Customs Father Son Build: 1950 Chevy Fleetline Deluxe

My son Eli and I will be building this car together as a father son project. Eli is 12 so we have about 4 years to get this thing done. We will update this thread together and look forward to any feed back, advice and tips and tricks you all have regarding these cars.

We have the sale locked in and are going to pick the car up next weekend. I am super excited to do this build with my son. My dad and I built a 67 Malibu for my first car and it was pretty cool. Eli is a good kid and not afraid of working hard so we will have a blast doing this together. The end goal is to have a fun, reliable car that he can hop in and drive anywhere.

Running Gear:
The plan is to keep it simple. We will start by swapping in a 55 Chevy car rear to replace the 50 rear so we can loose the torque tube. We will also grab some new springs Posie’s super slide springs (or equivalent) with a 2” or 3” drop. I will have to figure out what gears we will run (open to feed back if anyone has suggestions.) The front end will get rebuilt, dropped spindles and power disc brakes. Not sure about the steering box yet. We will not add power steering. We need to learn more about these stock steering boxes…not sure if they are good or if we should switch to another (open for suggestions). We have a couple of 283’s to choose from and will add a 700r4. I have some old Cal Custom valve covers, maybe an older aluminum intake and a performer carb…keeping it simple. Rams horns, 2” exhaust and some Porter glass packs with chrome tips out the back. We will wrap it up with either painted steel wheels w/hub caps and wide whites or chrome steel wheels with wide white.

Paint and Body:
Our starting point is pretty clean and complete. It looks to be original paint so I am not expecting any surprises. We are going to keep most of the body stock with minimal customization. Maybe frenched head lights and 54 Packard taillights or maybe all stock…we will see. Paint will be a single stage bright red. Eli wants red and I want single stage for the ease of touching up chips and scratches.

Interior:
We will insulate the floor, roof and doors really well. We will add a nostalgic looking under dash A/C and have a simple hidden stereo system with Bluetooth connection. We will go with simple pleated vinyl seats, door panels and headliner. We will use the exterior colors on the interior as well. Dash will be new gauges fit in the old dash with an engine turned panel. Either a stock or early Corvette style steering wheel. We will go with a Rebel Wiring harness or similar. Maybe add power windows with early 1960's GM style switches.

I will start it off with some pictures of the car and another that Eli likes for inspiration.The next upload should be our road trip picking up the car.

 

Love me some Fleetlines.

 

We found a 1955 Chevy car rear end here is Austin. I have read these should be 3.73 gear ratios.

 

Looking forward to seeing your progress!

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I love that setup. It's a bolt in. I would think the 3.73 would have been in the stick cars. I'm no tri-five expert though. The guy in this thread (DZAUTO) is the local guru here in my town. He rebuilds all of my 55-57 Rear pumpkins.

https://www.chevytalk.org/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/228702

 

Thanks for the feed back and recommendation.

 

I am thinking about a disc brake set up similar to this up front with stock suspension and dropped spindles to bring it down a bump. What is a good steering set up for these? Keep in mind, I want simple and not a lot of engineering to make it work.

 

We ran out to Kansas last weekend and picked up the 50 for Eli and some 31 parts for my build. Here are some pictures of our load we hauled home.

 

Here are a few pictures of the trip. We did a little fishing on the way home but mostly drove, slept, loaded up then drove some more. We did 1,400 miles in 2.5 days. Overall a good trip.

View attachment 4776381 View attachment 4776383

 

We have everything unloaded in the garage. We have lots of organizing to do to make room for everything.

 

Congratulations on getting the fleetline but more importantly on building it with your son.

 

Thanks. I am looking forward to this. Eli has always been my buddy when doing work so this will be fun work.

 

Very cool! Subscribed!

 

Small update. Took a bit of time to get all of the crap in the garage sorted out so we have some room to work. We pulled the rear end out. We are getting ready to put the 55 Chevy rear end in. Before we put it in, we will clean up the springs and regrease, assemble and paint them. We are putting new bushings, shackles and bolts along with 3" lowering blocks. Also will paint the bottom side of the floor for the back half of the car, then put the rear end in.

Once we get the rear end in, we will then move onto rebuilding the front end. Then after that, we will drop in the engine and transmission. Long way to go but we are both excited.

 

How many were broken? My Fleetline had a couple bad per side.

 

Very cool!!!

Just found this thread Matt. I knew you were getting this and building it with Eli, so will be following along. Seems we are at about the same stage in life and blessed to be able to do this with our kids.

As far as the rear springs, I ran the originals and blocks for quite a while on my 52 sedan but finally decided to swap to Posies. I was amazed at how much better it rode with those. Something to consider and I know you mentioned it previously, so just a little feedback specific to this car.

 

They all looked good. None broken. We are going to clean them up real good and inspect before reusing...but so far they look good.

 

Thanks Jeff. Good to know regarding the Posies Springs. Did you swap out just the spring or the front/rear mounts as well?

 

Not whole lot of progress yet. We got the rear end out, order a trunk floor patch panel. We only need a 12"x18" piece but found a decent replacement panel to cut up.

We decided to go with the Posies springs in the rear. I called them up and it looks like they will have a set for us in the next few weeks. They are 3" lower and have the pin offset for a later model rear end which will work perfect as we are running a 55 Chevy car rear end. Thanks for the info on these springs @guthriesmith

For the next little while, we will patch the truck, clean up some surface rust inside trunk and the bottom rear half of the car. Once we get a new coat of paint, we will put the rear end in, then move onto the front suspension.

 

Sorry Matt. Just now saw the question. I only swapped the springs and not the mounts. You will like the Posies.

 

Rear end gear ratios for your 55 rear end: 3 speed stick with overdrive transmission 4.11:1, stick shift transmission without overdrive 3.70:1, Powerglide equipped cars 3.55:1; sounds like you're probably 3.70:1. 55-56 rear ends are a little less strong than the 57 ons; they had thinner third member cases, and smaller/narrower bearings, but the third members all swap 55-64 full size, 56-62 Corvette, and 62-64 Chevy II/Nova. Positraction first available in 57. Only really bad thing on the 49-54 Chevrolet car, rear leaf springs, is they are fairly narrow. The torque tube of the stock rear end helped to prevent body roll. We just used overload (coil wrapped shocks) shocks with traction bars and never had an issue with the 51 Bus Coupe (and i'm still kicking myself for selling it!). That's all I've got.
I am Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

Butch, thanks for the info! So the rear came from a power glide car, from what I was told. Have not tried to confirm anything regarding checking identification tags yet. The car will have a 283 with a RV cam and a OD auto trans so we should be alright regarding the rear being strong enough for what we are building.

We are thinking about adding a sway bar in the rear, not to go hanging corners but to help reduce the "driving a boat" effect. Still up in the air on that part of the build and am open for any feed back. Going to check with the guys at Posies and see if they have any input.

Thanks!
Matt

 

Good job so far. Especially the working together.

I can relate to your recent work. I just finished removing the stock rearend and torque tube from my 52 Chevy Ute. Also removed the stock 3 speed trans. Replaced with a 55 or 56 Chevy rearend. Mine is 3.70 ratio. Used 3 inch blocks to lower on original springs. Bought a trans adapter from Hot Rod Works to mount an S-10 T5 to the 235 engine. I lowered the front by cutting 2.25 coils. Much improved stance now. No suspension rebuild for now. This is just my first phase build to get it going and have fun, before doing Jaguar suspensions front and rear, and V8 drivetrain. That's a lot more work, for second phase. This initial build is supposed to be the easy quick job, but it's been a lot of work so far.

Keep up the good work, great learning opportunities for your son. He will have the coolest car of any of his friends.

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So little update. We all got sick over the New Years time so not much work done. We did manage to finish patching the trunk. Also ordered a Walton Fab motor and transmission mount. We are waiting for rear springs from Posie's to get the rear end done. Going to weld in a patch panel on the passenger side floor while waiting for parts to come in. I will load some pictures soon.

 

Small Update: Last night, we prepped the bottom of the trunk for using a rust inhibitor primer. We wire brushed any loose scale, cleaned off the surface and brushed on the primer. We will then brush on a coat or two of rustoleum enamel. WE are also going to use the same process for the inside of the trunk. We cut out and replaced an area that rust pitted and rusted through. The rest of the trunk and bottom of the trunk was just surface rust.

Here is Eli wire brushing away.


Here is a shot after applying the second coat. Need to coat the patch panel with a normal primer, seam seal the weld before we paint the bottom.

 

Nice Matt. I need to get back to work with my boys on their projects. Thanks for the motivation.

 

Some more updates. We work every Monday, or most Mondays and when ever else we can get time in the garage.

We got the truck primers, touched up some seam sealer, then painted the truck. Had an area where the paint lifted so we need to sand that down and try again.

 

We cleaned up and used the rust inhibitor primer on the interior as well.

 

Next, we are going to cut out the rust in the front floor boards, clear out wiring, insulation, heater core and pedals from the front area. While the floor is cut out, we will drill out the trans crossmember so we can install the Walton Fab part that just showed up yesterday, then we will fab and weld up new panels, then paint the interior floor. We picked up a 30" brake, shear roller to handle the patch panels for the floor. It should handle all we need to fab.

 

We are waiting for Posie's to finish the rear springs so we can get the rear end in and all four wheels on the ground. Once we get the interior floors patched and the rear end in, we will turn the car around and knock out the front suspension and motor, trans swap.

That gets the thread caught up. Eli is still super excited and engaged in the project. All three of our boys grew up going to swap meets. Eli and I were just talking about how much we miss them. Hoping there will be some swap meets coming up in 2021.