Skill Center ’54 Chevy Build

I see a little NASCAR influence in your work. (The a-arm plate and the strut type front end) Very clean.

Good luck, MIZ

 

We have spent a lot of time making the cage a bolt-in application. The door bar assembly that you see has machined plugs in the end of fitted tubes with sleeves welded through the main bars so they can be bolted with 1/2-inch shoulder bolts.

 

Two 1/2-inch shoulder bolts are bolted through the factory cross-member tying the roll bar into the structure of the car.

 

To get additional clearance for the drive shaft and the automatic transmission we opened the tunnel to 8” wide. One of the students is using a clamped flat bar to grind the edge of the tunnel perfectly straight.

 

The tunnel was widened and brought back at a consistent angle for auto transmission clearance

 

awesome build! i am running 245/45/17 all around on my 54 with no issues, and i could do a 275/40 all around on the back if cragar made soft 8's with more than standard backspacings.

i too took out the firewall ribs/mounts completely. allows for plenty of header room and i can unbolt the starter and pull it out the top to change it.

 

[We had to adhere to some wants of the car owner:
1. He wanted to be able to take the body off the chassis.
2. He wanted extra wide tubs so if he ever wanted wider skins they would fit.
3. He also wanted a rear seat.

With this in mind we took the ring roller and .049 1 1/4” tube and created inner fender reinforcements connected side to side they bolted to the frame.

 

The rear seat pan attached at the floor and at the speaker panel fitted between the fender rings.

 

The bracing that is welded in to the seat is 1” x 1” x .049 and the ‘X’ bracing is ½” x 1” x .049 tube reinforcements. A trunk panel between the fuel cell and rear firewall sets between wheel-well rings, and is welded to the .049 x 1 ¼” tubing rings.

 

We had a couple of extra framing pictures in another group. This will give a little bit more detail to were we started. The two aluminum strips that you see are put in place as a template for the seat pan, and the frame is then fitted to the templates.

 

A good friend of mine told me of a horror story where a lowered ’53 had a flat with a set of Corvette wheels on it. On I-40 they had to literally drop the rear end to change the tire so we decided to open the wheel wells upward 2”.

First using the ziz wheel the student cut the qtr. out, by cutting on the edge of the wheel opening we cut out the old inner fender.

 

You can see all of the factory inner panels fell out.

 

The students then measured and broke a piece of 18 gauge 3/4 x 1/2 then began to shrink and stretch until it fill the opening perfectly.

 

Cleco’s were used to line up the edge as the fitting process was continued.

 

Cleco’s were used to line up the edge as the fitting process was continued.