Customs 47 Chevy Custom build thread?

Great thread, wish there was more custom stuff, like this, posted. Love the bumper guard tail lights. Thanks for sharing your build, and keep up the good work.


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Kool

 

Short, but sweet. This gets better by leaps and bounds!
The abbreviated trunk really adds to the organic over all look.
So, the tail lights date it to 1953, at least. If I had to guess, would '54-ish Caddy headlights to be a good bet?

 

Ahhh, but you'd lose! they would look good, but even though I'm using a 53 lense, you can't really tell what it is, could be any round lense. I really like the old style frenched headlights, a ring around the edge of the retainer, with a smooth transition to the body, nothing fancy, no trim. And not as easy as it seems to do them that way!

 

Just found this thread, love it. Dig the High School Confidential look. Yeah, please post more custom stuff, looks awesome

 

Wow, been a long time since I've seen something like this. Subscribed.

 

The dash is another area that I wanted to highlight. Always loved the 48 Caddy instrument cluster, but the dash itself was kind of boring. I wanted the jukebox look of the cluster, but with more interest, and chrome on the rest of the dash, as well. So a 53 Buick gave up it's dash to the project. Lots of narrowing, and reshaping of the sides to fit the Chevy body. I also made it it removable, as the Chevy dash was welded in place. The speaker cover/control panel will be hinged, with any modern eyesores (AC controls, air ride, radio, etc.) hiding behind it. W ill be painted Candy Apple Red.

 

You are building my dream car.....had mine in '73...nowhere's near as
cool as yours....the single finger salute is meant in a good way, can't
find the other photo without it...DAMN NICE CAR !!!!

 

I'm actually relieved to hear this. My guess was based on your desire for a heavy look, and the earlier reference to the 'Fabian Continental'. Your coupe has an earlier feel, however, and by the mid-fifties, bumper guard tail lights would have seemed quite passe. I think everything "custom" changed in 1955 (in response to the new Detroit offerings), so 1953-54 would be right on the cusp.
I'm betting on this being a stellar build, and not likely to lose this time!

BTW, HAMB'er "Fabain" (note spelling) claimed earlier this year to be restoring the "FABAIN" (sic.) Continental. Any knowledge of this?

 

Now that is a Custom!!!

 

As far as I know, the Fabian Continental...a 48 Chevy, built by Les Cove, union, NJ, was found and being restored by a Jersey guy, big street rodder, who owns Wayne's Auto Body. Coming along VERY slowly, if at all. Anthony White would know what's going on with it. Talked to Ray Soff last week, and he was under the impression it may not get done.
Thanks guys...let's keep more custom threads going here! Where's JerseyMike??????

 

Since Mo mentioned headlights!
I want an early version of a custom, so I did what the Barris boys did quite often, just a simple "french" on the headlights. But the work is not so simple. I bent a 5/16" piece of tubing around the headlight retainer. Then to get the distance away from the mounting point of the stock lights, where there will be the most natural transition of the fender panels to the headlight edge, I moved the light in and out until I got it right, and took a measurement. I believe it was around 1 1/4". Took some sheet metal, 2" wide and bent it in a brake at 1 1/4 and 3/4" each side of the 90*. Then into the shrinker to make a circular mount for the headlight bucket flange. Easier to see in pics, than describe! Tack weld the circular mount to the fender and see if it still places the headlight in the right location. If so, weld it up, and weld 1/4" bolts to the backsides to mount the bucket from inside the mount.
Then make some patterns and cut out some sheet to make the transitions from the fender, to the edge of the 5/16" tube. Not easy, as the curvature changes quite a lot around the headlight. I also eliminated the slight body peak at the side of the fender as it leads into the headlight. Without the chrome bezel, it didn't make sense for it to be there.
Once it was welded, I used it to teach my GF's grandson, Austin, how to do body solder (lead) on it, including Vixen filing it to perfection. He did a bang-up job!
Oh...and on a french job like this, you cannot reach the headlight adjusting screws, so you have to mount them "backwards" on the bucket mount , and adjust them from behind the light.

 

Cool stuff Mark! Oh and my paint trials still have to wait for the paint to arrive LOL.

 

This next part really upset the apple kart! While looking at the all important side profile, I decided to lengthen the door extension to streamline the car a bit more. While a full extension to the rear fender was possible, that would do more than I wanted to. So first I bought up some Olds door extensions. While they looked pretty good, they did not fit the fender profile. So I had to cut and graft them to the Chevy fronts. Even better, as now it didn't look just like I added an Olds ext. But I still wasn't satisfied. The trailing end looked too "chopped off" ending at a 90* drop. I did some playing around (seem to have lost the pics) with tape and cardboard, and decided that angling the trailing end made it look MUCH better. Replicated the angle of the B pillar, so it ties into the design better. So I fabbed a piece to do just that!
The problem was, since I did that, I thought the rear quarters now had that "chopped off" look now, and needed to be angled back and extended a bit more! That's another post!

 

Suddenly, Bailon's "Miss Elegance" springs to mind. You've got me on the edge of my seat.
And good on you, for passing on your skills to others. A gift worth more than gold!

 

subscribed.. Love the inline 6. My truck started with a 235, then a rebuilt 261. Now switching to over to 327 smallblock.

 

Wow, not sure how I missed this earlier.

 

Go man go, great vision, way to go with the inline, will sound sweet.

 

great job!!! keep posting up. Hopefully I will see this car on the road in jersey one day soon.

 

Love what your doing as it is improving on an already nice design. Sometimes with a custom the changes don't seem to blend into the overall look.

 

This is fricken awesome.
Keep up the good work and please keep posting the updates.

 

Yeah, custom threads seem to drop off the pages pretty quickly! That's why I was a bit hesitant in the beginning to go through all this work documenting my build here. But I'm happy to see all this interest, finally!
Thanks to all who replied and are watching!

 

Giving me some inspiration to work on mine.

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Very cool Mark. Love the little details like the fender extensions matching the B Pillar. Lots of work but worth it.


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Super kool....can't wait to see more !

 

Now this we did quite some time after modifying the door extensions, as we had to have time to recover!
Actually, since I changed the shape and size of the door extensions, I had to do the same with the rocker extensions that fit under them. I tried to use the stockers, but between rot, and way too much modification, I would up doing them from scratch. I can't find pics of that process, but in short, I made patterns, made flat top and bottom panels of the correct shape, rolled beads in them for strength, and them made the actual skin. I bent a long piece of sheet into a "U" shape, then used the shrinker-stretcher to curve it into the form I wanted, matching the door ext. shape. Then plug welded it to the top and bottom plates. I'll have to find some pics of the finished product..I also did matching plates for the bottom of the door extensions, as well as putting in a tubular support for the front of it, similar to what's there originally.
But now we need to match the door extension's angle on the rear fenders. Since I'm always trying to learn new things, I decided to make and work off a "buck". So I made the wood form, out of plywood and tabs of sheet metal to hold it together. This was done to both get the shape right, and to build a second, matching one for the other side.
Hammer metal blanks on a sandbag was a start, then into the shrinker for more shape. That wasn't working quite as quickly as desired, so I used the tucking technique to make the shrinks faster, and deeper into the panels. I made a tool from 2 pointed end pry bars, and used to make the tucks. Then hammered the tucks flat, thereby shrinking the edges of the metal sheet. That worked much better. Then into the Wheel for smoothing.
I made both sides separately, then did a center section, that needed much less shaping, mostly shrinking on the edges, and constantly checked them up against the buck. When the shapes were right, I fit them up to the car. Some final 'tuning up' to get the edges to match, then tack and weld! Bit of filler, and check it with the bumper in place. The cut out in the bumper ends had to be be cut deeper, but fit was good. The only thing I had to do next, was to revamp the splash pan to fit the extended (even more than last time!) fenders!

 

can't believe this isn't getting more interest.

 

HAHA you must be new customs have kind of become the ugly stepchild on the HAMB.

Great work Mark. Do you use the big square hammer for gathering the tucks?

 

Found one shot of the rocker extension.

Yes, I can't remember where I got it...Tinman or Dagger tools, or Covell, but it is a special plastic for hammering tucks, as it grips the metal and doesn't let it slide away as much as a regular hammer as you hit it. And can't accidentally stretch it. Seems to work pretty well.

 

Looks like Tinman thanks! I have always had trouble getting tucks trapped with any sort of consistency I might have to try one out.