Projects Winter Project: 1957 Pontiac Starchief

Isn't that a bitch...engine trouble...you must have been following my Caddy build thread too damn close, Bryan, you weren't supposed to follow it exactly. And like my thread, cutting it too close, time-wise, to an event you definitely wanted to take the car to...BUT, trust me, when the car finally gets out and around, it will be more than worth all the trouble...

The car looks good...the colors are great...and you've still got some summer/fall left...good job...

R-

 

The car looks killer on the ground Bryan! Can't wait to have our cars side by side going down the road!

 

Nice! Been following this thread... it's great to see it basically finished. Sucks about the engine tho but glad you're on top of that.

Love the color combo, looks kick ass.

 

Just hoping we can have all 4 of the fresh club cars at our show.... That will be killer! Percentage wise I don't think any other club will have more new/freshly done cars than the Scavengers in the next year. Five total when Jason (Baggs), finishes his. Best part is they are all quality cars, no junk...

 

Thanks! See, it's hard to know about the engine after passing trough so many hands over the years. I think the fella I bought this car from used it as a parts car for 2 57s that he had. But not too much was missing when I bought it besides a transmission.... When I contacted the guy in Texas, whose name was on the title, he sounded like a scrap yard/parts car/used car dealer....

I guess maybe the car was junked/scraped at one point because of this engine noise.... You've seen the ads or cars marked at the yard, bad engine/good trans.. Until it starts talking I guess we'll never know!

 

Great job Bryan, now your little guy will have a cool '57 to cruise with Dad!
The coolest words to come from my back seat were "faster Daddy faster''!
A Dad, his kids, and a cool car it just doesn't get any better than that!
Of course that above quote is well over thirty years old, and he has a much faster car than I! The little voice saying "faster Daddy faster" today, is his 3 year old daughter . It must be genetic!
It's a great build and I admire the job you are doing.
Blessings to you and your family, Kevin
P.S. He is Gearhead66 on here, check out his profile and Nova

 

Subscribed! Good luck with the rest of the build!

 

Thanks! I really wanted to be done with this along time ago, but life happens. My main goal was to make sure I had it done enough to enjoy cruising and camping and having fun as a family. I didn't want my boy's first memories of dad to be him disappearing into the garage to work on some 'never see the light of day' project. Its a lot of work and sacrifice but we wouldn't do it if we didn't think it was worth it.

 

OMG!! I LOVE that color on that car!!

Thanx for the heads up!!

 

Bryan, i agree, i cant think of any other local club that will have as much "fresh" metal as we will in the next year. your car, adams car, jimmy's car, mike's car, and maybe even Travis' truck, along with mine!! its a pretty big year for the club. i think having that many new rides will help out with doing more cruising and what not. good job on yours. get them heads figured out and drive the hell out of that thing!!!!

 

Still waiting on the head, it sucks to be stuck waiting for others to finish stuff for you.... Hopefully have it tomorrow so I can re-assemble this weekend, when the kiddo is sleeping!

 

Ya know... stuff like this in my experience has actually saved a bunch of cars. I can think of a bunch of "barn finds" that had drivetrain problems. One of many that comes to mind is my 62 Vauxhall. It lost oil pressure, the engine is shot, but because of that the original owner parked it back in 74... and kept it parked for decades. That's what saved it, silly as it may sound.

 

I've been meaning to post on this for a while, but have been lost in my own world.
Bryan... Absolutely gorgeous! What else is there to say? Awesome job!
Bil

 

Wow! The car came out great!

~Spasecadet

 

What a find! There are a lot of '57 Chevy body metal items that will interchange with this body. I know of one '57 Chevy Bel Air owner using '57 Pontiac Bonneville front buckets seats. They went right in. Much more comfortable than the stock Chevy seats.
Normbc9

 

I Like IT!! Very nice Car!!!

 

Do the 57 pontiacs have the 58-60 style X frame and two piece driveshaft?

That 57 is a nice car!

 

No!

 

Thanks for all the looks and nice words! Will be updating soon, it's mostly fixed and have been BUSY with too much other stuff to update. Have been rolling it around, shaking out some bugs. It feels AMAZING to finally drive it to say the least!

 

When I heard through the grapevine that you got it on the road, I was so happy for you! You've been working on this car for damn near as long as I've known you! The first drive is always incredible -- even more so after such a long journey to get there. Congrats Bryan! Can't wait to hit the road with you!

 

Beautiful car. PM sent

 

I'll do a quick update for everyone tonight and will add some photos this weekend.

So when I left off I was under the impression that my issue was a once too many decked cylinder head on the right side. Loud ticking noise, sounds like a lifter noise.... Pushrods were contacting the heads where they went through. This had to be it! Good oil pressure, oil to the top of the heads, valve adjustment verified MULTIPLE times.

New head came from Oldsranch here on the HAMB. Sent to the machine shop to make it perfect. Everything looked great on the head, never decked, they took only an additional .005'. PERFECT!! Bolted it on, noise only slight better...

Well maybe we hurt the lifters.... New lifters, nope.

Well maybe we should check and make sure the main bearings have the correct oil feed holes..... Yep, they're right as rain.

Well lets make sure the oil gallery plug is in the front of the engine.... Its there, passages are clear.

All of this when it's HOT AS HELL and HUMID AS CAN BE! Plus I work in a dealership garage all day. I was not having "fun" anymore to say the least.

Missed a couple of shows I really wanted to make. Was especially pissed I wasn't able to figure it out for our Scavenger's Club show.

Disappointed, angry, frustrated, annoyed, pissed off, cranky, crabby were the rotating emotions.

I started shopping for a new/different engine.... Was about 20 minutes from starting to tear-down for an engine pull when I decided to check the right rear gallery plug, through the distributer hole. FUCK!! IT'S NOT THERE!!

This made no sense because without it I should have had no oil pressure, and no oil to the top of the right head. I was and still am confused on this one, but eventually I'll let it go...

So after a spin through the Performance Years Forums, I was convinced I could get this thing in without pulling the engine, despite what the experts over there said. After trying to thread a 3/8ths pipe plug into the hole for 2 hours I determined by looking and feeling there were either no threads in this hole or I was no where near getting that plug in.

So I punted... Hung a 9/16ths frost plug, just like the one in the front of the gallery, on my biggest L shaped allen wrench, pryed with my giant screwdriver on the back of the block and pushed it in the empty hole. Now its about 9pm, getting dark, still about 85 degrees, bugs are nuts... Fumble the distributer back in somewhere close, crank it over, pops off....

TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK and then just exhaust noise!!!! Probably the 3rd or 4th best day ever!! Shoved all my tools and stuff back in the garage, closed the door and went to bed happy!

I didn't say a thing to any one for a day or so, even the wife, just in case I was totally delusional. Her brother came over and helped me tune it right a couple days later and we've been logging miles ever since. Shaking out a couple bugs, fixing some noises. Feels great to hit the drive-in or cruise night and see peoples reactions. It truly turned out better than I could have expected!!!

Will post some more photos and wrap this thread up for awhile this weekend. thanks for looking, Bryan

 

Congrats man! I'm happy for ya.

Now I want to see some pics

 

Great Bryan!

 

Bryan That's a big atta boy on that one!
Now just ENJOY it with your family.
My Son, Grandson, and Grandaughter came to my Cruise night tonight only the second time this year.
Son has a '66 Nova that we bought for his 16th birthday 21 years ago!
Our Grandaughter loves it she's 3 her brother is much newer model.
Share your enthusiasm for the hobby with your son it may pay off in the future, our son is an automotive engineer and has a good life!

 

Any pics of it on the road?

 

Bryan- was great to see the car on the road this weekend at slims!!!! congrats on figuring out, like jimmie said, you have a certain "glow" about you now. i wish you many trouble free miles!!!! thanks again for coming down and helping me get a start on my wiring!!!

Jason

 

Bryan your pontiac looks amazing , i love the colors and keep up the great work

 

Bryan, you should be very proud. You have done an amazing job. Congratulations. Enjoy every minute behind the wheel.

Brad

 

Just read the whole thread.

Wow.

Great job.

Hope mine turns out as nice as yours.