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Ray Delgado
Expertise
Metal Fabrication Chassis & Suspension Chopping & Sectioning Gassers Restomod Chassis
📍 Phoenix, Arizona

Ray Delgado

Metal fabricator and chassis builder who has spent 25 years turning flat sheet and mild steel into hot rods, gassers and restomod underpinnings.

Ray Delgado runs a small fabrication shop outside Phoenix, where he builds chassis, chops tops and shapes body panels the old way, on an English wheel and in a jig. He came up sweeping floors in a chassis shop and stayed for the craft. Ray writes about the parts of a build most people never see: how a frame is boxed and Z'd, why a channel job changes everything, and where a chop goes wrong. He is patient on process and blunt about shortcuts that come back to bite you.

Magazine Articles by Ray Delgado

Bare ash wood body frame under construction
Car Features

Wood-Framed Bodywork: How It Was Built

Ray Delgado · · 6 min
1930s lacquer paint - close detail of original body panel
Car Features

Preserving Original Nitrocellulose Lacquer Paint

Ray Delgado · · 6 min
1930s workshop - mechanic adjusting brake linkage under car
Car Features

Maintaining a Century-Old Mechanical Brake System

Ray Delgado · · 6 min
Wheelwright shrinking a steel tire onto a wheel
Car Features

Wooden Artillery Wheels of the 1900s

Ray Delgado · · 6 min
1930s sedan trunk panel fitting in restoration shop
Car Features

Built-In Trunks & Interlocking Body Panels

Ray Delgado · · 6 min
Bare hot-rod rolling chassis on a shop floor with boxed frame rails and a dropped front axle located by split wishbones, no body attached
Restoration & Tech

Choosing a Hot Rod Chassis and Suspension

Ray Delgado · · 8 min
A channeled traditional hot rod coupe body dropped low over the frame rails on jack stands in a builder's workshop, low-slung profile surrounded by tools
Restoration & Tech

Channeling a Hot Rod Body

Ray Delgado · · 8 min
C10 driveshaft pinion yoke -- digital angle finder in place
Restoration & Tech

Calculating Driveshaft Angle After an Engine Swap

Ray Delgado · · 7 min
Close-up three-quarter view of a rat rod's big-and-little staggered wheels: a narrow steel front wheel with a wide-whitewall tire and a taller fat blackwall rear tire, low patina stance
Car Features

Rat Rod Wheels and Tires

Ray Delgado · · 7 min
A 1955-57 tri-five Chevy gasser sitting nose-high on a straight front axle, three-quarter front view showing the classic drag-car stance
Car Features

What Is a Gasser? The Straight-Axle Drag Car Explained

Ray Delgado · · 9 min
C10 frame rail with steel boxing plate welded -- restoration shop
Restoration & Tech

Boxing a C10 Frame for Increased Rigidity

Ray Delgado · · 6 min
1970s Chevrolet C10 subframe connector -- boxed weld on lift
Restoration & Tech

Installing Subframe Connectors on a High-Horsepower C10

Ray Delgado · · 7 min
C10 bed wheel tub panel tack-welded in workshop
Restoration & Tech

How to Wheel-Tub a C10 Bed for Wide Rear Tires

Ray Delgado · · 7 min
A classic car body being sectioned in a fabrication shop, a horizontal slice removed from the bodywork with panels clamped and welding sparks at the seam
Restoration & Tech

Sectioning a Car Body

Ray Delgado · · 8 min
C10 rear frame -- C-notch cap welded above axle
Restoration & Tech

Step-by-Step C-Notch Installation for a C10 Rear Frame

Ray Delgado · · 6 min
A nose-high straight-axle gasser parked beside a low street hot rod at a classic car show, the stance contrast between the two builds clearly visible
Car Features

Gasser vs Hot Rod

Ray Delgado · · 7 min
Tubular control arm bolted to C10 front crossmember -- detail
Restoration & Tech

Installing Front Tubular Control Arms on a C10

Ray Delgado · · 6 min
A 1940s Willys gasser with an extreme nose-high straight-axle stance at a vintage dragstrip, skinny front tires and wide rear slicks in dramatic light.
Car Features

The Gasser Story

Ray Delgado · · 14 min
Low-angle detail of a hot rod's suicide-mounted dropped I-beam front axle hung forward of the frame with polished hairpin radius rods
Restoration & Tech

Suicide Front Ends and Z-ing the Frame

Ray Delgado · · 8 min
Low tight detail of a gasser's skinny ribbed front runner on a Torq Thrust mag beside a fat rear cheater slick on a slotted mag wheel
Restoration & Tech

Gasser Wheels and Tires: Skinnies and Slicks

Ray Delgado · · 6 min
Bare rat rod rolling chassis with no body on a shop floor, showing open C-channel frame rails, front beam axle, vintage steel wheels and a mocked-up flathead V8
Restoration & Tech

Rat Rod Frames and Chassis

Ray Delgado · · 9 min
Chopped-top hot-rod coupe in side profile with a dramatically lowered roofline under moody side lighting
Restoration & Tech

Chopping a Top: What It Means and Why

Ray Delgado · · 7 min