Projects Old Rusty . . . a Father/Son '51 Chevy

[BrerHair]

1951 Chevy Styleline Special.
93,600 on odometer (193 . . . 293,600 ?)
Bought from Minn. Dealer off the web for $395 in Oct. ’06.
Paid $ 845 to truck it to Charlotte.
Cranked it up and drove it off the trailer and into the garage.
Has not run since. (Got disassembled immediately)

[BrerHair]

My son Billy coughed up the $ 395 at age 13.
Would catch him, age 11, watching TV by himself . . . Barrett-Jackson . . . “Dad!! You just missed the coolest car!! Oh, check this one out!!”
Bought several coffee table books and left them laying around . . .
Cars of the ‘40’s . . . Cars of the ‘50’s . . . etc.fficeffice" />>>
He’d turn down a bunch of page corners.

[Stutz]

Thats cool as heck

[BrerHair]

Started taking him to car shows, Auto Fair, Goodguys, Charlotte Auto Dealers, etc.
Driving back from a show one time, he turns to me and says “Dad!! We’ve got to do this!!”
Told him he could choose the car (figured he would choose a ‘60s muscle car).
After a couple months of thinking and looking, he says “Dad!! I’ve got it!!”
“A 1951 or ’52 Chevy or Ford.”
You might as well have told me that Petty has switched to Chevy.
Why a ’51 or ’52 Ford or Chevy?
“Oh, I don’t know, sometime around the early to mid-Sixties the cars just got a lot plainer looking. I love the earlier more rounded, cooler looking cars of the ‘40s and early ‘50s.”
This from a 13 year old.

[BrerHair]

Mind you, I ain’t no mechanic.
Grew up as a carpenter, know my way around tools, woodworking tools.
Most of my mechanic experience comes from a ’69 Chevy ¾-ton p/u (inline 250) from 1976-77.
Brake job, replaced a couple carriage bearings, rebuilt the engine, that’s about as deep as I ever got.
But I know how to surf the web, know how to look stuff up.
Matter of fact, that was the take-home message from my B.S. degree from Ga.State . . . . you can’t possibly expect me to remember all that, but I know the answer is out there, and I know how to look it up.
God bless the web.
God bless Ryan Cochran.

[BrerHair]

Dove right into disassembly and got her done in 4 months.
We had a blast. Relied heavily on the shop manual. Master parts catalog also helpful.
Took a ton of photos with an eye toward putting it all back together the same way.
But knew it would not go back the same way.
Billy has design supremacy, he’s calling the shots.
He’s been aiming since the beginning toward what Street Rodder did with their roadtour ’52 Chevy.
But with wire wheels. He wants Daytons, but they’re out of our budget.

[BrerHair]

We’d come home from a car show and he’d say “I’m about billeted out.”
He started out liking low aspect ratio, but has since evolved into whitewalls, not quite WWW yet, but stay tuned.

[BrerHair]

Took nothing for granted, knew I would forget how everything came apart, so took a lot of pics with labels and such.
Tagged every part or put it in a baggie. Have hundreds of baggies.
Started a build log from Day One.

[BrerHair]

I would have called this An Idiot's Guide to a Frame-Off, but I didn't want to steal JJ's tag line.

[fbama73]

Neat car, neat kid!!! Neat Dad for diving in with him at such an early age.

That shot that shows the front suspension caked with grime- I feel your pain on that one- mine was so gunked up that I couldn't see the rusted out control arm.

[BrerHair]

[BrerHair]

For every hour spent in the garage, I bet I have 3 hours of research. Lurked here for a long time, amazed and humbled.
Originally wanted to hop up the 216, but gave that up after talking at length with Tom Langdon, Langdon’s Stovebolt http://www.stoveboltengineco.com/
Splash oil system and all that.
Oh, so that’s why there’s a sbc in every 49-54 Chevy!

[BrerHair]

Billy rightfully declared one day that we are in a new muscle car era far superior to the old one.
I graduated HS in ’71, have seen and driven my share of 442’s, GTO’s, Mach 1’s, Chevelle SS’s, GTX’s, Road Runners, Chargers, Challengers, GSX’s, Z28’s, et al.
But never saw anything on the street over 425 bhp. Drum brakes rear or all.
We have 500 and 600 hp production machines from everywhere now. EFI . . .
Change plugs every 120,000 miles. 100% reliable.
If you grew up with carbuerators, points , condensers, and manual chokes, you stand in awe of EFI.
That’s what Billy wants in what will be his daily driver. (If I don’t steal it from him)

[BrerHair]

One of Billy's buddies would come over . . . Man, can I help?

[roadking41a]

It's great to see your son knowing what he wants and saving to get it. Great job this will be something you both will never forget. Another cool car going to High School.

[BrerHair]

Daughter Millie (15 now) dubbed her “Old Rusty”.
Manufactured in Wisconsin, ended up in Minn.
Bottom ¼ of car rotted.
Great place to learn how to weld, by the way. No one will ever see those floor welds again.
18 gauge. Sure is a huge market, isn’t it ? Need floor pans for 49-52 Chevy? No problem.

[BrerHair]

Thin, hollow 49-52 frames, full of buckeyes and critter shit . . . ours was too far gone, especially in the dead center span.
Thought about welding gussets, was advised against it by a couple guys at car shows. “Too thin, you’ll actually create a weak spot on the frame at the weld joint.”
What do I know ?

[BrerHair]

[BrerHair]

[BrerHair]