Just bought my first HAMB friendly car! 1958 Chevy Bel Air!

Hey man, whatever works.

 

Doesn't matter. It's 55 years old, made of steel and has held water without corrosion inhibitors for a loooong time. I know its not what you want to hear but after seeing those freeze plugs I'd trust a drunk politician with overdue gambling debts first.

I went through this on my Lincoln.....

It's been my experience that anything that meets these qualifications cannot be trusted on an unrestored car:

It's made of rubber.
It came in contact with brake fluid.
It came in contact with fuel.
It came in contact with coolant.
It carries exhaust past the manifolds.

Meanwhile, I love your videos and have been watching them, great job bringing her back to life! Can't wait for the next installment.

 

Great job with the car. I really like the videos that's a neat touch.

 

Very, very nice. Love the car, now I want to find one.
Had a '57 in school (80's) and tried to get a '58 2-door post that was rotting in a guys driveway, but he wouldn't sell. Heard that it later went to scrap.

Love the color and it's amazing how well if polished up. Great job!

 

Love what your doing with this car and how you're presenting it through the videos. Best little reality show on the HAMB!

 

Thanks for the compliments guys! Ill be making progress after vacation, see ya then!

 

I am back from vacation, and I hope tomorrow we will be able to make some progress on the bel air. Stay tuned!

 

sweet!

 

Hope you had a great vacation , now get to work!

 

I was able to work on it a little today. Drove it around the neighborhood, and verified that it is the heater core that is leaking, not the heater valve. SO does anyone have any tips on getting this thing out? I dont want to break anything, because I bet parts for the AC system will be hard to get!

 

i noticed the wooden handle screw driver you have in your back seat . i have one of those too its a filips , ive had it since i was like 12 im 37 now. its crazy cause the tip is still in perfect shape. im sory this is off car topic.
i do love 58 chevys though. i like the two tone it has now.

 

That actually is one of my dad's old screwdrivers. They are pretty old school and I'm sure he bought them new. They look cool, but when you really have to hammer with a screwdriver the wooden ends are easy to break. Ask me I know

 

Just used it to re assemble my instrument panel

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Love the rescue threads. Yours is pretty awesome! Subscribed...

 

NEW UPDATE!
http://youtu.be/L0qANIpQRnI

 

Yep, just checked, and I'm still jealous.

 

Thanks! It is a cool car, but I am just waiting on the next thing to break

 

Cool video and car!

It will continue to break for a little while until it is satisfied with you and your abilities, then all will be normal. Cars like this have a soul, they just want someone to fix them just like the movie Christine without the killing/murder plot... just random blood sacrifices when you bust a knuckle.

Keep on it, it will pay off... just be fortunate that you didn't buy a newer car and this started happening. Have you ever changed a heater core out on a newer car? It sucks something terrible. Just be happy that you can work on this car and actually have some room.

 

I had to do a heater core on a 1991 Corvette once. I know off topic, BUT I swear that they started with the heater core ad built everything else around it. That took me like 4x the hours that this one took. The hardest thing about this one was that the heater hoses did not want to break free.

 

That's par for the course with these old cars, but you've done a lot of work, you're definitely over the hump.

 

That is very true. Kind of a small update, I drove the car to and from work today. It is about a 15-20 min drive, 5 miles one way. The car got up tp about 45 mph very well, and handled the red lights pretty easily. There were two bad things that happened though.
1. I lost a hubcap taking a turn, luckily it landed very nicely on the median and I stopped and ran and got it.
2. The passenger side front window jumped of the track, so now I will have to take off that door panel and see what I need to do to fix it. Looks like the mechanism still raises up and down but the glass just fell off. We will see what happens!

 

I have to do the heater cores on my '60 Lincoln. I am not looking forward to that. Both of them are leaking, theyre in the front inner wheel wells. Behind the AC Evaporators!

 

Pulled the door apart to see what was wrong with the window regulator, and looks like the parts that connect the window to the window regulator broke, so we will have to try and fix it!

 

Hav you been here?
bowtieclassicparts.com

 

I have not seen this company before, or have used them, but I might give them a try. Thanks for the tip!

 

Did a little work on the 58 on my day off this wonderful July 4th.

First thing we did was tear apart the passenger side front door, and diagnose the problem we were having with the window. Turns out the spot welds that attach the window frame to the regulator were kinda rusty and finally broke. I will have pics of all that once I am done.

The other things that we did were:
1. Continue to buff out the paint on the roof where I upgraded to using a drill and a foam pad, because it would have taken forever doing it by hand.

and 2. we fixed the unopenable rear driver's side door, lubed up everything inside, cleaned it all out and then re-installed the door panel. Pics below!

 

Wow, great work! That interior really looks nice, and your paint too. Thanks for posting the pics and updates.

 

The cool part is the interior is all original from 1958. It has never been restored!

 

Great work on bringing out the sparkle inside and out on this car! Was also very impressed with how tight and solid it sounded during your last test drive video. Keep up the great work!