I have been doing a front end conversion on a 55 Chevy for my good friend Vic Young. Vic's other car is the awesome red Willys coupe with BAD NEWS on the door. Vic raced a 55 when he was growing up in Hawaii. This will be a street car with the gasser image. There is a blown smallblock waiting to go in. The front axle and springs came out of a 50 Chevy pickup that someone was converting to Mustang II, it already had the disc brakes. Anyway, I've been taking pictures of this project so here come some......
The spring centerline on the axle is narrower than the frame centerline so the spring mounts are a little offset.........
We wanted a smooth firewall with aluminum panels so we removed all the high spots and the front body mount stuff from the stock firewall and fabbed up some new body mounts that don't interfere with the panels.......
Front end is a one piece tilt so I made a mount that with a strip of expanded metal thet will be glassed into the front end. The bracket with the holes in it is welded to that strip. A rod end is the hinge and it hits a stop when the front end is tilted........
Really nice job. Looks great. I have the same axle set up in my 55. I noticed in your pictures the springs are leveled out almost straight. My are straight. Wasn't sure if I should change those springs to different ones with more strength to hold their arch? Don't know. I've seen other guys with the same axle set up as well with different springs. What do you think?
Dang, there sure seems to be a boatload of gassers these days! But this one nails a lot of things dead on. Nice! Stance, engine, engine components, chassis detail, magnesium wheels and nice gas pumps too. Wow, good job so far!
Your right, Milner is $%@#$ Hey Kev, that is super wicked man! I'm just a few steps behind you guys, well maybe a more than a few. That tilt set up is crazy, if I go down to CA I might have try see that up close.
That looks like a whole lot of fun. I've been kicking around making a 57 ranchero I have into a Gasser. Scott
I love the details. So far, the craftsmanship and detail in everything I've seen you make has been perfect. I don't see that changing anytime soon. Great work, man.
I've used that expanded metal deal for years and it really works good! Even if you are just mounting smaller structures to the glass you can use small squares of expanded metal. Just rivet them in place and start building. When you're done building , just glass in the expanded metal on the inside and on the outside grind off the part of the rivets that are protruding. A little repair and you're done. Thank's for the compliments guys! I'm having fun but there is a long way to go.
Great work Kev!! It's a small world... I bought Vic's old sheet metal and it found it's way onto the Shakey Puddin 55 drag car. I would love to see our cars side by side some day.
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