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

Looking forward to some new progress...big or small !

 

Ya some progress be nice.. Just think about it!! if he spent the time that his been on the hamb the last few days looking at all our posts he have some progress done!! lol.. Just kidding..welcome back

 

Excellent thread, excellent work - Hard work will pay off when your cruising down the country side in your new ride. The thing, I admired the most about this thread is your sons and daughter supporting and helping on the build. This type of teamwork will pay off big time dividends with your kids all your life. Good luck on the journey to cruise-ville.

CRUISER

 

Thanks everyone for not giving up on me. It has been over a year since I have posted any meaningful progress on this now-five-year-old project. Probably going to end up as a 7 or 8 year project. Pretty pathetic when I see what gets done by you incredible HAMBers, but this is what you get when you tune in to this station.

Literally went from Oct. '10 to Oct. '11 with zero progress on the car. Sure, I went to bed many a night with the . . . Edit: OT engine stuff

 

Haha you are more of a glutten for punishment than I am !!

 

Edit: OT engine stuff. Which means we get to pull the engine and tranny yet again.

Speaking of pulling engines, we had to do just that in order to get access to weld the steering linkage support bearing bracket to the tophat. Only place I could figure to put it.

 

I'm not sure about that, Steve. You might want to go back and check the first few pages of your Rusty thread . . .

Speaking of steering linkage . . . one of the things I most enjoy about the whole build-a-car-from-the-ground-up deal is the process of figuring things out on your own. Sure, I search for as much help as I can, and there is plenty out there (big thanks to Kev and the Purple Pig tech articles). But you reach a point where you have to dive in, ready or not. And this is all new turf for me.

So, I was under the illusion that the steering linkage shaft could go straight from the column u-joint to the rack u-joint. Wrong! Not on this car. So we got a center u-joint and a support bearing and screwed up one shaft by ending up with a piece too short for the lower shaft. That's when I decided to get some oak dowell and mock it up (duh).

 

Sorry for the sideways pics. Of course, you can see that we got our ceramic coated headers . . . Edit

Billy wants the interior to be dark brown and white, so he wanted the column dark brown. I had a rattle can of hammered brown that I used for something, so we used that.

 

Here's the only pic I have of the finished linkage. Note the welded support bearing bracket on the tophat (look just below the engine mount).

 

Here's a build process pic for you. Drilling the allen screw seats in the steering shaft.

 

this thread is awesome! i just read the whole thing .......... and now it's 1am, damn need sleep. good night.

p.s. i feel your pain on the EFI wiring, makes your brain hurt

 

wow Brer, the car looks great! Nice progress!!!!

 

Very nice progress, things are looking great.....Jim

 

Gotta thank Tugmaster, Finnrodder, beachbum jim, seanbelushi, cowboy1, spasecadet, HotRod60F100, 29ToyA, RICKY~RICARDO, 66Newport, five-duece-chevy, Jigger, Cruiser, fbama, and
especially the Canadians koolkemp, aw1950, fitzee, Hackerbilt and
especially robleticia and oldman2 for hanging in there and worrying about me. And all you other hoodlums . . . this place is so cool.

Got the master cylinder/booster/pedal assembly hung on the firewall and then realized I forgot the gasket. That's the way my build progresses (like a glacier.)

 

Thanks, man. (Edit OT stuff) But you're right, the brain does hurt!

 

Also started installing the tranny shift cable. Glad I did not connect it to the tranny yet (must pull engine & tranny at least one more time)

 

Sometimes the progress does not involve the car directly. I got tired of looking through bins and drawers for the bag of whatever, so I did this:

 

Have managed to sandblast, rust encapsulate where necessary, and prime a few pieces (inner fenders, radiator core support, fender splash panels, etc.). Sandblasting sucks!

Oh, the life of a would-be car building suburban dad . . . the pop-up camper lived in the garage during the year we did nothing on the Chevy, but it is now back at the public storage yard (halleluja!)

 

I may have said this before, sorry if I did: another big difference between this build thread and most of the others here in Ryan's World (besides the obvious difference in skill and experience) is my insistence on showing all (or at least most) of the tedious steps involved. So many great build threads simply say "installed the gas tank and fuel system" and maybe there's a pic of the installed gas tank. There is an implied experience and understanding level that keeps the bar raised, and it is one of the many outstanding things about this place. My decision had the builder neophytes (like me) in mind. Them of us what ain't done it before need all the help we can get.

So, I all the more appreciate all y'all with immense skill and experience slogging through all the boring shit and hanging in there.

The Ford taillights and spears arrived a year or so ago (thank you glendale !!) God knows when I'll muster the gumption to tackle that task. Most of y'all would knock it out on a Saturday, but my bodywork skills (if I'm allowed to use that word) are entry level pathetic.

 

Got the rear doors out of the attic and removed the gravel guards and sandblasted aroung the holes for repair prep. Sandblasting sucks!!

 

Very cool and looking great.

 

You have made a lot of progress BrerHair.

I did the TPI wiring on my '71 Cutlass Convertible. It was not easy trying to integrate the Corvette Dash and Engine Harness with the Cutlass body harness. I too gave up and quit for six months until my daughter said she wanted to leave her wedding in the Cutlass with the top down.

Took me several weeks just to figure out where I left off. If I did it again I would buy a harness.

 

This is awesome, just came across it. I'm doing the same with my kiddos. My son has a 53 chevy 210 2door, he's 11, and my daughter,shes 10, has a 1960 Ford F100.I really love working with them, not sure who has learned more. There mechanical, and body work skills have grown, for me my patience, and the ability to stand back..

 

Looking good my friend, looking good.....Jim

 

Thanks for this great thread! Hats off to you, both for tackling something this rough, and for doing it with your son. I wish my dad were still around to share this stuff with. As a dad to girls @ 5 and 8, I'm trying to figure out how I can get them infected with this bug. Please keep the posts comin' I'm subscribed!

 

Great progress,its good to see that you are working your project again!

 

Its great to see you making progress again. Keep up the good work. Jim

 

Thanks Skip. You are an inspiration.

Well, that will get you motivated! Stay tuned, I may be PM'ing you some questions down the road.

At that young age? Wow, very impressive! Good job.

Thanks Jim, appreciate the support.

Good luck with that, none of my girls were ever the least interested. Thanks.

Thanks, you have been another inspiration. Watching you Scandanavians work can put a Southern boy to shame (y'all and the Canadians!)

Thanks Jim.

 

whewww... i thought we lost ya to a "got in over my head" project and gave it up...
glad to see you back...

 

Hey old friend! I'm afraid y'all are stuck with me to the bitter end. Might (probably) be 2 or 3 more years, but I'm committed. And you know the primary motivation? In all honesty, it is the fact that I enjoy the hell out of it. It really is my definition of fun. Fun to learn more about the mechanics, fun to learn some new skills, fun to share the dream with Billy, fun to make a messy noise and get dirty, fun to share it all with fine upstanding folks like you . . . it's all fun except the goddamn sandblasting. That is not fun. Sandblasting Sucks!