And now for this short break...

Going out of the country for eight days. This will be the longest stretch of time that I've not worked on Ol' Yeller since January.
In the meantime, here's a couple of before and afters of the drivers fender vs. the passenger side.

 

A little color...

Rims ready for color

I've been working towards getting the chassis in rolling shape so I can put it away and start on the body. To that end, I needed to repaint the wheels--I had painted two of them back in '99, and blasted the other two a couple of months ago. Since I had to mix up some paint, it made sense to mix enough to paint a few body parts, so that's why I've been working on some of the sheet metal.

Paint day has arrived!

I posted some photos of my fender repairs a while back. Whenever I needed a break from the motor, or I was waiting on this or that part, I would give some attention to the fender and front splash pans. All of the sheet metal on the car is badly pitted, so my work consisted of laying down multiple layers of filler primer and guide coats, until I got to a point where I was ready to top coat.
This past Sunday, I pulled out my VERY expensive gallon of Harvest Gold and mixed up a batch. It was a cool dry day here in Florida, so I took the chance and sprayed with the door open. As expected, I picked up a few specks, mostly
on the fender, but nothing that I can't buff out.

One hour later...

After setting up for two days, I took the rims and my new Coker wide whitewalls to the tire shop this morning. The guys at the shop know what I'm working on, so they're very respectful of my parts and carried each rim like a newborn baby. A couple of hours later and I was back in my own shop mounting them up. It was a little bright this afternoon, so my photo is a bit washed out, but I think it looks damned good!

...and things look a little brighter

My plan for the fender is to reassemble it using the passenger fender as a guide for correct bolts and screws. Once that is done, I can disassemble that one and begin welding again.
My wife doesn't know it, but the upstairs guest bedroom is becoming the safe storage area for finished pieces!

Ready for rubber

Baby's got new shoes!

Day by day, step by step

Progress continues, although slower than I'd like.
Having gotten the motor mostly reassembled, I've focused on other items that will put me closer to

TH350 adapter brackets

the goal of getting the chassis rolling and complete. Since I'm using a Turbo 350 tranny, I purchased an adapter kit to use the transmission with the '55 frame. I've painted and installed the single exhaust system, which was a bit of a bear but eventually everything went together. I dug out and cleaned up the distributor, installing new points and condensor. I also unearthed a Rochester 2bbl carb that I rebuilt about 15 years ago but never used. I took it apart to make sure everything inside was still good, which it appeared to be. I've also had the temporary tires removed from the wheels so I can prep and paint them with the final coat of yellow.

Ready to start

Since I'll be mixing up some color, I've been working on prepping some of the front end sheetmetal so I can maximize the time with the paint gun, as well as minimize or avoid paint waste. The repairs I made to the left front fender have turned out really good, which has given me renewed confidence in my sheetmetal repair skills. Last weekend I finally shot a good coat of filler primer on the fender, as
well as the three pieces that make up the front splash pan. All of these pieces were suffering from minor to bad pitting, which required quite a bit of time and elbow grease to fill and sand, fill and sand. If the weather will give me a break this weekend (that is, no rain or high humidity) I should have some truly finished pieces to admire.
Once I bolted on the carburetor and lined up the distributor, there

Primed and sanding off the guide coat

was no other reason to not try and start the motor. I had done a temporary start with my son's Ford six banger a while back, so I didn't think it could be too different with the Chevy. The only difference was the solenoid, which is mounted on the firewall of the Ford and doesn't come into play. With this motor, I had to go through the solenoid with my wiring.
After hooking it up the way I thought it should go, I took a deep breath and turned the key. She turned over, as I expected, but wouldn't fire. I noticed, however, that just as I would let off the key, for a split second the motor would try to fire. That told me that there wasn't a constant source of power getting to the coil, but no matter how I reconfigured my wiring, I just couldn't make anything happen. Frustrated, I turned my back on the whole thing and let it lie for a day.
Once I cleared my head, I started looking for some direction on the Internet. Every configuration I found resembled what I had already tried, until I finally came upon a hand-drawn schematic that showed one additional wire connecting the coil to the starter switch.
With fresh resolve and hope, I attacked the problem again the next morning. Once I had my wires in place, I again took a deep breath and, well, the result is in the video below...