Hey guys and gals, I havent been on the board in quite awhile. The chev is sitting out in the snowbank at the moment, waiting for spring to sprung. I've still got a pile of parts to install, wiring to run and hook up, plumbing for the engine and suspension to sort out. I will get back to work on her as soon as the weather gets better, its driveway build from here on out.
Well boys and girls, heres a lil update on project 54. I've wrapped up most of the trunk, welded up the seam in the hood, then winter set in. So heres a few pics to enjoy.
I was going to get the lead out and do a cool sharp peaked seam, but after looking at it long and hard, I think the lines of the car dont need much help. So I'm going to leave the lead in the toolbox and just smooth it out a bit. I filled the dimples in the emblem area, so I will just smooth out the rest of the car.
Looking good, makes me feel like a shmuck for neglecting my 50. Life and work just seems to keep taking her limelight. Oh well. Good luck on finishing her up.
Thanks for all the compliments, much appreciated. I just got a whole mess of door parts and glass, so if the weather clears up, Im going to put them together. I could still use a passenger side door glass if anyone has one they wanna part with.
Well I've been pretty lazy this summer, long days leading into night at work is eating all my ambition to work on the 54. But I mustered up some and did get the hood mounted up today. I had to chase the threads in the hinge holes, managed to lose a new hood bolt, and even wrestled the springs on. So the hood goes up and down nice and smooth now, no more rake handle prop rod. I've been trying to track down a GM starter with the parallel bolts instead of the staggered pattern so I can hook up the wiring. Any hambers out there got a starter they will sell cheap?
More excitement from the kd ranch, I finally found the right starter. It's just the standard staggered bolt gm starter, but had a hard time figuring that out for some reason. That's due to lots of bad advice and wrong info, and not having one to test fit. So with that lil problem solved, I started hooking up the new wiring harness in hopes of lighting the fires in this car this summer. I'm about 10% done with the wiring, I got rained out of the driveway. Got the starting circuits, ignition circuits, and about half of the front lighting circuits hooked up. I even managed to dump my terminal box off the fender and spent an hour picking up what my fat muffin hands could reach and sorting that back out. I'm about out of shrink tubing, so I gotta get another box of that. I also managed to lose on of the headlight sockets, hence the reason I only got half of the front wired. I think I can pick on up at the parts house though. Now for the bad news. My lovely wife has managed to hurt herself and now has acquired a couple of hernia. One is embilical, which is in the belly button, and the other is a possible internal, we are hoping to confirm that with a ct scan tomorrow. She will be having a surgery on Thursday, and I'm asking for all my fellow hambers to keep her in your prayers. I will keep ya'all informed on that, as well as the 54 as I get things figured out.
I've nearly wrapped up the underhood wiring, all the lights are wired, the engine and charging system is done, all that's left is the temp sending unit and the brake switch. Next is the rear lighting, it's the easiest to finish, then I will tackle the interior. If all goes right, throw in a bunch of ground straps and everything should work as it should. If the wiring works right, then I will get the radiator in and get the driveline shortened, bleed the brakes, and it should be ready to roll. My wife has surgery in the morning, so probably not much getting done tomorrow.
Ok, first things first. The wife's surgery went excellent, easy deal and all is well there. She's a bit loopy from all the happy juice they pumped into her, but doing great. I would like to thank all of my fellow hambers for their thoughts and prayers. While she was sleeping most of the day, I was able to slip out to the driveway and do some more wiring. Under the hood is totally done. I couldn't resist and just had to give the key a turn, and what do ya know, the lil omg orange 250 cranked over! Since there is no carb on it, it didn't start. But I did dump some fuel on the intake and gave it another crank, pop bang boom, do I'm guessing the ignition works too. The starter I got seems pretty tired, so I did a hillbilly rebuild on it with another starter. It still seems to be dragging, cranks pretty slow. I know my battery ground isn't near as good as it could be, and with the battery in the trunk, it's got 18' of cable to get to the starter. I'm thinking the slow cranking is a bad ground, as 90% of the starter is pretty fresh(I replaced everything but the nose cone and bendix solenoid). My ground cable from the battery is grounded to bare steel(c-notch) with a self tapping screw(I know, not the most ideal method) I'm planning on drilling out a hole and tapping a stud into it. I made ground straps for the engine out of 10ga wire, engine to frame on both sides, frame to inner fender, and inner fender to engine. Do you guys think I need some larger grounds or just a better main battery ground?
Not much to report today, wife's in a lot of pain and pretty cranky, lol. I did go visit one of my fellow junk collectors and scored 3 Rochester carbs. So I've got a carb on it now, and got 2 more to add when I can spring for the offy intake. Hopefully tomorrow will be productive finishing up wiring and tying up some of the loose ends.
Well the 54 drew its first breath since 1966 today! After sorting out a small cranking issue, a healthy squirt of gas down her throat and a press of the remote starter button, she sucked in a big breath and blew a giant cloud of fire and smoke out and actually idled for a minute. This is a huge milestone for this project after all the health problems with my baby girl and wife. I also picked up my freshly shortened driveline from the machine shop today too. Not much left to do, some wiring yet, plumbing of fuel and brake systems to finish, a few odds and ends on the air system to tie up, and finish the driveline tunnel. More pictures coming soon, not much to show ya' all doing wiring and plumbing.
Great progress! As far as the battery in the trunk. What size battery cables do you have? I would suggest 2.0 cable. If you have a pair of regular engine bay length cables, put the battery in the engine bay for fun and see if the cranking improves. If not, then its time to look at a new battery, new starter or new cables.
Hey monster, I solved the cranking problem. I must have had a bit of rust or something in the cylinders, a bit of 2 stroke oil cleared it right up. I used the speedway battery relocation kit, it's got big ass cables, do I think I'm good there. I would use an engine bay mounted battery, but I don't have a good battery tray to put it in the stock location.
I wouldn't mind seeing an update on this one if you've got time to do a little posting and really wondering how you like the 250 if your driving it already....
The Jalopy Journal
