Home Built Diesel Hot Rod

Growing up, Jake Maier’s uncle and grandfather were always working on restorations in their garage. He felt like the coolest kid on the block when he got to ride in their beautifully restored 1950’s hot rods.

In 2014, he grew tired of going to the Lone Star Roundup in Austin, Texas without a build of his own. He pulled the trigger on a 1930 Model A Tudor Sedan body, a common choice for a first-time hot rod build. It was rusted out, full of bullet holes and needed obvious work.

His original plan was to do a rat rod with a 12-valve Cummins engine, that was motivated by the popular WelderUp “D-Rod”. As time passed, he started to notice more rat rods with Cummins engine swaps, but he had yet to see any that were fully painted, so he knew he had to go the extra distance to make his stand out. This was his first ground-up build, so he wanted to do everything himself to gain knowledge on building a car from a rusted out shell.

Nearly every panel on the body of the car needed to be replaced in some way or another. To accompany a new body line and frenched in license plate, the rear panel has been completely reshaped from 18g sheet metal with 1959 Cadillac taillights. The interior is fabricated from aluminum and held together with solid copper rivets. The dash is one of his favorite turnouts of the car. “I love the way I was able to incorporate the original 1930 dash into the new aluminum dash with the gauges. The car is a blast to drive and actually very smooth! I can’t wait to apply the skills I’ve learned over this build to the next,” says Jake.

1930 Model A Tudor Sedan

• Frame fabricated from 2x4x3/16” steel tubing
• Mustang II air bagged IFS front end
• Ford 9” rear end with a built 3.0 Moser Engineering third member
• 35 spline axles centered using a triangular four-link system and air ride
• TH400 transmission, full manual valve body built by Jake’s Performance
• Lightning Rod Shifter
• P-Pumped 12-valve Cummins with 025 deliver valves
• 5×12 injectors
• H1C/S471 turbos
• 4K governor springs and valve springs
• The braking system is a hydro-boost system (hidden under the dash) with disks up front and drums in the rear
• AutoMeter Cobalt Speedometer – Model #6293
• AutoMeter Cobalt Tachometer – Model #6297
• AutoMeter Cobalt Boost Gauge – Model #6106
• AutoMeter Fuel Level Gauge – Model #6116
• AutoMeter Voltmeter – Model #6192
• AutoMeter Cobalt Trans Temperature Gauge – Model #6157
• AutoMeter Cobalt Oil Pressure Gauge – Model #6121
• AutoMeter Cobalt Water Temperature Gauge – Model #6155

To follow Jake’s build, check out his Instagram, @383jake.