Projects 53 Chevy Bel Air mild custom daily driver

It's about time.. Looking like a great daily driver now.

 

Look even better once I paint the louvered hood and put it on

 

Actually got motivated to actually scrub the car down instead of just rinse. Also I think I'll end up going nv3500 in this one too. Any proper car needs three pedals. Plus with i-70 so close it'd mean I could use the car more. After I acquire the nv3500 for the 54 I'll hunt another for this 53

 

Started doing more thinking on my roof paint. It really needs gone over again. And plan was to scuff it and clear coat when done so I can really buff it out. I priced the bc/cc equivalent of the SS I've been using. Turns out it's half the price. So I may just go ahead and start prepping for basecoat after the single stage I did Saturday finishes gassing. And even if I get trash in it I can wet sand it out easily before clear. And honestly I already have enamel clear I could use if I really wanted. So I'll have the gleaming roof I wanted lol

 

Good job getting yours about wrapped up for this edition. Are you taking it to Des Moines in July? Early 50s Chevys look good in all red. Of course I might be a little biased in my opinion. But the tint has to be just right to pull it off. When I get around to repainting mine, it will go back to the same color it is presently. But keep going as I'm taking notes.

 

It'll be a good bit before it gets any serious highway use. So likely won't leave the county till this fall. And in person this red would almost look like a street rod red painted as a monotone. But it contrasts nicely against the Saab true black I used. If it were a bit darker it'd work by itself


Back to longer drives with this thing. On top of still needing to get it legal I still need to put rear brakes and four fresh tires on it. And do at least a decent eyeball alignment. Drove great at 45 mph but that's the fastest I've had it.....was also fast enough to check my speedometer calibration with GPS. Proud to say my guestimations with tire size and gear ratios and mix matching speedo drive gears was really close. Less than one mph off. Tagging it normally wouldn't be a big deal but it has a vintage handwritten Arkansas title. Meaning I'll need to tag it in Arkansas as many states aren't familiar with them. Luckily I don't have to get an inspection or anything there to tag it so I can take one of our more road tested vehicles. My goal is to stick it in the car show at burgfest here this fall. Literally just down the road from me.

Do you know what kind of paint your car was painted with?

 

Decided to go ahead and respray the roof. Thin spot in the middle of the rear kept bugging me. Originally was going to go back with base coat clear coat but the basecoat would have ended up sitting outside a couple weeks without clear. So I just bought more single stage. Went over the whole roof with 320 on a long block before hitting with 500 on a da. Roof is stupid smooth now lol. Still some slight waves in the panel but it's good enough for my purposes. Going to give it a couple hours to see if the promised rain happens. If not I'll spray it this evening. If it does I'll just spray tomorrow. After this it'll be Hood swap and paint, carpet, then lakes pipes.

 

Man really a great make over these last couple months. Good meeting you the other day

 

My wife is cracking up at the idea of me paying you to repeatedly stab her lol. But yeah she really liked your shop

 

It is a niche profession lmao

 

Yeah now that I think about it you're the first here to actually meet her. Fastcar1953 almost did but he ended up just coming to my shop instead of meeting up after I got off work

 

Im betting the people that saw me working on it with limited hand tools and rattle cans a few years ago next to a trailer house in Arkansas wouldn't believe it's the same car roflmao

 

Gotta start somewhere

 

And round two of paint on roof lol. May still scuff and clear in a few weeks for extra shine

 

Slick!

 

Wasn't sure I was going to make the rain window lol. But it's been on long enough according to the sheet on the paint that if it started raining right now it won't hurt it. And if it does hurt it since I bought it on my business account I can put in a work order and have O'Reilly pay me to repaint my roof lol

 

Appears I'll be doing a work order. Stuff is supposed to be tack free dry within an hour. Not only is it a lil tacky 16 hours later very little is shiny. I'm thinking I got a bad can of activater

 

Ugh that’s aggravating

 

Well they already refunded my activater even though can was empty. And they put in a work order. Basically I'll get materials covered along with a couple hundred for labor. Thinking I'll try to polish this out or just scuff and clear coat

 

And the white spots are actually shiny red spots lol

 

So I tried to polish a section to see if it was a viable option. Nope. Just stained the paint a bit. I'll let it gas a few days before I hit with a scotch Brite to see if I can get it uniform. If I can I'll try to clear coat it next weekend. I'll end up with a better shine that way anyway

 

Since I'm reaching a point where there'll be little dust I decided to go ahead and de ugly the engine bay a bit. Sprayed it out while running and pulled the original vacuum wiper motor before first pic. Scuffed the bag and rattled black over the not black or faded areas. Also went ahead and installed the new heater blower motor. Threw some black on the radiator to de ugly it a bit too. Had intended to do that before I stall but didn't get to it

 

Little bit every day makes for one heck of a month. That’s what I keep telling myself anyways.

 

Also reminds you of what you still need lol. Like a wiper motor lol

 

On a side note after pulling the vacuum motor I turned the shaft for the wipers. Wiper transmission seems in good shape

 

Originally carpet was going to be my next semi big purchase. But one thing that moving the car around a lot for paint has constantly reminded me of is how close the current exhaust is to the ground now that I lowered the rear. And lakes pipes like id eventually planned would gain me a couple inches of ground clearance on top of solving some routing quirks. And in a couple days I'll have a $40 discount racked up. So lakes pipes will be next. I'll also get a pair of 2" motorcycle baffles to tone exhaust down a bit. THEN on to carpet lol. Probably be able to sell the current exhaust with cherry bombs to offset cost a bit. Not that lakes pipes are expensive but I honestly don't know what else I'd run the current exhaust on and it's pretty much new. But yeah I figured I'd repost this pic as it gives a good idea of how close the exhaust sits

 

https://www.amazon.com/Amavoler-Mot...aadd57f9258a3cb3a16db585fe64bc1d&gad_source=1

Think I'll order those with some baffle wrap material to tone it down with the future lakes pipes. Cheapest I've found so far

 

And with as short as they are I think I mount them in the pipes going from manifold to lakes pipes. And should it still be too loud I can always mount a second set directly in the lakes pipes.

 

Started cleaning out the accumulation of stuff in the front seat and front floor boards from the last year or so (and made good progress).....which kinda put me on tomorrows project. Any one who's seen interior shots involving my dash or similar has seen all the wiring hanging down. Believe it or not the entire car got a brand new painless harness a couple months after I bought it in 2020(didn't buy from painless....got it second hand nib) headlight to taillight. And I had pretty much everything routed nicely when I installed it. Problem was later projects (like brake pedal assembly mounting)required pulling it down to work on stuff. First few projects like that I was good about carefully putting it back. But then I got to where I got in the habit of thinking (meh I'll put it back later) lol. So tomorrow I'm going to reroute and secure the dash harness. Likely run the wires for my passenger rear speaker and mount said speaker. Also have a better dash speaker I'll likely throw in. Current dash speaker is a beat up kicker 6x9 I bought from an Amazon return outlet store in 2012 and beat on in my Monte Carlo for a couple years till I got a nice set of infinity reference speakers lol. But I have a new pioneer 6x9 to go in the dash to replace it. Kinda thinking as carpet is in the very near future I should not only tie up some odds and ends but should also make room for said carpet roflmao

 

Doesn't look like much progress but you can actually see the floor boards lol. Also got most of the wiring tucked up out of the way. And got the new speaker in. Side note. Swapping a dash speaker on a 53/54 Chevy is a pain when you don't pull the grill lol. I still gotta dig up hold downs to secure the wires that run under the carpet. Going to try to get the other rear speaker installed and hooked up today too