cars

Kohler Kustom Equipped Vehicles

The McGill '25 Ford Model T Roadster Pickup, work in progress. . .

My good friend Matt McGill and I have been steadily working at this steel T roadster project for a year as of March 2009. It's being built the old fashioned way- in his garage with humble tools and a lot of elbow grease. It will be shiny black with a black tuck and roll interior, a small block chevy fed by six two-barrel carburetors on an offy intake will dump it's spent gasses through a set of custom-built stainless steel headers. We've got a lot of work ahead of us! A complete build thread can be found here.

The Kohler Kustom '64 Econoline Shop Truck

My old econoline has been around the block a few times. I got it from my good buddy Shawn McKenzie, who flat-towed it to the east coast from New Mexico in the early 1990's. Besides sitting out in a field without a windshield for a few years upon it's arrival in PA, it had some less than desireble "customization" done to it before Shawn bought it. It had four square headlights held in with insulating spray foam, everything was wired directly to the battery without fuses, and it had a buick(?) rear axle under it that was held in with tack welds just to name a few. Fortunately, I was able to remedy these unsightly blemishes with a set of stock headlight bezels, a new fuse box, and a ford 9" rear axle. It's been back on the road for 6 years now and will undergo a much needed cosmetic overhaul sometime next year.

The Kohler '34 Ford Lowboy Pickup

I spent two years putting this little truck together from cast-offs and cheap parts from swap meets and junk yards. It's powered by a Weiand Equipped '67 Chrysler 318/Torqueflite combo spinning a Mopar 8.75" rear axle. The body is chopped five inches and channeled over a custom-built tube frame. Whether I'm cruising down the street to grab a burrito or hurtling down the highway on a 600 mile road trip, it's an absolute blast. I've since sold this pickup to a gentleman from Japan.

Dirt track photo by Hot Rod Jen

The Kohler '34 Ford Highboy Pickup, work in progress...

This one is my current project, another 1934 Ford pickup. Quite a bit different from my other one though. It's chopped only 3" and sits unchanneled on a pair of bobbed, pinched, boxed '34 framerails with a tubular rear kickup. I installed a model A front crossmember 4" behind the stock location to accomodate the way I set up the 32-36 front axle: I used a model A spring hung off the wishbones behind the axle to lower the front without using a dropped axle similar to the way the famous Doane Spencer roadster was put together. I'm planning to run '35 Ford wire wheels with big 'n' little blackwall bias plies. That's the powerplant sitting off to the side there... '49 Ford 8ba Flathead V8- punched .060" over, EAC camshaft, center-dump headers, block has been lightly ported and relieved, milled down iron heads, plans for a 2x2 intake, I've got a '49 mercury 3spd+overdrive transmission that'll put the power to the '48 ford banjo rear stuffed with 3.73 "hot rod" gears. For an old truck, it outta haul ass... and firewood, trash, car parts, furniture, groceries, etc... My club brother Kevin now owns this project.

The Kohler 1931 Ford Deluxe Roadster

This is my latest project and the reason for the sale of my other '34 pickups. It's an original 1931 Ford Deluxe Roadster body on a genuine 1932 Ford frame with the 1949 Ford V8 that I kept from my blue '34 pickup project. It utilizes an original, polished Halibrand Culver City 201 quickchange rear axle hung from a model T rear spring on '36 rear radius rods paired with an original drilled, dropped, and chromed '32 front axle with a chrome spring, shocks, and brakes. The flathead V8 has been dressed up with original, polished weiand aluminum speed parts, including a pair of finned high compression heads, a 2x2 intake manifold, and a matching fuel block that feeds a pair of original chromed Stromberg 97 carburetors. A rebuilt Mallory dual-point mechanical tach-drive distributor will light the fire and a pair of modified center-dump headers will feed the lake pipes. Other incidentals include a reworked F1 steering box, narrowed '41 Ford dash, original '32 V8 radiator, grille, and shell, '40 ford wheels wrapped in big-n-little bias rubber, and a '38 banjo steering wheel that has been impeccably restored by my good friend Steve Swavey.

Jim's 1934 Ford Three Window Coupe

This cool old Ford belongs to my friend Jim Rogacki. I've been giving him a hand with it when I can. It's an old drag car that's been chopped and channeled (a lot!) and finished in lead. We started by cutting out a poorly installed, unreinforced floor. Plans call for removing the channel and mounting the body at the stock height and installing a new, properly supported floor. We removed a flat sheetmetal firewall that was installed at some point and replaced it with a correct, original '34 firewall. An early Cadillac OHV V8 will be going between the rails and will be backed by a 5 spd manual trans converted to closed drive and a '36 ford rear axle with a quickchange center section. Jim has recently freed the welded up, leaded-in cowl vent assembly for replacement and is working on replacing the hacked up x-member.