, we don't want to make it too nice. And a white top would have made it too pretty. Then you can take a look at this top. I polished this and I'm not a polisher anymore so I burned the paint off in a couple areas. Oh well, I tried. What I really like is that Tom checked this dash, he literally took the dash out of the car, checked the gauges, went through all the switches. The radio works, everything, I'm talking about the interior dome light working, which is on right now.

Check it out. And the seat, Tom used some foam padding that he had and made a structurally sound padded seat and then he took it to a friend, what's your friend's name? - Gus. - Gus. - Ramirez. - And Gus took this Mexican blanket and sewed it to make a seat cover. What could be more perfect? So these seat belts are Simpson's racing seat belts taken from a race car. I race a car. When seat belts are a couple of years old, they will no longer pass the technical inspection. But they are still fine. So they're sitting on the shelf at home, I said well, let's put them on the cart.

This truck has seat belts that were in my Corvette at 150 miles per hour. So (laughter) we'll see how quickly we can get this moving across Texas in a couple of hours. (engine revs) You've seen me for four years walking around, looking at cars saying yeah, this is good, this is good, I would do this, I would do that. In fact, we did it with this car. In fact, you know, we made a project car out of it. And I'll tell you how the economics worked on this. In cash, we have $8,000 in this car. But Tom found out with all the sponsors that were involved with this car, that we probably have $15,000 invested in this car right now.

And I guess it comes down to the market value of this car. You could probably sell this for around that money, which means you could still go out and find it in a car and if you roll up your sleeves and work hard, you could build a car that won't be upside down. in, which is unusual these days. We've mentioned McPherson College, students come here to work on the car during the winter. There are some stickers on the car. We should mention why McPherson is involved with this car. McPherson College in Kansas offers a four-year bachelor's degree program in automotive restoration.

And that's why it's part of business school. Therefore, students have to take accounting and bookkeeping classes and all of their electives as they normally would if they were pursuing any other business degree. But they also have to learn auto upholstery, machining, engine building, metal working, and all the various disciplines of auto restoration. And when they leave there, they are not only car restorers, but they also have the business experience to open a store one day. And they get hired by stores, Paul Russell, Ralph Lauren, the Petersen Museum. They will work in collections all over the

country

.

Just amazing the location they get. They have an old truck, it's an old Chevy truck. An old Chevy LUV, I think it is. It only runs on three cylinders, it's really a piece of junk. So we have decided to donate this car to McPherson College as their parts finder. Something to go to the

junkyard

to buy parts, or go to an auto parts store to pick up parts, so that students don't have to drive their own car. This will be your new parts finder and will replace the Chevy truck. So we'll drive this car from Midland, Texas, where we are now, to McPherson, Kansas, but we'll take the slow road.

We will take back roads and search for Barn Find cars for new episodes of Barn Find Hunter, while driving a Barn Find car. (upbeat music) Are you ready to hit the road? - I'm ready. - Tom has donated a 1962 Texas license plate. (upbeat rock music) - Now, once we get into Lubbock, there's a place called Cook's on the left side. You can see a lot of signs. They have shows there all the time, bands and stuff like that. They do a lot of rat rod shows and stuff there. And maybe something you can go down there and talk to someone.

But I think get out of here and get to Lubbock first and then continue from there. - Okay, silly. ♪ Where are we going now? ♪ (engine revs) ♪ I know you want to go ♪ ♪ To the end zone ♪ ♪ That's where I am ♪ (engine revs) ♪ Where the night went ♪ ♪ My mom was home ♪ (engine revs) ) ♪ We don't know where ♪ ♪ We'll miss this ride ♪ ♪ We'll meet in the afterlife ♪ ♪ Now we don't know where ♪ ♪ We'll miss this ride ♪ ♪ We'll meet in the afterlife ♪ That's a 454 big-block Chevy, right? Isn't it something extraordinary? So for $500, you can get thetransmission of this thing. Let's see which one this is.

Big block, 454. Isn't that something extraordinary? (rock music) We've been doing this show for four years and we have yet to find a judge. Tell me this isn't a real judge. -He is a true judge. - Very good, this building looks quite appetizing. Is there something in there? - Yes, you won't believe this. Nobody believes it. - Actually? - Happens. (rock music) That's the strangest car I have, the white one. - Don't tell me what it is. Is it a Superbird? Alright, we have to go now, guys. Holy Mackerel. Heavens. Just so you know, we didn't pick the last good car Tom Cross had in his yard here.

There are other good cars to be had and I just want to point out a couple. Here's a Ford Fairlane, 1963 Fairlane. It has a 260 V8. It has a sport roof, which means a two-door hardtop. And this is a solid car and Tom wants to sell it. Here's a 1960 Ford two-door hardtop that has surface rust, much like the truck we'll be driving to Kansas in a bit. This can be sanded and a clear coat applied. Tom said this is a solid body, a solid floor. He wants to sell this car. Even in this yard, there are more project car possibilities, we only chose one of them.

Maybe one of these is made for you. (engine revolutions) - I don't want it to go. (laughing) - Don't cry, friend. - I'm telling you, it's been a journey, really.