Projects 53 Chevy Bel Air mild custom daily driver

Just to show you guys that it does actually move I took these after I moved it to the house to give it a quick rinse. Still too cold for a wash lol

 

So here's the cam I've been eyeballing. Nearly everything they say about it in the listing fits my needs and uses. I even have a set of 1964 461s I've been planning on redoing and installing. And I've debated a roller cam swap.....these use off the shelf vortec pushrods. Not looking for a drag strip terror but would love more than 200 hp lol

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Clay...-282-296-Small-Block-Chevy-327-350,80448.html

 

That's a pretty big cam for the street. I would look for something with 110 to112 lobe separation , lift around 500 or less.
That one is going to be a dog until about 2800 rpm.

 

Out of curiosity can I use another brand roller cam with the clay smith roller lifters? That'd open up my cam options and I can get the lifter set separately.

 

How about this one. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/hrs-cl110235-12/make/chevrolet More streetable.

 

Looks great!!!

 

Wonder what the lifter height is? Or will I have to measure for pushrods?

 

Would be cool to rock a reproduction Howard's cams sticker on the car

 

What will a less obvious piece. I have a modern stereo in the car but didn't want to cut the dash or mount it in the glove box. So I put it under the driver seat. And after I polish up this scrap piece of stainless I'll mount it under the pedals so I can aim the remote at it to adjust volume or change stations

 

Great work man!

 

And about as far as I'm going to polish it

 

Pretty much decided to go ahead and start finishing nosing and decking the car. Hood I had already been planning on properly finishing shaving the hood bird and then weld the hood seam an peaking the hood.

 

And on decking. Right now the only way I'd have access to a welder is if I took the trunk lid off and hauled it to work lol. So decided to give panel bond a go on it(the stuff they use to glue semis together). Should hold nicely as I've used it on modern car poly bumper repair where a small chunk was missing up to glueing two damaged poly bumpers together to make one good one with really nice results. Only downside is it takes hours to dry enough to sand. So won't be able to sand it till tomorrow. But tomorrow I'll send and smear some mud on and should look pretty good. I won't nose the car till I take it back to work as the hood has other stuff that needs welded like the hood seam. While the panel bond would work for that it'd take like $200 worth to do it all lol. So I'll just nose it with the welder

 

I use to dimple the holes and use fiberglass strands mixed with bondo. Worked pretty good for cheap. Another one is liquid steel. Mix it up and fill hole.

 

The holes clog very well with lead! with a good preparation..

 

I can barely weld let alone use lead . That said were some of the old timers I was friends with as a kid still alive id try to hit them up for help with leading. Knowing most of them they'd just do it themselves and have me watch while wearing a mask lol

 

I had thought about dimpling but after running a sand block over the area I found that whole spot is actually slightly low. Something likely bumped the emblem at some point while it sat in various cow pastures for nearly 50 years lol

 

So I'm a day behind but yesterday was Valentine's Day and seeing as I have a top heavy wife who periodically dresses up in pinup attire (her getup last night a cross between Betty Page and Sandy from grease lol) and lets me touch her butt I took her out instead of sanding the trunk. Anyway I'm happy how it's coming out. Tapped on the panel bond to make sure it was solidly attached (it was) and threw some rattle can on to cover the bare metal till I do a skim coat of filler this weekend. Trunk lock is staying lol

 

So as anyone who has paid attention can tell I've been trying to keep the budget down as low as possible on this. And I've been putting off new door glass until I got some sort of weather stripping to keep the new glass from rattling around and breaking. Finally got around to trimming down and trying some window weather stripping from a newer Ford that seemed close. At one point when I was fitting it I thought my window regulator stripped for a minute. Turns out the bottom edge of the glass completely broke off finally lol. Luckily the weather stripping I was trying seems like it will work. So looks like a driver window will move higher up on priority list lol. I'll get to the other three after I get three more pieces of the weather stripping...which won't be hard considering every f series 87-96 had it lol

 

And the start of a proper transmission cross member. Currently have an 1/8" plate bolted to the transmission that then bolts to the original 53 powerglide mount. Kind of hokey and I wanted to change the mounting before heavy use. Plus the tail shaft sits a little high. Found a piece of scrap 1/4" plate I thought would do nicely so using a press and a heavy piece of angle iron I put some roughly 60° bends in it after measuring the tail shaft of a core th250 case we have at the shop. Unsure if I'll weld the plate in solid or if I'll set it up with square stock to unbolt and be removable. Leaning towards the latter. And this is wide enough to make up the offset of the original mount and the th350 mount possibly wide enough to add th400 or 2004r mount holes but I kinda doubt it. I'll take some measurements the next couple days to figure out how big id need the square stock to be for the bolt in option

 

And.....what trunk emblem? Lol. Fixed a few nearby dings while in there. I'll lightly sand the rest of the trunk looking for dings. And when it gets actually warm I'll strip all the rattle can off and coat with several thick layers of primer and wet sand before hitting with a nice coat of single stage nason monochromatic true black. I just rattle canned over the filler to keep water out of it

 

And looks like new door windows moved up on the list of priorities lol. Car is still somewhat sealed but this makes two windows I can't roll down till I get new glass.....the other one is the important driver front. I found the full side glass set online including wing glass for around $300 shipped so not too bad

 

And just working my way around filling small dings with glazing putty. While I have no delusions of showcar with this 53 I'll be painting most of it with a gloss true black. So while a slight wave won't bug me too much I don't want blatant dents after paint. One thing I dread is sanding off all the rattle can when it comes time for primer. Should have a better front bumper and a second idler arm to rebuild this coming week. And may also have a second custom in the works is thing play out right

 

And started sanding the roof so I could start mudding it to block out the many roof ripples. Got filler on about half the roof before running out of hardener. Gotta sand rear part of roof more first anyway

 

Checked the forecast and it's supposed to be really nice....and warm.....this weekend. So now my goal is to have the roof blocked and primed Friday so I can have it in paint by Saturday night. I'll really have to rush to do it with limited after work hours with light but I should be able to do it. Tonight I got mud on another quarter of the roof and started blocking the stuff from yesterday

 

And a special delivery from a fellow hamb'er. Something I really wanted (54 Chevy bumper with usable chrome) and something I really needed(idler arm to rebuild). Had thought about splicing splash pans and running a 54 bumper with my 53 grill.....of course now that I'm planning on also doing a 54 I may just use the center piece with my current ends .....ill test fit entire bumper to see if I like the look. As for the idler arm I'd initially planned on rebuilding it even though it was fairly tight.....after greasing it ended up being tighter than an Amish prom date so I think it'll go in the car as is. Will be nice to drive the car without having to bounce the steering wheel back and forth to keep the car straight

 

Got a buddy here in lees summit that will cut you flat glass, does a ton of the local cars if you don’t want to gamble on something in the mail

 

Oh, and while it’s out if you happen to have access to a t5, 700r4 etc you could drill that trans plate for any combo you might want later instead of cussing at it laying on your back with a drill down the road. Looks like there plenty of room for a few patterns

 

Oh yeah. Part of why I kept the plate so wide when I bent it. I should be able to turn it around for further back reach if I do it right

 

Id be interested. Would he need my old glass for a pattern or does he likely have templates for a four door 53/54 Chevy? It's getting to weather where I start taking every third or fourth Friday off to go to lees summit