I'm back! New project car - 1957 Plymouth!

I haven't been on here very much because of work, and a web series I am working on, but I am finally back. Did ya miss me?

Anyways, I went out and bought a 1957 plymouth last Halloween (or was it the halloween before?) that was a poorly done Christine clone. It was rough, and sitting in a field next to the guys house, but hey - it was only $900.







And some real choice airbrushing by "Jaxx" or "Daxx" or something like that.



The pics make it look better than it was. The entire passenger side quarter was toast, and the trunk floor fell out when I was trailering it home. The clear was peeling off the basecoat, and there was a lot of bondo in the car. It has a poorly mounted SBC in it, with some sort of S10 rear end. The wiring is a mess, and the interior is pretty rank. There is a seriously a mean funk eminating from the caddilac seats in the car. Other than that - its not too bad.

The trunk and passenger quarter were so bad, I did them first. Well, aftger leaving the windows open for a few weeks to air the car out. It helped, but not as much as I hoped it would.

The body was sagging in that rear corner because there was no body mount anymore. I needed to rebuild that body mount and give the car a trunk. There was nearly nothing there so I just made one out of most of a sheet of 20g that I rolled some beads in.





Just needs a little seam sealer...I actually did this after I got the new lower quarter on. This is a wiiiiide car. I could lay down in the trunk while welding with room the spare and I am 6'1"!



Next up - the passenger quarter. Big thanks to John at Big M Autowrecking for sending me a nice rust free lower quarter and wheel house. It needed a little chopping to remove the rust. It was almost up to the character line.



More trimming of the new quarter and the old...



Some clamps, a few tack welds and we end up with this...





A little finish welding, grinding, and a small bit of filler and it will look like new.

 

Looks like you've got a good start.. I like the body style....

 

Now that there was a trunk, and rear body mount, the car was square again. Now I had to strip off the bad paint to see what I had underneath. When I did the quarter I didn;'t find any filler which was nice - but I knew there was plenty of filler in other places.

There was lots of paint on the car and some very thick filler primer. The entire car had about a 1/16-1/8" of the stuff on it!





As the paint came off, the passenger side didn't really give any surprises. it was actually much better than I expected. The rocker was rusted out, but I already knew that.



The drivers side was pretty much the same, until I hit the front fender....



Theres about 3/4" of filler there! It was covering a badly welded in replacement panel for the heel of the fender.



I ended up taking a 1/16" cutoff wheel and slitting the old repair right down the weld, lining everything up so it was straight and rewelding it. It will need some filler, but the previous person butchered the panel in the first place.





It lines up ok now. Some grinding and dolly work and it will be ready for filler. I actually stopped there on the fender because there is a ton of filler in it and I might replace it instead. The front of the fender is real bad also so that might be a better idea.

I did get the rest of the paint off the body - except the hood. The image on the hood is pretty awful



Just so you don't forget her face....



While taking a few monthes off from working on the car during the winter, I picked up parts. A Rebel wiring harness found its way to me. I picked up a rebuilt marine 383 for $100 (!). A replacement for the beat of front valance, and chrome peeling front bumper were secured, as well as a Scarebird front disk brake conversion, and a new ford 8.8 from an explorer to replace the spindly S10 7.5" rear swapped in the car.

 

I sure hope that you are referring to a REAL 383...

.

 

"She" looks like Jamie Foxx in drag.
Good save, some times great art work must be sacrificed.

 

I am glad you are back Rick, and you even have a camera again it would appear This thing looks mint compared to some of the previous builds! What happened to the 55 Chevy?

 

Loving it so far, one of my favorite cars. $900? I would have bought that in a heartbeat.

 

Super dooper, love this body style. When my pal Gary Anderson (hotrod roadster) sold his awesome 59 tu-door post a tear rolled down my cheek. Looks like you are doing a nice job bringing this cool ride back to life. ~sololobo~

 

Can we call you Arnie ?? At least for a little while ????

 

I am slowly picking away at the 55'. I started rebuilding the roof structure around the windows. Its much worse than I thought. I think I am going to make the car a sedan delivery. Most of the window channels are gone in the back.

 

Its a 64' block casting, with 452 heads, all freshly rebuilt. I do have an old Edelbrock DP4B intake for it, and a set of TTI headers that I am going to see if I can get to fit. There is a Isky 280 Mega sitting on the shelf also.

Here's it when I got it...





And my helper. Who knew that burlesque girls liked to wrench




If I get lazy, I also have a complete runner 413-3 that might find its way in there. Then I could save the 383 for my Dart

One of the first things I did when I go the car is walk around the front and tell it "Show me!". All it did was leak more oil.

 

The guy was off a year as the real Christine was a 58 and a hardtop. but nothing wrong with a 57!

 

Thats what I would do regardless of the window channels...but I am a delivery nut lol! The 55-60 GM wagon roofs have to be one of the most rust prone designs ever built, I had to replace the whole roof on my old 55 delivery, and then repair the replacement roof did a shit load of welding on that roof, used to delivery & 1 sedan roof to make it all solid again lol! This mopar looks like a fun project, glad to see you back at it!

 

Rick

Nice. My brother had a 57 white with gold trim. Cool car.

Dibs on the marine pan if you want to part with it. I can trade you the correct big block pan for your car. I did have a set of headers for the forward look Plymouths but sent them to a guy in Cali last fall.

The 413 has a ton of torque but I like the way the 383's buzz the RPM's

 

what was painted on the trunk?

 

It had a horrible rendition of the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" painting, but everyone looked like chipmunks. I wasn't going to sully the reputation of this board with that eyesore!

 

Love it! You're doing a ton of work to it, glad to see a sedan getting saved.

Oh BTW Rick... who's the cutie!?

 

My family had a 57 four door when I was about 5 years old. I took a rock and beat all the automatic transmission shift buttons in. Surprisingly, Dad was pissed.

 

Wow Christine will ride again!!! To bad you striped the Mural it was beautiful! Good luck!

 

The Original "Original" (from the book) was 4 door '58, they went to a 2 door hard top for the movie. Christine was the second book I ever read my 7th grade engish teacher was impressed with my book report and asked why I didn't do that good all the time. I told him because he was always making us read crap like "Gone with the wind". After that he let me do all my reports on car books. I think that was the start of my technical publication career.

 

Nice progress! I had a '57 Belvedere that I eventually sold after loosing interest. Still have some bits left over if you're ever interested. Stock Plymouth fender mounted mirrors, deluxed power steering horn ring, 58 taillight assy's and lenses, some trim...

 

Nice project ! I always liked 57/58 Plymouth cars, awesome design by Virgil Exner ! Keep us updated !

 

I need to find a piece of fender lip for the drivers side. Anyone have a parts car they are cutting up?

 

Contact fast59desoto on forwardlook.net. He seems to have quite a few FL parts cars.

He is in NY, which may or may not be a haul for you, eh.

http://forwardlook.net/forums/view-profile.asp?action=view&uid=668

 

Are you sure this wasn't built on Overhaulin? ! They love to cover every panel with filler!!!!

Nice Old Plymouth, Glad to see it getting new life.

Love 383's great power great mileage smooth runners.

 

I also have a good running 413 that might find its way into the car. I have kind of been thinking of keeping the 383 for my Dart.

I did get the drivers rocker welded in this weekend, and worked some more on the drivers fender. Its a mess. I also go the new booster and master cylinder setup sorted out, and brazed the bottom of my oil pan since it was pinholed in a few places after blasting it.

 

I have a '57 and '59 plymouth parts car. I'm also pulling damaged parts off of my '57 2dr Ply Sub.

 

I guess I should update this. I had the car on the road for the HAMB drags and drove it down. It was about 18 hours each way and I was still working out the crankcase breather setup and a few other minor bugs. I finally got it setup and working well at the Drags.

The only casulty of the trip was the speedo cable. The car is still in epoxy primer and is getting a motor transplant (the 383 is going into it) and interior of some sort this year, and paint this coming winter hopefuly.

Here is what it looked like two days before we left for the drags...




It got a lot of work to get to that point. It was completely rewired, all new brakes with a disk conversion, new rear end (8.8" ford), and a lot of body work, including stripping the entire car to bare metal.

I hate wiring.


Naked rear...the car was actually pretty solid under all the filler.


Speaking of filler...here is some only 1/2" thick....


There was at least 4 or 5 layers of paint on the car, and a huge amount of filler primer.


I had to build an entire trunk, and rear body crossmember. It came out alright.


Swapped in the 8.8 Ford from an explorer. Its a perfect fit in these cars if you move the spring pads. This one is 3.27 Track lock equipped and was $150 at the wreckers.



Thats all for now. Gotta pick up a friend from work.

 

Good to see you back at it, Rick!!

---John

 

Looks great. What color(s) are you going to do it in?