Well I finally found a good place to work on my car and got busy last weekend tearing into it. I got the body bolts loose, took the fenders off (PO had welded part of them on), as well as the front bumper. This week i'm ready to lift the body off the frame if all goes well. I should be able to keep the body out of my way along the back wall and work on the frame in front. My plan is to remove all the suspension and wire brush and treat the rust on the framerails with POR-15. What do y'all think?
Keep at it! Pretty simple cars for tearing down and reassembling. Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
Sweet looking ride. The sooner you start the sooner you finish is always true with every project. Best of luck. Jimbo
Thanks everyone! My plan at the moment is to have a chevy inline 250 engine with a 700r4 trans and the rear will be swapped out with a 1983 S-10 4x4 rear axle and a chassis engineering rear axle kit. I already have all those parts waiting to be mocked up. I was going to put in a buick nailhead v8 in it but I will wait on that swap for a few years. I'm going to rebuild the factory front suspension and install the 70's chevy car brake upgrade on the stock spindles. I haven't figured out my booster yet but I will probably firewall mount it. I want to keep the body and paint the way it is and drive it like that for a couple years..... I like it alot but I'm on the fence about painting the car completely also. I have to buy all new glass and seals because some kids broke them all out before I found the car and I think I should paint the whole car before I install the glass so I don't have to remove and reinstall the glass again later and buy new seals again and potentially break my nice expensive glass. Is that a reasonable concern? I will need to buy new seals for the front and back glass again correct? If i was told that I could go ahead and put the glass in now and not worry about it then I would I just like the 20 year old custom faded paint and wish my car had glass in it when I bought it haha. Other things I plan on doing are a decent hidden stereo, mexican blanket interior(green maybe!), and 54 bubble taillights. Any thoughts?
Well I didn't get to lift the body off this weekend but I did acquire some stuff i'm going to need for my garage for free! A couple 4 foot lights and an 8 foot as well as some steel rods i'm going to bend into an S shape to hang stuff off the walls and out of my way like the hood. Not real interesting haha but I really want the lighting to improve in my work space, especially when I close the door because of the cold outside during the evenings.
Here is some more work space preparation photos. I hung some lights so i could close the door and see what i'm doing. A friend at work let me borrow his car dollys which will come in handy when i take the body off. Today I got a hold of my other friends welder setup haha. Friends help a lot!
Subscribed!! I have a 50 Chevy coupe I hope to start on soon. Will be following your thread for ideas! I am planning on pulling the front suspension off of mine and installing a fatman. Let me know if you need any original suspension parts to rebuild yours (If they will work that is).
Well I haven't pulled the body off just yet. Me and a buddy ended up getting some tools we didn't think we would get to use so now my plan has shifted. So instead of just pulling the body off and using POR-15 on my frame, I am going to sandblast it. A mutual friend in Austin let my buddy borrow his large shop size compressor and so we bought a sandblaster to use for both our projects. He has a 51 chevy 3600 truck and he is pretty much at the same point as me with teardown and we agreed that we would go in halves on a sandblaster setup since we both want to get rid of as much rust as possible while we are at it and do it right. I received my new floorpans that I need last week and I'm going to try to get those welded in over the next couple weekends. Also, I found that my driver's door leading edge was splitting open and I was tacking that up as well as looking at some holes in the rear below the back window that I will have to deal with. And pic of my rear floor pans before I fix them. What do you guys use for painting your frames? I could use a professional spray gun now with the larger compressor so I have more options...
I love those coupes. Good luck with it. I have a 250 and a th350 in my 48 Aero, really am thinking about an OD trans. Would like to know how that set-up works when you get it on the road.
POR15 over a fresh sandblasted frame is still a good choice, seals up the metal and will keep it from rusting. Just make sure you coat the POR15 with paint after (per the manufacturers instructions), it is not very UV stable.
Thanks belair! I went back and forth on the transmission decision but ultimately I want to be able to get decent gas mileage and keep the engine RPMs down on the highway. That also dictated what rear gear ratio to go with so I have the s10 axle with a 3.42 ratio. If I had chose a th-350 trans then I would have gotten a 3.08 rear axle. The transmission guy I'm using is great to talk to and a classic enthusiast so he has a sweet early 60's daily driver c10. The best part is he had a slightly damaged 700r4 core (undesireable thin case design) and he gave it to me for mock up in the mean time! He told me he only likes to rebuild the stronger "k" case for the 700 r4 when he does a rebuild from scratch like mine. He is going to find the core for me and everything since he can locate them easier than I can. Old Iron Nut, I should still use a primer on the sandblasted frame correct? I've seen that POR has that on their website too.
You can, I have used it on fresh blasted metal (wiped down of course), and it's stuck great. It needs some surface roughness to bond well and the rough surface from a fresh blast has worked well. You can use metal ready as well if worried and should turn out great.
This week I took the driver side door off and started cutting out the rotten floor pans. It seems like my rockers and floor supports are in pretty good shape so far on this side.
Taking lots of pic's as you go is always good...Can come in very handy for future reference...Where on earth did that belong...? Good Luck...!i
Here's a few more. You can see my steering column with a different wheel on it that the previous owner installed. It also looks like he destroyed the turn signal. Also, I went to remove the door hinges but I don't have the large phillips head bit that these require. I tried using my large flathead but it just wouldn't budge and I left it alone so I wouldn't round them off. I will try to find an appropiate size bit for them tonight.
I use an impact screwdriver for simmilar problems. I have one from from harbor freight that comes with assorted tips.
I'm wondering how to approach the rusty ceiling problem.....I was going to wire brush it really good and coat with rust converter to seal it and top coat with flat black but I guess now is the best time to use the sandblaster on it while everything is apart and messy anyway. I shouldn't have a problem getting the coal slag out of all the nooks and crannies either with all the easy access I have haha. I was looking at the dome light bar and I will probably chop that out at each end in order to do the best possible job then weld it back in afterward.
These club coupes are so bad ass. If you can get that hockey ass new steering wheel outta the car it will be a 100% improvement. The 58-60 bel air and bisqueen wheels are sweet, smaller size, cool look. Rock n Roll! ~sololobo~
I just acquired a factory steering wheel and column from another car since mine had been destroyed and the guts are missing for the horn pieces because of the previous owner putting that newer wheel on. The column I picked up does have the turn signal cam and the housing isn't busted but it does not have all the horn pieces. I found this picture off another thread. Anyone have these pieces for sale?
Making progress on the floor pans. Still cutting and fitting them in. I used Ospho on the passenger toe board and the floor support. I will finish cutting out the rotten metal and ospho more of the good steel tonight. I want to spray the inside of the floor supports with this stuff so that I can paint in there to protect it further before I put the new floors in permanently.
If you look at the rear floor pan that I have laying in the driver rear, you can see these two "D" shape indentions. I don't what the heck they are doing there but they were not in the original sheetmetal. I'm going to cut them out and put a flat piece in those spots. the pan is supposed to sit right on top of the rubber insulator strip that is glued to the top of the frame in that area. Those indentions will not let the panel lay properly on the frame or against the floor support running from rocker to rocker.
Looking good man, making great progress. Hard to tell from the pic, cause I can't get the orientation right but those "D" shapes may be recessed areas where a seat, or seat belts would mount. Just a guess, though.
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