With the help of a fellow HAMBer (BenD) last night about 10:15pm or so I became the proud owner of a 54 Chevy Bel Air. I never thought I would be so excited to buy a 57 year old car. I wasnt that excited when I bought a new truck last year, maybe because of the payments. Its was way past my bed time, but I stayed up and smoked over the car real quick; funny thing is my whole family was outside with me. I think they wanted to see what I was excited about. First impressions, well shes not what I was told she was, but everything I expected. Good thing is there are a number of companies that sell these patch panels. Hopefully it runs, all the signs show it has ran recently. The tires are new. What year? Who knows; but the edges are still sharp and they do hold some air. Plans after getting her up and running are to drop it when time allows, stepped lowers, cut springs in the front; blocks and remove leaves in the rear. Later I do plan to truck arm the rear, the front still unsure. Bags? Dont know yet. It will take a bunch of time because I work 6 and 7 days a week. I do plan to call in to work sick from time to time though. I would like to publicly thank Ben for fetching the car, Thank Ben. Super nice guy, hopefully well see you at the round up next year. I would also like to thank everyone who has posted the countless threads concerning 49-54 Chevys. Ive learned a lot through the search function. I will post pics as soon as I get a day off to take a few. I may even start a build thread, but it will be a long and drawn out build. Thanks again everyone for the warm welcome and hopefully we meet at a car show in the near future.
Awesome man!! Its always good to finally get the new project home. Basketcase it may be.... but when its done it only adds to the story. Make lists upon lists of what you want to do with it and never stop checking things off. Thats the secret I think. If you dont... its easy to loose interest fast! Congrats and goodluck!
if I had to do it all over again I would have saved myself 6k for a running car that I promptly disassembled and I would have found a solid basket case for a 1/10th of the price...
I think I made a decent deal on the car and it gives me something to do, I'll have her running Sunday.
I think getting the car here from several states away was easier than dealing with the title issues. My wife tried to get it registered today, but the title was signed in the wrong spot and this and that was wrong. I've been reading about bonded titles, lost titles and title hearings. Looks like I'm going that route. Actually got some good advice from the tax office, hopefully i can get the paper work worked out. Didn't realize it would be such a PITA to title an old car. Back to the search function.
Congrats on your purchase. Seems to be a rash of cars on here being a "little" dreamier on the net than in real life. Had a bud buy a truck off here, solid western truck only been out east for a couple years!!! He was a little bummed at first, but we though about it, cab corners are cheap and essy to install, I think the motor is ok, needs a little tuning, and a trans guy needs to do his thing. Would have been a little easier to swallow if seller was a little more forthcoming and wasnt such a hard ass on his price due to it being " super solid", rebuilt this and that, etc. 1 more reason to buy out west. The bodys have minimal rot and mechanical work can be easier than chasing cancer on sheetmetal
Ain't it great how bringing home an old rusty non-running car that everyone else considers junk is more exciting than driving home a brand new thirty-five thousand dollar pickup? Congratulations, looks like an outstanding project.
Congrats ! Love 54s , did a sound system in one some years ago , really dark blue , a beautiful car . Good luck with it .
Thanks for the encouragement guys. I drove her around the block a few times this weekend. Shes running pretty good now, but could use some fine tuning. Thanks again.
After a long weekend, which I rarely get, this is what she looks like now. Wednesday after work I drove around the hood, parked her and decided to lower the back. Used 3" blocks from chev's. Got Friday off so I built and installed notches for the back, new fuel tank mounts. Saturday I dropped the front by stepping the arms and cutting two coils off the springs. While doing this I also upgraded the shocks. Built new mounts for the upper mount in the back and modified the a-arms in the front. I used shocks for a 80's g-body(Monte Carlo) She rides real sweet now. I still need to do an alignment. I also modified the exhaust with a 3" flowmaster and tubing that's routed to the bumper. <O</O I still need to drop the rear more, I will remove a spring or two or three. I kinda like the rake though. <O</O Future plans, for now, are Fenton headers, Holley 4412 and blast and paint the rims black. The left front is the spare. The stock rims would be easy to reverse, but I may hold out for chrome ones. <O</O Thanks for all the tech articles they were a lot of help and I learned a lot about my car in the process of doing all the work accomplished this weekend. All work was performed by me with the help of my two dogs, they took turns supervising me.<O</O
The Jalopy Journal
