COOPSTRIPES: June 2012

Thursday, June 14, 2012

It's that busy time of year

The spring brings nicer weather as well as an increase in phone calls for work. as much as I want to stripe and the like. I am still spending every extra hour in the garage.

The end of May always brings the Rat Fink Reunion. That's one thing that will get me out of the garage. This year was the 10th annual since the Big Daddy passed on. Hardly seems possible.It also marks Rat Finks 50th Birthday....That's really hard to believe. I can remember when Rat Fink was one!

I did this sign for Ilene the year she built this building... The neighbor lady complained when she hung it on the outside. so it ended up on the inside wall...,

One of theearly customs built by Ed,is the Tweetie pie. Recently restored by Dave Shutton Working for Galpin Ford,Ilene got to go for a ride..

This was Rat Finks Birthday cake.... It was good!!

This was one of my art pieces and the girl that won it She ran in the 5k run to get it..... I didn't lol

I did this one as my show award. Gave it to a 1940 Plymouth. Cool rod!

the show was the biggest yet close to 250 cars. from as far away as Iowa.. very cool!

6 years ago Kenny,Magoo & I went to visit Ed's grave on sat night since we hadn't had the chance earlier during the reunion. .It has grown over the following years and our Funk,Funk & Fink has become the traditional final activity of the reunion.We end up in the cemetery in front of the temple,at midnight telling Ed stories and cutting up. It was especially fun this year., Another tradition seems to be Magoo's trip to the hospital. He had an episode about 10 sat night , the squad came for him but thankfully he was o.k. He made us wait to do out trip to see Ed.

The cemetery trip was the most fun of the weekend...and the joke now is that Magoo is the only person in Utah to be taken to the hospital, the grave yard, and back all in one night!.

After that it was back home. A quick (?) trip back to the ole homestead and back to work.

The door was the last major job on the body to finish. Gettin' very close.

That was the last of the bodywork It's going to need blocked and primed a couple times to get all the minor imperfections out but that can wait till the mechanical stuff is done. I want to test drive it on the street before labor day!! .

THE EAGLE SAGA

It was 40 years ago and I attended the largest van event that I ever went to. Even tho I had had a van for some 4 years, this was to be only my 3rd van event. The Nationals at Bowling Green, Ky was sensory overload to the van enthusiast. 6300+ vans in one place? It still stirs the emotions. I belonged to a club from Newark, Ohio at the time called, North Fork Vans.

It was hot that weekend. Very hot.. To hot to even move. Got up sat to enter the show & shine. This was to be the first for me. When I got to the check in area we discovered that there were nearly 1000 vans in the line ahead of us. Didn’t do it. After parking back at the club camp we went to look at the vans. The heat was oppressive, and we spent most of the time in the bleachers watching the vans inch their way through the judging lanes,occasionally walking down to take a closer look. There were so many vans it was impossible to see them all. It amazes me to this day how the N.S.V.A. group was able to judge all of them and pick winners in just a few hours. There were a lot of real nice vans. Many were even outstanding. Saw the B.F.G. van, future shock. It was extreme, especially for then. But the one van I kept hearing about was a van from Ohio. Built by Greg of Akron. The van was the Flying Eagle 2. I never saw it. But a number of people said it was the best thing they had ever seen. I the host group must have agreed since the Flying Eagle 2 was awarded top honors at Bowling Green. including best overall paint ,and best interior. I never did see it..until it started showing up in every van publication there was and back then there were a lot of them.

Greg toured the van all over the country that year. Taking top honors at many shows, including Best of Show at the west coast van nationals in King City Calif . Over the next few years I became a fan of Greg's style of paint. He was the “Foose” of his day. His paint was on many of the top winning vans for years. The Superstar, Rocky Mountain High, Hotel California, Rolling thunder, and others were among the elite of the vanning scene. But the Flying Eagle 2 was Greg’s personal van and probably the best one he ever did. What ever became of it.?? Well in 1978 he repainted it. The second paint job was not as elaborate as the first but was still very nice. I know this from pictures I saw in a magazine called small car trends. But I still hadn’t seen it. Then later that year he sold the van to a guy in Louisville,Ohio , Ben Merkle . Merkle Had the van at the 7th. Nats show & shine. in Cortland. Never saw it. Later that day someone told me it was there. Hunted it down but it was locked up and I had to settle for seeing the exterior… after that it was never seen again. Fast forward 24 years to the Nats ,2003, in Kansas City. A long time Vanner friend comes to me with pictures of a van that he just acquired ,and wants to know if I would be interested in helping him restore it. Woaaaa. It’s the Flying Eagle. And it had been on fire! Well, to actually find this van after all these years was real cool ,but the story behind it was even cooler.. Blaino bought the van on ebay. as the story goes, Merkle was driving the van one day and it stalled at a light. Then there was smoke ,then fire. The fire department came and put it out but the van was pretty messed up. The van was insured, and after settling with the ins. company they sold the van at auction. No one wanted it. It had no parts a junk yard could sell and it ended up selling for $100. That person put it on ebay and it sold for a ridiculously low price. That’s when Blaino came to me. Blaino lives in Oregon. The van was in Michigan. And after a year of banter Blaino offered the van to me. I took it. Then Mikie and I took a 12 hour trip to Michigan and I finally got to see the Flying Eagle. Upon inspection and a little detective work , we determined that the fire was caused by a fuel line leak.The rubber hose at the carb, either cracked or wasn’t properly installed and sprayed gas over the engine., That's why it stalled. Then the gas hit the exhaust and fooom. The fire was contained to the intake and above. The paint on the block wasn’t touched.The fire melted the wiring harness, heater box and then came through the fire wall. The front of the cab was burned pretty good, some wood will have to be replaced but most could be saved. The pictures to follow will show the progress of the restoration… oh yes, in 2000 the van was repainted again, supposedly by Greg at least partly. It has his mural work on it. The theme is still the sailing ship, but it is now a futuristic look. Actually I like it. The idea is to eventually restore it to its original paint job, but that will entail striping the van completely as all 3 paint jobs are still on the van, and at least the first 2 are lacquer. If you look just right you can still see the old paint outlines. I am going to fix the van as it was before the fire for the time being. The restoration is pretty much done . Now i'm working on improving it. you know I can't just leave it alone. coop

COOPSTRIPES

Vanning

Thursday, June 14, 2012

It's that busy time of year

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