Customs 57 Chevy Budget 4 door build

This makes me feel like i got a better deal than i realized. same exact car, with a little less rust.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1957-Chevro...ash=item361f4005a8:g:fMIAAOSwR5VZliQ~&vxp=mtr

 

Hey man, digging the thread and the car so far. I'm a fairly young guy (20) also waist deep in a trifive build with my 56. These older guys know their stuff. I went the whole route of tearing everything apart at once, pulling the engine and trans, whole front clip, and suspension, and that was over a year and a half ago. I made the deal to trade my 54 Chevy for my current 56 on August 1st, 2015, so two years and a few weeks. When I got the 56 it had a junkyard fresh 350 from a 70s truck and boy did it run like dog sh!t. The quadrajet had a bad accelerator pump, the 3 speed hurst would get hung up on the crossover between Reverse/First and Second/Third, but the number one thing was that it ran and I had it licensed and drove it. Then I did the one thing I regret and that was tearing it apart with the grand idea to build a better motor out of the 350 block. I had good double hump heads along with other good top end components for the 350 and could have gotten away with the bottom end to make a decent driver quality engine. Instead I disassembled it down to the bare block, which is still its current condition. However now I have a different engine and am going that route. Basically what I'm saying is do not do what I did. It takes a lot of fun out of the car when you cant use it on days with nice weather or cruise events, so keep it a running project (once you get the 235 running.) It will pay off big time to have all the necessary parts to complete the swap before you start the swap. So, in the meantime while you're going to college, just browse around on craigslist for some parts and slowly collect what you need. I may even have some stuff you could use such as motor mounts or a bellhousing. You're about an hour and a half south of me, say which school are you attending?

 

I'm at SIU. I'd love to see your car. Cool to see another young guy into tri fives instead of trucks or imports!

 

I am also a young tri-fiver @ 27. I have had my 57 Wagon for almost 5 years. I have to agree with the advice Smoothy and others have given you. I seen it first hand with a good friend of mine. He bought a nice running driving 67 Bel Air sedan: 355 Muncie four speed and twelve bolt posi. Paint and interior were a little rough, but it was a decent car. He completely disassembled it with dreams of nice paint, a blown big block, and nice interior. It has been 8 years and the car is still not back together and he still has a long way to go. He gets so overwhelmed he won't do anything for a year or more. I have completed four cars in the time his has been apart. I look forward to future progress on your project, Good Luck.

 

SIU E or C? Have a lot of friends currently attending both, but most are at the E. I'll be spending some time there sooner or later for some "activities." You'd fit in good among my friends and I. My cousin drives a 58 Biscayne 2 door and we just about have my friends 66 T-Bird on the road. My car is my avatar photo.......although it was taken in about 1974, it still looks the same minus the killer paint.

 

Great car you got there. I had a 57 four door in high school. Learned a lot from that thing. And yes, wish I still had it.
Keep us posted........................

 

I'm at the fun one, the C.

 

This is what I got for my car. It never hurts to have a Summit account either.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-G2973

 

You out in the garage Pineapple? Got that engine running yet?

Keep us updated on progress this weekend!

 

Just snapped the stud off the solenoid. Damnit


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Can someone explain, in detail how i can bypass the starter and just connect the battery to the coil? Dumb it down for me. I have a set up jumper cables i can use for it but tell me what connects where. I wanna at least do something today


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Wire from the battery direct to the + side of the coil. Take a pic of the stud you snapped off and post it.

 

What do i do with neg side? Just connect it to the terminal?



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The negative side of the coil goes directly to the distributor. Look at this pic. Green wire hooks to the battery and goes to the + side of the coil. Orange goes from - side of the coil to the distributor. No other wires needed. This is how I had it hooked up with the engine running. I just hadn't hooked the green wire to the battery yet.

 

Focus on the new coil, not the old one in this pic.

 

Took a break from it for a while so i don't get too pissed off and lose interest. A buddy and i went over to his uncle's and checked out some cars he had, he was building a flathead model a, and he had an all original citrus green 70 camaro he's had since new no rust or anything so that was neat to see. I'll get something done yet today, just not sure what yet


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Welcome to the world of old iron.Seems like everything breaks at one time or another.Been there,done that too.Many times.Just take it slow and easy and you will get there.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

Another pretty much wasted weekend, but i'll be back home the whole weekend next weekend instead of just Sunday like this weekend. I didn't get a picture of the solenoid, but the stud that i broke off is loose in the solenoid anyway, so for $20 i'm going to get a solenoid shipped home so i have it next weekend. not worth the headache to mess with the old one in my opinion. I thought a lot about my plans for the car this weekend when i was at my friend's uncle's house, i'm definitely going to make it an early 60s mild custom. In the process of finding a 327 for it and i'm going to try to get the 3 speed overdrive trans from the truck this weekend along with the v8 bell housing. going to need a set of reverse chrome steelies. i decided i'll be painting the car as well once it's mechanically well. some sort of metal flake, probably green or copper with a white/silver/ivory top. That's all for me this week, It's rush week and I'm trying to join a fraternity, so i'll be pretty busy until the weekend but i did order a couple more things from ecklers. stay tuned.

 

I don't know what parts stores you have in your area, but you shouldn't need to go to Eckelers for every lil' thing to get it running. Make up a phone list of local stores and their hours - let your fingers do the walking LOCALLY. There are very few mechanial or electrical parts that can't be had off the shelf or available the same or next day. I've had my 235 '57 for 15 years, and 95% of what I needed was had locally. I could walk into a store with the old part and get EXACTLY what I needed when needed, without paying extra for shipping, and waiting for delivery.

It's OK to dream, but your FIRST priority should be making MONEY - getting the skills you need to make a lot of it - this is a TOUGH hobby to be in on a tight budget. Parts are expensive, and the list NEVER ends... then there is shop labor, for the work that you don't have the time or skills to do yourself.

Your next priority should be to get the car to RUN AND STOP. In your case, you NEED a good mentor to show you the how and why things work, help you cut to the chase. Learning shit THE HARD WAY gets old and fustrating. A graybeard can show you a ton of shortcuts, keep you from making expensive mistakes AND help you spend your dough in the right places. You need to learn to know WHAT your looking at - can it be rebuilt or repaired, or replaced with a used part with some life still in it. Spend as little as you can get away with, as you learn - keep the car CHEAP, FUN, and pretty close to stock for now, until you finish school and start making some REAL money. It's what I did over 40 years ago - on my '53 Chevy truck, a project at a time, as I worked part-time, went to school, and lived at home.

Buy any BOOKS yet? It ALL begins with reading THE BOOKS, as I've posted before!

 

Listen to what 6-banger is saying. You have many greybeards at your "free" disposal. We all want cars that go fast and a 327 will certainly do that in that car, but you need to be able to get that 235 running. It's a rock bottom basic power plant that will get you on down the road. If you will think about it, how are you going to have any success with an engine swap before getting the 235 running? Collecting parts for the swap is ok, but buying parts to get the 235 running is where it's at. I bought everything at O'Reillys to get the 235 running in my thread. You were watching along. You asked questions when you saw something you are going to need to do on your old car. That's all good stuff! No need to spend hard earned cash on shipping and being frustrated waiting on parts if you don't have to. Broken stud on the starter? What stud did you break? Solenoid coming in the mail. Did you check auto parts store? There will be many more broken parts before you take the first drive. If breaking things frustrates you, you may not be spending your time in the right hobby. Not trying to discourage you at all, but that's how this hobby is. You break a lot of things. Those aren't failures, it's part of the learning experience. If you break something and get pissed and walk off, you will be doing a LOT of stepping on your journey...just saying! Ask us questions, use your resources wisely, don't give up and keep on trying. Once you have 1 single success your adrenaline will take you for a ride! Go Pineapple go!

 

I would gat a can or two of liquid wrench! Spray it on every bolt you see. Have a beer. Then try to remove them after the beer. Old cars have rust in every bolt. The more rust the harder it is to NOT break it. If liquid wrench doesnt do the trick i get the flame wrench out (torch/propane/oxy-a) Never try to muscle a bolt off. Oh and i dont mean flame cut the old bolt out. I mean heat it up real hot to help loosen it.

 

I didn't buy a book, but i found a full 1957 chevy passenger car shop manual online with blown apart pictures of anything i could want. printed out about 25 pages of things that i know i'll need to reference. i even found a full wiring diagram for the entire car. I'm ready for the week to be over so i can get back at it!

 

Good move. The shop and assembly manuals are a must.

 

Local parts places are good to deal with, look for the oldest independent one around. Those guys know parts better than chain stores.

 

Unfortunately the only parts stores i know of near my house are either stores that went up in the past 10 yrs (autozone & oriely) and theres a napa in my hometown that's been around for a long time but it changed owners and the new people are hard to deal with. I'll look for an older one though


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I only have a couple of older ones, one is quite expensive but good in a pinch because they have odd stuff. I got soaked at NAPA early in my Ford build, charged me $100 to press on 2 axle bearings. I've bought 95% of my parts online since that. Advance Auto seems to be the best of the chain stores.

 

Buy or make you a remote starter switch like was said. I have 1 I made 20 yrs ago. Make you up some jumper wires with alligator clips on them, #12 gauge, long, and that way you can jumper from battery to coil. Plus you can use them a lot in testing. It's cheap and when your by yourself working anything you can do to free up a hand is good. Summit 2 5/8's gauge set is a nice set. If you can spare the money, I'd buy the 283, they are getting scarce and if you get the 6 running good and decide to swap it out, you can sell the 6 cyl. Plus if you get it driving with the 6, you will have time to pick up stuff for the swap and still have a cruiser. I have a older Sun tach, chrome ring and black case, think it's a Sun II tach. I'm not going to use it, send me a address and I'll donate it to the cause.

 

It's good to keep your eyes and ears open for parts that you know you might want in the future. Great deals need to be pounced on quickly as they tend to evaporate quickly.

But I certainly agree that you need to get the car running and driving . Driving it to car meets and other car gatherings is fun and will keep you motivated to keep working on it. The other car guys you meet at these events will appreciate the progress you are making and many will notice even very small changes. They will all have a hand in keeping you motivated and moving forward.

Mix yourself a pint of transmission oil and acetone 3:1 (3 parts transmission oil to 1 part acetone) and put it in an old empty spray bottle ( Windex or another cleaner), every time you find yourself working on the car spray this solution liberally on the part you are going to remove the NEXT TIME you can work on the car. That way the solution has some time to work, you'll be amazed at how easy the nuts will loosen.

If you want to keep buying on-line, RockAuto.com is a really good source for basic parts. Not only do they have wide access to an amazing supply of inventory; but you can select everything from an economy to a heavy duty version of any part. Also; if you cant find the part you need under your model\year\type you can search the other models and many times find the exact part that will work ( or even an improved part that will work). A little research on the web or here will tell you what parts from other cars will work on your vehicle.

Keep your spirits up and don't let us old timers lecturing eat at you too much. I was in your shoes once too. I know it's sometime hard to listen to all these know-it-alls.
But you know what I found out? A lot of them really do know it all and I learned a bunch then and still do now.

You're doing GREAT! We really want you to succeed and enjoy this "lifetime" hobby.

Dave

 

Yeah i'm still going to get it on the road with the 235, but i know that i'm going to eventually v8 swap it so i'm trying to be a cheap as possible with it unless it's a part or tool i can use on a small block. I just got offered a 57 vette 283 with 3 speed, complete carb to pan for $1000. If this was a 2 dr 150 like i want to build i'd be jumping on that. Trying to keep it a budget build though so i don't think the vette engine is the right thing for me


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They are all " corvette" engines! Don't fall down that rabbit hole!

What's on the project list for the long weekend?