The Restoration of the Junior Thompson AA/GS Opel
Restored by Charlie Gilmore
During 1999 I saw a photo of
the Opel on an internet site. It was being offered for sale by a racer in Ohio.
I called the seller and after some negotiating we agreed on a price but only if
a came out the next day to pick up the car. My wife had just come home from the
hospital after some minor surgery and I did not want to leave her alone so I
asked for a little leeway form the seller. He was kind enough to give me a
couple of days so I called my friend and fellow road trip warrior Jimmy
Tinsmith, the owner of Tinny's Hotrodz in Sellersville and a bonified gasser
fanatic, and asked if he was up to quick blast out to Ohio to see this piece of
drag racing history. As I had hoped "Tinny" jumped at the
chance to go gasser hunting and we hooked up my open trailer and headed west. We
had no trouble finding the location of the car. I state this because Tinny and I
have the reputation of making wrong turns and getting completely lost on most of
our highway excursion, sometime heading in the opposite direction to where we
should be going. This is usually brought on by none stop chatter and laughing
our asses off over something that has happened in the past and missing an
interchange exit or getting off the wrong one. These excursion just add to the
fun as far as we are concerned.
Well, we arrived at the Opel owners home in
Ohio and found the car in his garage. It was hard to recognize at first because
it was covered with dirt and had all sorts of domestic junk piled on and around
it. Old mattresses, bed clothes, furniture etc. The cars owner said he hadn't
dug it out because he wasn't sure we were really coming even though I had called
him to tell him we were leaving DUH.
Once all of the junk was removed we could
see just how bad the car really was. I had been lead to believe that it was a
running piece with a big block Chevy and 400 turbo trans in it. In actuality it
was in the very beginning stages of being dismantled with an eye toward
restoring the car.
After looking the thing over Tinny and I
were convinced that it was the Jr Thompson Kadet and therefor worth restoring
but that the current condition of the car didn't warrant the asking price. At
this point I began negotiating with the owner for a drastic reduction in his
price. After about five hours of wrangling, during which we moved from the
garage to house to the rec room to the hot tub room back out side back to
the garage. we finally agreed on a price that we could both live with that was
$3,000.00 under the asking price and be began to load up the car. After the car
was on the trailer and the parts stashed in the back of my pickup we headed out.
My first stop was a quarter- squirter car wash to get rid of some of the
accumulated crud. Apparently the aborted restoration program had begun many
years ago and once we got the first layer of scum off the car it was obvious
that it had spent sometime enjoying the great outdoors. I knew I had me work cut
out.
The trip home was uneventful with the
exception of one of the ramps sliding out of the trailer and dragging along the
road in a shower of sparks. Fortunately we heard the commotion and stopped
before any real damage was done.
Once we got the car home and stashed the
car in the shop I started going over some of the visual identiers on the car.
First the body was fiberglass and it had a chopped top, the nose had the the
hole for the blower and a small hump formed at the front of the opening that
covered the blower pulley. It also had two small strips that extended back from
the blower opening over the cowl. All of these matched the photos of the car
that I had seen earlier. The interior matched photos also as well as the airfoil
molded into the deck lid so I was sure I had the right car. To be certain I took
a lot of pictures and sent them out to Jr for his verification. Jr. wrote back
and said that this was for sure the car that he and Chuck Finders had built to
combat Montgomery's new Mustang.
I started to take off the body and stripped
the car down to the chassis. The more I worked on the car the more I saw that it
would require a total restoration. Everything on the thing was shot. I sand
blasted the chassis to get rid of he rust and applied a coat of paint on it to
make sure that it wouldn't rust anymore. A check of the chassis showed that the
rust was just surface and that the chassis was still sound and very usable.
The next step was to take the chassis to
Tinny's shop to make some updates on it since I intended to run the car once it
was finished. Tinny is a stickler for authenticity so he was the perfect
guy for the job. I had taken the chassis down to NHRA division one headquarters
and had Curt Lasure look it over and tell me what we had to do to bring it into
spec for a chassis cert. To my surprise it didn't require any major changes in
the roll cage configuration but some of the bars were not thick enough and had
to be replaced. With the NHRA instructions in hand Tinny started to make the
corrections. The header bar over the windshield area was replace an extra bar
under the dash was added and the door bars were replaced. While it was there we
added a sill bar on each side to support the body better and made a swing out
door bar on the driver side. This was followed by motor and trans mounts and a
few other Tinny touches that show his great craftsmanship. Not the least of
which was a swing away steering wheel column which is really trick.
Meanwhile I was shopping for someone to
rechrome the front and rear suspension and ordering new parts for those that had
to be replaced. Not the least of which was a Hemi. All new disc brakes arrived
to replace the Airheart binders that were not only totally shot after all of
these years but were misaligned so that the rotors were warped beyond repair.
I located an engine that was owned by one
of my ESTA racers, Dave Stegman. It was the same size motor as the one Jr. ran
in the car. A 5/8 stroker early hemi complete with Milodon heads and a blower
setup. Needless to say I scarfed it right up.
I was just going to throw in a set new
aluminum rods, add the pieces that were missing and run the engine the way it
was with the Engle cam in it when I got a call from the man that had volunteered
to do the body work and paint. He told me that an engine builder in north Jersey
wanted to get involved in the project so I gave him a call. This was Nick Tasi
at NT racing engines. I checked and found that Nick had a good rep in the high
performance (Pro Mod) field so we agreed to a sponsorship deal and I took the
engine up to Nick.
As it turned out Nick recommended we
straighten out the bores which were slightly tapered and install new pistons as
well as rods. Jr called at about that time and told me he would talk to Isky and
get me a new cam to replace the Engle. Shortly there after a complete Isky cam
and kit arrived complete with valve springs, retainers etc, with instructions
for the to send the Engle valve gear back to them.
I continued working on the car, remounting
the body and making improvements as I went. As I said, everywhere I looked I saw
parts that needed to be replaced. I got the rechromed suspension parts back and
assembled them so I could get it up on its' wheels. Of course I had to find the
proper wheels which took awhile and then it was off to Kowolski Kustom for the
replacement of the interior. E.J. Kowolski did an outstanding job replicating
the interior and it looks just like it did when the car was first built, only
nicer with heavier gauge aluminum.
The car then went to the body shop for
paint prep. While it was there I started to replicate the wheelie bars that were
on the car when it was first run. The only thing I had to go by was a photo of
the rear of the car from which I got a measurement off the taillight lenses, I
then measured the lenses on the car and I got a scale. after measuring the
wheelie bars in the photo I could transfer the dimensions to the scale and come
up with the actual size. I made up the wheelie bars and took them to Tinnys for
welding. They then went to the platers for a chrome finish. Unfortunately the
plant burned to the ground and my Wheelie bars were ruined. I got back a
twisted, scab encrusted mess that was junk so I had to make another set.
After a lot of aggravation and a ton of
work but also some invaluable contributions from Tinny, Nick Tasi, E.J
Kowolski, Gary Bettsy Body Shop, Rocky Pirrone and Jr. himself and having to
battle cancer and having my house destroyed by fire I finally got the car
finished and running late in the summer of 2003. I have not made a full pass
with car but I intend to run it with the East Coast Gassers group and also take
it to Bowling Green this year.
Charlie Gilmore
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