Projects ACO Original - 1949 Chevy coupe

Story time!

I was looking for a project to start a build on. Wasn't exactly sure what I wanted but I knew I wanted something with 2 doors and pretty complete.

So with that in mind I started hunting.

Many craigslisting and Facebook hours later I saw this 1949 Chevy pop up...3 hours away, north.



Looked decent enough for me. Told the wife what I found and grabbed a uhaul trailer. We headed up around 5pm Saturday night.

I live, basically in Phoenix Arizona, where cold weather is basically nonexistent. It had been a chilly day that at around 57ish degrees. When we got to where the car was...32 degrees! I almost froze to death!

I meet the guy selling the car at this house, after some head scratching, we load up the car onto the trailer and off we go.




After a few hours on the road we were home. I unloaded the car the next morning.

Here's where the entire build will be taking place.

My driveway.



Also, while we were loading the car with the POs Tahoe, the tire slipped and nailed the trunk lid pretty good.



After a few hits with a hammer. Good as new! Sort of... You can still see the imprint of the tire.



Also saw this guy on the dash. Authentic?



That's it for now.

 

looks like will be Cool project - what are the plans? signature is not real

 

Hey thanks for the pic! Now I feel a lot better about redoing the dash.

I have a rough general idea of what I want to do. Air ride, white walls, maybe a chop. Redo interior.

Going to start by stripping it to bare metal and fixing any rust issues I find.

 

Haven't got anything done. Will be working on it this weekend, but managed to snap some more pics.

This is the 216 that's in it currently. Going to be pulling this out this weekend and it'll be on its way to a new owner.





Here's the awesome wiring done from who knows how many previous owners.
Check out the awesome patch panels and random blue paint.




Some shots of the interior which is mostly complete, makes me happy. Won't have to go digging for small parts to complete it. Going to fully redo it, standard white tuck n roll is the plan.

 

So I got to do a little bit of work over the weekend.

Never pulled a front clip before so figuring this out was a super fun time.

but, got it off and of course she comes out to take credit for it!


Here's the engine still in there. Should be going away pretty soon, already have a buyer lined up.



Here's the engine pulled out. Lots of clean up needed. I think I may go with the Jimenez bros mustang II front setup.



Once I got the front clip into my garage I couldn't help but mock it up.

 

nice! love the mocked up wheel in the fender, that should be ride height!!

 

Haha looks great to me! I am not too sure how low the Mustang II set up will get me but ideally it'd be able to cruise at this height.

 

Love those Chebbie Koops.

 

Just my worthless opinion, but I think the coupes look better not chopped.

 

I always wanted one and finally got a good driver one last spring. I drive the wheels off it.

 

I felt the same way until I saw a fellow hamb members chopped coupe thread. I can't recall his username but here's a photo of it. Sold me on the chop.

 

I must admit, I do like that. He was able to keep the proportions pretty tight.

 

Plan is to do my chop the same way. I'm still up in the air about it but we'll see. Lots of work to do till then.

 

Most people chop to much on these I think. This one is spot on.

 

Looks like a great start! I look forward to seeing this progress.

 

No decent updates. Ordered lots of parts and they've been trickling in.

Ordered up my air management stuff. Going to swap out the leader hoses for the black versions.


Also my floor pan came in.


Picked up a GOP rear end as well, came out of a guys '49 chevy coupe, what are the odds? lol.


Got the interior mostly stripped out. Apparently I only took a mid progress pic.



Removed the trim since I'll be shaving it all off. I like it much better.



So since I ordered new rockers, I decided to start prepping some of the metal to be cut and welded by getting rid of the paint. Let's just say this was an unpleasant surprise. The pics are in progression as I went along and what I discovered...








Got a little carried away as I wanted to see what else was hiding. I only went up as far as the body filler stopped showing.

This is what the lower quarters had.



That's solid metal underneath with almost 3/4 of an inch of filler. This guy was a damn sculptor.

That's it for updates. We're getting rained on pretty good and I need to rearrange my garage so I can pull it in to start welding in the floors this weekend.

 

Ho Lee Fuk! That's a shitload of filler! Please document the hell out of your floor pan install. My floors are completely toast and I'm not sure whether the 1 piece pan is the way to go or not. Waiting anxiously to see how you approach this.

 

A lot! That's all just in the lower 8" of the body. Really weird. Some of the filler is over perfectly good metal.

I will take a ton of pics. I'll be following an idea I saw on here or chevytalk.

Rough idea is weld my rockers and panel under the trunk in.
Brace the inside with my doors lined up.
Take the doors off and remove the body from the frame.
Roll the frame out and do all my air suspension work.
Put the floor on the frame so I know it lines up with the body mounts.
Cut the floor out of the body.
Roll the frame back under the body with the floor on it.
Then lower the body onto the frame/floor and make sure its all leveled up.

Works in my head lol, we'll see how it is in practice.

 

All my parts I ordered have arrived.

Now it's time to really get to work.

 

Wouldn't have bothered me anyway.

So off topic for the thread but I just gots to know, OG stands for Old Gangster or Old Gold or?????

Now back on topic looks like fun, hope to see it done to the max someday, soon hopefully I am running out of time on this planet.

 

OG stands for Original. ACO being my initials ha! Can't really claim to be an Old Gangster!

Thanks, oh it'll be done, I plan on having this running and driving down the road by March.

 

Another update.

I sold the wire wheels that were on the car to a local guy. One of the knock offs was seized on. That was an ordeal!

1 ruined adapter and a couple hours later of grinding and chiseling, the wheels were off.

The next day I went down to HVAP(Hidden Valley Auto Parts) to see if they had any stock wheels I could use.

Walked right in and they had this set just waiting. Tri-five 15" wheels. Awesome.


I got some shitty tires mounted at a llantera down the street. I now have some rollers and no more wire wheels!

 

I decided to do the panel under the trunk first.

Here's the before.



Nice and rusty and a bit beat up from some kind of home made continental kit.

Nothing left but to do it, so I cut it all out.



Then I did some mock up tacks of the panel. Still need to fully get it in there and do some finishing work.
Even though it's just tacked in there, it already looks a million times better! You can also see the 500lbs of rust/dirt that fell out as well.




I snapped this pic of my son Ollie, thought it was cool so had to share!



I then braced the body up a little to get it ready to be pulled off the frame.

 

Another weekend down.

I started by removing all the glass, with the rear window first.



All the glass survived except the drivers side of the windshield. Good thing I'm swapping to a 1 piece!



All the glass out, ready to pull the body off the frame.



This is what basically every body mount bolt looked like.



After a little bit of sketchiness, the body is off!




Then I rolled the frame out from underneath! Next is prepping the frame for the air ride and painting it.




Spent all weekend on this and now seeing it in picture form makes it seem like I didn't do much. Ha!

 

Keep it up!

 

Thanks man! Want to do my trunk like yours? Haha!

 

You have done a lot of hard work....

 

After looking at yours I can go back to kicking myself for selling mine a few years ago.
Never had the "remorse" this long. Keep at it, I'll follow along.

 

Haven't updated this in a bit. Unfortunately nothing really to update.

I did get the frame stripped down, and the front suspension off and stripped.

No pictures of the front set up on the engine stand and stripped.

I'll be getting the frame and front suspension pieces sandblasted this upcoming weekend.

Some big stuff is happening and I'll be able to devote more time to the project so stay tuned!

 

Got the frame blasted. Man what a mess! Still haven't finished cleaning that up.


Sprayed some primer on the frame.


Cut the front spring pockets for bag clearance. Will get pics of that tomorrow when I finish it.