Midlife Crisis

1951 Henry J 60's Gasser by:

Henry L. Alexander

It started as a 34,000 mile original. I made new floors and full width crossmembers, radiused the wheel wells. rolled the rear pan and set the engine under the dash which required a complete engine enclosure to be fabricated. The back half of the frame was retained and reinforced. A new frame was fabricated from the rear seat forward and welded into the remaing portion of the original frame. Steering is through a reversed Corvair box. Front suspension is a Total Performance Super Bell type axle with 15 x 4 Halibrand spindle mount wheels and Firestone R135 x 15 tires. The rear end is a 9 in. Ford with 31 spline axles and 4:88 gears with a Ford positraction unit. The rear wheels are 12.5 x 15 ET3's with 31 x 15.5 15 Mickey Thompson tires. Rear suspension is leaf springs combined with coil over shocks with ladder bars for traction control. Wildwood disc brakes are used on the rear. All new tinted glass was cut (except the rear window which had tinted film applied) and installed with all new rubber. The interior features light weight bucket seats and Simpson 5 point safty harness's. Stewart Warner gages are used. As you can see from the pictures it is built to look like a late 60's Gasser. I have been building it for over 6 years and just got to where I can drive it this past August. I plan to paint it Candy Apple purple over Gold base but that's a year away. I'll drive it in primer for awhile to make sure that no further modifications are necessary. Current engine is a small block Chevy but I have a Blown 392 Hemi on the engine stand.
(That's one of the modifications that may be necessary!!!)

Email Henry at: ALEXENG25@msn.com