One of the many joys I derive from working on this old car is taking old rusty, bent or broken parts and rehabilitating them, making them look and function like new again.
I've been working this week on mounting the radiator frame and radiator, to allow completion of the transmission cooling lines, water hoses and basically tightening up all of the loose ends in the engine area before I cover it up for a while, to turn my attention to the body.
In the meantime, here's a few pics of some of the little parts and pieces that have enjoyed a second lease on life. Looking at completed things like these are what inspire me to keep going in the dregs of summer heat.
The heat has beaten me down.
I got a flurry of work done before I left on vacation on June 22. Namely, got the underside of the trunk lid sandblasted and primed, knowing that it might sit for a few weeks before I could get back on it. I was right.
Since I've returned, we've had an unbearable heat wave here in central Florida. By the time I get some free time every day, the sun has come across and is blasting right into my shop, making it like a furnace. It's pretty much impossible to do any metal work or painting when one is dripping sweat everywhere.
In the meantime, I've continued to search for a decent turbo 350 transmission for the car. They seem to pop up in batches on Craigslist, but for the last couple of months there have been no good selections.
All clean and ready to install
Two weekends ago, I went to look at one about 40 miles from my house. A bit of a drive, but worth it if it was a good find. It turned out that the seller even had paperwork showing that it had been rebuilt, but it had also been siting in his garage for many, many years, so I was leery of it. It was also missing some external components. I made him an offer that I felt was within my risk tolerance, which he declined.
Adapter mounts from Danchuk
The same weekend, another tranny popped up in the same town, so three days later I drove back to almost the same neighborhood to look at it. It turned out that the guy had pulled it from an Impala, fairly recently, but didn't know anything about the history. An outer inspection showed that the vacuum modulator was fairly new, the seals looked like replacements, and the torque converter was also newer. The pump also looked like it had been replaced. I can't say for sure why, but I felt better about taking a gamble on this one, so a deal was made for $250 and I brought it home.
I spent last weekend washing it off, replacing the front and rear seals, filter and pan gasket. The fluid in the pan looked really good, and there was a minimal amount of gunk in the bottom of the pan. I'm a gambling man by heart, so I'm gonna hook it up and hope for the best. Unfortunately, I won't know what I really have until that day in the future when I finally pull the shifter into drive.
Although work has slowed down due to business and family obligations,
not to mention the Florida summer finally rearing it's steamy head,
I've still been chipping away.
Lately, I've turned my attention to
the passenger fender. Overall, the fender is in better shape than the
driver's side. The headlight brow was gone, of course. There's less
heavy pitting, which was a pain to resolve on the other fender. The
lower quarter, however, was a little worse, requiring some fabrication to create a new edge.
When I cut the lower quarter rust away, I found the inner brace pretty pitted, but it seemed pretty sturdy so I decided to clean it up and work with it. The back edge of the fender was gone as well, but the inner brace made a good template to cut a new piece of sheet metal for the edge.
Rust cut out. Inner brace looks worse than it is.
I don't have a brake, or any way to bend a good edge on metal, so I ended up lightly tapping the edge with a body hammer until I created something of a rolled edge. I then welded my little strip of edge metal to the inner brace, and then welded the lower patch panel to the rolled edge. Once I ground my
welds down, it looked pretty much like one piece of sheet metal.
The
headlight brow was a piece of cake after that. I also had to replace
the inner headlight brow sheet metal, but since I'd done this on the
first side, it went quick and smoothly.
New edge and patch panel
I've laid down a layer of
all metal bondo and begun the first stage of sanding. I hope by next
weekend the fender will be prepped for paint with a smooth top coat of
filler primer. I probably won't paint it yellow until I get the hood and
trunk ready, to avoid wasting paint.
Had lots of family commitments over the past couple of weeks that have slowed the work progress down. I've stil been making headway and hope to post a new entry in the next couple of days.
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.
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!
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...
